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eryiss · 1 year ago

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Summary: Every agents has an Albion. The tech worker behind the scenes who will do everything to make the agents successful in his mission. Laxus hasn’t heard from his Albion since an issue that got Laxus arrested. But even prison couldn’t keep Laxus' Albion away. Now all he has to do is survive a jailbreak.

Notes: Hi all. Check out @fuckyeahfraxus, they’ve got lots of great posts. This fic comes from the fact I’ve had an obsession with James Bomd x Q for a few months, so I made this. I won’t apologise.

Links: Ao3, Event Masterlist

The Agent & The Albion

May - 2023

"Agent Dreyar, do wake up. It's nearly four in the morning and I didn't take you for a slacker."

Laxus lurched upwards, a dreamless sleep parting for the sound of a familiar voice. He looked around his small cell, tiredness parting into an adrenaline filled readiness for a fight. The room looked empty, but the life Laxus lived had taught him not to trust anything. He grasped the small metal mug that was on the floor by his bed, ready to strike an intruder with it. The dimness of the cell didn't make it easy to make out the finer details, so he narrowed his eyes and stood up, backing himself up against the exterior wall as not to be surprised.

"Agent Dreyar, I don't have eyes on you. CanI assume you're being paranoid," The voice said again. It was tinny and quiet. Laxus looked to the source of it: his own bed. "There's an earpiece inside of your pillow. Please retrieve. I'm getting impatient."

Body still on alert, he grabbed the pillow and tore into it. He shook it a few times, the cheap stuffing falling apart before something small, and light clattered on the stone floor. He waited for a moment, not wanting to lean down and pick it up. The small red light could signify anything; and his sleep addled mind still was working to make sense of the situation. Years of training had told him to expect the worst and be happy when it didn't come. Those instincts were baked deep into his mind, but as he woke his senses came to him.

The voice was one he knew, and that he trusted. It was a voice he had thought of many times since his imprisonment, one of comfort and of familiarity. It had been an ever-present part of his life since he joined the service. A voice mocking him as he seduced a target, guiding him through a minefield of gunmen, and calming him in the moments his control slipped.

Looking down at the small flashing light, he saw an earpiece. A small device he had seen many a time. He reached down, brushed off the dirt and fluff, and stuck it into his right ear. After tapping it three times, he spoke in a whisper. "Albion?"

"Agent Dreyar, you do take your time," The voice huffed. "A few months in France and you've become practically lethargic. I'll have to whip you into shape when you get out."

"How the hell did you get this thing in here?"

"A jailer who owes the service a favour and a few thousand euros in the right places," Laxus could imagine Albion waving his hand as he said it. "I'll explain the details later. I believe one of the guards also left you a gift. I'm sure you've already found that little crawl space in your cell, yes? Check there."

Laxus nodded, following Albion's orders without question. He knew what Albion was referring to. He removed his mattress from the bed, which appeared to me a solid block of metal. Using a small stone, he unscrewed a large sheet of metal and placed it to the side. The crawl space was barely anything at all, the size of a single bed with less than a foot in depth. Laxus had used it to keep a butter knife, a jagged rock he'd picked up from the yard, and a small vial of cyanide that every agent kept tucked away in their teeth during missions. Now, all of those had been pushed to the side with a suit bag resting there.

He grinned. Albion was spoiling him.

He quickly changed into the suit – a beautiful navy-blue Armani masterpiece – and straightened himself out. Months of wearing ugly sweats and scratchy tees had left him yearning for some quality fabrics.

"So, the bureaucrats finally got off their assess, huh?" Laxus asked, taking his comb and clicking back his hair.

"Not exactly, but we're getting you out either way. Just using slightly… illegal methods," Albion was obviously smiling, and Laxus grinned. "I hope you haven't gotten too comfortable; you're going to be committing a jail break."

"You trying to seduce me, Albion?"

"With a jail break? I know for a fact it takes much less effort to get you into bed, Agent," Albion laughed and Laxus couldn't stop himself from laughing with him. "No. There's a hacker, you see. He's been targeting governments and blackmailing them with their secrets. We've managed to find out the man's identity and his base location, and it was decided that you're the only man who can properly put an end to it. As such, a little break out was deemed a necessary risk."

