Alex was having a bad day.

Wolf knew that as soon as the kid wasn't awake and making breakfast at seven thirty. Still, he gave him a good ten minutes before he went and knocked on the open door before making his way inside. That was when he knew.

It was the way the kid was lying, hunched shoulders, tangled blankets, slow deliberate breaths. He was hurting. Wolf could tell. He sat down on the edge of the bed, put a hand on Alex's shoulder, asked, "Cub?"
Alex rolled over to look at Wold. His eyes were heavy and shadowed, his face tight with pain. That and the hitch in his breathing meant he'd had a bad night.

"Hey. How you feel?"
Alex shook his head, and Wolf said, "Okay. I'll take care of it kiddo. Is it your chest?"
A nod and another wheezy breath. The kid's lungs had never been as good once he'd been shot. Wolf sighed and went into the bathroom, opened up the medicine cabinet. Alex had a whole pharmacy worth of drugs. Painkillers for his chest and his knee, sleeping pills, something for the panic attacks. Vitamins, supplements, antibiotics, antipyretics. Everything he needed to coax his stuttering body into functioning.

Wolf got the painkillers and everything else Alex needed to take, as well as snagging the heating pad from under the counter. He hesitated, then grabbed his inhaler from the counter. He came back to the room and helped Alex sit, then slipped the pad under his back and flicked it on. For whatever reason it calmed Alex down, helped him ground himself. He held the kid's water while he took all his pills, then told him, "You take it easy a little while. I'm going to make you something to eat."
He got a slow, unfocused sort of nod. The kid was feeling spacy today. Normally he was sharp as a tack, but when he was like this he just seemed to drift, as if all those bad memories blocked something. Not how intelligent Alex was, that wasn't likely to change, but more how able he was to communicate with him.

He made oatmeal, the kind Alex liked, with the dinosaurs in it, and sat by the kid's bed as he ate it. Alex didn't need the company, but he liked it, and when Alex was like this Wolf tended to be a little indulgent.

The therapist had actually suggested that Wolf make Alex go to school like this, to help him face the trauma.
But when Wolf looked at the kid he never could. Alex usually did so well, got up and got on with his life, but sometimes, every two or three months, he'd just get like this for a day or two. Things would come back to haunt him, and Wolf never had the heart to just chuck him out into the world like this, not when he obviously needed to be kept safe.

After the oatmeal was done he got a wan smile and a "Thank you." as Cub slid back down under the covers and lay still, seeming to relax. Wolf got the dishes and went out to the kitchen, then sighed and grabbed the phone. He waited until it rang through, "Snake, man? Can you come by? It's cub. Yeah."

Snake sat in Wolf's kitchen, drinking his coffee. He looked around the space, seeing the marks of Alex's existence in Wolf's life. There was the rugbby schedule on the fridge, four wins and two losses, the magnetized white board on the fridge with reminders written on it for Alex in Wolf's precise handwriting. The kid forgot things lately. The doctor said that it was the Post Traumatic Stress, Wolf just wrote things on the whiteboard. It wasn't like him to waste time dissecting things that were easily corrected. The third time Alex had gotten spacy on him he'd just bought that and began writing anything he needed on it. There was a hook for his keys and a list for the groceries, and Cub seemed to do fine.

This week it was "Physics test on Thursday." "Doctor's Appointment. 3:30." "Practice." "Take your vitamins"

There was a science test on the table, he looked at it. Alex had scored moderately well, and Wolf was going through the ones he'd gotten wrong with him.

All in all it seemed very domestic. He looked up when Wolf came out of the bedroom, nodded at him, "How is he doing then?"

Wolf shrugged, "He's sleeping again. Got him to eat."
"Good. You want me to take a look at him?"

Wolf nodded, "If you don't mind. He's seeing the doctor Thursday, but I need to know..."

"All right."

When Snake emerged ten minutes later he shook his head, "He's sleeping still. Didn't wake up when I looked him over. Let him rest."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. Best thing for him now is rest. He'll snap out of it, always does."
"The therapist says I'm coddling him."
"Of course you are." Wolf looked vaguely offended and Snake sighed, "You ask me, that boy could use some coddling. Hasn't had much of it, I don't think. Just keep doing what you are, Wolf. You're the best thing for him."

Wolf went back into Alex's room carefully. He sat down in the chair by the bed and looked around.

There was the bed, of course, a dresser and a desk. A bookshelf with a TV on top. There was a DVD player and a game system. A bunch of games. Call of duty, which Alex loved and Wolf thought was so unrealistic that it wouldn't really set anything off. Other things too. Soccer, racing. One of those Tetris games. A bunch of movies, most of them action. Casino Royale. Defiance. Fight Club. Sherlock Holmes. Kung Fu Panda. Tons of others. Wolf had bought them for him, his uncle had been rather strict, and Jack rather absent. He'd watched most of them with Alex, hadn't believed how happy that had made the kid. Had been almost angry how two hours of his time could make the kid so bloody happy.

Other things were strewn on the dresser. The nice watch the unit had got him for Christmas. Some horrible cologne he almost never wore. Leather jacket slung over the doorknob, tennis shoes almost in the hall. Wolf nagged him about that, but he really didn't mind. Alex had begun to truly inhabit the place, six months after moving in with him. There was a calender on the wall, one of those pastoral scene ones. A couple of posters. The Chelsea flag on the wall above the bed, the string of lights along the wall. Alex hated the dark but didn't want a nightlight, this had let him keep his dignity and get some sleep. The lights were the novelty kind, little taxicabs and phone booths. It made the kid happy, who was he to complain?

Alex stirred a little, and Wolf told him, "I'm right here, cub. Try and sleep some more." He flicked the heating pad on for him again, and Alex relaxed, grasping for his hand a little, automatically. He let the kid have it.

It was a pretty good day – for a bad one.