#and like hell church is going to offer to do it for tucker too | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

the-witty-pen-name · 4 years ago

Text

Deadbeat Pt. 3

Lee Bodecker x F!Reader

18+ ONLY

Warnings: age gap (reader is 21), smut, cursing, abandonment, infatuation, cheating/divorce, angst, mild housewife kink, mentions of prostitution, mentions of alcohol, corrupt official

Word Count: 4.7k

Summary: You work at the bar at the edge of town, the Sheriff is going through a divorce and needs to rent a room.

A/N: I’m terrible at writing summaries and I’m so sorry about that! I don’t think I would consider this a dark!fic, but it does cover a lot of themes, and topics that are darker than I usually write about- but I think that comes with the territory of writing about Lee Bodecker. I’ll make sure to update the warnings for each chapter and do not read if you are underage. I also ignored canon for this one.

This is unedited, and I missed anything I should include as a warning let me know! This chapter introduces some new plots and conflicts, so it jumps around a little more than the previous ones.

I hope you all enjoy!

I also am having some writer’s block with my Obi-Wan Kenobi miniseries I was working on, so expect Part 3 sometime Sunday hopefully! So sorry for the delay on the final chapter.

Tags and Requests are OPEN

Part One // Part Two

Henry Curtis was one of the most infuriating people Lee had ever met. Curtis was a writer for the Columbus newspaper and constantly pestering the Sheriff. Curtis seemed to have a sixth sense for whenever the Sheriff did anything. He was desperately trying to catch the Sheriff doing anything but so far had remained unsuccessful. Curtis was the biggest obstacle Lee faced in winning re-election. The man would show up out of nowhere, pen and pad in hand ready to find anything that would be enough to keep the Sheriff out of office.

Maybe Curtis was just doing his job, but Lee always felt like it was much more personal. It was probably just his own resentment of the man who was just doing his job. But the man didn’t have to be so goddamn invasive. When the Sheriff had devised his plan on offering to rent a room from you, he was so tied up in his own mess of divorce and his somewhat confusing feelings towards you he had completely forgotten about the press. They would have a field day with the divorce alone, but now on top of everything else, Lee knew he should be more careful.

Lee always had to be careful, especially if he was meeting Leroy Brown. Lee would make sure he drove way out of town, and always insisted they met at a different location every time. This would infuriate Brown but Lee was the only lawman he had working for him. Sometimes Lee would drive several hours out of the way, always at some deserted ghost town or some sad excuse for a diner or a bar. Always somewhere no one would recognize him.

Lee lied to you and told you he and a few of the deputies would need to drive out of town for a stakeout when he needed to meet with Brown. It was one of those nights, sitting in the cruiser with the headlights off, as he parked in an abandoned parking lot almost two hours out of town.

He had been able to put this off for a couple weeks, lying about other legitimate jobs getting in the way. Honestly, it was because he wanted to one, avoid anything that would cause suspicion from Henry Curtis hearing he was back in town and two, he was selfishly allowing himself to just spend his nights at his new home, spending all the time he could manage with you. It was like being in that little white house was a place where he could let himself be delusional, and time spent with you was what his life actually was, not this mess he was currently dealing with. He wanted out.

Lee knew he wasn’t a good man. He knew that his laundry list of offenses had tarnished his badge a long time ago. He knew what he was doing, and before he never cared. Now, he’s thinking about how his actions could affect you. You were innocent, unaware of everything he was stuck in. He knew you weren’t stupid, and he was sure the town knows some about his corruption. But now, he couldn’t rationalize away his actions for any reason when it came to you. Janie? She didn’t care and would encourage it. She’d be in on it too. She’d have no problem lying to ladies at Church or starting other rumors to keep the town talking about anyone but Lee. She was as power hungry as he was sometimes, which could be a testament as to how their loveless marriage held together for so long.

***

“Hi, I’m looking for a Ms. (Y/L/N)?” the man asked when he approached you, talking a seat at one of the barstools.

“Who’s asking for her?” you asked raising an eyebrow.

“I’m Henry Curtis, I work for the Columbus Dispatch.”

