A/N: This kinda annoyed me in the book :/
Why Phobias Are Not Play Things
"He kicked me out of a plane, Ben!"
"What?" Ben, otherwise known as Fox, looked down at the other boy with narrowed eyes. "Seriously, Alex? Out of a plane? What on earth possessed you?"
Alex, trudging ahead of the group, rolled his eyes skywards and was glad the soldiers didn't see it. The mud beneath their boots slurped at their feet, and each step became a stomp as the mud caked thicker and thicker, weighing them down. "I'm pretty sure it was a self-help thing. You know; therapeutic like. I heard that facing your fears helped you get over them."
Wolf personified his animal and began growling, arms stretching out as if to strangle the smaller blond. Fox's arm shot out and steadied the man, eyebrows raised as he took in the information.
"Cub," he began slowly, "While it's true that facing your fears can help you conquer them, being thrown to your impending doom can't exactly be called therapeutic."
Alex, getting annoyed by the sheer amount of walking that they'd been doing this past week, huffed in irritation. "It's not impending doom when you have a parachute."
Wolf butted in, hackles raised, "It damn well IS doom when your phobia confronts you so suddenly that you can't think enough to even pull the strap!"
Alex faltered in his steps, almost falling in the ditch. "What?"
"It's true," Fox mused, looking bemused. "The rest of us knew he had a phobia of heights. I'd kind of figured that he'd accidentally fallen out. Snake and I had to help open his parachute between us." He smirked, "Well, at least I now know what really happened at the training camp."
"While we were free-falling," Wolf ground out, face paling by several shades as he relived the frightful experience, still stuck in the memory of the wind rushing by him, blurred figures of his teammates shouting at him in panic. He shivered.
"Oh." Alex wasn't quite sure what to think. At the time, he'd thought he'd been helpful. Although, what on Earth possessed him to kick a man out of a plane who had a phobia of heights…
"Er. Sorry." He wasn't really sure how to apologise for almost killing him. As he turned back to the path, a boot kicked his rear and sent him sprawling into the mud. As he raised his head to splutter, someone grabbed it and rubbed it into the mud.
"I forgive you," Wolf groused, letting go of Alex's now muddy hair.
Well, Alex groaned, smearing the mud around his cheeks as he stumbled back to his feet. He supposed he kind of deserved it.
