Chapter Text
Wolf didn’t exactly claim to be the neatest man on the bloody planet but he knew how to keep things somewhat clean. He usually wasn't home long enough to make too much of a mess, so it normally just ended up being a pile of dishes that he refused to look at until it overflowed.
That said, he could tell when someone had been in his house, and was immediately on guard when he found a clear sign of a break-in. Not even a clean one, either, this was messy, with weird scratches around the still open window, and a rip in his bright orange curtains that his mother had bought and installed without his permission because, “You need something to brighten up the house, James.” He pulled out a switchblade he kept on him for casual excursions and carefully crept into his kitchen where he was greeted by the sight of an incredibly round raccoon sitting on his kitchen table, typing on his laptop, with a bag of sour cream and onion crisps messily ripped open beside it.
“What the fuck?”
At the sound of Wolf’s voice, the raccoon turned to face him and almost looked happy to see him somehow, its mouth opening in an imitation of a smile. God what did he drink tonight? Wait, he didn’t drink a damn thing. Was this some weird prank?
He pulled out his phone and shot a text to Eagle, completely missing the scandalized look the raccoon sent his way.
[Wolf:] Did you put a raccoon in my apartment?
[Dumbass:] what?
[Dumbass:] no?
[Dumbass:] is this to get me back for the shaving cream thing?
[Wolf:] The what?
[Dumbass:] never mind
[Wolf:] What shaving cream thing?
[Wolf:] NATE!
[Wolf:] What did you do?
Read by Dumbass at 22:10
Either he did it and was refusing to own up to it, or genuinely didn’t do it. Or at least, he didn’t put the raccoon in Wolf’s apartment. This shaving cream thing was a clear admission of guilt for something. Resolving to thoroughly question Eagle later, Wolf sent a text to Snake.
[Wolf:] Did you put a raccoon in my apartment?
[Nag:] What? You got a raccoon?
[Wolf:] No theres a raccoon in my apartment
[Nag:] Where the hell would I get a raccoon? They aren’t exactly native to this area.
[Wolf:] I dont know, you tell me
[Nag:] Considering I didn’t put a raccoon in your apartment, I can’t tell you since I have no idea.
[Nag:] Did you ask Ben?
[Wolf:] Thats a good idea
[Nag:] Thanks, I’ve been known to have a few of those.
Wolf looked up from his phone as a loud thump as the raccoon jumped to the floor and walked over to him. He couldn’t help backing up as it waddled towards him, and he had never really seen a raccoon outside of images or video but he was pretty sure they generally weren’t this… fat. It looked like it wanted to ask something, but he was very distracted by how round it was.
“Cor, you’re huge. What the hell have you been eating?”
The raccoon paused, giving him an almost hurt look, then hissed and darted away in a fashion that could only be described as a scorned girlfriend who didn’t want to keep yelling at him.
Regardless, he sent a text Fox’s way.
[Wolf:] Did you put a raccoon in my apartment?
Read by Bitch at 22:16
There was no response, which was pretty par for the course with Fox. MI6 job kept him busy and all. He glanced over at the raccoon, which was very clumsily climbing back onto his kitchen table. It missed one of the steps it was attempting, falling to the floor with a heavy sound.
Wolf rolled his eyes and went to pick up the raccoon, putting it back on the table. He winced slightly, not expecting it to be as heavy as it was, and then finally noticed what the raccoon had been doing with his laptop.
It was a message. Very messily written, probably because it was written by a fucking raccoon, but it stated that it was Alex Rider and that he needed help. Among other things. He wasn’t really going to read all of that, not when it was clearly a prank.
This had to be Fox.
Annoyed, he decided to just call the bastard, and waited as the call went unanswered. He called again, and Fox finally picked up.
“I swear to God, Wolf, this had better be important,” was Fox’s greeting, with a clearly tired voice, but Wolf scoffed.
“You’re the one who put a bloody raccoon in my apartment.”
“... what? Whatever you’re on about, Wolf, I don’t have the time for it. Alex has been missing for three weeks and command didn’t see fit to tell me until six days ago-”
Oh. Oh no. Oh no... That’s not good.
He read over the message properly this time - noting the ‘been racoon 2 wks’ portion. That’s really not good.
Wolf glanced at the fat little raccoon, tuning out Fox’s tired tirade. The creature was looking up at him, clearly listening in on the conversation, and he blinked as he mouthed, “Cub?”
