"What the hell were you thinking?!"
McCree hangs his head ashamedly. "Well, gee, Jack, I didn't-"
Jack slams his hands down on the desk, his eyes boring holes in Jesse's, his voice icy cold. "You will address me as Commander Morrison. I asked you a question!"
McCree looks over at me for a moment, and then at Ashe, who is on the other side of me. He looks back to Jack, shrugging. "I thought it would be a harmless thing. You know, laugh about it afterwards, go on with life, you know?"
Morrison struggles to keep calm as he folds his hands and stares over them at the three of us. "You thought sneaking into someone else's room to plant snakes in their clothing without their permission was a 'harmless thing'?!" He stands up and starts to close the distance between them, stopping an inch from the cowboy's face, their eyes locked, though McCree doesn't seem to be enjoying it. "I ought to have you discharged and tossed in prison for terrorism. Causing an explosion in a cafeteria when the whole base is already high-strung?!"
Jack turns his steely gaze to me. "And you! You thought this was alright, too? Don't tell me you didn't have anything to do with it. I'm not in the mood for games." His last words sound to me more like an animalistic snarl than a human voice, so I decide he's telling the truth.
"...I didn't know the relationship of the parties involved, nor did I know the temperament of the one being pranked. I assumed for McCree to be pulling pranks on people, that he would choose his targets so that this sort of fiasco would be avoided. That he would choose someone who could take a joke. I was obviously wrong."
Ashe looks over at me, half shocked at my words and half angry at them. "What in the fu-"
Jack silences her with a bark so loud everyone else in the room flinches. "Shut it! You will refrain from further outbursts while you're here, or so help me God." He sighs, and continues, still angry, but keeping it under control. "Ashe. You find a garter snake in your room and you decide the best course of action is to try to kill multiple people with a rifle and then blow them up with more dynamite than I should have allowed you to have in the first place? I want you to give me one good reason I should keep you here." A cold anger resides within his voice, and I shiver involuntarily at the power in this man's words.
She shifts in her boots. I couldn't have imagined a woman like her being scared, but one look at her face reveals something to that effect. "I, ah... I just got a bit heated, that's all. It won't happen again, honest."
Morrison turns away to look at the wall. I watch his shoulders move with a deep inhalation and exhalation. "I don't know who's at fault here. We have one prankster who has overstepped his bounds yet again, one unwitting accomplice, and one extremely overreacting victim. All of this could have been avoided if one of you would have stopped and asked yourselves if this was a sane thing to do."
McCree groans. "Please, Jack, don't do what I think-"
Jack interrupts him, his voice steady and unwavering. "You will all work with the reconstruction crews to repair the cafeteria, together, until you not only work out this little problem you have with each other, but also repair the damage you have caused. This will be in addition to your normal duties. As well, if I catch one more thing, so much as a snake scale or a smear of gunpowder, from any of you, I will have you slapped in jail cuffs to rot in a cell until you learn your God-damned lesson."
He's silent for a moment before he barks at us, startling us all for the second time. "Out! Don't make me repeat myself!"
We all scuttle out, just happy to make it out with our lives intact. I take a moment to catch my breath, but Ashe interrupts me. "You little snitch." She growls at me, her eyes narrowing. "I oughta kill you here and now." She grabs me by the collar of my shirt and lifts me towards her.
I decide to play it safe and grovel. "I'm sorry, honestly." However, my words run out, and I can't think of any more, so I'm left hanging awkwardly as she stares me in the face, rage written all over her features.
After a while, she drops me unceremoniously and walks away. "You're lucky I respect Morrison, otherwise I'd tear you into strips and toss you in a snake pit, see how you like it." With that, she disappears around a corner and out of sight. It's a while before McCree finally says something.
"Well," He says, tipping his hat, "I reckon we'd better get some shut-eye if we're gonna be up for regular work and building a grub hall tomorrow. I'll see you around, Ryuo."
I nod tentatively. "Yeah."
I start to walk away, but I stop as he speaks up. "Listen, I, uh..."
He trails off, and I turn to face him, hoping to prompt the rest of the sentence, but he waves the air. "Nothing, just clearing my throat. Happy trails." He walks away, but I can sense from his demeanor that he definitely had something he wanted to say. I shake my head and start to find my way back to my bunk, too tired to think of anything else but rest, and too burnt out to think of anything else but a temporary escape from the nightmare I just resigned myself to.
