Warnings: slash

Rated: T

The night was supernatural. Black clouds obscuring the stars, drifting in wisps past the pale, full moon. Watery silver light barely made the journey from the moon to the earth, leaving their bedroom a dim grey as if it had filled with static.

On top of the ominous ambiance, it was witching hour. Yassen noted the clock on the wall - an antique that barely worked, but that Alex had insisted they keep. It filled the room with a soothing, rhythmic pattern of ticks and tocks.

Alex lay next to him, lulled by the sound. He faced away from Yassen, arms cushioning his head; the pillows had been knocked from the bed, and neither of them had been inclined to retrieve them. White sheets were pulled to his waist, the comforter, too, had been lost to the floor.

In the mystical lighting, Alex's hair glowed a white-silver. Frost creeping along the too-long strands. The scars that covered Alex's back like paint-strokes seemed brighter, sharper, like the glinting edge of a sharpened knife.

He's ethereal, Yassen thought. All sharp edges and italicized lines.

With fingers light as the night air around them, Yassen traced the web of lines obscuring Alex's lower back. Connecting them like constellations. Burns, bullets, blades. Dozens of stories etched there, as if into stone. Dozens of moments where Yassen could have lost Alex forever.

But didn't. Hadn't. Not yet.

Alex rarely spoke about his scars, not in detail. Still, Yassen knew most of the stories - had pieced it together over the years. Like filling in a puzzle, bit by bit. Shot by a sniper, fell from space, fought a shark. They were like adventures from a novel - bordering on unbelievable.

But then, Alex was pretty unbelievable.

"You're staring," Alex mumbled, nearly incomprehensible with his arm pressed against his mouth.

"Your eyes are closed," Yassen noted, "How would you know?"

Alex huffed, eyes blinking open slowly. He turned, sheets wrapping around him, twisting and entrapping.

"Because I know you," Alex told him, voice low, complementing the eerily quiet night. His sleep-heavy brown eyes at half mast. "You always stare at me when you think I'm asleep."

Yassen smiled at him, head propped up on one hand. Briefly, he placed a light kiss on Alex's lips. "I can't help it," he claimed, "You are beautiful."

Alex blushed, bright pink the only colour to exist among the blacks and whites and greys and silvers.

"You are especially beautiful when you blush," Yassen continued, and was rewarded when the crimson tint spread further across Alex's cheekbones.

"I love you," Alex responded - which was something Alex often said when he was at a loss for words, like it was a default setting. Yassen loved it - loved being able to make Alex so flustered that his only coherent thought was I love you. "Now, go to sleep."

Without waiting for any agreement on Yassen's part, Alex dragged the sheet up over them and curled against Yassen's body. Face pressed against his chest, to hide the still-present blush, no doubt. Yassen pulled him closer - not that much space existed between them in the first place, and tucked his chin atop Alex's head. Soft blond hair tickling his neck.

Peering under his lashes, he could still see the white-washed scars crisscrossing Alex's shoulders.

Yassen had tried time and again to convince Alex that his scars were beautiful; they were a symbol of strength and bravery, and they proved that Alex was alive. Though Alex always smiled when he said this, Yassen got the feeling that Alex never quite believed him.

"They're beautiful," Yassen whispered, barely more than a breath.

Alex, half asleep, merely hummed. Probably more in response to his voice than the actual words spoken.

"You must have a guardian angel looking out for you," Yassen said, more to himself than to Alex now. Silently, Yassen thanked the heavens that Alex was here, with him. That the scars were nothing more than scars - and that Alex was alive and well.

He knew Alex thought they were ugly - reminders of some of the worst moments of his young life. But Yassen prefered to think of them as… silver linings. Momentos of every moment that Alex had survived.

He felt the brush of Alex's lips just below his collarbone - marking Yassen faintly in the same spot that a sniper had marked Alex himself. Yassen wrapped his arms tight around him, hands brushing over the scars that barely raised above his skin anymore.

He closed his eyes against the grey light, and listened to the metronome noises that filled the room. Tick, tock.

They woke, jarringly, to the sound of Alex's cellphone. The device blared out a ringtone that Yassen knew was for Alex's emergency line. It sounded like sirens.

