Chapter 4: Angry Wolf
A/N: I really have nothing important to say. Just thank you all for reviewing and thank you to my beta. Other than that, I don't know.
It's hotttttttt!! That's my big news for today. My school seriously needs to get air conditioning. And I'm building a computer that is awesome and all's it needs now it an OS. W00t!
And if you can't tell, I am in a really, really random mood. Now, I'm going to go study for finals and let you get on with the story!
Onward!
“Ben, why didn’t you tell them?”
Ben grinned, “Oh, it was so much more fun this way.”
The rest of K-unit was looking between Alex and Ben in shock, in Eagle’s case the openmouthed variety. Wolf’s shock however was quickly changing into suspicion and the traditional accompanying anger.
“What didn’t he tell us?” he asked Alex angrily.
Alex hesitated for a moment. He didn’t really want to get Ben into trouble right after seeing him again, but he kind of deserved it and they were going to find out anyway.
“That I was coming.” He explained reluctantly.
Wolf rounded on Ben. “You knew about him,” a vague gesture in Alex’s direction was made, “and you failed to tell us why?” Wolf growled.
Ben looked sheepish. “Because I forgot?” he supplied tentatively.
This was apparently the wrong thing to say. “Because you forgot? Now you’re gonna lie? What are you, a goddamn teenager? I guess I just didn’t realize you were that immature, Ben!” Wolf yelled.
Ben looked ready to protest and Snake had opened his mouth to step in, but it seemed like the name had brought Eagle out of his bout of shock. Interrupting the current conversation as if it had never happened, he turned to Alex.
“How’d you know his name?” he demanded.
“Wh…what?” Alex asked, caught off guard by the sudden change in conversation.
“You called Fox, Ben,” Eagle explained impatiently. “How’d you know it?”
Wolf turned to glare at Alex too. “Yes, that’s a good question. How the hell do you know that, Cub?”
“I…” Alex began, glancing at Ben. He didn’t want to get the man into any more trouble and he had no idea what K-unit already knew.
Ben saw the look and understood. He took over. “Alex was with me on my last mission,” he explained as the others turned to him. “You know the one where I got shot? I was protecting him when it happened. I told him my name when I first met up with him, though,” he turned to Alex, “you’d better call me Fox while we’re here. We don’t want to be overheard.” Alex nodded, mentally noting it.
Wolf looked none too pleased by that piece of information. “More things you conveniently forgot to tell us?” he asked, his voice low and dangerous.
“Oh stop glaring at me,” Fox said, sounding a little annoyed by his teammate’s animosity. “It’s not like I was trying to keep that from you. It just never came up. You just got here; I never had a chance to explain about the mission.”
Wolf still looked ready to explode, but Snake stepped in. “It’s true, Wolf. Fox told me when I went down to him. He wasn’t withholding it.”
“Yeah, c’mon Wolf. We’ve only been here, what, 24 hours?” Eagle supplied.
Wolf nodded in acknowledgment, but still turned to Fox, apparently still mad about the earlier prank. “Fine, but that still doesn’t excuse you from not briefing us on Cub’s arrival.” He said, glaring. “That was idiotic and childish! We’re a team. We don’t keep secrets!” he yelled, his voice rising.
Fox sighed. “Look Wolf, I’m sorry ok? I was just messing around because I haven’t seen you in a really long time. It’s not that serious.”
This seemed to appease Wolf somewhat, but he still was determined to make his point. “It is serious when you don’t tell your team things. You know that,” he insisted. “Besides, what if we blew Cub’s cover?”
At this, Fox laughed. “Aw, Wolf, I have more faith in you guys than that.”
Wolf rolled his eyes heavenward, in what Alex assumed was irritation with the idiots of the world and took a deep breath.
“We’ll discuss this later,” he told Fox icily. “Now would someone mind explaining what the hell he,” he gestured vaguely in Alex’s direction, “is doing here?”
Fox shrugged. “Well he already pretty much told you. Scorpia’s pissed at him so they’re targeting him and his class. They’ve threatened to kill them, so MI6 arranged to have them sent here. Even Scorpia would be hard pressed to pull anything off here, not that they won’t try. There’s already been an attack I believe.”
