AN: Okay, first, I know I said the next installment would be as quiet as a closed mouth. I changed my mind. Placement-wise, as quiet as a closed mouth is better saved for farther down the road. (Read: I decided I didn't want to write as quiet as a closed mouth, so I changed the plot to make it more interesting, and then it couldn't fit here because I had a strict timeline and the events of as quiet as a closed mouth don't happen until later on.)

On another note—okay, so, the title. I'm sorry. It had to be done. I have this thing where I'm titling all of the fics in this series with a Warsan Shire quote, and for men who are also wolves was too good to resist as for the title of this installment. I'm sorry. (I'm not sorry.)

Cheers!

halestorm

After school, Alex loosens his tie, rolls up the sleeves of his blazer, boards the tube, and gets the distinct feeling that someone is watching him.

He makes a big show of collapsing into a seat and dropping his schoolbag onto the floor, and then covertly glances around the carriage—and makes eye contact with a man he never thought he'd see again.

His mouth goes dry.

Wolf just stares at him, head cocked to the side, eyes narrowed in concentration. He's across the carriage from Alex, and Alex looks him up and down. Old trainers, holey jeans, a t-shirt. Casual dress, like he's just going out.

Alex arches an eyebrow at Wolf and tries to ignore how utterly weird it is to see him like this. Like he's an actual citizen. Which, it occurs to Alex, Wolf is.

After a moment, Wolf leans down and picks up a paper bag full of groceries from at his feet, letting other passengers crowd into the carriage.

Alex blanches. Casual dress, groceries…here in a minute, Wolf will turn to the cute blond in the seat next to him and ask her what time he needs to pick up the kids from daycare.

Domestication is not something Alex associates with SAS agents.

Then Wolf does turn to the blond in the seat next to him, speaking lowly into her ear, and what he says causes her to glance up from her phone, her eyes skimming over the other passengers for a second before landing on Alex. She arches a brow, and says something back to Wolf that Alex can't hear over the shuffling of the passengers trying to find a place on the carriage.

The couple exchange words for a moment, and then the blond jumps to her feet, causing an alarmed glance to cross over Wolf's face, and she marches across the carriage and seats herself next to Alex. She gives Wolf a defiant glare and pats the seat next to her, and Alex can see the exasperation in the tension in Wolf's shoulders as he hoists up the grocery bag and crosses the carriage to sit beside her.

"My fiancé is an idiot," the blond says brightly, like she does this all the time, "and doesn't remember where he knows you from. Help us out?"

Alex blinks. "I kicked his arse out of a plane once, so. He's probably still a little shell-shocked from it."

Recognition dawns in Wolf's eyes, and his whole face flushes red. His fiancé says, slowly, "I'd ask, but I'm completely sure I don't really want to know that that means. James?"

Wolf shakes his head, and Alex says, "Your name is James? That's kind of anticlimactic. Wolf is so much cooler."

"Shut up," Wolf half-growls, shaking his head. "Shit, kid, what the hell are you doing in London? Shouldn't you be causing trouble at some other over-priced boarding school in the middle of nowhere?"

That's about the time it occurs to Alex that no one ever told Wolf that Alex wasn't actually a rich kid who just happened to get caught up in a boarding school scandal. Alex wouldn't be surprised if the official debriefing cast him in that light, anyways.

A million thoughts run through Alex's mind, halfway between letting Wolf believe he really is a rich kid, and telling him, "Well, a gay consulting detective and his fiancé sort of unofficially adopted me."

In the end, he opts for the first option. "Boarding schools are overrated," Alex says. "After last time, I'm not sure I'll ever attend another boarding school."

Wolf snorts, but then he shakes his head. "What are you doing instead? Terrorizing private tutors?"

"Of course," Alex says. "I can't kick your sorry arse out of planes all the time. Education is important."

"Yeah," Wolf's fiancé says, "I've decided I really don't want to know how you know each other. What's more, I'm not sure it's legal for me to know. Should I go?"

