The moment Alex went down, Wolf was up in a flash. His face was livid.
"Get out!" He demanded furiously, pointing to the door.
The man looked like he was going to protest but Ben, Snake and Eagle stood too and the four of them made a menacing sight that not even a man such as Puma wanted to face. With a grimace adorning his face, he accepted the rough manhandling from Wolf as the soldier all but shoved the man out.
Just as Puma was about to say something, Wolf pushed him out of the door and slammed the door in his face. He turned around to see Snake lifting an unconscious Alex into his arms.
"How is he?" He asked tersely and Snake sighed.
"It looks like it was more a case that Alex over-worked himself. None of the wounds have opened or anything. I'll take him to his room and have a proper look at him, but hopefully he should wake soon."
"Good," Wolf muttered, "cos when he does I am going to ask him what the hell he was thinking, challenging Puma like that when he knew something like this could happen. The kid was only lucky it wasn't worse! What if Puma had hit him a bit harder? Or what if he hurt his head again and gone into a coma or something? That kid is so dead. And about Puma, I'm calling the Sergeant right away to tell him he can't be part of the team."
Eagle looked to Ben helplessly as Wolf continued to rant. Wolf was known to get worked up over things, but they hadn't seen Wolf act like this since they'd returned from Afghanistan. Ben rubbed the back of his neck and shrugged in response to Eagle. Sometimes it was best just to let Wolf vent, but with the fact Alex may wake soon, they needed this sorted out as quickly as possible.
Hesitantly, Ben placed a hand on Wolf's shoulder who jerked and snapped his mouth shut.
"Listen Wolf, I know you're mad, we all are. We never should have let them fight. It was a stupid mistake, one that is not your fault." Wolf looked affronted and was about to object but Ben firmly carried on. "I know you, and you think this is your fault it happened, as you always do. But trust me; it was not your fault. Yes, you should have stopped it but then we all should have and we did try to stop him. Alex is just a determined, stubborn kid." He gave a wry grin but it wasn't returned. Wolf still looked ready to kill anything and everything.
"Anyway, give it some time before you call the Sergeant. For one, he won't want to talk to you when you're all hyped up like this. He'll want you calm and rational and for that you need a good night's sleep. No complaints. You also need to be calm when we speak to Alex. Just shouting about how reckless he was will not help. Got that?"
Wolf glowered at Ben but nodded slowly. He was still breathing heavily and his fists were clenched tightly at his sides. "Got it."
"Good," Ben said, pleased and beside him, Eagle snickered.
"Wolf just got told," he muttered with a small grin and Ben thumped him. Wolf glowered, but his lips did twitch.
"I guess I'll clear this stuff away," he said and though his posture was tense, it seemed he was beginning to calm down. Whether that would last once Alex woke up, Ben didn't know, but it was a start.
Eagle helped him whilst Ben went to talk to Snake who had just returned from putting Alex in his bed.
"How is he?" He asked and he heard Eagle and Wolf halt as they listened in.
"It's as I originally thought, he just over-taxed his body. His bullet wound is a bit red and I think he'll have a new bruise over his ribs, but he'll be fine."
"That's good," Ben said, relieved. "Let's agree to never tell his doctor this happened?"
Snake nodded solemnly with a small smile. "Agreed. He'd probably kill us slowly and brutally."
"Who's going to kill you?"
Snake startled and Ben twitched. Alex was already awake. That kid recovered quickly and this was not good as Ben didn't feel like Wolf had had enough time to calm down yet. He looked behind Snake to see Alex leaning against the door frame. He was still pale and he looked in pain.
"Alex you should lie down. You're hurt," Snake said concernedly.
Alex shrugged. "I'm fine."
"You are not." Ben closed his eyes and mentally groaned. This was not going to go well.
Alex raised his eyes and looked at Wolf curiously. The man stayed where he was, but his stance suggested he looked ready for a fight. "Yes, I am. It's nothing I can't handle."
Wolf gritted his teeth and Eagle slowly backed away, wanting to be anyway but where he was right then. Ben felt the same way.
"You shouldn't have to handle it; you shouldn't have been in that damn fight in the first place! What the hell were you thinking, agreeing to that sort of thing in your condition?!" Wolf growled.
Alex frowned and pushed himself off the door frame. "I'm hardly an invalid Wolf. I knew what I was doing and I can decide what I want."
"Not when what you're doing is stupid and reckless!" Wolf argued.
"Listen, I really think this isn't the time for this," Ben tried to intervene. "Alex you're hurt and…"
Alex spoke as if Ben had never said anything.
"Oh yeah, cos you protested so much," he said, rolling his eyes.
"We protested enough to try and get you to change your bloody mind but of course you didn't listen to us because, god forbid, you actually respect us!"