The raccoon nodded, and Wolf felt his brain reshape itself into a starfish and then attempt to tangle its way back into being a normal brain. What the fuck was happening?
Fox, meanwhile, had finished speaking and noticed his lack of response. “Wolf? Wolf?! Did you seriously just hang up on me or something?”
“I think I have Alex.”
“... what?!”
“There’s a raccoon in my apartment, and it’s, er, well. It’s a lot and maybe you should just come over and see for yourself-”
Fox abruptly hung up, and Wolf dropped his phone on the table, taking a seat next to the rodent(?) on his fucking mahogany table that was a gift from his brother-in-law and probably the most expensive thing in the house. Thing was probably scratching the hell out of it. No, scratch that (no pun intended) the table was absolutely scratched. Damn it.
“You’re actually Cub,” he asked, running a hand down his face. “You’re actually Alex fucking Rider, resident pain in our collective arses.”
The raccoon nodded vehemently, standing on its hind legs - or rather, his hind legs - to puff out his tiny chest, which brought attention lower, towards the huge belly he was sporting.
Wolf let out a puff of air, quickly pinching himself to make sure this wasn’t some weird stress dream, and then asked, “Why are you so fucking fat?”
Alex typed out an answer very slowly on the word document he had been slowly creating. His little arms had difficulty reaching both ends of the keyboard at times, and his belly wasn’t helping either.
‘woke like this’
“What happened before you became, you know, this?”
‘mssn went bad. got ko. idr after’
“IDR?”
He could swear he saw Alex roll his eyes as he awkwardly typed out, ‘i dont remember’
Damn kids and their internet slang. There was a loud knock at the door, and Wolf immediately went to see who it was. Naturally, it was Fox, who looked like a wreck of a human being, exhausted beyond belief and clearly out of breath. It was only a step down from his usual look.
Wolf also noted how awkwardly his car was parked down at the curb. “I called you like five minutes ago, did you go over the speed-?”
“Where’s Alex.”
There was a chittering noise in the living room, and Wolf turned around to see that the raccoon, or rather, that Alex had come to greet Ben, who was looking bewildered.
“That's a raccoon," Fox stated bluntly.
Wolf had to give it to him, the man had astounding observation skills. "Yes. He is."
"Why is there a raccoon in your apartment?"
"Well, that's Alex."
Ben gave him a look of the most genuine anger and weariness before Wolf felt a fist connect with his nose.
“Ogh, Ben! Hey! Calm down-!”
Ben, of course, did not calm down, and instead immediately went for a second punch. “I haven’t slept in three days, and you’re here trying to say that a fatass raccoon is Alex, acting like him missing is some sort of joke-!”
“Well I’m not fucking joking, because the raccoon fucking typed! Last I checked, raccoons don’t know internet slang!” Wolf narrowly avoided being hit in the jaw, but ended up bumping his head against the wall regardless.
“Bullshit!”
“What do you mean ‘bullshit’! I’m not the type to do that sort of crap!”
“I don’t care about-”
Fox was cut off with a hiss, a crack, and an incredibly pained noise.
Wolf looked up to see that Alex the raccoon had fucking punted his stupid fat raccoon head into Ben’s nuts. Both were clutching themselves, though in the opposite directions, and if Wolf had to applaud anything, it was Alex’s tendency to go for the stupidest idea.
“Wolf,” Fox growled, “what the fuck did you train this raccoon to do…?”
“I really wish I was bloody joking, Ben, but that’s Alex. That,” he paused to spit up a little bit of blood. Fuck, Fox wasn’t missing the gym, he still hit like a goddamn train. “That is Cub.” And Wolf’s nose was broken, but semantics or whatever.
Ben just narrowed his eyes, rolling back and sitting on the floor. “Prove it.”
Wolf sent a pointed glance at Alex, who pitter-pattered his way over to Ben and picked up his wrist, gently rubbing small circles into the inner wrist.
And somehow, Ben’s eyes went from skeptical to understanding to horrified.
“Alex.”
Alex nodded back.
Ben sighed loudly. “You’re… Christ alive, you’re huge. Did you have to hit my nuts that hard?”
-
Fox set Wolf’s nose, sighed, made himself some coffee, iced his nuts, and then drove Wolf to the hospital, because the bleeding was getting a bit worrisome, and Snake was sick of them calling him for stupid injuries they could just get fixed at any old clinic.
Alex sat buckled up in the back, rocking around despite the seatbelt, and as he started clawing at the seats to maintain a seated position, Fox pulled over and pulled the boy-turned-raccoon into his lap.