Alex lurched from the bed, hardly even awake yet, but training keeping him on his feet. The sheet dragged after him, leaving Yassen exposed to the chilly room. He snatched the tail end of the sheet as it flew away, reclaiming it and leaving Alex bare naked in the middle of the room. Alex spared him a glare, but focused on finding his ringing cell phone. Following the noise, Alex uncovered his abandoned phone from underneath a mound of pillows.

Alex coughed once before answering. "Hello?"

There was a pause - Alex shifted uncomfortably on his feet (and it had nothing to do with his nakedness.)

"Yes, I can," Alex said. "I'll leave now. Three hours at the most. Alright."

He hung up without bothering with goodbyes - clearly it was business. Mentally, Yassen ran through the places that they were within three hours of.

"Have to go." He spared Yassen a kiss, but was clearly distracted. "I'll be back soon."

"Be safe," Yassen reminded him - Alex was already mostly dressed and half out the door.

"Don't worry," Alex called back. "I'll bring my guardian angel with me."

Yassen gave a startled smile, and then Alex was gone.

As it happens, Yassen had no sooner reclined back in bad when his own phone went off. Not the drawn-out ringing of Alex's emergency line, but a simple ping. An email.

Yassen clicked on it hesitantly - he didn't recognize the sender, and he had not received many new clients since his retirement. Most of his past clients only contacted him for recommendations on other services.

Still, Yassen was not out of the game completely (in his experience, there was only one way out entirely.) He still took contracts if it suited him, he just stuck to the low profile ones that caused the least headache, or he worked security and protection details. It was more to keep his skills sharp than anything else. He certainly didn't need the money - and Alex was the adrenaline junkie between the pair of them.

Yassen scanned the email - encrypted, naturally, but the software on his phone took care of that. It was the usual code he used with his clients. A referral then.

He was right, he realized after reading the sign-off. The son of one of his past clients had apparently received a threat against his person. Rather than a usual protection detail, the father had recommended Yassen.

If his memory served - and it always did - Yassen recalled setting up the father's home security ten years ago when he was still with Scorpia. He also remembered the eighteen-year-old boy, just learning the ropes of his father's company.

He emailed back with a brief acceptance.

Alex reclined in the back of the helicopter - seemingly relaxed, but his senses on high alert. It was kind of MI6 to offer him a lift, but he wished they had sent him with a pilot he knew. Any one of K Unit would have done - although, Alex had been informed that his unit was on a top-secret mission and could not be spared to give Alex a lift. Rude of them, really.

Shifting subtly, Alex tried to take some of the weight off his back. It still stung a little - lines of dull fire, but Alex had been assured that was perfectly normal.

The pilot set them down on the small airstrip set a few kilometres from the house Alex planned on staying at. Usually, packages were flown in and out here. Lining the airstrip were dozens of storage boxes and shipping containers - Alex thanked the anonymous pilot, and went to open the container where he and Yassen paid to stash a couple of cars.

Two small cars sat in the dark, where they had been for nearly two years. They had paid extra for one of the security guards to do general maintenance for the vehicles, and when Alex checked them both over they were still in prime condition. Alex hopped into the flashy red Bugatti, leaving the slightly rusty beater for Yassen.

A short drive had Alex pulling up to a pretty house with red roofing and blue trims. The customary checks showed that no one had set foot in the house since him and Yassen a couple years prior.

It took a minute to get the house in order, air conditioning on and the musty scent warded off with open windows and Febreeze. Then Alex hucked his duffel bag onto the king-sized bed, sifting through for something a bit more comfortable.

His fingers brushed the soft fabric of one of his favourite shirts - a light blue tee that he had stolen from Yassen. He pulled it on carefully. A bit loose on him, but that was preferable. Settling on his stomach, face turned to the side, Alex watched the birds fly by outside the window.

The job took longer than Yassen had anticipated. The boy - man now, twenty-nine years old with a wife and child and another on the way - had wanted security in not just his home, but all thirteen homes he had across the globe.

Yassen pulled into the garage - Alex had texted him weeks ago to let him know he was staying in the Canadian safehouse in south-central British Columbia. It was summer here, hot and dry and altogether very atypically Canadian. But then, Yassen never put much stock in stereotypes.