"Wolf, Alex, that's enough," Snake spoke but just like Ben, he was ignored.
"Respect you? Why should I?! You guys were dicks to me when we met and just because you decided to look after me while I was healing you think we should act like one big happy family! Well, let me tell you, if this is a family then it is a seriously dysfunctional one!"
"I in no way think we should act like a family. I wouldn't want to be related to you, you ungrateful brat!" Wolf shouted and Ben cringed. Wolf tended to say things he didn't mean in the middle of particularly bad arguments and it seemed that tendency had reared its ugly head. He really needed to stop this before Wolf said something truly regrettable. Snake had attempted to intervene by stepping in between the two, but they just stared at each other over his shoulder.
"Why should I be grateful? Look at what's happened to me since I got here? There have been two kidnap attempts and my house has burnt down! And let's not forget that in all this I am effectively an orphan," Alex retorted angrily. Eagle put a hand on his shoulder and Alex stepped away as if burned.
"Quiet!" Ben yelled but, loud and commanding as he was, it seemed there was no breaking this argument.
"That is not our fault so stop trying to blame us! Hell, maybe you should have thought before you got caught up in this mess!"
Silence. Wolf's eyes widened when he realised what he said and he immediately tried to take them back.
"Cub, Alex, I didn't mean that…"
Alex raised his eyes and looked at Wolf with emotionless, detached eyes. Wolf's step forward was aborted when he saw them and he grimaced. He had gone way too far.
"If that's what you think," he said dully. Without another word, Alex walked to his bedroom and they heard his door slam. No one tried to stop him.
Wolf looked like he was about to go after him, but Ben kept him still with an outstretched arm.
"I'm not going to lie Wolf, you really fucked that up," he said stonily. This was exactly why he had tried to avoid Alex and Wolf talking. While Alex hadn't been the most pleasant, it appeared Wolf had destroyed all of the trust they had been building with Alex with those few words.
"I didn't mean that, I don't know why I said it…," Wolf feebly protested, but he knew he couldn't excuse himself.
"You shouldn't be telling me," Ben said. "Look, you need to give Alex time to cool down before you speak with him, something you should have done which could have avoided all this." Wolf looked down shamefully.
"All of our hard work trying to get him to like us," Snake sighed and Wolf glared at him.
"I feel bad enough without your comments," he snapped and Snake frowned.
"You had better fix this Wolf," Eagle said angrily. "I actually happen to like Alex and we aren't going to be able to help his situation if he hates us all thanks to you!"
"I will, alright!" Wolf exploded. Whilst he hadn't expected anyone to actually be on his side, he would hate it if they had been, he hadn't expected such vehement mutiny against him.
The silence was deafening. There was nothing else that needed to be said, at least not until the morning. Together they finished cleaning everything away and they each went to their rooms. Eagle paused outside Alex's door and debated whether he should do anything before deciding that there wasn't anything he could say that would make the situation any better. Only Wolf had a chance of that, and that chance was unfortunately very low.
Upon entering his room, Alex had barely refrained from kicking or punching something. He stopped himself because he didn't want the other's to hear and feel it necessary to come in. He didn't want to see any of them, especially Wolf.
He couldn't believe he'd been so stupid! Of course they would be just like everyone else; he'd been an idiot to think differently. They didn't want him there; Wolf was the only one who'd had the guts to say it. Sure, they acted all concerned but that's probably all it was. An act. Blunt had probably warned them to play nice to make sure he stayed. Well, that was over. He was done with this little charade.
It was a tense affair the next morning. Alex hadn't come out of his room yet and every minute that passed made Wolf more and more agitated. Sleep hadn't come easy to him as he'd kept going over what he would say to Alex when he next saw him. He had run hundreds of different scenarios through his head but Wolf couldn't see any of them working. In the end he'd decided he would just wing it and start with an 'I'm sorry' but it didn't look like he was going to be able to even do that anytime soon as it was nearing eleven and Alex still hadn't appeared. He'd been putting off talking to the Sergeant as even though he was better than the previous night, he would be better once he'd spoken to Alex.
"Is he ever going to come out?" Wolf asked impatiently as he jiggled his knee anxiously under the table.
"I'll go see if he's up," Ben said, thinking that if Alex was going to respond to anyone at this point it would probably be him. He went to Alex's room and knocked on his door. There was no response and Ben frowned when he couldn't even hear anything to signify there was someone even in there.
A feeling of dread settling in his stomach, Ben knocked again. "Alex, if you don't answer I'm going to come in," he warned. Again there was no response and Ben opened the door. His feeling of dread intensified from what he saw. The room was empty. Alex wasn't there, and neither was most of his stuff except for inconsequential things like his posters.
When Ben entered alone Wolf sighed.
"No luck?" He then noticed the expression on his face and grew concerned. "What is it?"
"He's gone."
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