Chapter 30
If someone had told Zenko a month ago that walking half a block would leave him out of breath and feeling like he’d run ten fucking miles, he would have laughed himself stupid.
Right now, he was eyeing the sergeant on the opposite side of the street, wondering if the guy was carrying any painkillers and whether he could persuade him to hand them over.
“You okay?”
“Peachy.”
“Liar.” Shaun rolled his eyes.
Zenko would never admit leaving the hospital might have been a mistake. Nope. He’d been going fucking crazy trapped inside that room, and being out here hurting like a bastard still beat lying in that bed while somebody checked his vitals every five minutes.
Shaun studied him as they walked. “You know, if you felt even slightly normal, you would have signed yourself?—”
“Shit.” Zenko stopped dead in the middle of the street as the realization hit him.
Shaun immediately turned toward him. “What?”
“We didn’t sign me out.” Zenko glanced back in the direction of the hospital before shaking his head. “Too late to worry about that now.”
Shaun nudged him into moving again and gestured toward the CHU. “Someone is waiting for us.”
“That’ll be Noble.” Zenko didn’t need to look toward the CHU to know exactly who Shaun meant.
“I can hear you, dipshit.” Noble stood on the makeshift porch outside the housing unit, arms folded across his chest as he watched them approach. “Get your stupid ass inside.”
“Roger.” Zenko waited until Noble turned his back before gritting his teeth and hauling his aching ass up the steps. By the time he crossed the threshold into the CHU, he was breathing harder than he wanted anyone in the room to notice, but at least he’d made it under his own steam.
The rest of Red Squadron were scattered around the single-room building, occupying themselves with the usual downtime bullshit.
Castiel and Roman had claimed a couple of bunks, Saxon was pouring Jack Daniels into a glass, and Max had taken over part of the table with enough gear spread around him to suggest he’d been checking his kit before Noble summoned everyone back to quarters.
Run-of-the-mill everyday shit, except every head in the fucking room turned toward the door the second they walked through it.
Castiel caught sight of him first.
“Zen.” He came off the bunk so fast his knee clipped the frame, but he barely seemed to notice as he crossed the room in a couple of long strides and stopped directly in front of Zenko. His grin spread wide enough to show teeth. “You’re back.”
“Dude.” Saxon jerked upright so fast that Jack Daniels sloshed over the rim of the glass he’d been filling and splashed across his fingers. He stared at Zenko for a second before setting the bottle down. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
“You’re better?” Roman moved the M4 off his lap and stood, his attention running over Zenko as though he was trying to reconcile the man standing in front of him with whatever report they’d last received from the hospital. “They actually released you?”
“Can it.” Noble’s growl cut across the questions before Zenko could decide how creatively he wanted to avoid answering Roman’s. He pointed toward the door without taking his eyes off Zenko. “Clear the fuck out. Now.”
“Shit.” Max took one look at Noble’s face and apparently decided there were some battles he didn’t need to be involved in. He started gathering his gear from the table before jerking his chin toward the door. “Sure. C’mon, we’ll go to the mess for coffee.”
“Traitors,” Zenko muttered as his teammates abandoned him with a speed that would have been fucking impressive under fire.
Castiel slapped him carefully on the shoulder on his way past, Saxon rescued his whiskey, and Roman gave him a look that promised the question about being released wasn’t going away forever.
Max brought up the rear, pausing beside Shaun long enough to murmur something Zenko couldn’t hear before following the others outside.
The sudden quiet left Zenko standing in the middle of the CHU with Shaun at his side and Noble directly in front of him.
“Drax.” Noble’s voice stopped him with one boot already over the threshold, and Zenko watched his teammate freeze before slowly turning back toward the room.
“Yes, boss?” Drax pasted on an innocent expression that wouldn’t have fooled a fucking toddler.
“Don’t fucking ‘yes, boss’ me.” Noble pointed at the floor in front of him. “Get your ass back here. I know you were involved.”
