A/N Sorry, had to repost to fix something .... and I had to do it on screen because I didn't bring my jump drive to the library ... so any typos are the big oops!! Too bad this editor doesn't have grammar check.
Snake 8
"Sergeant Brown!"
The words reverberated in his head like a broken record. He winced at the sound of it as a searing headache began to burn behind his eyes. Yeah, that's my name alright! Go ahead say it a little louder, because I didn't quite hear you the first eighteen thousand times you said it! Bob rolled restlessly on the bed. His mind began to wander aimlessly, the thoughts flooding his head in sensory overload.
Sergeant First Class Bob Brown. In my life before the army, I was plain ole Bob Brown. Women thought I was boring, a book worm, normal. Then in a blink of an eye, I adopted the title of Sergeant. Not just any ole Sergeant, Special Operations Sergeant First Class….specifically Alpha Team Sergeant First Class. That's just one of my identities. The official one, the one that somehow morphed from my title to my name. It's the army equivalent of "hey you" and I friggen answer to it. It's the "hey, I'm too lazy to really remember your name," the "I don't know your name and I don't care, name", the "I think I know you but I suck at names" … or the "I don't know you at all, but want to pretend I do" or even better "your bald head just blinded me and I'm star struck name".
Bob shifted his position on the bed and felt the resistance on his left wrist again. Crap! he cursed as he tried to move his left arm. Did I friggen dream that whole escape from the bedroom? The whole Mack holding the trashcan in front of my face as I barfed my guts out? There is no way I'm still laying in that bed!!! No, no, no, I escaped. I broke the slat in the headboard, I found my jeans and shirt in the living room, and ran into the tree line. I had a weapon on me, so how the hell is it that I'm tied down to this bed again?
Is that a rope on my arm? No wait, that doesn't feel like a handcuff. It's more like a…a leather strap, Bob considered as he tried to open his eyes and look down. His eyelids were heavy and he couldn't keep them open. His face felt puffy and thick.
Am I blindfolded again? he mused after another futile attempt to open his eyes. He began to tune in his other senses as he assessed his surroundings. This isn't the same bed. It's harder and crinkles like a …. I hear beeps….I'm on oxygen again. I'm in a hospital, he concluded feeling panic starting to set in. But if I'm in a hospital why is my skin crawling? Bob jerked his arm against his restraint and began to thrashing around on the bed in another attempt to break free. He could feel hands touching his arms and legs and he began to scream loudly.
"Get your hands off me! Help me!"
"Sergeant Brown!"
The ice cold liquid flooded his veins just as he heard his name called in the distance. His limbs became heavy and his control began to slip as he started to laugh uncontrollably. Wow! he thought to himself. Yelling is so liberating! As he drifted off to sleep, a parting conscious thought invaded his head. Who the frick keeps saying my name?
00-00
Colonel Tom Ryan stepped out of the elevator and marched down the corridor of the base hospital to the wing that held his operator. He turned the corner and slowed his gait when he saw Mack Gerhardt asleep in a chair. He hesitated for a moment and walked the final few steps to his operator.
"Mack," Ryan said loud enough to wake the man up. True to his training, Mack didn't even flinch when he heard his name.
"Colonel," he responded standing up out of respect.
"How is he?" Ryan asked inclining his head to Brown's door.
"Squared away," Mack answered crossing his arms at his chest. "The doc said they'll release him tomorrow as long as the swelling goes down."
Colonel Ryan eyed his master sergeant carefully seeing the fatigue in his eyes. Without asking he knew Mack had stayed at Brown's side, working through this debrief, wrapping it up, making it right.
"What happened to your hand?" the colonel asked when he noticed Mack's bandaged palm.
"Agh, battle wound," Mack replied sheepishly turning over his palm. He shoved his hand under his arm to hide the bandage.
"Battle wound?" Ryan repeated. "I don't remember that in your report. Something you need to tell me?" Ryan asked, his eyes cold as ice.
"He bit me," Dirt Diver finally fessed up. "He was a little confused earlier and my hand was in the wrong place at the wrong time," he replied shrugging his shoulders.
Ryan arched his brow and nodded. "You look like hell sergeant. When was the last time you slept?"
"A few days ago," Mack answered. "I need to see this through Colonel."
"And I need you on the top of your game," Colonel Ryan remarked sharply. "Get some rest and not in that chair. That's an order."
00-00
Bob pulled nervously against the wrist restraints as he stared up at the ceiling and IV bag hanging above him. Whatever they were pumping into his body was continuing the endless out of control feeling he had been plagued with since those two chicks lured him out of the bar. He didn't feel comfortable in this room, he barely felt comfortable in his skin. Every time someone entered this cell-like space, his heart felt like it was going to leap out of his chest. When they walked to his bed, he started to sweat, if they touched him, he initial instinct was to freeze and then he wanted to bolt from the room, from the building, from his life. The friction of his skin against the sheets was equally unnerving. The urge to scratch overwhelmed his senses as the invisible bugs crawled over his arms, the side of his neck and face, and his back.