Alex was well aware of the 3 pairs of eyes that swiveled to stare at him. Eagle broke the silence first, saying, “Bloody hell, Cub. What’d you do to make them that angry?”
Inwardly, Alex pondered exactly what had made Scorpia so angry. His traitor father who successfully double crossed them? His own double crossing? Maybe it was his decimation of two of their major operations, or the death of their prized assassin, or the death of two of their board members, or perhaps it was him surviving their attempt to get even. Not feeling particularly inclined to share any of these reasons with K-unit, Alex just shrugged.
“It’s complicated.” he mumbled.
Eagle raised an eyebrow and looked ready to push the issue, but Fox cut him off.
“I’m pretty sure it’s a long story, so you can torture him for information later.” he told Eagle knowingly. “Anyway, MI6 decided that this was a perfect opportunity for Alex here to get some training. That’s where we come in. Apparently, last time was a bit too brief for their tastes. They want a bit more specialized, in-depth approach. I have files for you back at the ranch with the details.”
Wolf was looking murderous again. “So, basically, we’re babysitting a bunch of school kids because Cub here was stupid enough to piss off a major criminal organization and the Firm thought they’d take advantage?”
Fox shrugged and nodded. “Pretty much, yeah.”
Alex frowned. “It wasn’t all my fault,” he protested, feeling Wolf’s summary was more than a bit unfair. Scorpia had a vendetta against him since he was born, after all - and he was sent to them. “I couldn’t help a lot of it.”
Snake frowned. “What do you mean?” he frowned.
Alex, realizing he had just stupidly opened himself up for questioning, shifted uncomfortably. “Just that it’s, uh, kind of a family thing I guess. And that I didn’t actually know what Scorpia was when I went looking for them…” When he saw the team’s eyes widen, he realized his mistake.
“You went looking for them?!” Eagle asked incredulously.
“Well…”Alex said awkwardly, cursing his stupidity.
“You’re right Cub. I was wrong,” Wolf said, voice deceptively calm. “You weren’t stupid. You’re a fucking imbecile!” The last part was yelled. Alex flinched.
“Wolf, don’t,” Fox said. “It really wasn’t his fault.”
“He goes looking for Scorpia and you’re telling me it’s not his fault?” Wolf yelled. “Now we’re stuck dealing with this mess,” he glared menacingly at Fox, “Which you forgot to mention, and now we find out that you two are buddies. Well that’s fucking perfect – you two idiots go well together!”
There was a moment of silence. Alex was fairly thrown by Wolf’s reaction. He hadn’t expected the man to be pleased to see him, but Wolf was practically imploding. He had a sneaking suspicion that there was more going on than just his arrival.
“Wolf -” Snake began awkwardly.
Wolf held up a hand to stop him. “Just tell me that he is not the reason that we got saddled with this sorry excuse for an assignment,” he growled dangerously.
Fox shrugged helplessly with a despairing half smile. “He probably is. They’d want to keep the people who know about him to an absolute minimum, I’d guess.”
Wolf closed his eyes and drew in a deep, shuddering breath. He let it out slowly.
He turned to Alex. “Look Cub, go. Just… go. Eat dinner or whatever.” His voice was tight and clipped, his temper apparently firmly reigned in. “We’ll talk to you when we get this sorted out.” He directed a glare at Fox, who just grinned sheepishly. Wolf sighed in frustration, and then, with one last glower in Fox’s direction, stormed off, presumably to K-unit’s hut.
Fox watched for a moment shaking his head, before following Wolf.
The other three stared at the two retreating backs for a long minute, snapping out of it at the sound of a door being slammed in the distance. Immediately, Eagle broke the silence, cheerfully announcing, “Well, that went well.” Alex looked at him incredulously. “What?” Eagle exclaimed in fake surprise. “There were no casualties.” He turned to Snake. “Now, I say we give them 15 minutes and then go in to clean up the carnage.”
