AN: Okay, first and foremost: it's been about three years since I read Scorpia Rising, so everything I write about Scorpia here is taken from what I read on Wikipedia. I know the synopsis on Wikipedia says that the remaining members of Scorpia were arrested, but I'm playing on the assumption that, with as big as Scorpia was, they obviously couldn't round up everyone. Take that as "mildly au" if you will.

Second. I haven't read Russian Roulette yet (it's been sitting on my desk since last Christmas and I still haven't touched it), so any and all canon regarding the past of Yassen Gregorovich, as well as his relationship with John Rider, has been disregarded and replaced with my own headcanons. As well as all the bullshit about Alex and Yassen being "mortal enemies" (actual term used to describe them in the synopsis on the inside of Russian Roulette), because Yassen and Alex were a lot of things to each other, and to me, it never felt like "mortal enemies" was one of them.

Third, thank you guys all so much for the outstanding response I've gotten to this series. I actually had one of my favorite Alex Rider fanfiction writers favorite all the installments in the series and I had a minor heart attack. It means so much to me to see how much you guys like this, because I've been nursing the idea for this series since I saw the first episode of Sherlock, and it's kind of my baby.

Fourth (is anybody even still reading this? I'm sorry I'm almost done I swear); this is the fifth installment in the homes out of human beings verse, out of a total of ten. So this is the halfway point! I'm also strongly considering compiling a series of short ficlets for the verse, after I write the final installment, so that you can have a little bit of insight to their lives after the series is over. (Read: I wanted to write fluff and humor, and neither of those have a place in the series itself, so. Compilation of ficlets.)

Disclaimer: I own nothing. Sherlock belongs to Moffat, Gaitiss, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and the BBC, and Alex Rider belongs to Anthony Horowitz. I'm just playing in their universes.

Enjoy!

~ Stormie

Alex hears Sherlock before he sees him.

He's stowing away Sherlock's experiments, because Nina is coming over later and she's in that stage of her pregnancy where everything makes her sick (but honestly, what normal civilian doesn't get a bit squeamish around Sherlock's shit?), when he hears the front door slam open and Sherlock's foot falls on the stairs as he shouts John's name.

"Case!" Sherlock bellows as he bursts into the kitchen. "John! Alex! Where's John?"

Alex rolls his eyes. "For a famous consulting detective, you don't notice very much, do you?"

Sherlock waves away the question with a flick of his wrist. "Where's John?"

"Work, dumbass," Alex says, storing a case of fingers underneath the sink. "Why do you need him?"

"Case," Sherlock says shortly.

Alex glances up at him. "You go on cases alone all the time. What's so important about this one?"

Sherlock's eyes glint madly. "The body was found in a vault with only one possible exit, which was guarded by two men. Just the body and a wound in an otherwise sealed off vault, and millions of untouched pounds."

Alex raises a brow. "Wasn't killed for his money, then, hmm?"

Sherlock shakes his head, tossing his curls everywhere, and Alex says, "John's still at work. You'll have to go without him."

A thoughtful look crosses Sherlock's features. "Do you want to come with me?"

Alex looks up at him, then back down at the box of fungi he was reaching for. "Nina's coming over in a few hours. Can you get me back home by then?"

"Done," Sherlock says, and winds his scarf around his neck before turning on his heel and stalking down the stairs.

The vault door is standing open when they get to the crime scene. Lestrade glances up at Sherlock, catches sight of Alex, and grins.

"So much for staying out of his consulting, huh?" Lestrade says, smirking.

Alex shrugs. "A dead man inside a vault, with no money taken, and no sign of a possible entry for the murderer? How could I resist?"

Lestrade shakes his head. "You're just like him, you know that?" Then he points at the vault. "Have at it. Just keep it brief, Holmes."

Sherlock waves him off, then marches into the vault, Alex on his heel.

"How was the body found?" Sherlock asks, crouching down over the body and lifting the tale of his coat.

Alex takes one look at the victim and throws up, head spinning, and all he can think is that he's standing over the body of Julius Grief all over again.

He doesn't come back until Donovan lays a concerned hand on his shoulder. "You alright, kid?" she asks warily. Just outside of the vault, Anderson makes a snarky comment about this being why they don't let teenagers into crime scenes, and Alex flips him off.