And his dick. Bob winced at the memory of the girl screwing him and the sensation of the skin scraping off his shaft. Then there was the swab the nurse did to check for any sexually transmitted diseases or that mega shot of that secret military strength medication that killed AIDS and anything else a whore could contaminate a guy with. Every movement over his dick or even just the thought of it sent an electric jolt right into Bob's brain. And peeing? Well, that was another matter entirely. Those two times he ripped the tubing out of the one eye snake had some dire consequence for his bladder. Bob could barely endure the a nature call as the pain sliced through him and seared every last nerve ending like it was grilling in a four hundred degree oven.
SERE school's got nothing on this, Bob muttered to himself as the bleeps of the monitoring equipment wore thin on his nerves. I can't stand it anymore, he thought clenching his jaw. He eyed the restraints on his arms and strategized a way to set himself free. He tugged on his left arm, sawing it against the mattress to loosen the strap. Bob leaned over and tried to bite at the tubing in a desperate attempt to pull it from his arm.
Voices from the corridor startled him and he eyed the doorway suspiciously. His instincts were conflicted. He wanted to bask in the comfort of his hospital room, but his recent experiences had forced him to be cautious. He continued to bite at the tubing and was oblivious to the door as it swung open.
"If you are hungry, call the nurse, soldier" Colonel Ryan called out to him as he walked through the door. "I'm sure lime jello would taste better than that plastic tubing."
Bob slumped against the mattress in defeat. He mouthed words that never made it to lips, trying to explain himself to the man in charge. He closed his eyes, mortified to even be in this man's presence. My commanding officer knows that I was over-powered by two chicks, drugged, tied to a bed and fucked raw, he reminded himself sharply.
"Do you need some water?" Ryan asked reaching for the pitcher on the night stand. He poured the liquid into a Styrofoam cup and stepped closer to the bed.
Bob opened his eyes and reluctantly took the straw into his lips, sucking the cool liquid down. Humiliation hardly described the emotions bubbling just under the surface of Bob's entire being. I can't look this guy in the eye, Bob thought as he half closed his eyes. "Thank you," he mumbled laying his head against the pillow. It was the best he could do considering the shame that covered his face.
"I've put in the order for four counseling sessions with the unit psychologist," Ryan rattled off as he put the cup on the nightstand.
Counseling sessions? The words scared the crap out of Bob. He didn't need some shrink crawling around in his head. "I dough… I don't need that sir," Bob mumbled, his tongue feeling like it was swollen twice its normal size.
"I'm sure you don't, but in this new army it's a requirement for all sexual assaults," Colonel Ryan said flatly.
Bob sucked in some air as he mind raced to process what the colonel was saying. Sexual Assault? Now I'm a victim? He was one of a few elite men in the army, special training to the hilt. Bob wasn't the kind of guy that got into this kind of mess. Yet here he was, laying on a hospital bed, restrained for his own protection and facing his commanding officer.
"I know this isn't the easiest thing for you to process son," Ryan said quietly. "Trust me when I say that many have been here before you. Take the counseling and put it to bed."
"And Kim?" Bob muttered rolling his head back on the pillow.
"What you tell her is up to you, but my suggestion is you leave it within the mission," Ryan remarked. "The police have enough on that pair to keep your name out of it. You're involvement it in didn't even make the papers."
Didn't even make the papers. The words swirled around in Brown's head. That's unit speak for not in the official report. My rape is nothing but a causality of the mission, he guessed reading between the lines. The words were different, but the Colonel's message was the same at Mack's speech earlier today. What happened to him had happened to others. Maybe he was the lucky one, since it was a chick that rode him raw, not a guy ramming it home. In any case, Bob had to figure out a way to deal with it before he went home to his other life.
"When will I be released?"
"Tomorrow as long your airway stays clear," the colonel said. "You're having an allergic reaction to the drugs and the irritation from the poison ivy isn't helping. If you'd stop trying to rip a hole in your skin, I could get the docs to remove the restraints," he added pointing to the leather holding Bob's arms in place.
"My skin's crawlin," Bob mumbled through his swollen lips.
"Remember that the next time you try to take cover," Ryan replied with a chuckle. "The first time I encountered the leaves of three I was in boot camp and my drill instructor was none too sympathetic."
"This isn't my first experience with it," Bob grimaced at the sudden memory.
"And you didn't learn? I'll have to note that in your permanent file," the colonel chuckled.
"I think there is enough in my permanent file, sir," Brown whispered under his breath. He adjusted on the bed again and rolled his head on his neck.
