Forgive the abrupt beginning; it's just a show case for - well, for the rest of this. A crazy little one shot which is - yes. Rather odd.
Sorry. It's supposed to be funny. It might not be; but, LORD, it was fun to write!
DISCLAIMER: You really think Anthony Horowitz would put his characters in situations which even VAGUELY resembled this one? Hah! I wish.
Snake was breathless by the time he reached his other team-mates, a couple of streets away. "They've… got, Wolf and Cub." He panted out, to the other two members of their group. "I-I don't know… where they're taking them, but… they're – they said something about…" he took a deep breath. "Execution."
Fox frowned. "Oh, c'mon, Snake." They were careful to use codenames rather than real names; they were, after all, on active duty. "You've got to be objective. We both know that's not gonna happen."
Eagle frowned, looking down the street. "We've got to get out of here." He said, in a low, urgent voice. "Come on."
"We can't just leave them!" Snake protested. Eagle didn't turn.
"Snake, we've got to." He said, starting to run. "They're going to be fine. We've got to get back and report, OK?"
Snake hung back for a second, knowing what he should be doing, but unwilling to follow through. With one quick glance over his shoulder, he followed his team mates back to their impromptu headquarters.
Back at headquarters, they gave their report to the commander, and were told to 'stand down', clean up, and get any medical attention they needed, then report again to the 'situation room', as it was ironically being called.
Fifteen minutes later, when they had reported back, they were met by one of the many technicians who had been deployed for the assignment they were currently working on.
"We've found your two team-mates." The man said, bluntly. "They seem to be holding up well, under the stress."
"They would do." Eagle replied, just as bluntly. "Wolf's been trained for it, and Cub… well, Cub's just special."
"He yours?" The man asked, casually, walking away from them, and gesturing for them to follow.
The three men exchanged faintly incredulous glances. "Mate, if he were mine," Eagle said, slowly, following him, "There's no way I'd let him do anything like the stuff that kid's done." He paused, then added, with a faint hint of indignation. "And, do I really look old enough to have a fourteen year old son?!"
Fox patted him on the back, mock-sympathetically, but none of them were particularly interested in the conversation, once they'd seen what the technician had to show them.
A small screen had been set up, large enough for the three of them to stand around, showing James and Alex, sat in their make-shift cell, which was, in reality, nothing more than an empty store-room. James seemed to be saying something, but there was no sound from the feed.
The technician leant over them, pressed a button, and turned something. "You can turn the sound up and down with that." He told them, shortly, pointing it out. "I've been told to tell you to stay here, and watch them, and to report if there's any change in their status."
As he left, they exchanged another glance. It was a soft option, designed to calm them down after their all-too-recent assignment, without giving them nothing to do. But that didn't make it too easy. Logically, they all knew that there were teams stationed around the building, just in case. But it wasn't easy to watch two of their team-mates – perhaps Cub especially, since he was so young – sat in a 'cell' so calmly awaiting death.
Wolf was speaking, and they peered at the screen, trying to hear what he was saying. Finally Fox, who was, after all the technician for their group, reached over and turned the sound up.
"…not going to happen." Wolf's voice, low, and attempting to sound comforting, finally made it passed the small speakers. "They're watching the house."
"And this place could easily be bugged, so I wouldn't say that too loudly." Cub replied, stretching, a definite air of tiredness hanging around him, even from the little they could see from the awkward camera angle. The three of them looked at each other, a slight smile on all of their faces, despite the relative seriousness of the situation.
"Oh, James got told." Eagle whispered, his smile stretching into a grin.
Wolf acknowledged the point with a slight tilt of his head. "Fair point." He nodded. "But I don't think so. I checked, remember? And I didn't find anything."
"Yeah." Alex nodded, pulling his knees into his chest. "But, if they didn't want you to find the bug, you wouldn't, so don't go blurting out any state secrets, OK?"
Unbelievably, Wolf gave the kid a small smile. "Gotcha. But – don't get too worried, OK?"
"Is James actually trying to be comforting?" Fox asked, staring at the screen, and their team-mate, with a look of comic fake-shock.
Cub gave his older team-mate a tired answering smile, only just visible on the little screen. "The SAS looks after their people better than MI6." Wolf frowned questioningly at him. "If I was doing this mission with MI6, I'd be scared for my life right now. They sure as hell wouldn't send anyone in. Unless there were some SAS people handy." He added, fairly, in tacit acknowledgement of what they had done for him at Point Blanc.