“You are not scratching these seats. Settle down or I’m dumping you in a pond.”
Alex made a grumpy little noise, and it would have been adorable were it not for the fact that Wolf was focused on other things, namely, his broken face. He got dropped off, Fox coming in mostly as a courtesy, and Wolf was set in the waiting room, where he sat, trying not to fall asleep, and failing multiple times.
Some hours, impromptu naps, paperwork, and bandages later, he found that Fox had fucked off and left him at the hospital alone, so he called a cab home and entered his own apartment, where two people who didn’t live there were very much making themselves at home.
“You have your own homes, right?” Wolf asked, eyeing the popcorn that Fox was tossing in the air and that Alex was catching.
“No pets policy,” Fox replied, and Wolf cursed his lack of a landlord. He owned this apartment. It was tiny and shitty, but it was his and he paid for all of it, minus the raccoon and freeloader.
Speaking of the raccoon, “Can he even eat that?”
“We did some research. Raccoons should generally be able to eat anything humans would eat as long as it's healthy. As far as pet raccoons, that’s a different story, but I am not sure how we would even begin to explain the situation to a vet.”
“Fair enough. What do pet raccoons even eat?”
“Bugs, grubs, meat. It varies, as they are omnivores.”
“And Alex isn’t so far gone as to eat bugs, eh?”
“No, he is not.”
Alex quietly munched on more popcorn, and Wolf just sighed. “Well, I guess I have a fucking raccoon living in my apartment now. Do I need to get a litter box or something?”
“... probably?”
“I thought you did research.”
“Not that much research.” Fox shrugged. “You interrupted.”
“I interrupted? What the hell were you two doing then, just tossing around some popcorn?”
“Testing Alex’s reflexes and motor skills.” Fox said it with a straight face, which wasn’t saying much, but Alex nodded, which only cemented Wolf’s belief that it was a lie.
“Just say you were fucking around.”
“... we weren’t, we were testing-”
“I’m going to bed!”
“It’s 6 in the morning.”
“And I got no sleep! I wonder why!”
Wolf was asleep within seconds of falling onto his bed. Who would have thought getting a friend turned into a raccoon and then getting the shit beat out of you by a different friend could be so stressful.
At least he got the satisfaction of Ben’s nuts getting punted in.
-
[Eagle:] hey fox is wolf okay?
[Fox:] Why are you asking me.
[Eagle:] because you know everything, obviously
[Fox:] He’s asleep right now.
[Eagle:] damn really? its almost nine, hes usually up by now
[Fox:] It’s been a rough day for him
[Eagle:] seems so. he texted me about a raccoon or something?
Fox pinched the bridge of his nose as he tried to consider how to explain the situation, but Eagle had already sent another text.
[Eagle:] ill bring some food over. soup or something
[Fox:] Please don’t.
[Eagle:] seen you soon
[Fox:] I just said don’t come over.
[Eagle:] youre not the boss of me
Well, fuck. Fox went and woke Wolf, dodging the half-hearted pillow toss Wolf sent his way.
“I’ve barely slept, you arse,” was mumbled out from the human shaped lump of blankets.
“Eagle will be over in a bit.”
Wolf groaned, rolling over. “Are you kidding me? Did you forget to tell him to fuck off?”
“Do you really think that will stop him? Besides, he’s bringing you food.”
Wolf didn’t respond, but he got to his feet, heading to the bathroom to presumably gussy up or take a piss. Or both.
Not wanting to stick around for it, Fox headed back out to the kitchen, but didn’t find Alex. He moved to the living room, and found the raccoon curled up in a round lump on the couch, snoozing and slightly shivering.
“Hey Alex,” Ben said, taking a seat next to him, and Alex looked up, and then sneezed.
“You alright? You cold?”
Alex nodded.
“Ah, not your natural habitat or something? Eh, we’ll figure something out. I’m gonna head back to ours, see if I can’t catch a few winks of my own. Do you want me to bring anything back?”
Alex nodded, and Fox sat waiting, only to realize, “Oh, wait. You can’t talk. Hold on.”
He quickly retrieved the laptop from the kitchen table, noting the low battery, and let Alex type away.
‘phone ur sweater’
“My sweater?”
‘smell safe’
Well didn’t that just melt Fox’s heart.
“I’ll leave my scarf here, yeah?” He pulled off the scarf and handed it to Alex, who bundled himself into it. “I’ll see about contacting Tom as well, if you would like.”