Checking the security panel, Yassen noted that everything seemed in order. The last person to enter had been several hours earlier, and had used Alex's code. He punched in his own code and made the trek upstairs.

It was still early morning, and all the lights in the house were off. Yassen flicked the one in the kitchen, then glanced upstairs.

"Alex?" He called, not expecting trouble, but hand still hovering over his concealed firearm. Safety first, after all.

"Here!" Came the answering call. No hint of distress, only tiredness and Alex hadn't used any of their signal words. All fine then.

The stairs were covered in carpet, muffling any sound his light footfalls might have made. At the top of the house, Yassen turned left. The bedroom door was ajar, and the smallest nudge had it swinging back on its hinges.

Alex lay diagonally across the large bed, on his stomach, but that still left a few feet of room on either side of him. He had clearly just woken up, his brown eyes were hazy and he stifled a yawn. Yassen bit the inside of his cheek to suppress a smile; Alex was wearing his shirt, the blue complementing his tanned skin and ruffled blond hair.

"You are beautiful in the mornings," Yassen said. Having not seen Alex in weeks, he felt the need to speak his mind. "And you are impossibly sweet in my shirt."

Alex buried his face in his arms, hiding a grin. The blue shirt pulled up -

"What's that?" Yassen asked, head cocked to the side, eyeing the skin revealed around Alex's lower back.

Alex glanced up at him, sleepiness forgotten, he bounced into an upright position, sitting back on his heels. "Wanna see?"

Yassen's eyebrows furrowed together, and he took a step closer. Alex tugged his shirt up, ruffling his hair even more and revealing - wings.

Blinking in shock, Yassen closed the last of the gap between them. He reached out a hand, gently brushing the outline of stark, black wings etched into Alex's back. An intricate tattoo arching out from his spine, stretching from shoulder blades to lower back. Each feather perfectly drawn.

His finger trailed down the design in wonder. Alex glanced over his shoulder, smiling hesitantly.

"I was thinking about what you said, that I must have a guardian angel looking out for me," Alex told him. "Well, most people say I have the luck of the devil. I like yours better."

The scars on his back were completely covered in thick black ink. Maybe it didn't matter that Alex didn't like his scars, didn't accept them. Maybe it was okay that he wanted to cover them up. At the end of the day, when Yassen looked at him, all he saw was strength and beauty - whether it be scars or wings.

"It's beautiful."

/Alex/

Yassen picked him up at the airstrip in the Bugatti, black shades and a white tee shirt gave him a badass look that made Alex's skin tingle. Yassen leaned over and threw open the passenger side door, inviting him in with a smile.

Alex had only been gone a week - a crisis with ASIS, but it was easily sorted for once. He wondered how Yassen had kept himself occupied in that big house all alone: probably meditated for seven days straight, Alex thought.

It was not a long trip home, and it was made even shorter with Yassen's foot firmly on the gas. Alex was sure they had left skid marks flying into the garage the way they did. If they weren't careful, the Mounties would be after them.

"Somewhere you have to be?" Alex joked as Yassen barely spared a moment to turn the car off before he was out the door.

"Something I want to show you," Yassen replied, quickly disappearing upstairs.

Alex followed, intrigued, lingering for just a moment in the hallway before pushing his way into the bedroom. Standing in center stage, Yassen smile at him, biting his lip ever so slightly.

"Well?" Alex asked, "What would you like to show me? You have my undivided attention."

Yassen nodded, beckoning him, and Alex obliged in closing the gap. Strong hands grasped his own guiding them to the hem of Yassen's shirt. Alex raised an eyebrow suggestively, pulling the shirt up and over Yassen's head.

And stared.

"What is that?" Alex asked, though it was redundant. He could clearly see what it was. He really wanted to know why.

It was tiny. No bigger than a coin, and looked especially small when compared to the stark black ink dominating Alex's back.

"Four letters," Yassen answered, "The four most important letters, to me.

Four letters in curling black ink, just below Yassen's collarbone. Right over his heart. The four most important letters, to me.

His name. Alex.