Wolf just nodded, in response to that; after all, what could he really say?
For a long time – maybe five or ten minutes – there was silence from the monitor; their two team-mates shifted around, not saying anything, just trying to get as comfortable as they could. It was soon obvious that Cub had much more experience with this than Wolf, who couldn't seem to settle. Cub was just sat in one corner, fidgeting occasionally, and looking bored out of his mind, but was, on the whole, relatively still. Eventually, Wolf sat down, and, after a few moments, said,
"You know, Cub, one of the best ways to relax is to have sex."
All three of them stared at the screen, momentarily shocked into silence. Finally, Eagle swallowed, and said, in a tone of utter amazement,
"I'm sorry, what did he just say?!"
As Alex had had ample time to reflect on, being captured was, as always, boring, slightly embarrassing, and incredibly frustrating. The embarrassing part of this particular capture was the company he'd been in while he'd been captured, and the fact that, had he done something slightly differently, they need not have been captured at all; in this case, had he not been questioning Wolf about something it could have ended rather more positively. In his favour, he was asking about something that actually needed to be answered while they were there, but he could have possibly taken less time.
Alex was too stoic and matter-of-fact about his assignments to wallow in guilt about that; he acknowledged the guilty twinge, and let it go at that. Wolf, on the other hand, wasn't taking capture so well. He hadn't done anything stupid, and he hadn't turned on Alex for 'getting them captured', or anything; they had both managed to reach the cell relatively unscathed, awaiting this 'execution', but he had been furious for the first ten or fifteen minutes.
Finally, he sat down, sighed, and looked at Alex. "You OK?" he asked, gruffly.
"Yeah." Alex nodded, slowly. "Yeah, I'm good. You?"
He gave a small, slightly rueful huff of laughter. "I'm – frustrated. But OK." He paused, and his voice softened a little. "Y'know – it's gonna be OK."
Alex looked at him, and eventually offered a small smile. "We're about to be 'executed' by a bunch of homicidal maniacs who are staging a coup so badly planned that it's hardly worth the effort it takes to stop it. It's actually embarrassing to have been captured by them. And now, apparently, they're going to kill us. How, exactly, is this gonna be OK?"
"Oh, come on, Cub." Wolf said, shrugging. "We both know that's not going to happen. They're watching the house."
Alex knew immediately that 'they' were the SAS, but if he knew, it was pretty certain that their captors also had a pretty good idea who he was talking about. "And this place could easily be bugged, so I wouldn't say that too loudly." He pointed out quietly, stretching, and trying to get into a better position. He wished he'd managed to sleep last night; he was exhausted now.
Wolf nodded his agreement. "Fair point. But I don't think so. I checked, remember? And I didn't find anything."
"Yeah." Alex agreed, finally giving up on trying to get comfortable. "But, if they didn't want you to find the bug, you wouldn't, so don't go blurting out any state secrets, OK?"
He wasn't prepared for the smile he got from his older team mate. "Gotcha. But – don't get too worried, OK?"
Alex smiled back, strangely touched by Wolf's attempts to be comforting. "The SAS looks after their people better than MI6." He pointed out, shifting again. Wolf gave him a questioning frown. "If I was doing this mission with MI6, I'd be scared for my life right now. They sure as hell wouldn't send anyone in. Unless there were some SAS people handy." He added, quickly, not wanting to insult what Wolf had done for him when he was fighting Mrs. Stellenbosch.
Alex watched, faintly amused, as Wolf stood up again, pacing around in their tiny cell, knowing that the man would eventually relax again, but content, for the moment, to just watch him. Unfortunately, Wolf's pacing just couldn't keep his interest for too long, and he had to stifle a yawn a couple of times.
Yep, his hypothesis was well and truly proved. Captivity was boring.
When Wolf finally sat down, Alex had almost managed to fall asleep, and he was jerked out of his half-doze by Wolf saying, suddenly,
"You know, Cub, one of the best ways to relax is to have sex."
Alex stared at him for a second, fighting an insane urge to giggle. It was hysteria, he told himself, firmly. Eventually, he just raised an eyebrow, and said, in an impressively steady voice, "I'm not sure whether you're propositioning me, or trying to educate me, but either way, stop."
