Summary: In the aftermath of taking down Scorpia, Alex returns home to London and finds his place among the people he loves most.
"Don't mind me," said Tom, very much making a production of being minded. "It's--it's all good." He stood up from his perch and walked across the room, murmuring, "Interesting" in a knowing tone of voice.
[...]
"Okay," said Kyra, and Alex was impressed at her taking the lead. At standing her ground--their mutual ground, he hoped. "Let's get you cleaned up," she said to Alex, and just as they were walking through the doorway that led to the corridor and to the stairs, she called over their shoulders to Tom: "Unless..."
There was a playful note in her voice, and some instinct in Alex made him put his entire attention to what his maybe-girlfriend was going to say next.
"Unless?" Tom asked, sounding just as baffled as Alex felt.
"You want to come and join us?" Kyra suggested. It was short, to the point, and very straightforward. Just like Kyra, really, in all the ways that mattered.
Alex's breath left him in one giant exhale.
Summary: Alex, Tom, and Kyra were like a well-oiled machine. (Most of the time.)
"Calculating possible routes to Exit B," said Kyra, "and it is possible. Just barely."
"How barely?" Tom asked.
"Barely as in I'd be more comfortable with Exit C--"
"Exit C is the fucking roof, Kyra!"
"Alex can make it. It's only a fifth-floor landing."
"Just because Alex could doesn't mean Alex should!"
[...]
"Alex will shut off his comms if the two of you don't shut up and listen."
Alex loses track of how long he holds Tom in his arms, of how long Tom holds him in his arms.
What he doesn't lose track of, however, is the feel of his friend's solid frame, the warmth emanating from their points of contact, and this complete and utter sense of safety that slowly--cautiously--threatens to overwhelm him.
"Maybe I am a little tender," he tells Tom, a partial truth that he wraps in a lighthearted tone to bring himself back to reality.
Summary: A look into Tom and Alex's relationship throughout the years. Will they or won't they?
The answer is no, not yet.
Here's the thing: Tom Harris craved attention.
[...]
But he supposed that if no one paid attention to him, if no one scratched that primal itch of look at me, see me, witness the whole and utterly greatness of me, then he might as well do it himself.
He hides his insecurities behind a camera, yet pushes his own boundaries by making himself the subject of his art. And Alex, too, but that was because Alex was his best friend and it would be difficult to make a documentary about himself without mentioning his best friend.
He and Alex were inseparable.
So I'm currently in an Alex Rider spiral and I'm making it everyone's problem 😂 Here's a post-s1/pre-s2 sickfic with Tom taking care of Alex (plus a side of Jack having the time of her life being a cheeky older sister figure to those two). I hope you like it!
send a number and two characters for a snippet about "hand(s) on/at..." || other prompt fills can be found in this tag
***
Tom suspected something was wrong when Alex didn't meet him by the bike sheds like normal. He had a rant locked and loaded about his brother being an absolute pain the night before and getting him grounded for the weekend even though the TV breaking wasn't his damn fault but Jerry's, but the moment Tom had finished scanning the area for Alex's familiar mop of blond hair, he knew the day wasn't going to be your average school day.
It never really is, when Alex Rider was involved.
"Is Alex alright?" Tom texted Jack as he navigated the school corridors on his way to his form room. "Haven't seen him this morning."
Jack's reply came in the middle of English class: "Your separation anxiety is showing, Tom. I left early for work and Alex had to fend for himself during breakfast. If he hasn't burnt the kitchen down making toast, then he's probably just running late."
Tom frowned at his phone. "It's mid-morning and he hasn't shown up to class." He then sends the emoji for a bank and follows it up with a question mark.
"Can't be," Jack texted back. "They promised to leave him alone. Mind checking up on him during lunch, though? New interns don't get the luxury of long lunch breaks."
Tom hastily shoved his phone under his desk, aware of his teacher's sudden attention on him, and scribbled something down on his notebook for the sake of appearances. Once the coast was clear, he unlocked his phone to send Jack a reply: "Can you pretend to be my mum and sign me out at reception? Can't just swan off of school grounds like Alex, you know."