Alex glanced worriedly in the direction Fox and Wolf had taken. He had just seen Fox and now he had stupidly gotten the other man into trouble with quite possibly the most irritable man in the SAS. Brilliant. He should have just kept his mouth shut. “I hope I haven’t gotten Fox into too much trouble. I guess my arrival really screwed up your unit.” he said apologetically.
Snake turned to him, eyes unreadable. “It’s not your fault. It really has very little to do with you.”
“Yeah,” Eagle agreed. “Thing’s have just been going downhill for Wolf since
Fox got seconded to MI6. He needed to blow off some steam.” Seeing Alex’s
questioning look, he continued, “Well, Wolf was pretty unhappy that his team
got messed up. Then we got informed that you were in hospital with
appendicitis.” Alex was surprised by this. So apparently they didn’t know he’d
been shot. Well, that was fine by him. “Wolf hates it when anything or anyone
messes with his unit. And you’re kind of like the little one in our team, so he
was none too pleased. Then we get the news that Ben’s been shot and of course
Wolf was like a ticking time bomb then. Nobody went within 10 feet of him for
days. Then things in
Alex nodded. “Wolf didn’t seem too happy to see me,” he agreed sourly.
Snake looked at him. “It’s not really you personally,” he said perceptively, “It’s more so the whole taking care of children aspect.”
“It’s true,” Eagle affirmed. “Wolf plus kids can be universally expected to equal disaster. He just doesn’t get on well with them.”
Alex smiled. It was certainly true of their relationship, to say the least.
“So Wolf’s been waiting to explode for a while now,” Eagle concluded. “All of this just finally pushed him over the edge.”
Snake, seeing Alex’s worry, quickly reassured him. “Don’t worry about Wolf. He’ll cool off – it’s not really you he’s mad at. And Fox’ll be fine. He’s the best at calming Wolf down. He usually can do it in minutes.”
“Yeah, but this time its Fox that Wolf’s angry with instead of me. It’ll probably take longer,” Eagle said bluntly, sounding completely unsupportive.
“Thanks for your help,” Snake said sarcastically to Eagle. “But really Cub, Wolf never stays mad at Fox for long.” He turned to Eagle. “I’m going to go see if we can get this sorted out.” He strode off in the direction the other two had gone.
“And there goes Snake to restore peace and harmony to the unit,” Eagle said happily. Alex just looked at him strangely.
“What?” Eagle exclaimed. “Stop looking at me funny! Why do people always do that? Snake is always the one to settle the conflict. He hates when people in our team are mad at each other, almost as much as he hates it when any of us get hurt.” He shuddered, in memory. “Then Snake gets downright scary, scarier than Wolf even. When the news that Fox got shot came, he was pissed as hell and enough of a bastard that he managed to get permission from HQ and our OC (i) to fly down to take over Fox’s medical treatment, and let me tell you that’s no easy feat. I felt bad for the doctors,” he confided. “He probably bit their heads off, especially when he first got there.”
“Really?” Alex asked. “He doesn’t seem like the type to get all riled up.”
“Oh, he is when it comes to his mates getting injured. He turns from his usual calm educated self, into an icy-eyed Scottish wild man who takes pleasure in terrorizing hospital staff.”
Alex considered this. Snake didn’t really seem that bad. Then he remembered his previous sojourn with the SAS. That Snake could fit the picture Eagle was painting.
“You know Cub, you’d better go to dinner if you want to eat,” Eagle said cheerfully. Alex looked at his watch and swore, realizing that he was indeed missing dinner. He ran off towards the mess, leaving Eagle chuckling behind him.
Inside the rough wooden building were rows of steel tables. His class was seated to one side, while SAS men were spread out throughout the rest of the room. Alex grabbed a tray, quickly got his food, and then made his way over to his classmates. Nick looked up and saw him coming and waved him over. Alex slid into a seat across from Tom.
“So?” Nick said, leaning in conspiratorially. “What happened?”
