Skipper considers himself a good man. He had served in the military for years, always does his part to protect civilians for years, pays his rent on time and saves the world with his team without expecting so much as a thank you.

Then why, why did Fate decide to neighbor him with loud mouthed, arrogant, royal pain in the ass King Julian?

No one deserved to be kept awake till 4 am by countless Jason Derulo remixes accompanied by loud banging. And the fact that they were on floor above them did nothing to muffle the sound.

Tonight was such a night again, except that it was Pitbull screaming from the speakers. Skipper sat at his desk, pen gripped in hand as he glared down at the document before him, without seeing it. He wanted nothing more but to march up there and shake some manners into the party monkeys.

But he couldn´t. He was already in the red zone with Alice the landlady after the first time he tried that. She hated them for some reason, so she ignored their complaints and only took action when ´King´ Julian had something to whine about.

Seriously, they couldn´t be the only tenants who were bothered by the loud music! What about Roy or Burt, or even Marlene? Unless they´re unaffected due to ideal rooming or something of the sort and the ´Penguins´, as they´re so lovingly nicknamed, got the worst possible place of the whole apartment, sound wise!

Skipper was glad that at least Private, Rico and Kowalski were getting rest. The reason why he didn´t put on his pair of noise cancelling headphones and join them in dreamland was because he still had to file a mission report and mail it back to the headquarters.

The leader sighed heavily, and then proceeded to get even more pissed off when he realized he could barely hear himself sigh. Was this even legal?

Rubbing his temples furiously and therefore worsening his headache, Skipper stood up to risk waking up his men to the headphones.
This was torture.

His hand reached for the door knob when suddenly, loud knocking from upstairs interrupted. He paused and so did the music. Which was weird. Julian never paused his music for anything, leaving usual visitors to yell until Maurice or Mort came, kick the door down or give up and leave.

He must´ve been expecting someone. Skipper listened intently, barely making out a frantic conversation in a foreign language. Though he couldn´t understand words, his neighbor was clearly scared of something. The stranger responding to his whines sounded bored, with only false comfort leaking into his tone.

Skipper pondered about coming up to see if His Royal Obnoxiousness needed help, but decided against it.

He craved sleep and if Julian needed support, he had Maurice. Otherwise, he knew where to find them.

The commanding officer slipped into the shared bedroom, the last thing he heard was a door slamming. Then absolute silence commandeered the night.