Jack's flurry of eye roll emojis, an American flag, a cup of tea, and a thumbs up was all Tom needed and he knew he could leave during lunch and be a little bit late in coming back for his afternoon classes, should Alex be in trouble and need his help.
Not that Tom would be of much help in anything, but he was willing to give it his all.
He cycled the familiar road from school to Alex's Chelsea home in record time, having hightailed it out through the reception's front doors rather than the side gates reserved for student use, and hoped that the reason behind Alex's absence was something mundane like really having burnt the kitchen down and not, as what is typical of his friend's life, some kind of nefarious act of terrorism by a billionaire megalomaniac.
Tom saw Alex's house in the distance and noted that it was still standing upright. No signs of arson, accidental or otherwise.
He let himself in using the key Alex gave him for emergencies and was met, upon crossing the doorway, with silence. Complete and utter silence. Not even the sound of a television in the unlikely chance that Alex had decided to skive off the entire school day.
And then he hears it. That unmistakable sound of a cough.
"Alex?" Tom climbed up the stairs and directed his voice to Alex's closed bedroom door. "It's Tom. You alright in there, mate?"
Another cough, followed by a groan. Tom thought he could hear Alex telling him to go away. "I'm sick," his friend maybe said. "Might be contagious still."
Relief coursed through Tom and he climbed the rest of the way up to visually check on Alex. "I ain't afraid of no colds," he said, grinning despite himself. "Want me to ring Jack? What's the Rider household protocol for when someone gets sick?"
Tom's mother tended to just ply people with paracetamol and decongestants and tea, and maybe a mother's healing kiss or two. Alex was rarely ill, so he wasn't sure what Jack – or Ian, in the past – liked to do when someone came down with the sniffles.
"Sleep," Alex murmured dazedly. "Just let me sleep this off."
That didn't sit well with Tom, but he let Alex drift away into a restful slumber. In the meanwhile, Tom reached for his phone and took a quick picture, captioning the image with "he's down for the count" and a blowing nose emoji before sending it off to Jack as an update.
"Does he have a fever?" her text asked less than a minute later. She was undoubtedly glued to her phone despite being at work, Tom was sure.
Not wanting to play middleman to Jack's concern via text messages, Tom tapped at the small call button next to Jack's contact name and waited for her to pick up.
"How do I check his temperature?" he asked the second his call connected.
"Does he look feverish?" Jack countered, a no-nonsense tone in her voice. "There's a thermometer in the upstairs bathroom but the battery needs changing." Jack sighed. "Can you check if he's shivering or sweating or something? Look for signs of a fever."
Tom studied his friend, all bundled up under the covers like a child. "He looks fine to me. A little sweaty, but that might just be from the duvet."
"Okay, then can you check his forehead and feel for a temperature," Jack instructed. "He might just need a Tylenol or something –"
"A what?" Tom reached out and brushed Alex's hair out of the way. His friend jerked at the touch but otherwise remained asleep. "Shit, Jack, he's really hot!" he exclaimed, but then his brain caught up with him and he said, sheepish: "No, wait. It's just my hands. I'm still cold from being outside."
"Tom, I swear to god –"
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" Tom cringed. "How else can I check? Do I need to wait for my hands to acclimatise or what –"
In the ensuing tide of worried babbling, a memory from Tom's childhood swam to the forefront of his mind and, although he was anxiously trying to talk to Jack about helping Alex, his body went on autopilot and he found himself leaning down to press a chaste kiss to Alex's sweaty brow.
There was silence as Tom froze, mind sluggishly catching up to what his body had done.
"Was that—" Jack interrupted herself. "Tom, did you just kiss Alex?"
Tom swallowed his nerves. "The good news is, Alex is only slightly feverish and he should be fine even without paracetamol." He could hear Jack trying to stifle laughter, and Tom tried his mighty best to just soldier on and be the good best friend that Alex deserved.
"The bad news is," he said world-wearily, "yes... I did just kiss Alex on the forehead."
Jack cackled so loudly that Tom had to physically hold his phone away for fear of damaging his eardrums.
