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You didn’t have to be old to get into selection.
Snake was young even for that.
A prodigy, some had said, or at least an early bloomer. He’d signed up when he was 16 - both because he made a deal with his parents, and because it helped him to deal with his parents. He’d signed up for selection the moment he turned 18.
Who didn’t want to be part of the SAS?
Brecon Beacons was as cold and wet as he’d been told to expect.
His selection unit was a good one - or so it seemed. They got along well. Wolf was a bit of a cock, but nothing that Snake hadn’t seen before. The posturing. The bravado. There was something that Wolf was hiding - something he was scared of.
He reminded Snake of his youngest sister, now age eight, who still refused to sleep without a knife under her pillow. In case the monsters came back, she said.
Snake had been the one to give her it.
It helped he thought.
So he sympathised with Wolf, who slept with a knife under his pillow and looked nervously at the taller obstacles on the assault course. A bad fall, perhaps, or just that unerring sense of mortality that everyone learnt to push to one side.
Snake might have been a couple of years younger than the other man, but he felt like the other man had probably seen less. Done less. Faced less.
That was the nature of Snake’s life.
Hectic.
His brother had suffered too - he had been old enough to face the belt before Snake suggested that his father might want to take a long walk and not come back.
Snake had been 17. Back home after his first tour. Back home after facing death in countries far away.
That was when he’d taken his first stand at home.
He wish it had been sooner.
His brother had deserved better than a couple of years of feeling the belt. Their father had reckoned that 11 was old enough for that, and his brother had reached 13 before Snake took his stand.
But his father hadn’t come back after Snake’s little chat. No even when he went back into service, like Snake half expected to be the case. The man had at least the smarts to manage that.
So yeah.
Selection.
Snake was happy with it. With his progress. With the work he was doing in basic. Even if he was only 18, he was holding his own.
And then Alex turned up.
Snake had felt part of him die.
He knew the rules.
Clearly someone else didn’t.
Alex didn’t talk much. Not about his age at least. But Snake had seen his brother grow up, and he figured Alex couldn’t be that much younger. Alex was probably fifteen. Sixteen maybe, if you thought that he was scrawny or small, rather than just young. But Snake didn’t think that.
He tried not to hope that Alex was younger than that.
Surely they wouldn’t do that?
He slept badly the first night, waking up suddenly in the middle of the night, imagining that his sister was next to him, holding his hand, about to face the assault course.
She wasn’t there, but Snake could see the outline of Alex’s face in the darkness when he woke up. It was easy to imagine that his slender face wasn’t just young, but female too. It was easy for Snake to imagine Bea lying there instead of Alex.
The drill sergeant didn’t take things easy on the lad easy, Snake noticed. There was no mercy given to him. They didn’t even intervene in the rumours. To stop the whispers. To do… anything
Snake felt guilty that he didn’t do anything either, but what was he supposed to do?
He was just here in selection.
They had been here a while.
Was this worth his career?
He slept worse the second night, tossing and turning enough that Eagle grumbled from across the room.
Snake settled for watching Alex. He could imagine Ruth there too, now that he’d seen Alex struggle his way through the assault course. Now that he’d seen how Alex faced down issues.
There was something about the tilt of the jaw.
There was something about the way they both found something deep inside them to draw on.
There was something about th-
The morning bell went and Snake fell out of bed, having not slept a wink.
To his credit, his accuracy barely slipped on the range. He even remembered to make sure that Alex got some food. He didn’t think that hazing the kid was going to help him, and no one was gonna make enough of a point of hazing him if Snake went out of his way.
Alex whispered a thanks and then scarfed down the food.
Snake said nothing back. What could he say? What could he do?
By the time Alex left, Snake knew he was only 14.
He sat down opposite the camp commander.
“You don’t want to do this.” The commander said evenly, “I know what you’re going to say and I’m going to tell you that you don’t want to do this.”
“He’s fourteen!”
“He’s a special agent.” The commander replied, “His age is classified.”
“So classified here that every single person in this camp knows how old he is.” Snake bit out a retort, “I have a kid brother that’s barely ol-”
“And what do you want me to do?” The commander asked, “Because we have no jurisdiction here. Nothing.”
“I want you t-”
“To do the impossible.” The commander shook his head. “Go home. Think about your choices. Consider it a week of compassionate leave.”
Snake took it.
Snake thought about it for a week.
Snake came back.
What was the other option? To go back to the military? To be just another pair of boots on the ground?
He passed selection.
He took the job.
Alex’s eyes haunted his sleep.
By the time he turned 20, nearly eighteen months into his service, he was known for mentoring the new kids on the blocks. The ones who signed up because they didn’t have a choice. The ones who signed up because they believed the hype. The ones who… shouldn’t have signed up.
Snake watched them all.
Helped them all.
Tried to make up for it.
And the first time he saw a man die, screaming as petrol and flames engulfed his body, his mind turned again to Alex.
And, somewhere deep inside, Snake hoped like hell that someone else had the balls to take a stand and get that kid out.
Because Snake hadn’t slept well since the day he let Alex go.