Alex saw that the rest of the boys sitting near them were listening for his answer, interested and hesitated. Then in reply to the question, Alex answered carefully, “They just wanted to ask me some questions about my medical history. I think they’re trying to figure out what to do with me.” He started eating, making a face at the unappetizing stew that served as dinner.
“So what are you going to be doing?” Emma asked. “Have they told you yet?”
Alex shrugged. “Not really. Just less physically strenuous stuff I guess.” He made a face. “I don’t know why they’re so concerned. I’m fine.”
Nick laughed. “They probably don’t want to be liable or something if you collapse.”
Alex agreed. Tom nodded and rolled his eyes. “God forbid if precious Alex should get hurt. I mean, Jack might sue!” There was a level to the sarcasm that only Alex picked up. Tom knew that MI6 had never really given a damn about whether he got hurt or not. Alex flashed him a quick smile.
“It can’t be too bad Alex,” Emma comforted teasingly. “You get to spend extra alone time with those hot SAS guys!” The boys around her stared at her in horror. “What?” she asked. “Even you guys have to admit they are fit.” She sighed and continued dreamily, “They have that chiseled physique, that powerful, sexy attitude… ” The boys were practically gagging by then and Emma shot them an annoyed look causing them to laugh.
“Well, now that you’ve scarred Alex for life,” Nick said breezily when they calmed down. “Seriously though mate, I feel for you.”
“Why would you feel bad for him?” a boy further down the table sneered. “Rider gets all the soft options while we actually have to work. Not that I’m surprised by that, Rider.”
Alex and Nick turned to look at the boy. It was Tyler Briggs, Alex realized
with a mental sigh. They had never gotten on. Alex was better than him at
football, for which
“Yeah, I feel bad for him,” Nick responded with exaggerated obviousness. “He has to spend time with large, tough SAS guys who are in serious need of an attitude adjustment. Who would want that?”
“You would be intimidated by them Hall,”
Alex surveyed the other boy coolly. “I didn’t ask for this, you know,” he said evenly, hoping to ward off any other potential repeats of this. He was very aware that the rest of the class was watching the exchange. “I can’t help that I’ve been sick and that the SAS is concerned for some reason.”
“Riiight,”
“Leave him alone,” Emma said quietly, but fiercely. “It’s none of your business.”
“Oh look, Rider – your bitch is talking,”
Nick and Tom started to rise. “Leave her out of it,” Nick warned dangerously.
“And here comes the rest of your posse. Can’t even fight your own battles,
Rider? Oh that’s right, you’re sickly,”
“Back off, Briggs,” Tom threatened.
“Or what, Harris?”
“Oh grow up,” Alex said coolly.
“You would know about that, wouldn’t you Rider? I bet your gang friends make you feel real mature.”
“If you really think he’s in a gang, why would you pick a fight with him?” Josh asked condescendingly.
“You think I’m not tough enough to fight him?”
“No, but I hoped you were smarter,” Josh sighed.
It was looking like there was going to be an all out brawl, but then another boy spoke up. “Come on Ty,” he said. “We have better things to do than waste time with them.”
The boy, Andy Manning Alex noted, gave Alex’s group a quick nod before
following
“Andy always was a decent bloke,” Nick said to ease the tension.
“Yeah,” Alex agreed. Andy was a leader in their school. An easygoing kind of guy, he was very popular. He and Alex had never been tight, but they got on well enough.
“So Alex,” Nick said. “How does it feel to have a ‘posse’?”
The other 4 stared at him for a long minute. Then Emma started to giggle and soon they were all laughing hopelessly. Tension relief was a wonderful thing.
Once they calmed down, the charged atmosphere had diffused.
“Don’t worry about jerks like
Alex smiled his thanks. “Thanks for sticking up for me.”
Josh shrugged. “What are friends for -”
“- besides crashing your parties, embarrassing you, and stealing your stuff?” Nick cut in.
Alex laughed along with his friends, and then went back to his food. He wasn’t really all that tempted to eat it, but forced himself to, knowing that he would need it once training started. He looked up to find Tom staring pointedly at him. After looking around to make sure that no one was watching, Tom mouthed ‘What’s going on?’ and Alex knew that he owed Tom an explanation. The time had come, but he couldn’t exactly tell him in the middle of the mess.