"No," Wolf says quickly, like a knee-jerk reaction, and kind of scrunches his nose at Alex as he says, "Er, Cub, this is Nina. Nina, this is Cub."

"Alex, actually," Alex corrects. "No one calls me Cub anymore. Come to think of it, no one ever really did. Except for you and the rest of K-Unit. How are they, by the way? Still torturing teenagers who aren't any happier about the arrangement than they are?"

Wolf rolls his eyes. "You're crossing the line of what can be said in public and what can't, kid."

"Right, sorry." Alex points at Nina. "Tell me how you wooed her, instead. I'm surprised you managed to convince a girl to like you at all. You're so brutish and angry all the time."

Wolf makes a disgruntled sound in the back of his throat, and Nina snorts. "I happened to move into the apartment next to his the same night someone decided they wanted to break into his house. Long story short, I played hero, James played damsel in distress, and here we are, two years later. Engaged and living together, baby on the way."

Wolf rolls his eyes, and Alex kind of gapes at the idea of Wolf being a father.

"The world isn't ready for another Wolf," Alex finds himself saying, and shakes his head. Nina frowns.

"Tough," she says flatly. "I am."

Alex shrugs and asks, "So, you're getting married because you got knocked up, or…?"

"We found out about the baby after I proposed," Wolf says flatly, and Alex can't help but say mockingly, "Oh, I thought Nina would have proposed, her wearing the trousers in the relationship and all."

Wolf's fingers clench into a fist, and he glares at Alex as the train finally starts moving. "You know, kid, you're still an asshole."

Alex's lips curl into a bitter smile. "Am I? Hadn't noticed. Must be too used to expensive boarding schools and private tutors and getting whatever I want, whenever I want."

Wolf stares at Alex, and Alex stares back. After a moment, Nina clears her throat. "For the love of all that is holy, will you two knock it off? There's no way in hell there's a legitimate reason for there to be this much hostility between the two of you."

Wolf blinks, then sighs, all the tension leaving his shoulders like he's deflating. "Fine."

Nina nods her approval, then looks at Alex, like she's expecting him to give in and do the same. Alex heaves a long-suffering sigh and says, "I'm not going to apologize. He started it."

Never let it be said that just because Alex grew up too quickly means that he's not still a teenager.

"See?" Wolf barks, louder than necessary, attracting sharp looks from other passengers on the carriage. "He's a jaded brat who doesn't have any respect for anyone!"

Alex arches a brow. "Like you gave me anything to respect?" he retorts. "I'd been blackmailed into a situation no fourteen year old boy has any reason to be in, and you treated me like shit you scraped off your boots. Am I supposed to respect you for that?"

Wolf's mouth drops open slightly, but he says nothing. His cheeks flush a little bit red, and Alex slumps down into his seat.

"Look," Alex mumbles, "I'm getting off at the next stop, and you'll never have to see me again. Which is for the better, I think. Can we just sit out the rest of this trip in silence?"

Wolf doesn't say anything else. Nina twines her fingers through his, and they sit through the rest of the trip in silence.

When they finally reach Alex's stop, Nina says, "It was nice to meet you, Alex."

Alex gives her a mirthless smile. "No," he says flatly, "it wasn't."

He turns and follows the flood of passengers off the tube, and he doesn't look back.

"Old gang member?" Sherlock asks when Alex walks through the door, unwinding his scarf from around his neck and dropping his schoolbag to the floor.

Alex hums in reply. "SAS agent, actually."

Sherlock glances up from his (or John's—it's hard to tell) laptop, looking him over. "Really," he says flatly, and Alex shrugs.

"I kicked him out of a plane once. He sent me a card when I was in the hospital. We're very close."

Sherlock's gaze drops back to the computer. "Should I call John in here so you can explain to someone who cares why his visit left you so emotionally drained, or are you going to tell me?"

Alex shakes his head. "I'll pass, thanks."