Alex looked up at him and shook his head.
“No? You wanna do it yourself?” Alex nodded, and Ben shrugged. “Alright then. I’ll head out then. See you soon, Al.”
He plugged the charger into the laptop, sending another glance Alex’s way as he slept. Then he left, and when he arrived home, immediately passed out for fourteen hours.
-
Wolf left the bathroom with a sigh, hearing Fox shut the door. He had to eat something, and the sound of Eagle bringing food over sounded great. He trudged through the apartment, and briefly paused at the couch. Alex had fallen asleep using Ben’s scarf as a pillow, but he was shivering a bit. Grabbing a small blanket off the back of the couch, he gently draped it over the rodent. Or whatever a raccoon is. Fuck, he would need to do research, huh?
He grabbed his laptop off the side table, dusting it off for possible raccoon fur, and placed it on the coffee table, then sat down on the couch as well with a huff.
God, what a day. He ran a hand down his face and immediately cursed as he touched his freshly healing nose. It wasn’t even noon. Or did this still count as the day earlier? He barely slept to begin with, that counted as a nap, right? A nap sounded incredible, actually.
Fuck it, Eagle would wake him. Wolf flopped onto the couch, head landing on an oddly warm pillow. Then there was a loud whining cry directly in his ears and he immediately sat back up, glancing over at Alex the Raccoon on his couch, who was looking at him with a pair of puppy dog eyes (puppy raccoon eyes?).
Shit, he practically squashed the poor kid.
“Sorry, forgot you were here,” he muttered, but he laid back down, this time pointedly laying his head on Alex’s raccoon fat, though much gentler. There was another, smaller noise of discomfort, but Wolf ignored it and settled in.
“Consider this rent, Cub.”
Wolf dozed off easily, exhaustion really settling in from the past several hours. He woke to a hand on his shin, shaking him, and he opened his eyes to see Eagle, with what they liked to call his ‘surprised bird expression’.
“Wolf. What the hell is that.”
“Wuh?” Wolf replied, still booting up.
“I dunno if you noticed, but you’re laying on a raccoon, mate.”
“S’Alex,” Wolf slurred out. “Go ‘way, m’tired.”
“... WHAT DO YOU MEAN-”
Due to the volume, Wolf felt justified in picking up his pillow and whacking Eagle with it until he remembered, oh shit, his pillow is Alex.
“Oh god, Alex, I am so sorry,” he blurted, holding the raccoon/kid/raccoon kid carefully.
Alex made an annoyed noise in response, wiggling his back feet a bit.
“You alright? Didn’t get hurt?”
Alex shook his head. It made his belly jiggle a little bit, and Wolf bit back a laugh. Way too adorable.
“Wolf, what the fuck is happening?” Eagle stage-whispered, staring at Alex with a bewildered expression.
“Cub got turned into a fat raccoon,” was the simple reply, because really that’s all there was to it.
“Right. You, uh, you doin’ alright, mate? Striking out on dates lately? Maybe layin' into the bottle a bit?”
Wolf stared at Eagle, then put Alex down on the couch and said, “Cub, get him.”
“Wait, what-?”
With an incredibly pathetic sounding war cry, Alex launched himself at Eagle, who dodged out of the way, only Alex to start climbing his jeans, tiny claws and teeth gripping on tight as he climbed upwards.
“Wolf! Help me!”
“You can handle explosives but you can’t handle a fucking raccoon?”
Alex was now climbing into Eagle’s shirt, eliciting a small shriek.
“WOLF!”
“Oh, hush you.”
“WOLF, WHAT IF HE HAS RABIES!”
“You got rabies, Cub?”
Alex made a noise that sounded somewhat offended.
“Right, we would probably know by now, huh. No rabies, then.”
“HE’S A WILD ANIMAL, WOLF. HE MIGHT HAVE DISEASES UNDER HIS FINGERNAILS.”
“Yeah, he scratched the hell out of my windowsill. I was gonna make Fox pay for that, but maybe I’ll hoist it off on you.”
“I BROUGHT YOU FOOD AND THIS IS HOW YOU BETRAY ME?”
Fuck, right, food.
“Alright Cub, he’s learned his lesson.”
Alex, however, did not remove himself from within Eagle’s shirt, though he did stop wiggling.
“Cub. C’mon.”
There was a small whine.
“What, you wanna stay up there? You sure you aren’t going to suffer from inhaling Eagle’s Axe?”