“The newspaper?”

“That’s the one.”

“Why are you looking for her?”

“I’m doing a story on her mother’s marriage to Harvey Tucker.”

“She’s not here tonight. But I can let her know you were here. Do you got a card?”

The man pulled out a business card from his wallet and slide it across the bar. You picked it up and read all the information before putting it in the pocket of your apron.

“Seems weird for the Columbus paper to want to do a story on that a month and a half after it happened,” you said skeptically.

“We did cover the story when it happened,” Curtis informed you. “Doing a follow up since the story broke about his wife missing.”

“Missing?” you ask. “Do they know what happened?”

“Robbed the bastard blind and then ran apparently,” Curtis said casually looking past you at the chalkboard on the wall. “Scotch, neat.”

“Yes, sir,” you reply, grabbing the bottle from the shelf. “Has anything else been found out yet?”

“Not yet, that’s why I’m here. Checking in to see if she’d come back here because I heard Ms. (Y/L/N) still lives around these parts.” He then pulled a newspaper out of the inside pocket of his coat and started flipping through the pages.

“She has another kid too, right?” you asked, playing dumb. “A boy, I think. Do you know where he is?”

“Couldn’t say,” he sounded very indifferent, “Most likely went with her but who knows? I went to the Sheriff’s office to see if they knew anything but the Sheriff wasn’t there.”

“That’s too bad,” you say. “I’m sure Sheriff Bodecker would help you help if he can.”

Your statement made Mr. Curtis chuckle, but you didn’t follow up on it. You were just focusing on getting as much information about your mother and brother as you could.

“Speaking of Mr. Bodecker,” he began, “I recently saw his wife is getting remarried. Saw the announcement of the engagement in the paper.”

“Yeah, that’s right,” you respond, skeptically. You didn’t know why but you didn’t trust this man. It was something in the tone of his voice, or maybe it was just how he held himself. Very polished, a suit and a nice dress jacket. He looked very out of place in this town, and this little bar.

“You familiar with the Sheriff at all, miss?”

“Not too well,” you shrug, “Haven’t had any run-ins with the law myself.”

“Not even a speeding ticket?” He asks, only a little condescendingly.

“Can’t get a speeding ticket if you don’t have a car,” you point out.

“Touché,” he chuckles before taking a sip of his drink.

He doesn’t ask you anymore questions, and when he leaves, he gives you a five-dollar tip.

***

Lee receives his cut from Brown. There was nothing new to report on that front and his meeting went by smoothly. All Lee had to do was to turn a blind eye, and make sure the rest of the department stays unaware of the brothel’s existence. Brown always insisted on meeting with him, wanting to know what the Sheriff’s department was investigating and making sure his businesses stayed under the radar. He felt sick, and is preoccupied with the fact he has an envelope of dirty money in the cruiser’s glovebox.

It’s around midnight when he pulls up to the house. He expects that you’re already asleep, but he notices the lamp is on in the living room. He takes the money out of his glovebox and tucks it away into the inner pocket of his jacket. Coming inside, he finds you on the couch, knees pulled to your chest, staring at the business card Mr. Curtis had given you. You face is stained with dried up tears, and you still haven’t even changed out of your work clothes.

“What’s that?” he asks, the sight of you breaking his heart. He winces because he comes off a lot harsher than he meant.

“Some reporter came while I was at work wanting to talk to me,” you explain softly, you sound exhausted. “Wanted to talk to me cause he’s doing a story on my mother. Apparently, she’s on the run from the Columbus police.”

You extend your hand to give Lee the card. He feels his jaw clench when he reads the information. “What happened?” he asks, taking a deep breath and sitting down next to you.

“I pretended I wasn’t me,” you say, another tear rolling down your cheek. “He came in asking for me so I said I’d pass his card on. I didn’t want to tell him who I was because he didn’t explain why he was looking for me at first. I don’t know- just scared me. I’m more upset about the news itself than him.”

