Disclaimer: I dun own it. Yassen dies in the actual books by Anthony Horowitz, people, he doesn't live and have a love life with the very able and smexy Alex Rider. But wouldn't it be a wonderful twist?

I'm in love. Shit. Alex dropped his head in his hands and groaned. Not good, not good...so not good. He groaned again and scrubbed at his face with the palms of his hands.

"Alex?" his name was half mumbled half sighed behind him and Alex stiffened. Shit.

The 20-year old dropped his hands from his face and slowly turned with a weak smile, "Ah, Yassen, how did you sleep?" he asked the wakening ex-assassin now postmaster. It was cute, the way his dark red hair stuck up in all directions and his eyes still held the cloudy sheen of sleep. Alex winced inwardly, now was not the time to admire the other man, he had more important things to worry about.

"Barely slept, as you should know already." Oh...yeah, that...Eheheh, shit. "You have stamina, I'll give you that." Alex blushed, turning his head to hide it, as if the action ever worked.

"I'm going to go, er, take a shower." he stood abruptly to walk away, escape the gaze that Yassen had trained on him. He was really starting to regret the decision to 'Break free from the oppressive hold of Blunt and MI6' by, where the hell had he even gotten the idea?, sleeping with the enemy.

Oh it worked so well...too well. Yassen had been surprisingly up to it and before Alex knew it, they were sleeping together on a regular basis. And Alex started being attracted to the assassin in a completely non-sexual manner, not what he'd intended when he's first thought up the thoroughly horrible plan.

"Good idea." Alex started, when did Yassen start reading minds? "A shower sounds splendid right now, I'm sticky." He really didn't have to add that last part, really. Scenes from the night before flashed through Alex's mind and his blush grew, it wasn't helping the situation.

Sheets rustled and suddenly Yassen was beside him, in all his naked glory. "By myself?" Alex restrained the stuttering he knew would break free if he spoke more than 3 words, the man was fucking beautiful! Even with all his scars, hell, they made the picture.

"Why not together?" Did he just waggle his eyebrows? Alex's heart thudded to a halt, the situation was not good for his health. "Be environmentally friendly, save water." Yassen smirked and grabbed Alex by the arm, pulling him behind him towards the bathroom. It was rather funny actually, how the assassin knew where everything in Alex's large house was, sometimes it seemed as though he lived there. With Alex. Together.

The ex-spy swallowed, wincing at his dry throat, and tried to convince himself to pull free from the other man's grip, tell him he couldn't do it anymore, that he was stopping it. But he couldn't. He let Yassen start the water and pull him under. They actually managed to get half way clean before Alex's heart stuttered to live again and he threw all misgivings to the wind and pulled Yassen to him. Oh what the hell.

"I don't know what I'm going to do, Tom! It's like even though I know he probably doesn't like me back that way, I don't care as long as we can still meet up." Alex complained, holding tight to the cold, water droplet laden glass in his hand. His long-time friend shot him an exasperated look over the rim of his own glass.

"Why do you always come to me when you have love troubles?" he asked with a self-pitying sigh, leaning back in his lawn chair. The best friends were in the communal sandbox in the front yard of Tom's apartment building, drinking Italian soda, kiwi for Alex while Tom preferred the more 'manly' mango flavor, and lazily punching a beach ball back and forth.

Alex shrugged and bounced the ball on his pointer finger for a good ten hits before Tom leaned over and smacked it away from him, where landed in a tree to be quickly forgotten. "You're a dude, like me." he replied finally, after a big swallow from his drink, forgoing the color changing twisty straw that he'd drunk from earlier. "Like hell am I going to some girl, I have no female friends. And no way am I going to a therapist after all those forced group sessions I went through before MI6 stopped being able to blackmail me."

"I'm not gay." Tom pointed out, wriggling a foot into the sand then pulling it up to watch the sand drain between his toes. "I have a reasonably hot girlfriend who cooks me meals on the weekend and supplies me with all the straight sex I need. Don't you have any gay people you could turn to? Like a gay bar or something?"

Alex kicked at his best friend sideways, making the lawn chair teeter and Tom yelp as he attempted to right the chair and not spill his drink. "I don't drink alcohol so there's no point in me actually going to a bar, for one," the part-time spy adjusted his seat and took a sip from his drink. "And two: you're my only real friend, not counting the hesitant friendship your girlfriend and I have or all the friendly acquaintances that insist they're my friends."