“Um.” Drax glanced toward the open door and the teammates who had successfully escaped through it, clearly reconsidering every decision that had led to him being the asshole left behind.
“Now, dickhead.” Noble didn’t raise his voice.
“Yes, Sir.” Drax abandoned the doorway and trudged back across the CHU, stopping beside Zenko before muttering from the corner of his mouth, “I fucking told you.”
“Don’t act all innocent with me.” Noble grabbed the whisky Saxon had abandoned and tossed it back before fixing Drax with another glare.
“You were the only one to leave the CHU, and the gate confirmed you brought idiot one and idiot two onto base with you less than twenty minutes ago.” He pointed between Shaun and Zenko.
“You want to try telling me you weren’t involved again? ”
“Ah, Noble—” Shaun got no further before Noble held up a hand, and whatever Shaun had been about to say died right there.
“I’ll get to you in a minute.” Noble turned his attention to Zenko. “What the actual fuck were you thinking, you idiot?”
Zenko raised an eyebrow, fully aware he was being a sarcastic shit and equally aware there wasn’t much Noble could do about it.
There was no desk here for Noble to sit behind while he delivered one of his commander lectures, and punching a man who’d recently been shot in the neck would probably be frowned upon.
The problem was he knew Noble too well, and Noble’s voice had dropped so low he almost had to strain to hear him. That was never a good sign.
“Your ass is meant to be in the hospital.” Noble started pacing the narrow strip of floor in front of them.
“You got fucking shot in the neck a few days ago, Zen. A few fucking days.” He turned at the end of the bunks and came straight back.
“Which part of the orders I gave you yesterday did you misunderstand?”
“All of it.” Zenko bit down on the inside of his cheek, but there wasn’t much point pretending he had a better excuse than the truth. “I had to get out. The walls were closing in.”
“The walls were closing in?” Noble spun around and hurled the empty glass at the counter hard enough to shatter it.
“The fucking walls were closing in? Jesus Christ, Zen.” He stood there staring at the broken glass for a second before turning back.
“Do you have any idea how much fucking paperwork you just created for me?”
“Um… Lots?” Oh, fuck. Noble hated extra paperwork more than he hated dealing with fruit salads further up the chain of command. Zenko probably should have remembered that before walking out of the MASH without signing a fucking thing.
“I can’t even fucking punch you.” Noble looked genuinely aggrieved by that particular injustice. “Fucker.” Then his attention shifted to Drax, who had been suspiciously quiet beside Zenko throughout the entire ass-chewing. “Your turn. Explain yourself, asshole.”
“Boss, remember Germany?” Drax apparently decided his best defense was dragging Noble’s own history into the fight. “You know, that time you were injured and signed your own ass out of a hospital?”
Zenko clamped down on a laugh as Drax moved across the room toward Saxon’s bourbon. Trust D-Man to throw Noble’s own hospital escape back in his face while the bastard is already pissed.
Drax reached for the bottle. “Think I’m gonna need some of this.”
Noble waited until Drax passed within reach before planting a left hook square on his chin.
Drax staggered sideways from the impact, dropped the Jack, and worked his jaw. “Ow, fuck.”
“I might not be able to punch that idiot, but you’re fair fucking game.” Noble looked considerably more satisfied now that he’d hit someone. “That’s for sneaking into my wallet, asshole.”
“Shit.” Drax worked his jaw from side to side before running his tongue over his teeth. “That fucking hurt.”
“Fucking good.” Noble planted himself in front of Drax. “You, fuckwad, are taking your leave as of an hour ago. If you weren’t on leave, I’d have to write you up for being a dumbass, and you know what that would fucking make for me?”
“More paperwork?”
“Exactly.” Noble pointed at Drax. “I’ll file the damn leave paperwork, and your ass is on a flight out of here. Sixty days, D-Man. I don’t want to see your ass for sixty fucking days. Got it?”
“Yup.”
