Author's note:

This is my VERY FIRST attempt ever at fanfiction and I'm not a native speaker, BUT luckily I found a very kind and patient beta-reader who does an incredible job at de-circuitous-ing my chaotic outputs. Or maybe it would be fair to say that tree979 found me, anyway, thank you, tree979 for all the time and effort you invest in this!

Please, PLEASE let me know in the reviews if I'm a total fail at writing fanfiction and what I could do better and maybe if you enjoyed it at all. I'm feeling really insecure about this and I'd like to know what you all think. THANKS, it means a lot!

Disclaimer: I don't intend to earn money with this and do this strictly out of desperation and for fun. All rights to Human Target are reserved to Fox.

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3am.

Winston could no longer ignore his phone's ringing and it obviously wasn't going to stop on its own. He and Chance had just put a case to bed and they were both supposed to be enjoying a little down time. Who the hell was calling him at this hour? He made a move for the light switch but decided against having his retinas burnt together with his ear drums, so he settled for staring the annoying noise down in the dark. Unsurprisingly, it did not go away. Now that wasn't good. Resigned, he reckoned his chance of enlightenment would only increase with the space between the phone and the receiver.

"Yeah!" he barked into the receiver. No one answered. He could hear faint noises in the background and something that sounded like a breeze of wind or cars going by on a road, something rhythmic like… breathing?

"Look, if this is some kind of joke, you picked the right man at the right time because I WILL" - he stopped in disbelief as his tired brain finally registered what he had heard from the other end:

"Dude… you gotta come pick me up." What little concern he had had for the caller until this moment quickly turned to untamed rage.

"GUERRERO? The HELL your're thinking calling me in the middle of the night after you stayed conveniently absent for what- two weeks in a row? Man, I promise, I'm gonna kill you first thing in the morning! With your own chopsticks, you HEAR me?"

Only when Winston ran out of breath did he really took notice of what the other man had said to him. He fell silent at the strangeness of it all. Not only had Guerrero NOT impatiently choked off Winston's tirade as he usually did, he hadn't even bitched about how long it took Winston to pick up in the first place. That was so un-Guerrero-y that Winston almost missed the fact that Guerrero actually had asked a favour of him. He was so done with the little rat.

"WHAT? You refuse to help in the last four cases, hell, you refuse to let anyone know you're still in town and alive and now you've got the nerve to ring a hard-working, already pissed-off-at-you man out of bed? That takes cojones, amigo, but as you can tell, I am NOT willing to reward your little suicidal test of courage!"

Again there was an extended silence, this time followed by something that sounded like a moan.

"Winston, I know you're not used to ME asking favours of YOU… but try to imagine just how strange that must feel to ME" Guerrero answered in a sarcastic snarl.

That was much more Guerrero, Winston thought, but another ringing noise crept into the back of his head. It was alarm bells. Guerrero sounded irritated, but not his usual psychopath-that-threatens-you-until-you-kill-yourself-for-him kind of irritated and besides that he sounded strangely calm. Or exhausted? And when was the last time that he had referred to him as Winston?

"Look… I NEED you to come 'n get me… …", there was another noise that could have been a malfunction in the connection or a grunt, "… I'm…" - was Guerrero unsure of what to say next or was he catching his breath? - "…at the corner of Borges Avenue and Levingston Alley…"

It sounded like Guerrero wanted to say something more but instead Winston could hear a stifled gasp through the phone that made him ignore the alarm bells in his head and jump out of his bed and straight into his trousers that were on a stool close to the bed.

"Guerrero? What is going on? Are you on drugs?"

"Dude, all I gotta say is… you don't make it over here… soonish…" - there was more ragged breathing- "… you won't need the chopsticks…"

Even through his slurring Winston could hear that Guerrero got some satisfaction out of winding him up to the point where he was issuing death threats.

"Guerrero, I'm on my way now, stay put. Just tell me what the hell s going on!" Winston said to the earpiece he had just put in in order to be ready to drive. With Guerrero mumbling about getting killed, he wasn't in the mood to argue with him.

"Alright, I'm in the car now, be there in twenty!" Winston said. There was no response.

"Guerrero? You there? GUERRERO? Tell me what's going on!"

"Dude... 'M righere, no need to uuuh bawl…" Guerrero not so much as whispered. "I dunno really whoa happened… 's kinda gettin hard to… to think."

That statement alarmed Winston. Pushing down on the accelerator hard he ignored all speed limits as he wished he'd realised the severity of the situation right from the beginning. Guerrero was clearly struggling, against what Winston did not know, but he had never heard the defiant guy so helpless. Maybe he was just drunk, maybe it was something else. These thoughts processed through his mind in a split second, but it felt like an hour.

"Guerrero, I want you to stay with me here, ya hear me? You can't go mentally AWOL on me now, understood?"

Again all he heard was that wheezing sound. Nope, not just drunk, he thought.

"UNDERSTOOD?" C'mon, Guerrero, stay with me here, Winston pleaded silently as he took a right turn and then another. Instead of a word of assurance or at least annoyance he heard the sound of what appeared to be a phone falling to the ground, clattering on the concrete.

Damnit! He kept listening intently for a few minutes and could make out that Guerrero's cell was still connected, so it couldn't have fallen too far. Which meant that Guerrero was probably on the ground, too, because he never heard him fall either. With a last left bend that he almost took on two wheels, Winston slammed on the brakes and, grabbing a gun from the glove compartment, jumped out of the car. He pocketed a flashlight from the trunk before taking a first look around.