Tom paused in his failing attempt to unseat his best friend, "Dude, that's kinda...sad." he sobered for a second and an air of seriousness fell. "What about that one new teacher?" Alex furrowed his brow in confusion.

"You mean Fredrick?"

Tom nodded and spiraled a finger at Alex, ending it with a jab that started his next statement, "Yeah, him!" the blonds' brow didn't relax even the slightest.

"You're not making any sense, Tom, Fredrick is straight as can be and he's completely not my idea of a confident. Too...gossipy." he told his friend, absently sipping at his drink and starting when all his got was a wet sucking sound for his efforts. "I'm all out..." Tom laughed at his crestfallen expression and stood.

"Give me your glass, I'll get you another." he held out his hand and Alex handed over the empty glass with a grateful smile.

"Thanks."

Tom laughed again and moved to punch Alex cheerfully in the shoulder as he passed on his way indoors but retracted his fist when the blond lifted an eyebrow, You really want to do that? "That's what friends are for!"

The civilian returned shortly with the refill and made himself comfortable in his lawn chair, wiggling his feet into the sand again and sticking his tongue out at his neighbor's children nearby that were shooting them dirty looks while they filled buckets with dirt instead of sand.

An awkward silence fell for a good minute as both men struggled to think of something to say, one wringing his mind for the best 'I'm-not-gay-but-I-can-help-you-with-your-problem-so-no-problem!' pronouncement and the other wishing his friend was maybe a little gay just so he could help him out in a 'friend-helping-out-friend-with-romantic-issues' way.

"Do you, uh, want to be dating him?" Tom finally asked, fidgeting with his straw, the regular not-even-bendy kind with red and white stripes kind. Alex shot him an incredulous look and snorted.

"Do I want to date him? Of course!" he exclaimed, earning himself a disapproving stare from an apartment resident nearby making sure her child didn't slip out of his lion harness for his daily walk as he went a decibel too high. Alex flushed and lowered his voice, although the heat didn't lessen. "I fucking love the man, Tom! If I could, I'd marry him too!" he gulped down almost half of his Italian soda and burst out coughing. "Holy shit, Tom! This is salty! What did you add to it?"

It earned him another stare, more of a glare this time around, and Tom couldn't help but laugh. "That's totally what she said!" he chuckled. Alex narrowed his eyes at him and pursed his lips in irritation.

"This is not the time for joking, Tom," he reprimanded him, coughing a little between words. "And how would you know that it tastes salty? Hmmm?" Tom smirked at him, not cowed by the blonds' wrath.

"Aspiring doctor here, all bodily fluids are salty due to salt content of your body." he replied smugly with a little 'Hah!' thrown in for emphasis. Alex raised an eyebrow.

"Did you learn that in the hands on course?" he retorted. Tom spluttered and laughed, not taking offense as one might expect.

"Nope," he popped the 'p' and took a gulp of his neglected Italian soda. "I thought you were against joking? Serious potentially cock-blocking situation and all?"

Alex made a face at his choice of words. "I wouldn't put it like that, it's more of a love-crisis if anything." he replied rather primly, "I don't think anything could cock-block me, I'm a hit with all the men and ladies. You ought to take notes." he tossed his hair and grinned at Tom, the brunet was having a hard time keeping his laughter to a minimum.

"Please don't tell me you're bi, mate," Tom pleaded. "I really don't want my girlfriend taken." Alex laughed and sipped his drink.

"I'm not," he said reassuringly. "It's not my fault I ooze testosterone."

Tom shook his head at nothing in particular and tapped his fingers against his glass. "So...how are we going to break it to your boy that he's not just a blow up doll and more of a toy soldier?" he changed the subject before it could get out of hand, they had to actually do something, regardless of either's reluctance to really talk about it.

"The toy soldier dies, he burns to death because of his love for the music box ballerina."

"Calmate, man," Tom retorted. "It's just an expression, I'm saying he's actually going to die. Although you are a bit of a diva..." Alex smacked him upside the head before he could dodge.

"It was a crappy expression," he said then sobered. "I don't really know what to do to tell him, what if he freaks out and leaves? Then I won't even have the mind-blowingly awesome sex to sustain my hopes." Tom leaned over and patted him on the back sympathetically.