"Peachy," he says. "I just…" And then he trails off, eyes locked on the hand of the dead guy.

"The body," Sherlock snaps out, glancing up at Alex briefly before looking back at Lestrade. "How was it found?"

Lestrade eyes Alex like he's worried Alex is going to throw up again as he says to Sherlock, "Cameras on the inside of the vault. They were turned off at the time of the murder to give the victim privacy inside the vault, but after about an hour, when the victim still hadn't come out, they turned on the cameras and saw the body."

Sherlock frowns down at the body. "I need to speak to the guards."

Lestrade nods, ordering one of the forensic analysts to clean up Alex's puke, and Alex says, "You're not going to find out anything from them."

Lestrade glances over at him, gaze sharp. "What?"

Alex glances back at the body, then at Sherlock, who doesn't seem to be paying attention to the conversation. He's knelt down over the victim, inspecting his left hand.

"I mean," Alex says, "his hand? The tattoo? He's…" He falters.

Sherlock says, "It was a professional hit. I've seen this work before—the Lang case and the Childe case, amidst a few others. They were all classified as unsolved, and all bodies were found in rooms the killer shouldn't have been able to get into. The only connection is the tattoo of a scorpion that they all bear on the third finger of their left hand."

Donovan gives Alex a confused look. "Wait, you mentioned the tattoo. How'd you know?"

Alex wipes the sick off his chin with a wet wipe Donovan hands him. "I'm ready to go home now, I think."

"But we just got here!" Sherlock all but whines. Then he looks up at Alex, and his eyes narrow. "Oh, alright. Fine. I'll further investigate on my own." He mutters something to Lestrade, who looks over at Alex with arched brows, and Alex cross his arms over his chest and lets Sherlock guide him out of the bank.

"We're going to have to talk about this," Sherlock grumbles, tugging his scarf off of his neck as he and Alex make their way into the flat.

Alex says, "That's a very John thing of you to say."

Sherlock makes a face, then whirls on Alex. "You know Scorpia," he says. It's not a question.

"Of course he knows Scorpia," a familiar voice says behind Sherlock, and Alex startles. Sherlock's face just pinches up in irritation. "Considering who he is."

Sherlock turns, slowly, to face Yassen Gregorovich, and Alex looks down at his chest to make sure he wasn't shot and killed without him realizing.

"How'd you do it this time?" Sherlock hisses at Yassen, brushing past him into the flat, leaving Alex and Yassen standing in the foyer, staring at each other. "Pay off the guards?"

An amused smirk tips the corners of Yassen's mouth upwards, even as he continues to stare at Alex. He calls over his shoulder, "Do you really think so little of me?" and somewhere deeper in the flat, Sherlock makes a frustrated sound.

Yassen ignores whatever Sherlock's snarky retort is, tilting his head to the side as he looks Alex over. "You look well," he says, and there's a hint of approval on his face.

Alex says, "Yeah, you know, you're looking pretty good, too. For a dead guy."

Yassen arches a brow, crossing his arms over his chest. "Blunt told you I died?" He snorts. "I was kept prisoner by MI6 until my recovery from my injuries. I escaped."

"No shit," Alex retorts, clenching his hands into fists at his side, and then Sherlock comes skidding around the corner, eyes wide, hair disheveled.

"Wait," Sherlock says, holding up his hand, "what do you mean, considering who Alex is?"

Alex scrunches up his nose. "That took you so long to register. You're getting slow."

Sherlock pulls a face. "I was distracted. Case." He turns sharply, facing Yassen again. "So. Vault. You didn't pay off the guards. How'd you do it?"

"That's not how this works," Yassen says. He sounds amused. "You know that. You have to figure it out for yourself."

"Wait," Alex interjects. "If you know who the killer is—" he gives Yassen a pointed look, "why don't you just tell Lestrade?"

Sherlock shoots him an annoyed glance, tapping his fingers against the leg of his trousers. "What, reveal to Scotland Yard that I know exactly who the killer is, but I can't do a damn thing about it and neither can they because the second we do, Yassen Gregorovich ceases to exist?" He shakes his head like he's disappointed in Alex. "It's just playing the game, Alex. It's…it's like…" And then he falters, mouth quirking downwards, eyes going unfocused. "Moriarty," he mutters to himself, and then disappears into the kitchen.