Of course, Guerrero wouldn't have chosen an amiable place to get into trouble in to begin with, but this looked like a horror film set. Winston knew that his impression came mostly because of the darkness, but he knew this part of town in daylight, and even then it wasn't a pretty sight.

"Guerrero?" he whispered, more to the mic in his earpiece than to the actual Guerrero. He was surrounded by old, pitch black storing buildings, high enough to block out the last bit of moon light and also effectively swallowing the light of street lamps on the main street. There weren't any lights in the narrow alleys and he knew all kind of mischief could lurk in the many little lanes he faced.

"GUERRERO?" he shouted this time, if he wanted to find him, maybe he should let him know he was there. Or let someone know he was there. For that someone he unlocked his gun as audible as he could and with the gun and flashlight beam pointed forward he inched slowly into the darkness.

What the hell would Guerrero want here, anyway? he thought as doubt about the man's motives forced its way into Winston's head. He pointed his gun into the alley left to him in a swift motion. It was completely empty. Not even doors, just solid brick walls and some rats climbing around the fire escapes. He shrugged off the questions that he would never have answers for anyway with a It's-Guerrero-deal-with-it sigh and checked out the gap to his right. Dumpsters. Some other junk he wasn't to investigate any further. He heard noises from a bar a short distance away and walked towards that direction, checking alleys left and right. Suddenly a shocking thought paralyzed him for a second as he pointed his light beam into yet another alley full of trash and nothingness: what if he wasn't here anymore? What if somebody hauled him off, and he was too late? Chance would never forgive him.

Concentrate! he scolded himself as he found himself staring at some long forgotten about trash bags. As he turned the light away to head to the next junction something caught his eye in the alley he had just dismissed. A little rectangular patch of blue light. The display of a cell phone. Winston started into the alley with a terrible mixture of hope and fear. One of the trashbags had the outlines of a human being curled on the ground. With two big strides Winston stood above the motionless figure.

"Oh shit" escaped Winston's mouth as he looked at the heap at his feet.

The skinny man was a bloody mess. He lay on his side, back resting against the wall. His one hand was next to his face and held a short knife, the other hand under his body held on tight to his rib cage. Squatting down, Winston secured and stowed away the gun and put the flashlight into his mouth to have his hands free to examine the haggard man in front of him.

"Hey, are you with me here?" he talked around the flashlight. He received a growl in response. The image of a badly wounded wolf suddenly flashed in front of the black man's eyes. It was lying bleeding on its side, growling with its teeth bared, paranoid and willing to defend itself til death. He couldn't see much of Guerrero's skin under the usual layer of t-shirt and patterned shirt, but what little he could see was bruised badly and swelling up, as was the left side of his face, that was facing him. There was a lot of blood in his hair and on his shirt, and also deep gashes on his face from which trickles of blood ran down. When Guerrero opened his eyes, he looked both confused and alarmed and for a few moments he didn't seem to recognize the man hovering above him.

"Dude, wha- what took ya so long?" he finally managed. It took Winston what felt to himself like another hour until it registered that the mercenary had been shot or stabbed and beaten into a pulp. Probably not in that order.

"Here, let me see that…" Winston hadn't even touched Guerrero yet, when the latter hissed an aggressive "Back off!" and at the same drew back further to the wall behind him. The image of the wolf was back. Never provoke a deadly animal in distress. Winston held up his hands in a do-no-harm manner and went for a different approach.

"Okay Guerrero, hold still, I'm calling an ambulance- DON'T MOVE!" he added commandingly when Guerrero jerked at the mention of the ambulance.

"No. hospital." Guerrero mustered pointedly, "Whaddcha think I called YOU for? And whaddcha think I have this for?" He shoved the short knife under Winston's nose for inspection. There was blood on the blade. Guerrero gave Winston a menacing, lop-sided smile...

"You are in no position to bargain, much less to threaten me, Jack" Winston growled with authority that was not to be questioned. Using Guerrero's real first name had the intended effect. The cocky half-smile vanished from the injured man's face and one of intense pain took over, if only for a second.

"I want to help you, but we're going to do it my way, not the dodge-all-authorities-way, is. that. clear." Winston's stern face hovered inches from Guerrero's battered one, leaving no doubt as to who was in charge.

"Dude- not cool." Guerrero had propped his upper part of the body up against the wall with some difficulty and was clearly in a lot of pain. Winston could see how much even that small exertion cost him. He respected Guerrero's wish to maintain some of his dignity though and hadn't helped him. They engaged in a momentary staring contest until Winston broke eye contact to check where the knife had gone in the meantime. The hand with the knife rested at the side of Guerrero's leg and he made no effort whatsoever to actually threaten his potential saviour. He just didn't have the energy.

Guerrero frowned, then took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. It was a sigh, but midways it turned into a rattle, then to a cough and Guerrero's former restrained mimic contorted to one of agony once again.

"Trade-off." He let the word fall to the ground. He knew he couldn't summon up any rational reasons to avoid the PTBs, but he hoped that if he played to nurse Winston's idea of professional medical treatment, he would go for it.

" 'M gonna see a doc… surgeon even. Bu' you gotta take me there an' it'll be oneofma… contacts. He says I dun manage there, I'm offta hospiddle." He was staring again at Winston, but this time with a mixture of desperation and pleading.

"Deal, dude?"

*tbc*