Eagle, who was starting to calm down a bit, instantly adjusted himself to actually hold Alex like some sort of weird baby in his shirt. “Firstly, nothing wrong with wearing Axe. Secondly, I’m not wearing any Axe, Wolf, I was busy making food because I was worried about you.”
Wolf, being the mature adult that he was, snorted and said, “Gross, you care about me or something? Nerd.”
“Well I guess someone doesn’t want the tamales I-”
At the mention of that, Wolf was instantly on his feet, snagging the bag of food Eagle had left on the floor in the wake of his ‘Holy Shit That’s A Raccoon’ freakout.
“No take backs,” Wolf called over his shoulder, and he placed the bag on his table, pointedly avoiding looking at the scratches on the table Cub had left. He pulled out the soup, which smelled amazing, and set about heating it up, which would make his entire kitchen smell amazing.
Everyone in K-Unit was really good at something in particular. Fox, he could bluff like the universe depended on it. Snake, incredible throwing aim, especially when he has alcohol in his system. Wolf, wood carving and whittling. Cub, setting things on fire or making them explode. Eagle, incredible chef. If he brought food over, there would never be any leftovers. For there to be soup and tamales just for Wolf was like a love letter.
Eagle wandered in soon after. Alex, still a vague, rotund shape in his shirt, seemed to be getting comfortable. Taking it in stride, Eagle tucked his shirt around the raccoon and sat down at Wolf’s scratched mahogany table with a groan.
“Is this what pregnancy is like?” he wondered aloud, and Wolf scoffed as he pulled out a pot from beneath the stove.
“Depends, is Cub kicking you?”
“No?” Eagle let out a small noise of discomfort. “Yes?”
“Now you’re pregnant.”
“You hear that, Cub? You’re my little baby! You're in my belly!”
There was an awkward pause as Eagle registered what he said. Wolf gave him Signature Look #45: Eagle Said Something Dumb, and lit the stove.
“Never mind, that sounded better in my head. So, uh, what happened to you?” Alex made a noise of annoyance, settling himself better in Eagle’s shirt. “Right, you can’t, uh, you can’t talk. So…”
There was another awkward pause.
“Oh wait, does Fox know he’s here? He’s been freaking out since Cub went missing.”
“Why do you think my nose is bandaged, Eagle?”
“Because you got into a fight with your doorframe?”
Wolf shot Signature Look #46: Eagle Said Something Dumber at his third favorite teammate, who ignored him, like a prick, and was instead looking down his shirt at Alex and making dumb faces at him like he was a baby. “No, it’s because Fox thought I was pranking him when I said Cub turned into a fat raccoon and he broke my nose.”
“Ohhh. Still got a nasty hook then, eh?”
Scoffing, Wolf absently stirred his soup. “It’s Fox, what do you expect?”
“I dunno! Sometimes I expect him to show up with some cougar lady, saying that he’s quit his job and has a rich wife to sustain him and is going to adopt Cub with her.”
“... what? ”
“Never mind. What I’m saying is that he can be kind of unpredictable.”
“The fuck does that have to do with him losing the ability to swing a fucking hook? ”
“I dunno! It made more sense in my head, okay? Hey, you eating those crisps?”
Wolf turned away from his warming soup and saw the bag of crisps Alex had ripped open the night before. They were undoubtedly stale by now, but Eagle was weird and did things like eat stale crisps. Weirdo.
“Nah, but Cub was eating them, little gremlin.”
Eagle pursed his lips. “Well, I dunno where your paws have been, mate, but I’m not risking it.” Internally, Wolf judged Eagle because this guy also ate food he dropped in sand. There was no amount of shaking that could get every bit of sand off of that sausage. A raccoon touching some crisps was really not that different. Again, weirdo.
Alex made a noise similar to a laugh, and started to struggle out of Eagle’s shirt. Sensing what Alex wanted, Eagle pulled the raccoon out and placed him on the table, where he crawled over to the bag of crisps and resumed munching on them. Eagle quickly took a picture, because quite frankly it was hilarious to see. Alex flipped him off, warranting another picture.
Eagle chuckled as he sent the pictures to the K-Unit group chat. “Wolf, man, what is our life.”
Wolf sat down at the table, steaming soup in a bowl and two hot tamales on a plate beside it. “I ask myself that far too often. I blame Cub though.”
“Yeah, me too.”
To his credit, Alex looked at them and shrugged, not really able to deny that he brought about a certain chaos. Their fault for sticking around, really.