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Sean growled. “Oh, sweet Jesus, shut your mouth for once.”

Dean held up one hand. “How about both of you shut up? You’re in my clinic, and you’re in my care. This isn’t the place for you two to work out your sexual tension. You can do that on your own time.”

Sean sputtered. “Sexual what?”

Aidan laughed. “I like him.”

Dean pointed at Aidan. “You. Get your ass in one of the rooms, and I’ll make sure nothing’s broken.”

“It was a bit of training. I’m sure he’s fine,” Sean said, glaring at Aidan.

Dean turned to him. “And you, shut the hell up and get in another room, so Troy can look you over. If I hear one more argument out of the two of you, I’ll knock you both out and leave you in a ditch somewhere.”

Sean knew better than to argue with a doc, and from Aidan’s silence, so did he. There were a handful of people on any base that you didn’t piss off, the personal assistant or second in command to the general, the military police, and the docs. It wasn’t like the docs wouldn’t treat you even if you pissed them off, but they could certainly make your life hell while they were doing it. That and there were few people who had the respect of everyone in the field than the medics, and it was an unspoken rule that you didn’t fuck with your resident doc.

Troy snorted, nodding toward one of the nearby cubicles. “C’mon, Staff Sergeant, I’ll check you out.”

Sean went where Troy indicated, glad he wasn’t the one who had to be looked over by Dean. The man was smaller than everyone in the room, but his temper was apparently the largest. Aidan followed after Dean, a little meekly, as they walked down the hallway to another room.

Sean heaved himself up onto the examination table. “I’m sure I’m fine, just hurts like hell.”

Troy shook his head, approaching Sean to look him over. “What the hell were you guys doing out there that you ended up being shot with bean bag rounds?”

“They were rubber bullets,” Sean reminded him.

“A dense object fired out of a gun meant to hurt but not kill. You’re arguing semantics.”

“We were having a training exercise.”

Troy lifted Sean’s arm, turning it over to examine it. “Which doesn’t explain how the hell you ended up shooting each other.”

“He’s new to the team, and I’ve been trying to test him out, see what he’s made of. Today he got a little pissed off and ended up shooting me during a Gauntlet run.”

Troy looked up, raising a brow. “On purpose?”

Sean hesitated, wanting to say yes, just as he had to Aidan, but part of him wondered. When the gun had gone off, Sean had been distracted by the sudden flare of pain in his side to pay much attention to Aidan. Still, the way the man had reacted afterward, with genuine outrage at the suggestion he’d done it on purpose, Sean was left to wonder.

Troy snorted. “Doesn’t sound like you’re too sure.”

“It was still a rookie mistake. He shouldn’t have had his finger on the trigger unless he was prepared to use it,” Sean said, summoning his retort with confidence.

Troy looked up, raising a brow. “No offense, but he looks like he’s been through the wringer a little more than you have today. Maybe he just fucked up?”

“He can’t afford to fuck up, not if he’s going to be on the team. What if that had been a real bullet?”

Troy leaned over, picked up a tablet, and brought something up on the screen. “Let’s see, Aidan Harris, Sergeant, and Intel, interesting. Came back from overseas a couple of weeks ago, was back at his base in California for all of a day and a half, and then immediately brought over here.”

Sean hadn’t known the exact timeline, but he shrugged. “Yeah, and?”

“And if you’ve been, uh, testing him, do you really think he’s at his best? Fresh from the field, thrown into one time zone, and then ripped over into another. Then he goes and gets dragged around here.”

“I haven’t been dragging him.”

Troy clicked his tongue, setting the tablet aside. “Look, whatever is between you two, you’re going to have to figure it out. I’m guessing General Winter is the one who assigned him to your team, and he’s not going to be happy if you two prove him wrong in whatever faith he has in you.”

“I’m having a hard time seeing any ‘faith’ from him puttingthaton my team,” Sean said, nodding his head toward Aidan and Dean.

“Well, maybe you need to stop being stubborn and think about it,” Troy said.