Wolf shrugged. "It's true. Sex is the second most relaxing thing in the world."
Alex, deciding that if he had to go mad in captivity, this was the most interesting way to do it, played along, and said, almost totally seriously. "What's the first most relaxing thing, then?"
"Anaesthesia." Wolf said, utterly straight faced.
"Right." Alex nodded.
"An important thing to remember about sex," his team-mate and sometime-guardian continued, staring at his hands, and apparently totally unaware of how embarrassing this talk was supposed to be, "Is to make sure that your partner is, um… satisfied as well. OK? Otherwise, you're just being rude. And unkind."
"Right. Got it." Alex said, still managing to keep his serious mask in place. Just. "Don't be rude when you're having sex." Wolf glanced at him, obviously hearing the thread of laughter in his voice, but Alex presented him with a totally blank, innocent face, and said, encouragingly. "Anything else?"
"Safe sex is important." Wolf shifted slightly, a faint hint of incredulity in his voice – a note that said, quite clearly 'I can't believe I'm doing this'; but Alex was having way too much fun to stop.
"But – how do I make sure that it's safe?" he asked, ingenuously.
"Well, um… you could wear a condom," he said, quietly, "Or, you could use spermicide…" he swallowed. "Actually, it's best to use both. Prevents pregnancy, and all that. And a condom'll stop any STDs. Used with spermicide, it gets prevention of pregnancy up to ninety nine percent."
"Really?" Alex said, in a voice of guileless wonder. "But – how do you put it on?" He grinned inwardly, seeing Wolf's face flush a dull red.
Eagle leant across to Snake, and said, in a stage whisper, "Is Cub being serious?"
Snake looked at the screen, doubtfully. "I… I think so."
"What in heaven's name possessed James to try and give the poor kid The Talk?" Fox asked, doing a bad job of stifling his grin.
"I don't know." Eagle shrugged. "But this is way too good to keep to ourselves." He beckoned to the nearest man he recognised, a man from another team, Hawk, saying, with a grin of his own, "Trust me. You do not want to miss this…"
"…And that's how you put a condom on." Wolf finished, finally. Alex himself was now bright red; Wolf's answer had come complete with gestures, though thankfully not a demonstration, and he didn't think he'd ever be able to forget it. It was enough to put him off sex for life. Wolf opened his mouth again, and Alex felt a desperate urge to fake sleep, or a fainting fit, or something, anything to stop what was coming. "You've got to do that just before you… you know."
"Right. Thank you." Alex nodded.
"And…" Wolf looked carefully at his ward. He knew that he'd said that this execution wasn't going to happen, but as the minutes went by, he could feel his own certainty slipping slowly away, and if things did go wrong, it wasn't like the kid was going to get to try any of this stuff. Maybe it was a bad idea, but… he shrugged. It was passing the time. "Foreplay is important." He said, seriously.
Alex resisted the urge to groan. "If you demonstrate any of that, I swear, you won't have to wait for the execution." He muttered. "I'll carve your heart out with blunt spoon."
"Sorry, what was that?"
"Nothing!" Alex said, quickly. An idea came to him, and though he knew it wasn't the most sensible of options, teasing Wolf seemed like the most interesting thing that was going to happen all day. Unless these people actually did get round to executing them. Which, at various points during Wolf's detailed explanation of how to put a condom on, had started to look increasingly tempting. "So – what do you mean, foreplay?"
Wolf flushed, again. "Just…massages, and, um, stuff."
"What sort of stuff?" Alex asked, widening his eyes.
"Never mind." Wolf said, quickly, and Alex had to look at his knees, in order to hide his grin.
"So – you say that safe sex is important?"
"Yeah." Wolf said, uncomfortably.
"And… is it just as important for gay sex?" Alex asked, careful to keep his face blank and as innocent as possible.
Back at their 'base' Fox and Eagle spluttered incoherently; Hawk and Snake exchanged amused glances, and their colleagues' snorts of laughter attracted more attention, which they beckoned over. As Eagle had put it earlier, this was too good to miss.
Thank god it was being recorded.
"I've no idea." Wolf said, managing to keep his voice almost calm.
"But… you're SAS." Alex said, frowning in puzzlement. "I thought…."
"No." Wolf said, quickly and firmly, too shocked to be offended.
"So – you and Eagle aren't…"
Eagle stared at the screen. "Oh, he did not just say that."
