Shaded Soldiers || Gay MxM || Omegaverse

7. House Rules

"You handled him well," Captain Hale said with a smile as we walked down the stairs.

"I was sure he'll rip my head off..." I muttered.

"He's a good man. They all are," he said reassuringly. "Of course, I would've preferred to give my boys a proper heads up, but sometimes these things just don't go the way we want."

"I could've waited, sir," I said. "I could've stayed back at my old base."

He gave me a weird look when we stopped at the bottom of the stairs. "No. That wasn't an option. Come. This way. Let's start from my office."

"Sir? What do you mean, it wasn't an option?" I asked as I followed him.

"I know how omegas are treated here," he said quietly. "If those people had learned you got accepted into their dream unit... I feared I'd have to pick up your pieces from the infirmary."

"It's not that bad here, sir," I said, laughing lightly so he wouldn't think I needed his pity.

He gave me a quiet look. "But it is," he said.

We reached the end of the long hallway, and he opened the door for me. The office was just like any other military office with large file cabinets, massive bookshelves, walls filled with maps and pictures of the public enemies, and a big, sturdy mahogany desk below the windows. But the office wasn't empty.

"Sir," greeted the young guy with a black, curly mohawk ...Nico? "I'm almost done with his clearance application."

"Thank you," Captain Hale said. "Like I said, Nico here deals with these things for me."

"Because someone is bad with the email," the younger alpha said with a grin.

"That's what I keep telling him so I don't have to deal with all that," the captain told me, then turned back to his partner. "Did you find a laptop for Riley?"

"Yup. Brand new," he said, patting a cardboard box on the edge of the desk, then turned to me. "If you don't mind setting it up in your room. Just turn it on and let it download whatever it needs so I can come configure everything else for you."

"Yes, sir," I said with a nod.

He waved his hand at me. "Don't sir me. I've got less years in this army and in life than you."

Yet he still got accepted way before me...

"All right," I only said.

"Let's finalize your paperwork before we continue," the captain said, and gestured for me to take a seat in front of the desk. He shooed his partner out of the way and took his seat behind the laptop. "It looks like I just received your records. Let's go quickly over your personal details first to make sure everything is correct."

"All right."

Everything was in order, as expected, but there was one little detail that caught the captain's eye.

"Your blood type is O negative?" he asked, then glanced at his partner.

"Wow, that's a match made in heaven," Nico grinned. "Reid is also O negative."

"So is Ethan," the captain said, looking at me. "Now I have three hero donors."

"Already stealing my blood, huh?" I said, and they laughed.

"Just saying," the captain joked. "No, seriously. It's good to know if one of you three needs blood, I've now got two of my own who can donate. I've had nightmares about it..."

"Also helps that all three of you can donate to everyone else," Nico added.

"So uh... How often do people here lose so much blood they need transfusions?" I asked tentatively.