"Risk factor?"

"Inside, a two at worst. So long as you've not started any silly rivalries," Albion typed something on a keyboard. "Outside… you can handle. It's a maximum-security prison so it won't be a walk in the park, but you can get out. If you follow my instructions."

"When do I not?"

"Recently, when you had a gun fight in the Louvre and pissed off the French government," Albion tutted, and Laxus grinned. "I told you multiple times to guide your mark to one of many abandoned buildings in Paris. Did you do that? No. You let him take you to a tourist attraction filled with priceless art pieces, all of which France has a vested interest in not having blown up and shredded with bullets. You can see why they're hardly receptive to our bargaining."

"It was a glorious fight though," Laxus laughed. "And the only paintings that got destroyed were ones nobody gives a crap about. Who cares?"

"The people who locked you up. That's who," Albion grunted. "Twenty seconds. Every lock on every cell will break open. It'll take a few seconds for the alarms to go off, and a few more for people to realise what's going on, so don't rush out before the mob does. Some of my men on the inside should have been ruffling feathers for the last month. Things are tense, yes?"

"It's a fucking powder keg," Laxus grinned.

"Then prepare for it to explode," Albion's voice was charged with electricity. "Your first port of call is the kitchen; I've had that ridiculous Walther stored there in case you need it," Laxus grinned at the mention of his prized gun. He truly was spoiled. "I've got eyes on every camera, so I can guide you there. Will you do as your told?"

"Like the best pet you've ever had."

"That'll be the day," Albion chuckled. "Five seconds before pandemonium."

Laxus counted down in his mind, body ready to pounce. The doors clicked open in a chorus of thudding. He didn't move. Flashing lights and raucous alarms split through the air. He still didn't move. Jeers, roars and yells began as prisoners stormed the landings. He still didn't move. Scuffing of feet and throwing of fists created a cacophony of violence. The powder keg had exploded, and it was Laxus' time to act.

He launched forward, pushing his way through the brawling crowd of men. His suit made him stick out in the sea of beige, but he doubted it mattered. Laxus was known to be a spy, it was obvious the service wanted him out, and only a group of their power could organise something like this. Laxus would have a target painted on his back either way; better to cover that back in a sharp suit.

Despite obviously being the odd one out, none of the other inmates paid him any mind. The lack of a full guard and the blaring of the alarm was the perfect cover for each and every one of them to settle the grudges that had been simmering below. All Laxus had to do was shove and push his way through the crowd. Albion talked only when necessary, informing Laxus of an oncoming fight he would need to break through, or perhaps the occasional airborne object thrown in anger. Laxus avoided them dutifully, using his strength to cut through the throngs of criminals.

"The guards are approaching. Don't attack them, it won't help," Albion demanded. "Let the others get into shoving contests. Use them as a distraction."

"Sure," Laxus nodded, ducking into an empty cell as the yells of the guards joined the cacophony. Laxus absently smiled; French was a weird language to yell in. "Tell me when I have an opening."

"Of course, agent," Albion hummed, voice a little distracted.

"What?"

"Human error. Every protocol has the guards entering a certain way, but they seem not to be following them," Albion muttered. "Don't worry, you'll be fine. I'm just reassessing." Laxus nodded but didn't say anything. After a few heavy moments, his earpiece was back on. "You've kept yourself healthy, yes?"

"Of course."

"Are you up for some minor acrobatics?" Albion spoke jovially, as if it were a lark.

"Do I have to wear tights? Circuses normally require them."

"Lucky for you, I gave up my ringmaster dreams at a young age, so no tights. Though, no doubt you'd wear them well of course," Laxus grinned; their flirtation was an irregular pastime which he always enjoyed. "The issue is every protocol has the guards using the staircases that prisoners have no access to. They've decided to ignore that and use the spiral staircases that connect each gantry. I was hoping you could use them to get to the lower floor. That's not an option."

"So, acrobatics?"