John pokes his head into the room from the hallway. "Did I hear something about Alex's gang?"

Which is the story Alex went with in Angelo's last month, when John didn't believe him about working for MI6.

"Fine," Alex had sighed. "I used to be in a gang. My uncle was in it, and I wasn't involved until he died—they blackmailed me into joining by threatening the life of my housekeeper-turned-guardian, and when I finally got out, I was shipped off to the states to live with a family friend, until I ran away about two weeks before I ended up here. Okay?"

John had raised a brow. "Why didn't you stay with your housekeeper, if she was your legal guardian?"

Alex hadn't had to say anything—just one despondent look was all it took for John to realize.

"Oh," he'd said, and Alex had shrugged.

"What's done is done," he'd said. "I'm out, and I don't think they're ever coming back for me."

Now, Alex sighs. "No," he says. "I just ran into an old friend on the tube today."

"He says his 'friend' was SAS," Sherlock supplies, tapping away at John's (definitely John's, Alex determines) laptop. "He's not lying."

John gives Alex a startled look. "Why the hell do you have friends in the SAS?"

"They come in handy when mad men are trying to dissect you as science experiments for their deranged clones," Alex says dryly. "Why don't you have friends in the SAS?"

It's almost funny how much Alex can reveal about his past that Sherlock and John take as sarcasm—it's become something of a game for Alex, to see how much he can get away with saying before they realize he's not being sarcastic at all. (Well, he's still being a little sarcastic. But he's telling the truth, at least.)

"I just got called into work," John says instead of replying, rolling his eyes at Alex. "You two okay here by yourselves?"

Sherlock mutters something that might be "yes" but could just as likely be "Amsterdam." Alex says, "Mind if I tag along? Last time you left me alone with Sherlock, he tried to freeze my hand."

"It was for science," Sherlock murmurs in a half-hearted protest when John gives him an affronted look.

John shakes his head. "Come on, Alex. I don't want to be late."

On the way to the hospital, John lays down a few ground rules—keep to yourself, don't make a scene, don't bother any of the patients, get John if there's an emergency, if Sherlock calls don't let him convince Alex to take the phone to John unless there's a proper emergency, and stay safe.

It's almost more trouble than it's worth, but a Doctor Who rerun is playing on the telly, and one of the nurses seems to have a sweet spot for Alex, and Sherlock isn't trying to freeze any of Alex's appendages while Alex is trying to do homework. All in all, it evens out.

Alex has been there for an hour, studiously working through maths and history, and he's just starting in on English when he hears the doors swing open and a girl's voice say, "Stop worrying! I'm fine and the baby is fine, and your job demanding your attention for a month or so isn't going to change that!"

Alex glances up, wrinkles his nose, and wonders for a moment if he should just grab his things and go back to the flat, but then they see him, and it's too late to hide now, anyways.

He waves, then turns back to his English textbook, Wolf's groan loud even from across the room. Nina says something to him that Alex can't make out, her voice scolding, and then she crosses the room and drops into the seat beside him, leaving Wolf at the front desk.

"My mum was a nurse," she says in place of greeting. "Since my dad bailed when I was really young, I spent most of my childhood and teen years doing my homework in the hospital waiting room."

Alex hums quietly. "John's a doctor. I could be at home with Sherlock, but last time John left us alone together, he tried to cut my hand off in the name of science, and I almost let him just to make him shut up." He flexes his fingers at the memory, grimacing. "It's usually safer for me here."

Nina makes a sound in the back of her throat, kind of surprised and a little horrified, and Alex glances up at her. Uneasily, she says, "You almost let him cut your hand off…for science?"

Alex shrugs. "It was more entertaining than my maths homework."

Nina stares at him, eyes wide, and then she laughs. "Oh, you're being sarcastic," she says, relaxing into her chair. "James' friends all have a weird, dry sense of humor. I moved to the States for college, and fell out of touch with British humor. Even after I moved back, I never quite got the hang of it."