"Right, I'm hanging up because you're of no help at all," he told Jack and began to do just that, only for Jack to shout and impart a mortifying sign off of: "Just invite me to the wedding! You can't be Alex's best man if you're up there to be his lawfully wedded husband."
"For fuck's sake, no," Tom groaned and ended the call with a decisive tap. He buried his face in his hands a second later, wondering how he got himself into this mess.
He was still hiding from the world when Alex shifted and turned to his side, and Tom was reminded that his friend was ill. Alex might just be fine without his help since sleep really was what he looked like he needed, but that didn't mean Tom couldn't do something else to help ease his discomfort.
Maybe he could make soup? Did the kitchen downstairs have the right ingredients for soup?
Tom's phone dinged with a text alert. It was a screenshot of an Uber Eats delivery from Jack, who had just ordered a veritable feast for a sick person and had listed Tom's number as the delivery recipient.
"Got it," Tom texted her, mulish as his thumbs tapped away on the phone's onscreen keyboard.
"Tell your future husband to get better soon," she replied. "I'll see him after work."
And then, in a new message devoid of any teasing, she said: "Thanks, Tom. You're a good friend."
Tom runs away from home and arrives unannounced at the Riders' house in Chelsea. Ian and Alex let him stay for however long he likes. Years later, Tom returns the favour for a badly injured Alex post-mission.
It would be odd, Alex supposed, from an outsider's perspective to think that he and Tom had never actually been to each other's houses. They knew each other's address, thereabouts, but never had they actually stepped foot in each other's homes.
[...]
Which was why it was so odd when one spring evening, during a torrential rain that threatened to drown West London in floods, the Rider's home in Chelsea welcomed an unexpected guest.
"Er, hi," Tom greeted with a wince. He was soaked head to toe from the rain, wearing only a beanie, hoodie, and jeans to protect himself from the elements; he looked very much like one of Peter Pan's lost boys when confronted with the idea of domesticity.
"Tom!" Alex yelled from behind Ian, who had opened the door after asking Alex if he was expecting anyone. Perhaps he had been too hasty in saying 'no'. "Tom, mate, what are you doing here?"
Summary: Tom can't sleep so he texts Alex, who sneaks in bearing snacks and drinks and company. He stays the night and Mrs Harris finds them the next day, sleeping on Tom's bed.
"Does your neighbour still have that uppity dog in the back garden?"
Tom cracked a smile at the image of his neighbour's border collie chasing Alex as he scaled up the walls to reach the second floor.
"Come and find out," he said, knowing full well that that dog was recuperating at the vet. "Wouldn't it be more of a challenge if it was a surprise?"
"Just for that," Alex snarked, "I'm sneaking in through your brother's window. He can be your problem if he wakes up, but I doubt it. I'm all ninja-like these days." And then, in a different text: "I'm on my way. See you in a bit."
"Can you stop by Tesco's and grab us energy drinks?" Now that he thought about it, maybe asking Alex to come and hang out with him was a bad idea. A bad idea if he wanted to get some sleep, anyway. "And some crisps," Tom added. "I'm thinking... prawn cocktail?"
"You're getting salt and vinegar and you'll be happy about it."
Tom couldn't help the grin that he was sporting. "That's the devil's armpit. At least prawn cocktail has a depth of flavour."
Summary: Tom asks Alex to teach him how to break free from various restraints – duct tape, zip ties, rope, you name it. It’s all very straightforward until Alex starts playing with the handcuffs.
“We have zip ties in the kitchen.”
Tom blinked. “Uh, why do you have zip ties in the kitchen?”
Alex laughed as he stood up, presumably to grab the aforementioned zip ties. “To complement the rope in the cupboard,” he said, “and the duct tape in Ian’s old office. The handcuffs are already here in my room.”
That response really did not answer Tom’s question; Alex was much too prepared for this learning opportunity than Tom anticipated. Was this how he grew up? Did Ian drill Alex for the location and possible uses of the various innocuous items – handcuffs notwithstanding – hidden around the house?
“Alex…” Tom called just as his friend left the room and went down the stairs towards the kitchen. “Alex, why do you have handcuffs in your bedroom?!”