“You did the right thing,” Lee said softly, placing a hand on your shoulder comfortingly. He was angry, but he didn’t show it. It worried him, fucking Curtis snooping around this close to you. It made him feel protective, wanting to shield you from the whole ordeal. He had been on the receiving end of unsolicited attention from the press and he knew how ruthless they were. He knew this wouldn’t be the only time Curtis would try to get in touch with you. He’d find out where you lived, he’d continue to show up while you were working- the whole nine yards. He didn’t want you going through that.

Curtis talking to you also made him incredibly paranoid. It was his two worlds that he desperately wanted to keep apart were colliding. He knew it was impossible, but he so wanted to keep you separated from the other part of his life. It wasn’t who he wanted you to see. Hell, he hasn’t even been here for a month. It wasn’t that he wanted to keep you in the dark, at least that wasn’t entirely intentional. Actually, he wasn’t sure, maybe it was intentional. However, it wasn’t just you he wanted to hide aspects of his life from. He wanted his involvement with Brown and others hidden from every goddamn registered voter. You were no different, he tried to rationalize. But that wasn’t true. These feelings he harbored for you, were getting worse. He needed to unwrap himself from this situation, and for the sake of you finding out he was a shill, keep you away from that asshole. He didn’t want to let himself think about how the way you look at him would change.

And here he was, making the situation all about him. It was in his nature.

“He’s just going to show up again if I don’t call him,” you say, wiping your eyes. “Maybe I should just call him in the morning. Just be honest and say I don’t know anything. He can keep coming around but nothing is going to change.”

“I can take care of it,” he says. He couldn’t risk you talking to Curtis again. For all he knows, Curtis would tell you all about the story on the Sheriff he’d been trying to confirm for years. Lee knew he couldn’t let that happen. He fully intends on telling you, but how the hell do you bring that up? ‘Hey doll, I’m also on the payroll of every pimp and bootlegger in a ten-mile radius, just letting you know.’ It wasn’t going to come up, unless Curtis tells you about it. He’d be hoping to pull himself out if it, show you how you made him want to be better.

For now, he settles for comforting you, and just being there to take care of you. Make you feel better. He wraps an arm around your shoulder and lets you cry into his chest. He sighs, kissing the top of your head in a friendly way and you curl up against him. Under different circumstances, you probably wouldn’t have let yourself do this- show your vulnerability or allow anyone to comfort you like this. But it was all the events of the past month, your mother leaving, everything, just all hitting you at once, and you were happy you weren’t alone.

In the morning, you wake up on the couch with a blanket over you. You see Lee asleep in the chair, and you realize he stayed with you all night. It makes your heart flutter. You pull the blanket up over your chin and close your eyes again. You felt surprisingly well rested. The stress and worry were pushed to the back of your mind long enough to let you get some sleep. It still lingered in the back of your mind, but you reminded yourself that for now, there was nothing you could do. You had the day off, and you let yourself have a little longer time to sleep in.

You woke up to the smell of coffee brewing and the sound of sizzling on the stove. When you opened your eyes, Lee was no longer in the chair. You sat up and looked toward the kitchen, where you saw Lee with his back to you while he worked with the pans on top of the stove. The portable radio was positioned on the counter, and it was playing at a low volume, so it wouldn’t wake you up.

“Hey,” you say softly, still waking up as you walk into the kitchen.

“Morning, doll,” he says, glancing back at you for a moment. “How’re you feeling?”

“A little better,” you admit, grabbing a mug for yourself out of the cabinet. You pour yourself a cup of coffee, savoring the smell before making it how you usually take it. “Thank you for sitting with me,” you say honestly, “you didn’t have to do that.”

“I wanted to,” he says with a small grin. “I just wanted to help.”

“I really appreciate it, Lee,” you reiterate your thanks, hopping up to take a seat on the counter, watching him cook breakfast. “Didn’t know you knew how to cook,” you joke, making him chuckle.

