Chapter Text
It turned out that James SanLuca could not do much for the men on his sofa, he was trained in first aid but bullet wounds were a job for Snake. He was thinking about Fox and Cub, and what kind of situation the kid could have got himself into. James hadn’t moved Cub much in case he’d do more damage to any unknow and invisible injuries. He had almost called the Sargent, he was one of the very few men in the world he trusted, the others being his unit and… well that was about it. But without knowing what was going on he couldn’t tell the Sargent anything and therefore he couldn’t help. After patching them up so they wouldn’t bleed out before the cavalry arrived, he put the kettle on again, it was going to be a long day, so he was going to get as much caffeine in his system as humanly possible.
James’ slight paranoia, or caution depending on who you ask, meant he had a number of intense security measures in his apartment. Despite their rarely being anybody home. His windows were bullet proof, and in case that wasn’t good enough so were the curtains, which he’d just closed. He’d only been able to get hold of them because Fox had been gifted them from someone named Smithers, but Fox hadn’t liked the colour. The front door had several locks and was made from a solid sheet of steel so it couldn’t be kicked through and had reinforced hinges so it couldn’t be kicked down. He also had a cleaning/arsenal cupboard. The contents of which was currently strewn across his coffee table, right in front of the unconscious men. There were a couple of guns similar to the one he’d picked up when his alarm went off. One ugly looking sub-machine gun that he really shouldn’t have owned, a small pile of grenades ‘liberated’ from previous missions and a rocket launcher. Not even James was sure where that had come from but testing it had been fun.
James took a deep breath and sighed for what felt like the millionth time that morning. He heard a car door slam outside and immediately became alert again squeezing the gun that he’d picked up, and once again aimed towards the door. This time he walked slowly towards it, feet precisely placed like a tightrope walker, he reached for the door and opened it. He stuck his head and the gun around the corner shielding his body. Clambering up the stairs, with a huge bag with a red cross on it strung between them, were Snake and Eagle. James breathed a sigh of relief, seriously he had to stop sighing all the time, and ushered them inside his flat.
Before turning to look at them he relocked his door. Snake was already knelt down besides Fox, peering underneath bandages James had hastily applied. Snake was not a short man but had always looked it compared to the other men in K-Unit. He had sort black hair and looked altogether neat. In his casual clothes he really looked like he could be a particularly buff doctor or a professor, this was only reinforced by the glasses that sat gently on his nose. His rough hands moved gently over Fox’s scalp assessing the damage done to the MI6 agent.
“Wolf what the hell happened?”
The soft voice had startled James out of his slight daze. Mostly because the voice belonged to Eagle, and soft was not usually a word associated with him.
Eagle was more or less the polar opposite of Snake and for that matter, Wolf. He was madly energetic, resembling more of a toddler than a professional soldier. He was also currently the only one with a steady girlfriend. Eagle claimed it was because of his stunning good looks. He was the tallest of them and with it came a slight lankiness, but despite that he was still well built and strong. He had brown hair that looked more chestnut in bright light and a face that was almost always stretched into a bright smile. As he asked Wolf what had happened, he had an unusual expression of deep seriousness.
James thought for a moment about how to reply.
“I don’t really know, Fox turned up at my door looking like that, we dragged Cub up and then he passed out, said someone was still after them.”
Most of what Wolf said was short and sweet, everything he needed to convey in the shortest possible sentence, this was another habit learned in the SAS. It sometimes came across unfriendly, but it was essential in a war zone.
The second the word Cub came out of his mouth the two other conscious men’s heads whipped around to stare at the boy? man? on the sofa, James suddenly realised that he had no idea how old Cub really was, or how old he’d been when he’d joined them for training. Snake suddenly stopped what he was doing to Fox and moved over to look at the boy. James decided it was boy until he knew otherwise. Snakes eyes widened as he scanned Cub.
“Wolf he needs a hospital, I can barely see what’s wrong with him under the blood but there’s defiantly broken bones and cuts all over him.”
“How bad is Fox?” Wolf replied,
“Not nearly as bad, a through and through and a nasty concussion, the bloods looks like it’s mostly the kids.”
James frowned he still felt like he’d failed a member of his team when they were hurt, even when they aren’t technically a team member anymore and he hadn’t been aware of what was happening. In fact he still had no idea what was really going on and he didn’t like not knowing.
“You know why we can’t take either of them, some ones still after them it could be even more dangerous.”
Snake scowled but didn’t say anything and kept tending to Cub, trying to wipe off as much blood and dirt around some of the more sever cuts as he could. From the other sofa there was a low grown followed by Fox’s head lolling to the underside. Eagle, who had been unusually quite throughout the exchange went over to him.
“Fox?”