Alex looks up at Yassen. "So. You're not dead, and you and Sherlock have been playing a game where you kill someone, and he has to figure out how."

Yassen shrugs, his expression cold and clinical. "It's not that different from figuring out how to stop it. I'm just doing the world a favor." He tips his head to the side. "Killing off the remaining members of Scorpia. You'd noticed that, hadn't you?"

Alex purses his lips. "They'll kill you if they find out you've turned on them," he says, and he hates the way concern oozes into his voice like it has any right to be there.

"They won't find out," Yassen says, and reaches out, squeezing Alex's shoulder in a strangely intimate gesture.

Sherlock bustles back into the room, giving Alex an accusatory glare, and Yassen's hand falls to his side.

"You avoided the question," Sherlock barks out. "What does Gregorovich mean, considering who you are?"

Alex eyes a rough, bubbled patch on the hardwood flooring and wonders if it has something to do with the chemicals Sherlock had in here last week. "You're the consulting detective," he says, an edge to his voice. "Figure it out."

Sherlock scowls. "So it's something to do with your elusive past as a gang member. And the SAS agent as well, I suppose, and whatever the hell you have to do with Mycroft."

"Gang," Yassen echoes, and Alex glances up at him, sees the amusement in his gaze, and forces his own eyes back to the bubbled patch of flooring. Maybe John spilled something on it a couple weeks ago. "So, just as you cannot figure out how I killed the man in the vault, you also cannot figure out Alex's past."

Sherlock glares at both of them. "I'm going to figure out both problems," he snaps, and then spins out of the room again. Over his shoulder, he calls, "Close the door on your way out, Gregorovich."

Yassen looks back at Alex, and Alex raises his head to meet his gaze.

"You finally escaped MI6," he says, nodding his approval. Alex scowls at him.

"'Go to Venice, find Scorpia,'" he deadpans. "What kind of shitty fucking advice is that? You almost got me killed."

"And you almost got me killed," Yassen counters. "On the plane, with Damian Cray. Turnabout is fair play."

Alex glares at him. "That was turnabout? What happened to you wanting to protect me because of who my father was?"

Yassen's eyes flash darkly. "I loved your father," he says, voice firm. "I believed Rothman also did, and would thus protect you. I was wrong."

"So fucking wrong," Alex murmurs. He tilts his head to the side, looking up at Yassen. "When are you leaving?"

"Soon." Yassen rolls his shoulders in a shrug. "My plane leaves in two hours. I should be leaving now."

Alex arches a brow. "So, what? That's it? You pop in, drive Sherlock mad because he can't figure out how you killed that guy, let me know that, hey, you're not dead after all, and then you pop out again?"

Yassen's mouth curls in amusement. "I thought you'd like to see an old friend again."

"Friend," Alex echoes. "That's what we're going with? Friends? You killed my uncle."

"And I loved your father," Yassen agrees. "The lines are blurred in the world of espionage, Alex. There are too many shades of gray to make me either the villain or the hero." He pauses, looks Alex over with a smile that's almost fond, and adds, "Sherlock Holmes was the best fit for you, I suppose. Perhaps I should have nudged you towards him to begin with. Things might have been different."

He brushes past Alex, down the stairs and back out into the streets, and Alex hangs in the doorway of the staircase for a long moment before Sherlock returns, brow wrinkled.

"You weren't in a gang," Sherlock says, studying Alex with an intense gaze. Alex shakes his head, and Sherlock nods, one sharp jerk of his chin. Then, "You could do worse than having an assassin watching out for you," and takes off again, towards his bedroom.

Downstairs, the door opens and Alex hears Nina's voice mix with Mrs. Hudson's. He shakes off the surreal feeling of Yassen's visit, tries not to think about what Yassen means when he says he loved Alex's father (thinks maybe John Watson and John Rider have more in common than just a first name), and heads down the stairs to greet Nina.

Just another day in the Rider-Watson-Holmes household, he thinks with a snort, and pointedly doesn't think about what's going to happen when John and Sherlock inevitably find out who he really is.