"Every level has netting, to protect from anyone being thrown over. If you jump onto a net and cut through it, you fall to the nest level. If you keep doing it, you end up in the canteen and you can enter the kitchen from there," Albion was typing still. The clicks were loud and comforting. "After you cut the last net, you'll have a fall onto concrete. It's approximately eighteen feet high. How do you intend to survive it without injury?"

"Cut a long tear in the net, let it fall and grab it just before I hit the ground," Laxus offered.

"Just what I was thinking," Albion praised, and Laxus almost preened. "Off you go then, Agent."

Laxus nodded. He looked around the cell and spotted the mirror. He slammed his elbow into it, picking up one of the biggest shards. He wrapped it up in the pocket square that had come with the suit – it hurt to break up the set, but needs must – and then settled himself in the back. He took a short breath, shook out his muscles, before launching forward.

He vaulted the balcony rail and landed on the safety net. He used the glass shard to cut a hole large enough for him to slide through. He repeated the movements again and again, getting closer to the bottom layer of the jail where the canteen lay. The guards yelled around him, and clearly, they were running down to get to him before he landed in the canteen. He hoped Albion had a way of dealing with them, because Laxus doubted he could fight off that many men without having to use his more fatal techniques. He probably shouldn't piss off the French government any further by killing its employees.

On the last layer, he cut two long tears into the net. A coil of rope clattered to the ground and Laxus slid through the gap left, grabbing the rope just before he hit the long table. It burned his palm and gave him a crick in his wrist, but nothing too bad. He looked around, waiting to be ambushed. There were no guards.

"Am I okay to go on?" Laxus asked.

"Of course," Albion confirmed, then added with a scoff. "Electric locks powered by Wi-Fi. It's like they wanted me to play around with them."

"That why you're helping me? A bit of fun playing around with weak security tech?"

"It certainly sweetened the pot," Albion laughed.

"Ass," Laxus grinned, storming into the vacant kitchen. "Where's my gun?"

"You see that pot of soup? It's in there."

Laxus walked to a three-gallon pot of what seemed to be cold cream of chicken soup. He looked into it and screwed up his face. "Why's it in there?"

"For the eight years we've worked together, I have offered literally hundreds of times to create a new weapon for you. It could be a technological marvel, only work to your handprint and have the power of a shotgun with the sleekness of a pistol. I've all but begged you to let me make you a piece of art, and each time you've denied me and told me you'll stick with your horrid old Walther," Albion was smug. "As such, you get your Walther. But if you want it, you have to dig around through some rather cheap and nasty soup. As cheap and nasty as your gun. I thought it poetic."

"Anyone ever tell you you're a child?"

"Most of my department when I took over. Admittedly I was seventeen at the time, but still," Albion laughed. "I do wonder how they're doing now. The job market is a vicious place."

Laxus ignored the comment, rolling up his jacket and shirt sleeve. He dunked his hand into the soup and rummaged around to find the gun. "When I get out, I'm gonna kill ya for making me do this."

"I haven't made you do anything. If you were thinking straight, you would have realised you could have poured the soup down the drain. I do like this outcome though," Albion's arrogance was a shot to Laxus' spine. Albion was right; Laxus needed to get his head back in the game fully. He grabbed the handle of his gun and pulled it out. He ran it under some water and dried it off. "It'll work fine. Without you around I've had time to give it some upgrades. The accursed thing is damn near indestructible now."

"Great," Laxus grinned, assessing the clip before sliding it into place. "What next?"

"The pantry. I assume you know where it is?" Laxus nodded at the CCTV camera, and Albion spoke again. "You get in there, close the door, and get under the shelves. They'll be a signal, once you get it, you run like hell."

"What's the signal?"

"I think you'll know. It'll be the fourth one," Albion didn't say anything more for a moment, but Laxus heard a decisive push of a keyboard button. "No going back now, Agent Dreyar. I really do recommend you get in the pantry."

