Roque pushed his way through the doors of the barracks, happy to finally be away from Pooch's bitching. He'd purposely steered clear of the whole shooting mess. As long as his teammate was good to go, why would he care? Good on that other guy to push Pooch out of the way, but that wasn't his debt to pay. But now he was officially sick of hearing about the whole ordeal and the fact that they couldn't find the guy who'd helped. He obviously didn't want to be found, so why bother looking?
Pooch had asked around and found the kid's bunk, but it was empty. This whole base was like a maze, so if someone wanted to hide, it wouldn't be too hard. There were plenty of places to slink away to and hunker down in, which is what he was doing now. The team had been popping in and out of this base enough that they'd ruffled a few feathers, so Roque was trying to stay away from anyone who would get him into trouble. He was sure there was a bet going on between the others to see how long he could go without getting into a fight, so he wanted to make sure they all lost.
Roque was just settling in on a couch with a pop when the sound of raised voices piqued his interest. Even if getting into a fight was a no no, watching other people fight wouldn't be a big deal. He pulled himself back up to his feet, figuring the drama would be more interesting than anything that was playing on the television right now.
"You need to learn to mind your own damn business!" a man spat, pointing his finger in the other guy's face.
"You've got the wrong guy," the other guy replied. Roque watched from a few feet away, concealing himself behind a pole. The angry redhead was yelling at a guy wearing glasses, who looked like he'd rather be anywhere but there at the moment.
"Bullshit! I heard about what happened earlier and I know it was you," Redhead snapped. "What makes you think you know how to do my job better than me?"
"Obviously I'm not the only one who thinks that," Glasses sighed. "If I was wrong, you'd still be on the team, right?"
"You son of a bitch," Redhead snarled, balling his fists. "You think I haven't heard of you? About how no team wants you? Was this a jealousy thing?"
"Why would I be jealous of you? I don't see anyone clambering to scoop you up now that you're available again," Glasses shot back.
"Yeah, thanks to the lies you told!"
"You think I needed to lie to expose how shitty you are at your job? As if I'd waste my time on someone so insignificant. Even drugged up in a hospital, it took no effort at all to be smarter than you," Glasses shrugged.
"How about I put you back?" Redhead spat, shoving Glasses hard enough for him to bounce against the wall behind him. Roque groaned, knowing he'd have to step in and intervene now that they were coming to blows. Sometimes having a higher rank sucked.
"Back up, soldier!" Roque commanded, striding up to the duo. Redhead was doing his best to pull back his snarl while Glasses was hunched against the wall, looking away. "Want to tell me what's going on?"
"Just working out a little disagreement, sir," Redhead replied. Glasses snorted, shaking his head a little.
"You got something you want to add?" Roque demanded. He was starting to see why Redhead wanted to beat this guy's ass.
"Nope," Glasses mumbled, flicking his eyes up quickly before looking away again.
"Absolutely no respect, sir. Disgraceful," Redhead said with disdain. Roque rolled his eyes. He hated a suck up.
"What started this?" Roque asked, wanting the details to satisfy his curiosity. It wasn't like he was going to file an official report about this, he just enjoyed having the scoop.
"He sabotaged my career out of jealousy and spite."
"How could I be jealous of you when I don't even know who you are?" Glasses snorted.
"You're jealous of everyone who has a team, because you know you'll always be tossed aside. No one can stand you."
"Why can't you tell your team that someone was starting trouble and they shouldn't listen?" Roque asked. Plenty of people had tried to stir up shit within the Losers before, but they were smart enough to be able to weed out the garbage. Back when they first got Cougar, their previous tech tried to convince them that he was a loose cannon and shouldn't be trusted. It was obviously bullshit and they saw for themselves that their sniper was one of the steadiest men they'd ever known.
"I never had the chance! My new CO pulled my paperwork before I ever even got to talk to him about it," Redhead grumbled. This was starting to sound familiar. Roque might not have actively paid attention to everything Clay and Pooch told him, but a little bit had slipped through. "I guess he was too stupid to know fact from fiction."
"They aren't stupid," Glasses hissed, but Roque held his hand up to quiet him. He could handle this next part.
"Don't you just hate when you're surrounded by idiots?" Roque laughed. Redhead smiled, thinking he had an ally. This really was going to be too easy. "You'd think the Army would know how to weed them out by now."
"Exactly! I should be on your team. Anyone you're linked up with has got to be better than what I've dealt with," Redhead agreed, sneering at Glasses.
"Actually, I think you were," Roque said casually, watching as both of the other men's faces switched to confusion. "Welch, right?"
"How did you-"
"You should probably be careful who you bad mouth around here. You might end up disparaging a CO to his second in command," Roque growled. Welch looked ready to run away or piss his pants. Maybe even both. Glasses, or who Roque now realized was Corporal Jake Jensen, was just standing back and watching with wide eyes.
"I didn't- I mean-"
"You did," Roque sighed mockingly, crossing his arms just to flex his muscles that extra little bit. "What do you think I should do about that?"
"We should all probably walk away," Corporal Jensen suggested, putting his hands up to diffuse the situation. "I know from firsthand experience that the hospital here has terrible accommodations. Would not recommend." Roque snorted, understanding now how this guy had gotten under Pooch's skin so easily. The guy loved goofy shit.
"We probably shouldn't cross paths again," Roque warned, signalling with his chin that Welch was free to leave. He didn't need to be told twice, scampering away without another word. Corporal Jensen was about to walk off too, but Roque grabbed his arm before he could escape. If Pooch found out he'd found the kid and let him slip away again, the bitching would be endless.
"Hey, what?" Corporal Jensen yelped, wriggling in his grasp.
"You need to come with me," Roque said, pulling the kid toward the exit so they could get to where the team was sleeping for now.
"Aw, come on man. Whatever I said, I didn't mean it," Corporal Jensen moaned, twisting around to try to get away.
"Would you stop?" Roque growled, looking back to glare at the resistant man. A flash of red caught his eye and he stopped what he was doing. "Is that blood?"
"No? What? No," Corporal Jensen replied, craning his neck as he tried to check himself.
"Then what's the red on your back from?" Roque asked.
"Pizza eating contest."
"And why would your back be dirty?"
"Probably why I lost."
"How about we let a doctor confirm that?" Roque snorted, resuming his exit.
"Wait, please!" Corporal Jensen whined, digging in his heels. "I wasn't kidding when I said the hospital sucked. I really don't want to go back there. I probably don't need to anyways. Nothing hurts and they gave me all these fluids and stuff, so I probably have extra blood I can stand to lose. And we wouldn't want to bother them with something like this, right? Much more important things they could be doing, open heart surgery or a splinter removal. I knew a kid once who got a splinter in his foot that he let get infected so bad that they almost had to amputate it. They ended up just taking a chunk out of his heel, but that's why I refuse to go barefoot outdoors anymore." Roque stared at him in shocked silence, trying to figure out if he should just knife the kid and put him out of his misery.
"Nope, I'm not doing this," Roque said, shaking his head. He grabbed the other man more firmly and pulled him along, this time not bothering to respond to any of his arguments. He was going to drop him off with the rest of the team and then disappear like he'd planned. Maybe this time he would mind his business so he wouldn't be stuck babysitting some babbling idiot. His friendliness was going to be the death of him.