“Excuse fucking me?”
“Yes, Sir, I got it.”
“Good. Now fucking move.”
“Noble—”
“Shut the hell up, Zenko.” Noble’s mouth kept moving after he stopped speaking, and Zenko could lip-read well enough to realize the bastard was counting backward from one hundred. He’d seen Noble pissed plenty of times over the years, but this was different, and Zenko knew exactly why.
He cares. The giant colossal dick is fucking scared.
Noble cared about every man under his command, and Zenko had been beside him since BUD/S nearly twenty years ago.
Getting shot in the neck and almost bleeding out had scared the shit out of Shaun, but Zenko was beginning to realize it had done a pretty fucking good job of scaring the shit out of Noble too.
“I am still trying to decide what to do with you.”
“We can go to your home on Stromboli,” Shaun offered.
“Nope.” Noble immediately killed that idea. “If y’all come home with us, the second he isn’t weaving on his feet every time he walks more than half a block, I’m going to punch him.”
“He’s afraid of what will happen if I punch him back,” Zenko whispered to Shaun.
“Want to say that a bit louder, Zen? I’m not sure the next CHU heard you.
” Noble snatched Max’s stress ball off the table and fired it at the wall hard enough for it to rebound into his waiting hand.
“Because, asshole, I sat in a critical care waiting room wondering if you were going to fucking make it. Keep pushing me, and I’ll find a medically acceptable way of sending your stupid ass straight back there. ”
“I had to bring him.” Shaun blew out a breath.
“He was going anyway, Noble. With me, without me, crawling on his fucking hands and knees if that was what it took.” His expression softened when he looked at Zenko.
“You can’t cage a wolf and expect it to be domesticated overnight, especially an injured one.
It was better that I made sure he got here safely. ”
“At least you remember he’s injured.” Noble sent the stress ball into the wall again, and Zenko had a pretty fucking good idea whose head Noble was imagining in its place.
“You both have orders to be Stateside by zero nine hundred Thursday morning.” This time, Noble deliberately changed his aim and bounced the ball off Shaun’s forehead.
“Grif and Rock can deal with your asses for a while.”
“You.” Noble pointed directly at Zenko. “Your ass is not allowed back on Stromboli until you can stand upright without fucking painkillers.”
“Hey.” Zenko allowed mock outrage to bleed through in his tone. “I’m fucking old. Painkillers are what keep me vertical and not creaking most days.”
“Then get a damn engine oil check.” Noble’s expression lost some of its irritation. “Seriously, Zenko, your ass has to pass a medical evaluation before you come back to Italy.”
“But—”
“No.” Noble slammed his fist into the wooden frame of the nearest bunk.
“I will not allow you or anyone else on this team to put the man beside you at risk because you came back before you were ready. You don’t return to active duty until you can give a hundred and ten percent.
Got it?” His voice finally broke free of the deadly quiet he’d been holding onto, filling the CHU with enough command authority to remind Zenko exactly who was giving the order.
“Aye, Sir, got it.” The response came automatically, pulled from habits Zenko had learned long before Red Squadron existed, and Noble would know exactly what the choice of word meant.
I mean it.
Now that he was out of the fucking hospital, Noble could send him wherever the hell he wanted.
As long as Shaun is with me, I’m good. Period.
Noble looked from Zenko to Shaun before settling on Drax. “Well, what are y’all waiting for? Pack your gear and get your asses moving. You have transport out of here in sixty.”
“Wait.” Zenko stared at him as Noble’s words finally registered. “As in sixty minutes?”
“Yep.”
“But, boss?—”
“Nope.” Noble didn’t give him enough room to start arguing. “Your asses are on that flight to Germany in sixty minutes, or you go back to the hospital.”
“Fuck.”
Zenko crossed to Castiel’s medic pack and started rummaging until he found a packet of ibuprofen.
That’ll have to fucking do until I can get something stronger.
“Start packing, babe. US of A, here we come.”