Laxus did as he was told, moving to the small pantry and ducking under the shelves of tins. He instinctively got into the duck and cover position, reading between the lines of what Albion had told him. He waited in stagnant anticipation for something to happen and, after a few heavy seconds, he heard the telltale sign of an explosion. A few seconds later, there was another. It was closer this time. Then there was another, close enough to rattle the tins above him. He balled up the pocket square into a tip and shoved it into his right ear, covering it with his palm. He could only hope that the earpiece in his left ear was soundproof.

The final explosion was close, knocking half the tins off. Debris clattered into the door to the pantry, something heavy slamming into it with a force that dented it. The sound of rubble settling broke though the slight ringing, and Laxus kicked open the door. The kitchen had been destroyed, the exterior wall nothing but rubble. The epicentre of the explosion seemed to be the oven. Laxus wondered who had rigged it to explode and when.

"Now would be when you run, Agent Dreyar."

Doing just that, Laxus began a sprint. He climbed through the hole in the wall, which led out to the exercise yard. He sprinted across it; gun ready to shoot anyone who needed it. He wouldn't use deadly force, but shins and shoulders were good targets.

A hail of bullets could have surrounded him, but he didn't know it. The gravel cracked and crunched under him, and he was illuminated by a spotlight from above the roof of the jail. He kept running, seeing the hole blown into the wall of the yard. His muscles burned in a way they hadn't in his months in jail; a thrill burned inside of him as he ran for his life. You needed to be messed up to be a spy, and Laxus most certainly was.

On the other side of the wall, there was a vast expanse of grass with a fence at the end of it. It was a shooting ground, where any runaway would be shot down. Laxus was not just any runaway though. He wasn't a criminal who made a mistake, or a twisted fuck who had planned out murders for his own fun. He was a weapon trained to get the mission done, and his current mission was to get through the hole in the fence without dying. He hasn't lost a mission yet, and he wasn't going to break the habit when his mission was survival.

With calculated movements, he avoided any shots aimed at his way. The spotlight still trained on him alerted him of any obstacles on the ground, and the only guns that could reach him now were snipers. Years ago, Laxus had learned how to spot the glimmer of a sniper's sight; the little red beams were a warning siren for Laxus.

"Final stretch," Laxus shouted as he ran. "What happens once I'm out?"

"Pick-up," Albion informed him. "And since I'm the one picking you up, I'll be away from coms. Can you handle yourself?"

"Yessir."

A telltale tone played in the earpiece, telling Laxus that Albion could no longer hear him. He pushed on forward, hearing the revving engines of either quad bikes or motorbikes trailing him. He laughed, wondering if the idiots who were chasing him knew how bad of an idea that was. As the engines got louder, Laxus turned and brandished his weapon, shooting tires without a second's hesitation. Tire popping was day one in the Service's training; Laxus could do it in his sleep.

With three shots, three wheels burst and the riders of the bikes flew off to the dirt. Laxus kept up his pace, seeing the final wall which held the smallest hole. He sprinted towards it, ducking down and running through the rubble with a half squat.

The second he was out of the prison's grounds, he heard the screeching of tires.

A van – covered in the branding for a French cable company – was peeling towards him with its side door open. Laxus kept up his sprint, legs aching as he got closer and closer to the road. The van didn't slow down, and Laxus forced himself to speed up. With a final burst of energy, he leapt forward into a jump, his feet clattering against the floor of the van. He barrelled into the other side of the van, slamming his shoulder into it.

"You couldn't have put something soft for me to land on?" Laxus asked.

"Oh dear, you really have gotten entitled. I dread to think what you'd do if you were incarcerated in one of those Scandinavian jails. You'd have me dress up as a waiter and deliver you martinis," Albion's charming voice didn't come through the earpiece, but from the front of the van. "Three cars following us. Tires please."

Laxus nodded. He pushed himself up, using the desk that housed a computer to do so. He pushed himself to the still open door of the van, grabbed a piece of fabric looped into a handhold, and swung himself off of the van. Three police cars were following, alarms blaring. Three quick shots had them spinning out, spiralling onto the grass and coming to a complete stop. Laxus pulled himself back into the van, looking up to see a helicopter above them.

"You got a plan for that?"