"Get some rest, Brown," Ryan said solemnly. "Soon this will be nothing but a distant memory."
Bob nodded his head and watched the colonel leave the room. A distant memory? Tucked into that place with all the other atrocities I've endured? "That's where it needs to go and fast," Bob said aloud. "Before that shrink labels me as whacked."
00-00
"You're looking better," Bridgett said as she walked through the door to Brown's room a day later. She found Bob sitting up in bed, picking at a tray of food with free hands. "You keeping any of that down?"
"Chicken broth and wheat toast?" Bob commented pushing the tray away. "It hasn't come up." He shrugged his shoulder leaning against the mattress. He watched her sit down in the chair by his bed. "Thank you, Bridge."
"For what?" she asked with a confused look on her face.
"Mack said me you got the intel that found me," Bob said.
"Ah, that," Bridgett mumbled quietly "Well, since I made a mess of the mission up to that point, I figured I owed Mack some redemption."
"You didn't make a mess of the mission," Bob informed her. "The intel was bad."
"I didn't do anything to make it better," Bridgett argued. "I feel so …helpless around you guys sometimes."
"You want to talk about feeling helpless? Try being tied to a bed by a girl and teased beyond comprehension with a naughty nurses uniform," Bob replied with a sad smirk on his face. "For you...that would be like Brad Pitt making you his sex slave."
"Brad Pitt's not my type," she commented with a sad smile.
"I thought he was every girl's type," Bob muttered.
"Hmm, nope," Red Cap replied with a shake of her head. "He creeps me out, ever since I saw him in Kalifornia."
Bob furrowed his brow and tilted his head. "Kalifornia?"
"Yeah, with David Duchovny. It's about a graduate student's quest to study serial killers. He picks up a hitchhiker to share the gas … Brad Pitt … and the hitchhiker turns out to be a serial killer." Bridget shuddered at the memory of the movie.
"Let me guess you're more into the noble type," Bob remarked looking over at her.
"I'm not really sure what my type is." Bridgett looked everywhere in the room but his eyes. "I kinda gave up looking. Too complicated."
"Yeah, relationships are complicated," Bob sighed. He looked up at the ceiling and closed his eyes. "They don't get any better when you're married."
Bridgett bit her lip as she watched Bob and the gamut of emotions ripple across his face. Way to go Bridge, just add another layer of screw up on this mission, she scolded herself. "Sorry," she muttered under her breath.
"There's nothing to apologize for Bridge," Bob said.
"If I hadn't screwed up the…you and Mack wouldn't have gotten into the fight…"
"Hey, stop," he said sharply. "You weren't the cause. Mack and I fight all the time on missions…and it's not fighting, it's more like alpha wolves trying to determine our place in the pack."
"All the time?"
"Yeah, it's ... ha," Bob laughed for the first time in a day. "It's part of our mission ritual."
"Is it part of your ritual to get pissed off and walk out?" Bridgett asked him with an arched brow.
"Pissed off … yes," Bob said with a sigh. "If you'll remember, I didn't walk out. You ordered to me to get some air."
"Get some air yes," Red Cap retorted. "Get yourself kidnapped, no."
"Well, yeah, I didn't exactly plan on that either," Bob replied sheepishly. "I don't know what I was thinking going into that bar. I just pfft … I dunno." Bob slumped his head back on the pillow and twisted his lip.
"We can just leave it at that," Bridgett said firmly. "Another of our secrets. Our private…." Before she could say another word, Mack walked in the door and cut her off.
"No private jokes in here," Mack called to them walking through the door. "Good to see you sitting up," he commented walking over to the bed. "How's your arm?"
"Broken," Bob said looking down at his cast.
"And the rash?"
"Finally stopped itching."
"The swelling in your face has gone down," Mack said sitting down on the edge of the bed. "You feeling better?"
"Yeah," Bob grunted. "The nurses even let me go to the head by myself."
"You about ready to get outta here then?" Mack said with a sly glance at his teammates.
"Are you thinking about busting me out early?" Bob asked anxiously.
"Agh, no," Mack remarked with a scowl. "Are you kidding Jonas would have my ass if I did anything more to jeopardize your health. He and the Colonel have already chewed part of it off and spit it out at me."
"Why you?" Red Cap asked with a perplexed expression on her face.
"In case you forgot, I was the lead on the mission," Gerhardt informed her. "And don't try to throw that I outrank you bull in my face."
"But I do outrank you," she growled.
"So what do you want? A medal?" he asked with a smirk on his face. It didn't take much before all three were laughing.
"Stop," Bob chuckled holding his palm against his chest. "That hurts," he coughed taking a labored breath.
"We good now?" Mack asked looking at Red Cap.
"Yeah, we're good," she replied with a smile. "We're all good."
TBC