“I’m full of surprises, sweetheart,” he smirks, making you feel flushed. You take another drawn out sip of your coffee to try to distract yourself. You watch his arms, and his hands as they maneuver and flex when he cooks. You imagine how they must feel, your eyes focused on the veins. You bit your lip and it reminds you of the dream you had a little while back when he first moved in. You imagine him stepping in between your legs as your propped up on the counter, his hands gently gripping your thighs and-

“I’ll get it,” you announce hurriedly as you hear someone knock on the front door. You hop off the counter careful to not spill your coffee, and head to answer the door. Lee watches you bounce out of the room, fixing your hair as you go and you don’t catch his smile.

“Arvin,” you say surprised, stepping out onto the porch. “What are you doing here?” you ask, with a small grin. You’re confused but nonetheless happy to see him.

“You look like you’ve been crying,” he observes, concern written all over his face.

“Yeah, I’m okay,” you say dismissively, “Just last night I was thinking about my ma and everything. Just had trouble sleeping is all.”

“The Sheriff didn’t do anything?” Arvin asked in a hushed tone, looking over your shoulder to see if Lee could hear you two.

“No, nothing, he’s been perfectly fine,” you say coming to the Sheriff’s defense. “I know you and Ms. Russell are worried, I know how it must look- but Arvin I swear he’s just my tenant. He’s been nothing but a gentleman.”

“Just making sure,” he says, letting it go for now. “Lenora asked me to bring these by for you.” He hands you the glass baking dish that you can see is filled with homemade cinnamon rolls. “She’s been practicing making all kinds of baked goods for when the Church does that bake sale and has me running all over town giving it away cause me and Uncle Earskell can’t keep up with it all.”

“Tell her thank you for me,” you say with a smile, “And I’ll bring the dish with me to Church tomorrow- give it back to her.”

“She misses you I think,” Arvin says sheepishly, pushing his hands into his front pockets. “I mean- I do- I think my whole family does- we all do. I’m sorry my grandmother hasn’t asked you over in a while…”

“I understand,” you nod. “Reputation is an important thing.”

“I just didn’t want you to think it was because of us,” he says looking down at the porch, his eyes fixed on a loose board. “You know how she is- everything no matter the context is somehow a sin. Scared to death of her own shadow…”

“I know you’re not that resentful, Arvin Russell,” you chuckle and he relaxes. “And I don’t hold any hard feelings towards anyone in your family- you all have always been good to me.”

“Well, um,” he says awkwardly, looking like he was holding back from saying more. “I got to hit a couple more houses before I head to work, so I guess I’ll see you tomorrow at Church?”

“I’ll be there.”

“Oh- I wanted to let you know,” he says, turning around as he’s already heading down the front steps, “The principal down at the high school is looking for secretaries- Lenora heard and thought you might be interested. It pays like $35 a week, I think. You should call Linda Carson; I think Lenora said- that’s the woman who’s in charge of hiring people, I think.”

“I’ll call the school first thing Monday morning,” you say, grin stretching from ear to ear. Arvin nods and says goodbye again. You walk back into the house like you’re on top of the world. You couldn’t contain your excitement. That job if you could get it would be a dream. You’d be making so much more than you’re already making. You were so excited.

“You’re in a much better mood than when I last saw you,” Lee jokes. He’s sitting at the kitchen table reading the newspaper while he eats his breakfast. You notice that he made you a table setting- brought your coffee over and everything. You place the baking dish in the middle of the table and sit down.

“That was Arvin,” you say happily, and Lee feels his heart sink into his stomach.

“Oh yeah?” he asks, trying to not let on how his heart feels like it’s crushed. He knew it was only a matter of time before a boy would come around- whether it be Arvin or someone else your own age.

“Well, first he was just dropping off baked goods Lenora made,” you say gesturing to the dish on the table. “He’s going around to everybody, I guess. He mentioned the high school is looking for office secretaries- Lenora wanted me to know. Thirty-five dollars a week! I’m going to talk to Linda Carson about it Monday morning. Can you imagine? I could get a secretary job.”

Lee feels just a crash of relief wash over him. He’s so happy that you are looking at a new job. You deserve better than that bar. He knew you deserved the job just as much as any of the other candidates. You work harder than anyone he knows.

“That’s fantastic, sugar,” he replies. “You deserve it.”