Holding Tom’s gaze, Alex asked “Does anyone remember where the toilet is?” Tom, catching his meaning, replied quickly, “Yeah, c’mon, I’ll show you.”
Both boys stood up to leave, depositing their used trays on the way out. Once clear of the mess, Tom turned to Alex. “So what’s going -” but Alex held a finger to his lips and motioned for Tom to follow him. He led him behind a nearby building. After checking to make sure no one was around, he nodded to Tom.
Tom practically exploded. “What’s going on? You haven’t told me anything and I’d be an idiot to believe that we’re being told the truth.”
Alex sighed. “Well, the part about Scorpia targeting our class was true enough. What they didn’t say was that it was because of me. Scorpia’s the organization that shot me, remember? Well, apparently they’ve decided the vendetta still stands and they want me dead.”
Tom gasped. “Oh my God Alex. So, that’s really why we’re here?”
Alex nodded. “They figure we’re pretty safe here.”
Tom paused for a minute, absorbing this information. “So then what’s all this about your health? I’m sure that’s a lie, and no way are you going to be doing easier stuff.”
“Of course I’m not,” Alex affirmed. “MI6 has decided that this is a prime opportunity to have me get more training. Last time was a little rushed, so they’re going to exploit this as much as they can.” He sighed. “I can’t say I’m looking forward to it.”
Tom gripped his arm sympathetically. “I’m sure it’ll be alright. After all, you’re the best right? They wouldn’t do anything too bad to you.”
Alex laughed. “Oh, they would. Especially considering who our ‘teachers’ are.”
Tom frowned, confused. “What do you mean?” he asked.
“Remember I was here before? Well, I got placed in a unit to train. That would be K-unit.”
Tom’s eyes widened. “You know them?” he asked incredulously.
“Unfortunately, yeah,” Alex replied.
“But…that’s good right?” Tom frowned.
“Tom, we didn’t exactly get on,” Alex explained.
“Oh,” Tom said a little put out. “So they’re pretty nasty?”
Alex shrugged. “Well, Fox is ok. I worked with him before and he was actually pretty nice to me. And Snake and Eagle seem alright, when they’re not in tough-guy mode. I guess its just Wolf really. We’ve never gotten on.”
Tom nodded. “So he’s the jerk?”
“Yeah, well, he tried to get me binned last time – thrown out,” Alex clarified seeing Tom’s confusion. “But then I sort of helped him and then we were on a mission and he saved my life… so I thought we were ok. And he did send me a card when I got shot, so it seemed like he cared. But he did not seem too pleased to see me today. He’s pissed as hell about having to ‘baby-sit a bunch of school kids’ as he put it.”
“And now you have to spend one on one time with him. No wonder you seem down.” Tom said, beginning to understand.
Alex sighed. “Hopefully I can just pretty much stay out of his way.”
They stood there in companionable silence for a moment, each mulling over their own thoughts.
“We’d better get go back before the others start to wonder,” Alex said.
Tom agreed and they moved off to return to their friends.
As dinner was coming to a close, the training sergeant came over to address them.
“Breakfast tomorrow is at 0600 hours. Be on time or you don’t eat. You’ll be spending the day being tested so that your leaders will have some idea of where you’re at, pitiful as that may be. You have the rest of the night to get accustomed to the area. I suggest you get some sleep – you’ll need it.” A hint of a wolfish grin flashed on his face, then he dismissed them.
Alex got up with his friends to walk back to the barracks. As he was heading out the door, he passed Fox. The man caught Alex’s gaze and deliberately brushed past him. As Fox moved, Alex felt something being pressed into his hand.
Alex just kept walking, but couldn’t help the small smile that crept onto his face. It was so very James Bond– esque, the whole brush pass. Fox must have been enjoying it greatly.
They rest of his classmates were gathering in the boys barracks. It wasn’t too late so no one felt motivated to go to bed. They’d just have to amuse themselves for a while. Alex’s group moved over to where the boy’s bunks were.
