“You planning to say something?” Viper asked, voice flat.
The corpsman startled slightly, clearly not used to being addressed by SEALs who looked like they'd just crawled out of hell and were still alert enough to call him on his hesitation. “Sorry, Commander. It’s just... your charts say you were caught in a volcanic eruption, correct?”
“Correct.”
“And you were missing for...” He checked his tablet. “Forty-eight hours?”
“More or less.”
The corpsman frowned. “Then I don’t know how you’re sitting here without burns, fractures, smoke inhalation… hell, you’re not even dehydrated. Your vitals are textbook. Better than textbook, honestly. Not even your tattoos are damaged.”
Viper let a small smirk twitch the corner of his mouth. “Clean living.” It annoyed him that the man commented on his mating mark.
That belongs to Ward, only Ward.
“Sure,” the corpsman said, clearly not buying it, but he was too smart to push. “I’ll note stable and unremarkable.” He clicked a few more notes into the tablet, then moved on.
Viper rolled his shoulders as he stood, rotating through the aches that hadn’t quite faded yet. He was tired, sure—bone-deep—but his body didn’t feel like it had been dragged through molten earth and dropped off a cliff. The hell of it was, he felt better now than he had after half the missions they’d done in Afghanistan.
Across the bay, Kaze was arguing with a nurse about blood work. “No, I don’t care what the chart says. You’re not sticking me again. You took six tubes already—if I lose any more, I’ll start speaking Latin and seeing dead relatives.”
Reaper grunted from the next station over. “They want a miracle. They should be checking for brain damage with that one, not blood.”
“I heard that.”
“Good. Means you’re not dead.”
Juice was pacing near the sink, his arms crossed and his expression tight, as if being anywhere near medical personnelgave him hives. Trace sat on the edge of an exam table nearby, having his bandages checked by a medic who clearly didn’t know how to handle a man who barely winced as they pulled off gauze.
Viper winced as Zero commandeered a clipboard and started correcting his own chart.
“You can’t just edit your vitals,” the young officer monitoring him said.
“I’m not editing. I’m clarifying. My resting heart rate is 52, not 65. Get it right, or someone’s going to think I’m out of shape.”
If I punch a couple of them, will they mark it on their damn charts as stress or PTSD?
Viper scrubbed a hand down his face. “We almost done here?”
The base doctor finally stepped into the room, glancing at each of them with a narrowed gaze. “We’ve got all the blood, vitals, scans, and stool samples we need.”
“No one took my stool,” Kaze muttered.
“Then count yourself lucky,” Reaper replied.
The doctor folded his arms. “I don’t know what the hell you guys were doing for the past forty-eight hours, but from a medical standpoint, you’re all clean, which makes no damn sense. But it’s not my job to question miracles.”
Viper called over his shoulder as they headed for the door, “Doc, it’s our job to make sure no one else does either.”
I will beat him with Trace’s fucking hurley when we get home.
They were barely two steps out of medical when a corporal in a rumpled uniform flagged them down with a clipboard and atight smile. “You’re cleared. Mess is open, second deck. You’ve got twenty minutes before debrief, gentlemen.”
“Twenty minutes?” Juice asked, brushing past him. “Generous.”
“I don’t schedule ‘em, Sir. I just relay the pain.”
Viper didn’t wait for the rest of the snark to start, because this was his circus, and these were his damn clowns. There was no guessing what could come out of their mouths. “Let’s move.” Thankfully, his men fell in behind him. Even dog-tired and half-running on adrenaline fumes, their formation held—Kaze slouching like he was allergic to discipline, Zero sharp-eyed and silent, Trace and Juice already murmuring quietly behind him, and Reaper bringing up the rear like the living definition of ‘don’t screw with us.’ They could manage to look like a cohesive unit when necessary.