"It's okay man, I'm sure the feeling's reciprocated," he tried to smile reassuringly, but it just came out pained. Alex shot him a skeptical look and Tom nodded, mostly to himself rather than more his best friend, "I don't want to hear another word for the entirety of my life about your sex life, but would he really lead you on for, what, a year or so just for it to be meaningless?" Alex cocked his head lightly to the side, considering the words he'd heard.

"You really think that, Tom?" he asked, a bit hesitantly. Tom paused, if he was wrong he'd probably end up castrated but what the hell? His friend deserved happiness!, and nodded enthusiastically, the smile on his face this time more confident.

"I do."

Their talk interrupted then by the appearance of Tom's girlfriend, arriving for the weekend. "Alex, I haven't seen you in a while!" she greeted the blond cheerfully, Alex smiled back, both smiles rather strained.

"Ah, Olivia, it has been a while, hasn't it?" he agreed and stood, turning to Tom. "Thanks for the talk, mate, I'll figure something out I'm sure." Tom got up and pulled him into a rare hug, a quick one that he pulled back from a second later, but a hug nonetheless.

"I'm always here for you, Alex. Well, unless I'm at school or with Livvy, then you're forgotten." he smiled and clapped the blond on the back. Alex laughed and dumped the remains of his ruined drink in the grass beside the sandbox then handed the glass to Tom and folded up his chair.

"I'm off then, see you later, Tom. Bye, Olivia." he attempted a smile for Olivia, and she did the same, but this time they both just looked constipated. "I'll you how it goes, yeah?"

Tom nodded then paused. "Er, vague details, please? Or none at all if a 'yes' or 'no' will suffice?" he asked. Alex grinned impishly.

"If it goes well, then I don't know what I'll be telling you. You know those post-coital hazes, anything can happen." he laughed and stuck out his tongue when Tom mimed gagging and Olivia shot them both disapproving looks, rivaling that of the mother who looked about ready to stomp on over and char them to crisps. With one final goodbye, Alex walked back to his car, threw the chair in the trunk, and drove off, back to the house he and Yassen practically shared the rent on.

I guess...I'll just have to go with an all out confession then.

Alex usually ate dinner alone, microwavable or premade food due to his own inability to actually cook a decent meal, let alone fry eggs, and that night began like any other.

He added the hot water, one thing he could do with immense success, to the cup ramen he had his sights set on and set it aside to wait the minutes of peace it demanded to turn soft and edible. Leaning his elbows on the table Alex sighed and looked wistfully out the window where the moon was hidden by a pile of wispy clouds.

If he and Yassen were dating they'd probably be sitting down to eat take out or maybe Yassen was just as good at dinner as he was at breakfast? They could be like Tom and Olivia, but without the bitchy half. Eating dinner together, talking idly about their separate days.

Alex would lament the inability of the students to show any motivation in badminton unless it was to whack each other over the heads and try to show off to the girl's P.E. class and Yassen would sympathize, reaching over to clasp his hand and say something that would have them both chuckling.

Then Yassen would recount how the day at the office was, mislaid packages found and set on course, idiot underlings who didn't know how to sort properly, and how he always itched to pull his gun from the lowest drawer of his desk, the one with the lock, and massacre all of them but he'd resisted the urge. Alex would commend him for his willpower and they'd have table sex.

Oh how Alex wished he could be in a stable relationship with the man who stole his heart, which was strange since he wasn't a thief…cut his heart out and ate it? No, that was what happened when they broke up. Alex hummed as he thought of an appropriate phrase for what Yassen had done to him. He activated the dopamine, noreprinephrine, and serotonin in my brain with a shot from his Dragunov SVD of love.

Alex paused, no that didn't sound right either. "Well then what would I call what he did to me?" he mused out loud, the skin between his eyes creasing as he wrung his brain for an answer.

"I wouldn't know, but I do know what you've done to me, Alex Rider." The way his name was whispered, right by his ear so hot breath ghosted over the lobe sent shudders down his spine and Alex whipped around.

"Yassen!" he exclaimed, standing abruptly and almost knocking over his chair in his haste to face the ex-assassin. "You're here early! …Did you get fired?" Yassen chuckled and lifted a plastic take out bag.

"I brought Chinese, and no I didn't get fired." He set the food on the table next to the neglected cup ramen. "Were you hopeful?"

Alex's jaw opened and closed like a gasping fish, he had no idea what to say. So, in the haste to fill the sudden, expectant silence, some dark, sadistic part of his brain decided to fill in for him. "I love you! Please go out with me!"