It came out almost timidly, a bubble of worry formed in Wolfs gut, Eagle was never this quiet and he was almost as white as Cub was under the muck. Fox replied by slowly opening his eyes, it was clearly taking quite some effort as they kept closing again before snapping open. Another groan escaped his partly separated lips and he moved to grab his arm. Eagle intercepted him.
“Don’t touch you’ve been shot.”
“Alex?”
The word was little more than a whisper, but the worry was plain in his voice.
“Whose Alex Foxy?”
Eagle had used silly nicknames with them all since day one but somehow they’d stuck and now seemed normal.
“Alex?”
It was clear fox wasn’t really with it and after hearing the exchange Snake gently nudged Eagle out the way so he could get to Fox. He produced a torch from a pocket and shined it into his eyes.
“His pupils aren’t blown, it’s a nasty concussion but it should pass fine. Has he ever had a girlfriend called Alex?”
“Not that I know of”, James answered, “Wasn’t there that girl? Sam?”
“I knew there was a girl with a boys name, so who’s Alex?”
Eagle responded this time, “Couldn’t that be Cub?”
Wolf and Snake looked at the boy on the sofa, it honestly hadn’t occurred to either of them that he might have another name. James felt the beginnings of a new worry in his gut, of course he was worried about Fox, and despite what others might think he didn’t actually want Cub dead. It was Eagle bothering him now. The man had never had his mouth shut for this long in his life and now he was staring fixatedly at Cub lying deathly still on the sofa. Eagle was exceedingly pale and his jaw looked painfully clenched. This was setting off alarm bells for James but he quickly made the decision to sort the two unconscious men out first and then they could all have a heart to heart. That wasn’t exactly Wolfs strong point so he’d make Fox do it instead, he and Eagle had always gotten on best.
Fox had briefly fallen back to sleep where he was lying but his eyes were more coherent the next time he woke up.
“Alex?”, he asked again.
This time it was Snake who replied,
“He needs a hospital, you got away lucky the bullet went right through ye, I could sew it up here if we have ta but you know I’d rather not”
His accent was thicker when he was concentrating and right now he wasn’t sure if he’d ever concentrated so hard.
“We can’t take him to a hospital it’s too risky. I don’t think they followed us but I can’t be sure.”
“Whose they?” Eagle said at the same time as Wolf asked,
“How serious?” And Snake said,
“No hospital, Fox the lad ‘ll be on his death bed if you’re not careful.”
He answered Snake first despite the mans statement not actually being a question.
“I know Snake, trust me I know but you send him to a hospital right now with no protection then he’s as good as dead anyway, I only just managed to get him out in the first place, I can’t lose him now.”
The statement baffled James slightly, that sounded almost like Fox knew Cub but surly that couldn’t be true the boy was only at camp for a week and surly that nasty incident at point blanc had been a one off. He made a mental note to ask about it later but now just wasn’t the time.
Fox’s face screwed up and it seemed like the pain was beginning to catch up with him. Before he could do anything else Snake had reached into his bag with all the speed and stealth of a ninja and grabbed a tiny syringe full of morphine, stripped the cap off and stabbed Fox with it. Fox gave Snake a glare but then almost immediately relaxed, he gave a deep sigh and began to speak again.
“They’re a group trying to kill Alex” a quiet ‘not for the first time’ was heard under his breath. James stored this little titbit away.
“This is the safest place I could think to bring him, sorry Wolf. Anyway, I was sent on a mission to extract an unknown agent from the base of a know criminal organisation, I got there and I found out it was Alex here.”
He glanced over at Alex and gave a nervous little cough.
“He was already in pretty bad condition when I found him, he’d been tortured. Snake you’re going to have to look at his back, but he won’t want you to see anything. He wouldn’t let me. You’re going to have to look at the rest of him too. I managed to get him out but leaving the complex where he was held is where it went a little wrong and then this happened.”
He pointed to the bullet wound he’d acquired that Snake was currently sewing up. James was surprised Fox was barely reacting but he looked far more concerned for Cub than himself and with morphine racing through his blood maybe he couldn’t feel anything at all. A headache was starting to pull at the corners of James’ mind and wondered if Snake had anymore morphine.
“We were running and they started shooting, they got me in the shoulder and I think they got Alex too, you’ve already sewn that one up right?”
At this every head in the room snapped round to Cub. Snake dropped the needle he was holding and bolted to the boy on the sofa.
“Where did they get him” He snapped out.
“In the back of the thigh, I think.”
Snake rolled him over as gently as possible then reached down to touch the black sofa. Though due to the colour you couldn’t see it, his hand came away covered in blood. Snake stared with almost blank eyes, Eagle paled even further and looked like he might take a swan dive into the floor, Wolf swore loudly while Fox let out a small “Shit”. That was the exact moment Alex Riders chocolate brown eyes shot open and he started screaming.