Wolf chooses that moment to settle into his chair beside Nina, and Alex decides it's easier to pretend he was being sarcastic than to admit that his technical guardian tried to cut his hand off. Less messy.

"Cub," Wolf says with a sigh, "I thought we agreed not to run into each other again?"

"Is it supposed to be my fault that you chose this hospital for Nina's checkup?"

Instead of answering, Wolf looks Alex up and down and says edgily, "You're not sick, are you?"

Alex rolls his eyes. "If you're really that concerned about Nina and the baby somehow getting sick, you should avoid the tube next time. And all public transportation, for that matter. I could have leprosy and it would still be safer for Nina to sit next to me than board the tube."

The look on Wolf's face is worth it, Alex decides, even when John pokes his head out of his office and happens to catch sight of Wolf's face and call out exasperatedly, "Alex, you're not torturing patients again, are you?"

Alex turns to look at John, grinning. "Maybe a little," he says. "But he was asking for it."

John hesitates in the doorway, looking at the secretary at the front desk for a minute before jogging across from the office to stand over Alex.

"Alex," John says, pinching the bridge of his nose, "what was the third condition of you tagging along?"

Alex makes a face. "Not fair," he says. "There should be a clause that says I can bother the patients as long as I know them."

John points at Wolf and Nina. "Oh, and I suppose you know them?"

"I told you I had a friend in the SAS," is Alex's blunt reply. Wolf makes a sound in the back of his throat, and Alex glances at him and adds, "But probably you should have had to sign an OSA before I told you that. Oops."

John stares at Nina and Wolf, and Nina watches her fiancé with bemusement. After a moment, John says, "I thought you were joking about that."

"But Sherlock—" Alex starts, and John cuts him off, saying to Wolf, "I'd ask how you met Alex, but I presume it's confidential?"

Wolf nods, glancing between them. "And…you're not Alex's father."

Alex mutters under his breath, "Well, his name is John, isn't it?" but no one hears. John says, "No, I'm not. I'm Alex's—" He pauses, unsure.

Alex supplies flatly, "Unofficial adoptive father?"

John rolls his eyes. "Something like that."

Wolf says, "What happened to Mr. and Mrs. Friend?"

"Not my real parents," Alex says, shrugging carelessly. "Thus, not important."

Which makes everyone fall silent, and then the obstetrician across the hallway pokes her head out of her office and says, "Nina DeBour?"

"That's us," Nina says, a bemused expression still twisting her features. To Wolf, she says, "If you want to stay and talk—"

He cuts her off before she can finish. "No, I'm coming with you." He squeezes her hand, then hoists her to her feet. He pauses before going into the room, turning back to look at Alex and saying uncertainly, "We should talk about this eventually. Straightforward, without all the vagueness."

"And without civilians present?" Alex teases. Wolf smirks.

"Preferably without the sarcasm."

"Ah." Alex shakes his head. "That's a deal breaker. I can't handle that conversation without a healthy dose of sarcasm." He cocks his head to the side. "Actually, if we had some alcohol—"

"No," John interrupts. He sounds amused. "No alcohol."

Alex pouts. "Take all the fun out of it, fine."

"Dinner?" John offers Wolf instead. "Friday night, eight o' clock? 221B Baker Street?"

"Yes," Nina says. "We'll be there." She latches onto Wolf's hand, waves, and tugs her fiancé into the office, where the obstetrician is watching the conversation with a frown. Alex frowns back at her—he's never liked her, anyways. She's too serious.

Alex turns back to his English textbook, scribbling in his notebook and avoiding John's scrutinizing eye. He can feel John's gaze on him, and mutters, "Never thought I'd see him again."

Alex crosses out one of his notes and scrawls in another, and John crosses his arms over his chest. "Should I be concerned about you being around him?"