"NO! GOD NO!!" Wolf yelped, shutting his eyes tightly. "I don't know anything about… gay sex, OK? Now… just, just… stop." Alex opened his mouth, fighting to keep his face straight. "That's an order!"
"OK." Alex said, nodding. "So – um – foreplay."
Wolf took another deep, calming breath. After all, if the kid was interested – if it took his mind of what was about to happen – it was worth it. Surely. He was just trying to keep Alex calm, after all.
He was already calm, a treacherous part of his mind supplied, helpfully. He squashed that thought down, firmly.
"Yes. Foreplay."
"Well – I've heard – y'know, in the changing rooms at school, and stuff – I've heard some of the older boys," And some of the ones in his year, but they were underage, so he wasn't going to mention that to strictly-law-abiding Wolf, "talking about – um, dirty talk?"
Wolf bit his lip. "Yeah?"
"Well – what would you say?"
The older man was definitely flushed by now. "oh, I don't know." He evaded, unsubtly. "You've, um – you've sort of got to be in the mood for it."
"Oh. Right. So – like the stuff you've said to Gloria?" Alex asked, artlessly.
"How the hell do you know what I've said to my girlfriend?" Wolf asked, staring at him.
"My room's just across the corridor." Alex shrugged. "And you're pretty loud." He frowned again. "But – it's kind of – rude."
"And?" Wolf said, a little defensively.
"And you said you shouldn't be rude during sex." Alex pointed out, eyes shining with innocence. Wolf was starting to get a really, really bad feeling about this.
"I meant, you've got to make sure…" he trailed off.
"Yes?" Alex prompted.
"You'vegottomakesureyourpartnercomes."
"Sorry, what?"
"I said, you've got to make sure your partner comes!" Wolf snapped, face a picture of awkwardness. Painted in red.
"'Comes'?" Alex repeated, in apparent confusion.
"Yes!"
"What's that?"
"OK, now I know he's kidding." Fox whispered to Snake, who just grinned. Eagle was still getting over the 'gay' comment, and the rest of the fairly large group stood round the monitor were smirking themselves. "No one's that naïve."
From somewhere behind them, Snake heard,
"Man, this kid is good."
Alex looked at him with wide eyes, and Wolf stifled a groan. "It means…" he rubbed the back of his neck. "Um… yeah. Orgasm. They've um… you've got to make sure that your partner, er… yeah. That."
"So, you can say rude stuff, but they've got to… come." He said it like it was a new word to him, trying so hard not to laugh he thought he might have pulled a muscle.
"Yes. Well, you shouldn't insult them."
"So 'you're a dirty bitch' is out?" Alex asked, still maintaining the innocent voice and expression.
"Um… yes."
"Then why did you…"
"Yes, thank you!" Wolf interrupted, quickly.
"Sorry." Alex apologised, contritely. "So…" he paused, apparently thinking for a question. Then his lips twitched. A small giggle escaped him; when he next looked at Wolf, his eyes were brimming with laughter. The giggle became an uncontrollable chuckle; the chuckle became a laugh. By the time Wolf had worked out why the kid was laughing, Alex was practically rolling on the floor, helpless with laughter.
"You little brat." He growled, though his own lips were twitching suspiciously. "I'm going to…"
He never got to finish the threat, for which Alex was eternally grateful, as there was the scratching of a key in the door, and men they were supposed to have been monitoring entered.
On seeing their enemy-of-the-moment, the men went from highly amused to business-like in a matter of seconds. There was an instant flurry of activity, as calls were put out, warnings issued, and equipment and back-up prepared. Due to the poor planning and equipment of the threat they were dealing with, the actual battle lasted very little time at all, and Wolf and Cub were back in just under an hour.
Their three other team mates were there to meet them. Snake gave Cub a smile, and said, raising an eyebrow,
"Nice to see you, Cub. And, er… nice play. But, I thought, maybe, you overdid it in places."
"Thank you." Alex said, mock seriously. "I'll bear it in mind."
Eagle and Fox had descended on Wolf. "You dirty bitch, James." Fox grinned at him, as Eagle said, mock-seriously.
"So, Jamie-boy. Sex."
Wolf raised his eyes heaven-ward. "Kill me now."
(hides) I'm sorry! I'm sorry! But... heh. It was fun. For the people I've scarred for life... well, I didn't MAKE you read it... (runs)
ami xxx