"Laser pointer to your right. It'll mess up their cameras," Albion informed him. "The chopper is borrowed from a local police force. Easy enough to deal with."

Laxus leant out of the van again, this time equipped with a laser pointer you could get from a dollar store. He shon it upwards, flickering it over the camera of the chopper. He made sure to get each and every camera that the model of helicopter had, before pulling himself back into the van. He looked to the back of Albion's head.

"What about heat sensors?"

"Close the door, the van has excellent climate control," Albion said.

Laxus grabbed the handle and pulled it shut. A cold blast of air hit him the moment he did, and he winced a little at the ferocity of it. It could have only taken a few seconds for the van to be borderline frigid. He had no doubt that it was perfectly calculated so that the van now looked entirely the same as the stagnant fields around them. His Albion certainly wasn't going to make any mistakes when it came to technology.

He collapsed into the only chair in the back of the van and saw a first aid kit waiting for him. He laughed and looked down at himself, seeing a few bullet holes that had cut into his suit. He shucked the jacket off and started to tend to them.

Albion drove in silence for a while, and Laxus let his mind wander and the adrenaline die down. He didn't know how long it took for Albion to pull the van into a parking lot in a small town. The van juddered to a close and Laxus pulled himself up from the chair. He dutifully opened the door and climbed out of the van. They were in the middle of a supermarkets lot, exactly in the middle of it. Laxus looked around at the sound of a door slamming shut and turned and smiled.

"Albion," Laxus greeted with a nod.

"Agent Dreyar," Albion returned the nod.

Laxus looked him up and down slowly. Months being deprived of the man had been far too long. He was as strong and sturdy as before, with his hair as well tended to as always. He wore a tweed suit with ridiculous elbow patches that Laxus would have to mock at a later point. He was wearing glasses Laxus knew for a fact didn't have prescription in the lenses. He was the perfect looking geek, an ideal disguise for the viciously intelligent man he was.

He walked forward and took the man by the back of his neck. He leant down and brought the man into a slow, tender kiss. He grinned and leant back, resting his forehead against the other. "Hello Freed."

"Hello Laxus."

Laxus grinned, watching as Freed reached into the breast pocket of his jacket and pulled something out. A small, golden ring was pressed into Laxus' palm, and he slowly slid it on. The weight of it was something he had been missing since he took the mission all those months ago. His wedding ring clicked against the identical one on Freed's finger, and Laxus smiled.

"I missed you," He whispered.

"I should think so, too," Freed smirked, and dammit Laxus had missed his husband's smugness. "Now, we should leave. This van will explode and dying here would be quite the anticlimax."

Laxus nodded, and they both went towards the only other car in the lot. Freed wordlessly pulled out some keys and tossed them to Laxus, who grinned when he saw the Bentley logo on them. He unlocked the car and climbed in without a word, running his hand over the wheel in admiration. Freed could make as many comments as he wanted about how spoiled he had been in the French jail, but nobody spoiled Laxus more than Freed himself.

With Freed in the passenger's seat, Laxus started the engine. Freed tapped on his phone and the GPS of the car shot to life with a destination of a known safe house appearing. Laxus rolled his shoulders and started to drive, loving the purr of the engine under him. He really missed driving.

"So," Laxus said. "Not that I don't wanna chat with you, but you mentioned a hacker I have to deal with. What do we know?"

"Oh don't worry, you being out of jail has stopped him."

"How can you be-" Laxus cut himself off, then looked at his husband. "You haven't been blackmailing foreign governments, have you?"

Freed seemed to consider his answer. "I got bored without you and developed a hobby. You can barely blame me. I doubt anyone thought I'd follow through on the threats, and it pushed the Service into acting."

"So you missed me, huh?"

"You're my husband, of course I missed you," Freed muttered, pouting a little.

"Well Albion, I'm all yours."

"As if you'd have it any other way."

They shared a grin as the van exploded behind them.

#Fraxus Week 2023 #Fraxus Week #Fraxus #Freed Justine #Laxus Dreyar #Fairy Tail #Fanfic #Writing #One Shot #Writing Event #Modern AU #Spy AU

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