It only took a few seconds for his rational mind to catch up with what he'd just said and when it did Alex gasped and shook his head. "I, uh, didn't mean to say that! Tom d-dared me to, er, say it to you!" he said frantically.

"So, was it a dare or not meant to happen?" Yassen asked slowly, a smile creeping onto his lips as he leaned forward, prompting Alex to stumbled back against the table and the Russian cut off all exits with both his hands on either side of the wild eyed man. "Be careful, Alex, you don't want to hurt my feelings, do you?"

"…no…" the spy whispered weakly, feeling his legs turn quickly to jelly. Yassen raised an eyebrow.

"What is it that you want to tell me?" he prompted the almost lifeless body before him, a smile that wasn't his characteristic smirk gracing his thin but very tasty lips.

Alex stuttered for a few seconds before he gained his bearings enough to whisper the words Yassen was urging him to speak. "I…l-love, er…you." The spy couldn't close his eyes, they were frozen open in horrified anticipation of Yassen's rejection. So he saw, with total disbelief, as the ex-assassin broke into the widest smile he'd ever seen on the man.

"That's what I wanted to hear." He told the close to fainting blond and leaned even closer to kiss Alex chastely on the lips. It seemed to break the spell that had fallen over the spy and he would have collapsed, had it not been for Yassen's quick reflexes.

"I-I thought you were only with me for the sex…" Alex said weakly, brown eyes searching Yassen's blue ones for the answer. The red-head chuckled and ruffled Alex's hair in a rare sign of affection.

"Oh please, I'm not a blow up doll." He replied. "I like to think of myself as more of a toy soldier that has feelings, although the only burning I plan on is in my passion…but regardless, I do have feelings." Alex froze. "Is something wrong?"

Alex broke free of Yassen's grip, the man let him, and scrambled for his phone, speed dialing Tom's number. He picked up on the third ring,

"Alex? Didn't we agree that you wouldn-"

"You set me up!" Alex yelled angrily into the speaker while Yassen appeared to be considering taking the phone from him. "You actually set me up! What the hell?"

"Um…is this a good hell? Or a bad hell? Should I be calling the police for protection?" Tom's voice was now rather shrill, in fear for himself and his future posterity.

Alex paused, a second and his answer was ready. "The great kind, you idiot!" now he was laughing and Yassen looked concerned.

"Er, awesome? Look, Alex, I'm happy and all for you, but I have a bed and a girlfriend that's beckoning." Tom said. "We can talk Monday, right?"

Alex laughed again. "'Course we can!"

"Great, see yah, Alex. Tell Yassen I said 'hi'."

"Sure, I will." Alex turned serious, "Oh, and Tom?"

"…Yeah?"

"The police wouldn't be able to protect you." The line went dead and Alex chuckled darkly.

"So…dinner?" Yassen suggested when Alex turned back to him, recovered from his earlier near panic attack. Alex shook his head and gave Yassen a light, teasing kiss.

"No, we have celebrating to do." He replied and grinned suggestively, Yassen raised an eyebrow.

"Indeed, to the happy couple." He murmured and followed Alex in the bedroom.

The door shut and the take out Chinese was left on the table to sit neglected beside a lonely cup ramen.

A new favorite couple to celebrate the New Year? Good times indeed. I got into this pairing by accident when I stumbled upon 'Luciferian Principle' and her Yassen/Alex written stuff here on then again on DeviantArt with drawings of the same stuff. You guys should all check her out, she's awesome at both writing and drawing! (Who'da thunk you could be good at both...weird...:D)

I just accidentally kicked my stuffed lion off the bed. I have no pillow. I have three blankets, not comforters, blankets to protect me from the Vermont cold. I made a snow beast today. I have ginger/lemon chapstick. My brother got me a M.C. Escher calender for Christmas. Severus Snape's nose hints at lineage from the Aztecs. I need sleep...

Happy pre-2011 everyone! I was going to post this at 12 on the dot...then I realized that I won't have the patience to wait with this just waiting to be submitted. So I'm posting it now. Joy!

I view this little ficlet as an accomplishment, as in I'm really proud of it and I'm happy with the flow. Although, there was the whol panicky-Alex scene that I'm skeptical on...it just doesn't feel...right to me. What do you think? Tell me in a review! New Years Resolution for all of you who read this, like it/hate it and don't review: FUCKING REVIEW

Thank you for reading!