“Do you think I have a chance?” you ask, feeling a little self-conscious- you knew you weren’t as experienced as other candidates would be for sure.

“Of course, I do,” he says, putting down the paper to give you his full attention. “I feel like you getting this job is a definite. There’s no doubt about it.”

“You’re just buttering me up,” you scoff, finishing up your food, making him chuckle. You may have also seen his cheeks redden, but you couldn’t say for sure. You finish off your coffee, and then bring you dishes back to the kitchen, leaving them in the sink. Lee turns his attention back to his newspaper and you head upstairs to get ready for your day.

When you head upstairs, Lee notices that you took the radio with you- and he could hear you were listening to music from upstairs. He decides before it’s too late to ring Mark Cunningham. The line rings a couple of times before Mark answers.

“Cunningham.”

“Morning, Mark. It’s Sheriff Bodecker,” he smirks.

“What can I do for you Sheriff?” he asks, the sound of shuffling paper comes through as well. Most likely flipping through the paper.

“I wanna call in that favor you owe me,” he says, casually pacing the living room, holding the receiver up to his ear and the base of the rotary phone in the other.

“Of course, Sheriff,” he says. A while back, Bodecker busted the principal making moonshine in his old barn that was at the end of his property. Lee looked the other way and was waiting for the right thing to call in a favor for.

“I want you to hire (Y/N) (Y/L/N) for the secretary job,” he says, looking to the stairs, making sure you aren’t coming. The music is still playing loudly from upstairs so he determines he’s still got time.

“That’s all?” Mark asked surprised.

“That’s all I want from you,” Lee replies. “I expect you can make that happen?”

“Without a doubt. When can she start?”

“Still have her come in for an interview. I don’t anyone else knowing I called you about this- including her.”

“Done.”

With that, Lee hangs up the phone, feeling really good about this decision. He knew how much that job meant to you- he could see it in your eyes and how excitedly you talked about it. He can’t wait to see you when you find out you get the position. He knows it’s going to make you so happy. He knows you’d be a fantastic candidate, but this just eliminates any doubt. He reasons that there isn’t much difference, since you were very likely to get it anyways. He just had to make sure.

He can picture you know, coming home from the interview- excited to tell him that you got the job. You’d be so excited you’d jump up and hug him tightly, just so overjoyed that you let your feelings take over. You’d wrap your legs and around his waist and he’d hold you up by holding the back of your thighs. You’d wrap your arms tightly around him and bury your head in the crook of his neck. You’d lift your head up to look at him, embarrassed at your actions and then he’d press his lips to yours. You’d gasp softly, but your lips would melt against his own and your arms would wrap tightly around his neck. He’d walk forward, pressing you up against the wall and he’d kiss your neck mumbling praises of congratulations against your skin as his name falls from your lips at how good he’d make you feel. It’s almost unbearable how bad he wants you.

He heads to him room to get ready for his day, but his mind is still clouded with thoughts of you. He thinks about how much he wants nothing more that to just pin you on his mattress. He wonders if you know how crazy you make him. Sometimes there’s something in your eye that makes him think you want him too, but he’s not sure. His better judgement holds him back from everything he wants to do. He thinks about how it must feel to have his head right in-between your thighs. Back in the kitchen together, he wanted to just get on his knees and worship you. The feeling of them pressing against him as he sucks on your clit and runs his tongue across your folds.

Serval hours later, he can’t shake the thoughts, even sitting in his office at the sheriff’s station- working on a Saturday yet again. He’s cooped up in his office, unable to get through any of the paperwork that has piled up on his desk. He’s thinking about you, again, but in this daydream, you’re bent over his desk- because you came by to see him on your break from work at the school. His office door locked and his blinds pulled so he can bend you over and take you right there- rough and fast, sending you back to work with a feeling of him still there between your legs well after you’re back at your own desk, still sore from the encounter.

“You got a visitor, Lee,” the intercom on his desk lights up.

“Send ‘em in,” he responds back, shaking his head to snap out of it. He needed to get a grip.