Alex snorts. "Wolf? Nah. I mean, we were thrust into a situation neither of us were happy to be in. I saved his career, he saved my life—haven't seen him since I was fourteen. It should be over and done with," he says, and his pen bites into the paper so hard it tears, making Alex realize he's shaking. He sets the pen down.

"I never thought I'd see him again," Alex repeats, staring at his notepad. "I thought that part of my life was finally over, and then he showed up on the tube this morning, with his fiancé and his baby, and I just. I wanted it to be over because I thought I could finally have some semblance of a normal life with you and Sherlock, and clearly, I was wrong."

John doesn't say anything at first, easing himself down into the chair beside Alex. They sit in silence for a while, and when John finally speaks, all he says is, "I hate to break it to you, but if you wanted a normal life, Sherlock was a poor choice."

Alex snorts, staring at his notepad. John says, "Just be careful, okay? I don't want you to be affected by seeing him again. I don't want you to run off again, and neither does Sherlock."

He says nothing, and after a while, John stands, making his way towards his office and motioning his secretary for his next client.

"I won't," Alex mutters after John. He doesn't know if John hears him or not, but John doesn't come back.

They set up the table in the living room, and John convinces Sherlock to move all of his experiments into the kitchen cabinets. The process requires a lot of making out against random surfaces, and Alex goes downstairs to Mrs. Hudson's flat to help prepare dinner instead of waiting around for Sherlock and John to get the experiments into the kitchen.

Mrs. Hudson makes some kind of grilled chicken dish (Alex wasn't really paying attention when she explained), and Alex sits cross-legged on the counter and watches her. They were planning on ordering in, but Mrs. Hudson was appalled by the idea of their guests eating takeout, and insisted on cooking herself. It's almost a pity, because Alex is sort of craving Chinese.

Alex just hopes that by the time Wolf (Alex distantly considers calling him James, since that is his name and all, but it almost detaches Wolf from the man Alex met at Brecon Beacons, and then it's just weird) and Nina ring the bell, Sherlock and John are done making out like teenagers and have moved all of the experiments into the kitchen cabinets.

Alex slides off of the counter, chiming, "I'll go get it, don't worry," at Mrs. Hudson, and pulls open the door.

"Hi," Nina says, cheeks flushed from the cold, her fingers laced through Wolf's. Wolf mumbles a greeting, and Alex stands back to let them in.

"We're in the flat above," he says, and motions for them to follow him upstairs.

"I'll bring the food up when it's done," Mrs. Hudson calls, and Alex thinks he hears her muttering something about heads in the oven upstairs, but he's not sure.

"It's a cute building," Nina says, and Alex glances back at her. She looks stiff and awkward, out of place. Alex can't blame her, really.

"Yeah, well." He shrugs. "I'll be sure to let the architect know you appreciate his work."

"Oh," Nina says, sounding brighter, "you know the architect?"

Alex stops on the landing, turning around to face her. He raises a brow slowly. "No. He's dead."

Which might be the wrong thing to say. Nina's cheeks flush darker, and Wolf frowns at Alex.

Alex turns quickly and guides them into the kitchen. Then he stops, because it looks like John's "convincing" proved to be more of a distraction than anything.

"Is that a glass jar full of eyes?" Nina asks faintly, at the same time Wolf exclaims, "Jesus, is there a foot on the stove?"

Alex sighs. "I told Sherlock to clean up."

Wolf says quietly to Nina, like he thinks Alex can't hear him, "This has to be illegal. Should I call the police?"

"Don't bother," Alex says, and starts picking his way into the living room (it looks like there are cases of blood samples on the floor, and a shoebox that might hold nothing but human ears). "They're here all the time. Trust me, they know."

In the living room, John has Sherlock pressed against the wall, mouthing at the base of his neck while Sherlock whines pitifully. Alex groans.

"This," he says to Nina, "is why we never have people over."

Then he picks the newspaper up off of the coffee table and throws it at John, hitting him squarely on the back of his head, and mercifully distracting him from Sherlock.