Alex pretended to rummage through his stuff while surreptitiously looking at the note Fox had slipped him.
Cub – meet at hut after kiddies go to bed
Alex sighed. Wonderful. He got to go see K-unit again and he had to sneak out to do so. And he always did love less sleep.
Deciding not to worry about that for the moment, Alex turned back to his friends.
Nick pulled out a pack of cards with a flourish. “Anyone want to play ‘the Game’?”
One hour, 3 ‘have a nice day’s, 5 ‘failure to play in a reasonable amount of time’s and 17 ‘point of order’s later, people were starting to think about going to bed(ii).
Emma left with a yawn to go sleep, with the other girls. Alex was amused
that it was only
He pretended to get ready for bed, changing into a t-shirt and boxers, but left his uniform out where he could easily slip into it later. Changing was a process in itself. Alex didn’t want anyone to see his scars – that would lead to too many questions, so he changed quickly, facing the wall. He got into bed and pulled up the lone blanket after calling good night to his friends. Then the long wait started.
He didn’t want to sleep, because there was no way he could set an alarm without waking the others. Instead, he was forced to just lie there, thinking.
So they had finally arrived at the camp. At least the suspense was over now – K-unit was there with Wolf as bad-tempered as ever although, Alex was a little hurt by Wolf’s attitude. He hadn’t expected the man to be friendly, but he’d been under the impression that they’d reached a mutual understanding after Point Blanc. Wolf had sent him that card after all, even if he had thought Alex had appendicitis at the time. But today Wolf had been as bad as he’d been when Alex first met him. It did sound like the man had been having a bad time lately, though and Alex wondered briefly what had happened in Iraq – both Eagle and Snake had seemed upset about it so obviously it was something bad. He wondered if it had something to do with K-unit getting sent to help with his training.
Alex waited an hour before getting up. Carefully, he slid out of bed. He slipped on his uniform and laced up his boots swiftly and silently. He was thankful his friends had picked out a bottom bunk for him. It made this so much easier. Padding to the rear door silently, coincidentally located right next to his bunk (for which Alex again thanked his friends’ unintentional choices or maybe Tom’s instincts), he opened it, careful to make no noise, and slipped out into the night.
He jogged over to K-unit’s hut, wanting to get the meeting over as quickly as possible so he could just go to bed.
Entering, Alex felt a weird sense of déjà vu. Ironically, K-unit had the same hut as last time. Inside, Snake, Fox, and Eagle were lounging on their bunks much as they had been the last time. Wolf though was no where to be seen.
Snake looked up as he walked in. “Cub,” he greeted with a nod. Alex nodded back.
The others looked round at him. Fox sat up, grinning. “Glad to see you got my note.”
Alex’s lips quirked, “Did you have fun?” he asked dryly.
“Loads,” Fox replied laughing.
“Is everyone really asleep?” Eagle asked. “It’s only ten. I thought we were going to have to wait until at least 1 or 2, you being teenagers and all.”
Alex shrugged. “I guess they’re just tired from the bus ride.”
Eagle shook his head mournfully. “Oh, what adolescence has become - an insult to the generations before.” He lamented.
“So, um, was there a reason you wanted me here?” Alex asked, shifting his weight uncomfortably.
“What, you mean you don’t just want to hang out with people as awesome as us?” Eagle asked him with mock-hurt.
“Oh, lay off,” Fox said, throwing a pillow at Eagle.
Snake just rolled his eyes at them, and actually answered Alex’s question. “We’re waiting for Wolf. He had to report to the Sergeant – no one expected you to get here this fast.”
Alex nodded and stood there awkwardly.
i OC – Officer Commanding. Yes, I know it’s weird but that’s actually what the SAS use, so go with it:)
ii Yeah…OK, the Game…Sorry, it was impossible to resist. I would have put more in, but then I might end up putting in some of the rules and that would be bad. However, it might turn up later. I want to see Tom on the receiving end of “Have a very, very, very nice day” which does happen.
So review, as always. Love you all!
JK Mafia 3
