By the next morning, Beach was in a really foul mood. Doc had ended up threatening the Sergeant Major with a sedative shot and restraints when BeachHead had argued that he was more than capable of running PT as usual.
"You are not getting out of bed for a few days." Doc had glared over the top of his glasses. "I know you, and I don't feel like putting all of those stitches back in after you pull them all and cut yourself up some more dragging some idiot greenie out from under that razor wire you're so fond of. Also, you attract mud and I don't feel like cleaning grit out of your cuts for the next seven hours."
"But…" BeachHead started, scowling.
"Sergeant Slaughter is quite capable of whipping the lot of us to just this side of heatstroke. Your recruits are in good hands." Doc cut him off.
"Dammit, Doc…"
"I will tie you to that bed." Doc's voice had been irritatingly level. "And unless you've been taking lessons on the side from Storm and Snake, you're not getting out of medical restraints."
BeachHead snarled. "Maybe I should. Be nice to be able to work when I damn well know I'm fit for it."
"You are not fit to be up and working, and they won't teach you so don't bother asking." Doc said calmly. "I promised them long ago that they'd be on medical leave until they were both old and gray if they ever taught you whatever tricks they use to get out of restraints."
Doc ambled out, followed by loud and imaginative cursing. Beach didn't get up, however. He'd learned long ago that whatever threats Doc made to difficult patients would be followed up on to the letter.
He was still scowling when Covergirl poked her head in a couple hours later. She was satisfactorily coated in grime and sweat; Slaughter hadn't let them off easy, then. Good.
"Brought you breakfast." She brandished a tray. "Steak and eggs, so don't bitch about me not bringing you something that you like. Lifeline and Doc say that you haven't been having any problems with nausea, and you must be hungry."
"Bout time." He grumped. "I usually eat when the lot of you are still lazing in bed…I've been starving."
"Four AM isn't morning." Courtney grimaced. "I've gone to bed at four AM before. And I can take it back if you're going to complain about the punctuality of the service, you know."
"Don't you dare, Cinderella." He glared and she handed over his breakfast. "Should put you on the night shift with Low Light." Beach chewed contemplatively, food improving his mood slightly.
"Nah. You get really grumpy after about eight thirty." She smiled, and even muddy and sweaty she was stunning. "Be hell on our quiet time."
"What quiet time? We always end up arguing." He snorted. "For a lady, you've got a helluva impressive vocabulary, Krieger."
"Yeah, well, I enjoy pissing you off." She grinned again. "And I learned all of my swear words from the best. Big noisy ranger out of Alabama. You've met him; permanent stick up his ass, annoying as hell, abs of chiseled granite."
He grinned despite himself. "Cute, Cinderella. Real cute."
"Oh, I know." She gave him that sideways tilted glance that always, no matter where he was, how many people were trying to kill them, or how many pints of blood he was missing went straight to his libido. "I've made a lot of money being cute. You have any idea how much I was offered to pose for Victoria's Secret?"
His tentative good mood did an about face and he was scowling again. "Dammit, Courtney…you told me you never posed for any of that shit." Goddammit. If she had, he was going to have to murder a lot of people. A lot.
She arched a challenging eyebrow. "Oh, don't be a prude. My ass looks fabulous in a thong…you've appreciated that fact more than once, ranger man."
"Fucking hell, woman…" He growled. His vision was going slightly red around the edges, and he wasn't sure if it was lust or anger. Or both. She was good at doing that to him. "I ain't the sharin' type…ain't no one better see that ass but me, or I am gonna hurt someone…"
And she, with that damned smug little smile that was both rubbing him the wrong way and giving him very bad thoughts…She…was…laughing. Helplessly. Hysterically. She wiped a tear away finally as he sputtered in rage. "You are so easy, Wayne."
"Dammit, Kreiger! Did you or did you not? How many people am I gonna be shooting?"
"Oh, Wayne…" She gasped for breath. "Relax. I never posed in a lingerie catalog. You don't have to succumb to testosterone poisoning and murder everyone who ever bought a copy of Victoria's Secret." She started laughing again. "I swear, you are downright cute when you get worked up."
He scowled. "I ain't cute, so don't go around spreadin' that kind of crap. I should give you pushups until you die, Barbiedoll…that just ain't nice."
She patted him on the shoulder. "Like I said. I enjoy pissing you off. How many pushups will that be, now?"
He sighed. "Drop and start goin'. I'll tell you when you're done."
His general bad temper didn't improve as the day wore on. Lifeline and Doc poked and prodded at him, forced pills down his throat, and generally ignored his efforts to be stubborn.
He made a mental note to re-do the obstacle course and run the two ninja ragged, however long it took. He remembered a time when medics feared him. There had been a time-he smiled as he remembered his stint in the Rangers in particular, before he'd been scouted for the Joe team-when he could bully doctors. Sure, that might never have worked with Doc, but the two ninja had hardened the G.I. Joe medics to the point where they only considered BeachHead mildly irritating, and then mostly because he complained a lot.
Mud pits usually didn't faze them…and neither did trip wires-but if he hid the trip wires in a mud pit? He nodded slowly. Worth a shot. And climbing obstacles; he'd never yet found one that could slow Snake or Storm, but maybe if he raised the wall another few feet and took the ropes off for their run? Well, they didn't usually use the climbing ropes…but then they usually did take climbing walls at a run, so raising the standard twelve foot wall another six or so feet might make things a bit more difficult.
An REC…both of the ninja seemed to view rope climbs as an excuse to demonstrate their tightrope-walking ability. Everyone else, much more sensibly, stuck to hooking knees over and pulling themselves along. A little grease on the ropes might slow them down, but most of the team could deal…but a cocksure ninja, hitting a greased rope at a dead run…with an exceptionally deep and sticky mud pit beneath to thoughtfully soften their fall; he wasn't inhumane, after all, he wouldn't actually break bones. He grinned. Yeah. He liked that one. That one was good.
Yeah. Ok. He could-reluctantly-wait a few days, but the whole team was going to regret the time it was going to give him to refigure the obstacle course. He grinned. That did not mean that he was going to be a good little boy for the medics, of course, but at least it would make him feel a little better.
BeachHead was a firm believer in the old adage "The more you sweat in peacetime, the less you bleed in war." Wayne Sneeden, however, had expanded this to include a little blood being acceptable during peacetime, as it generally prevented a great deal of much worse bleeding during war. He ran his people hard, sure, and they might not like it. But he was ok with that; he did it because he knew that it would keep them alive even when Hell more or less erupted around them.
BeachHead was also a firm believer in Murphy's law, and so he always expected missions to devolve into a clusterfuck of epic proportions. The very act of expecting the worst more often than not meant that he was able to help prevent it from happening…and in conjunction with his insistence that the team be in absolutely supreme shape and trained within an inch of their lives meant fewer men and women going home in bodybags. Which was a sight he absolutely hated beyond anything else.
He grinned a little. Of course, he did just like torturing them, too. There wasn't a drill instructor alive without a little bit of a sadistic streak to them. He was no exception.
Now, what could he do to the razor wire? He already used mud pits under the wire crawl on a regular basis…Hmmm…