"Oh," John says faintly, skin flushed and red, and Alex can't tell if it's from arousal or embarrassment. "They're here."

Sherlock glances at them disdainfully, then leans down, bites John's ear (John yelps and elbows Sherlock in turn) and turns, marching down the hallway to his bedroom. The sound of the door slamming shut echoes through the flat.

"Um," John says, smoothing out his wrinkled clothes, and Alex says, "That's John's fiancé, Sherlock."

Nina makes a small sound in her throat, and Alex glances back at her. She says, "For some reason, I thought Sherlock was, like, your brother or something. From the way you talked about him."

"He's more like my brother than a father," Alex says thoughtfully. "Usually I just call him Mum, though. It'd be weird to think of Sherlock as a brother when he's fucking my unofficial adoptive father."

"Alex," John says sharply, and Alex shrugs.

"It's not my fault I have to explain this," he says reasonably. "You're the one who decided it was a good idea to snog Sherlock while we were waiting for them to get here. Did you also forget about putting his experiments in the cabinets? I didn't even know Sherlock had that many ears in his possession—Molly should probably cut him off. Not his ear, of course, but I'm pretty sure she wouldn't be opposed to us calling her Van Gogh if she did."

John makes a despairing sound in the back of his throat, and then turns and walks into the hallway. A few minutes later, Alex hears the bedroom door open and shut, and he shakes his head.

"That wasn't even an accurate reference," he mumbles to himself, then turns to look at Nina and Wolf. "I completely understand if you choose to leave. They choose now, of all times,to be dysfunctional gay not-parents."

Wolf and Nina stare at him. Alex raises a brow and stares back challengingly. Behind them, Mrs. Hudson says, "Dear, I brought the food up—did Sherlock and John have a quarrel again? I heard the door slam."

Alex turns to face her. "The opposite, actually. Thanks, Mrs. Hudson."

She grins at him, sets the food on the table in the living room, makes a passing comment to Nina about how pretty she is, and then disappears back downstairs.

Alex, Nina, and Wolf stand in silence. After a moment, Nina says, "It smells delicious. What is it?"

"Chicken," Alex says, staring at the dish. "Probably. Staying to find out?"

Nina shrugs, taking off her jacket and hanging it over the back of the couch before sliding into a chair at the table. "My uncle was gay," she says lightly. "He was a little less eccentric, but still. I'm used to it."

She glances at Wolf and says, "James. Sit."

Alex almost laughs when Wolf obeys without question.

"So," Alex says, pointing at Nina. "What can I say in front of her?"

Alex manages to tell Nina and Wolf everything from being blackmailed into working for MI6 to telling John and Sherlock that he was in a gang, and then sends them on their merry way home, before John reemerges from the bedroom, still looking slightly embarrassed and possibly like he's just gotten off.

"I can't believe," Alex says slowly, looking him up and down, "that you'd have sex while we have company in the next room. Honestly."

John flushes. "Sherlock," he mumbles, "is insatiable."

Alex groans. "Ew. Didn't want to know that." Then; "If you're hoping for food, we ate it all. But there might be something in the kitchen. You know, amidst all of the experiments that you didn't make Sherlock put up."

John rolls his eyes. "No, I came to see how you are." He folds his arms over his chest and looks unsure for just a minute. "I walked out to give you privacy—I figured if you wanted to talk to Sherlock and me, you would."

Alex presses his mouth into a thin line. "It's not that I don't want to talk to you," he says carefully. "It's just, some things…"

John nods in understanding, and after a moment, Alex says, "Nina's really nice. She invited me to hang out after school sometime. She likes me. At this rate, I'll be the baby's godfather or something."

Alex kind of snorts at that, because godfathers totally don't have the best reputation in his family. John says, "Whatever it is between you and—James, Wolf, whatever—is your business. But I'd like to know, eventually, how having friends in the SAS corresponds to being in a gang."

Alex grimaces. "You will," he says. "Eventually."