“Sorry I didn’t call,” you say, walking into his office. His eyes widen and he wonders if he’s still day dreaming. He discreetly pinches himself. You’re actually here, standing in his office, while he looks at you dumbfounded. Part of him would think he manifested it if he was a man of any faith. “You forgot this,” you say, putting his wallet on the desk. “You must have taken it out of your back pocket before falling asleep in the chair last night. It was laying on the coffee table. I figured I’d stop by with it while I was coming up this way anyways.”

“You’re a doll,” he grins, putting his wallet in his back pocket. “What are you doing?”

“I took the bus to the library to return some books, and now I’m going shopping for something to wear when I go in for an interview since I have the day off to go,” you explain. “I’m also probably going to get lunch after that before heading back home. I just didn’t want to be home in case that reporter stopped by. I’m not ready to talk to him yet.”

“I can take care of it,” he says, “He’ll make his way over here soon enough. I can talk to him.”

“You would do that for me?” you ask, the relief evident across your whole face.

“Yeah, I can talk to him, let him know you gave a statement here,” he says. You nod. “You know as much as he does, so it doesn’t matter if I tell him you don’t know shit or if you tell him.”

“You’re a lifesaver,” you sigh, so relieved thinking that you won’t have to hear from Henry Curtis again. “If he tells you anything about them… will you let me know?”

“Of course, sweetheart.”

“Thank you,” you say, hurriedly walking over behind him and quickly hugging his shoulders. You then are back by the door again before he can register the gesture. “Are you going to be home tonight?” you ask, your hand on the doorknob.

“Not until late,” he says reluctantly, and he can see the disappointment on your face- unless his mind was playing tricks on him.

“Okay,” you say finally, “Um, I’ll see you later then.”

“Bye, doll,” he says when you walk out of his office.

Are you going to be home tonight? Your voice lingers in his head. It was such a harmless phrase that could’ve just been one of curiosity. Maybe you were just asking because you were thinking about what you were doing for dinner. It most likely just meant nothing. But, the look on your face when he said no makes him think otherwise. Did it mean you cared? That you wanted to spend time with him? You wanted to see him and be with him as desperately as he needed you perhaps? Just the phrasing itself makes his brain feel like putty. It’s like you’re waiting up for him. It’s like you share the house in a way that’s much more than just him renting a room from you. It’s like you’re his and he’s yours. It’s like saying our house… our home. The question was so intimate and implied so much more about how you saw him and what he was to you. He knew seeing him as how he saw you was next to impossible, but you saw him as more than the Sheriff and more than just the jerk living in your house.

Part Four

Taglist:

@scar-is-bi @jiminlife2k18 @asylummaniac01 @rosalynshields @charmed-asylum @jamesbuchananbuckybarnes1917 @alexandrathegreat3

#lee bodecker #lee bodecker imagine #lee bodecker x reader #lee bodecker fic #lee bodecker x you #lee bodecker smut #sebastian stan x reader #sebastian stan characters #sebastian stan imagine #sebastian stan #smut #the devil all the time #angst #lee bodecker x y/n #arvin russel x you #arvin russel x reader

495 notes · View notes

alias-b · 5 years ago

Text

angel cake.

Summary: Former enemies, now friends and maybe lovers, Billy Hargrove and Evie Fenny start teasing in a church confessional. Things take a turn for the heated when Billy's imagination gets away from him. ~Also posted on my AO3

Billy/plus size!OC. Fucking in a confessional. Sin. Filth. Thanks for reading. Weird to write them romantically bc the start of the fic is Rough. They have work to do. Billy Being Nasty In Church. Teaser at later stuff for my new enemies to friends to lovers Billy/OC Fic, Sins of My Youth, that I want to start posting. XOXO.

Billy Hargrove x Evie Fenny

angel cake. 🍰

“You really have to go to this thing?” Billy’s Camaro roared into a church parking lot. Looked out of place there. Multicolored tulips swept against the spring wind, too pleasant before the fender.

“Told mom I’d help out. I’m not staying for the festivities, they just need extra hands setting up the food and Easter egg hunt.” Aviators flashed at Evie in the passenger seat.

Billy with his arm propped in the window. Denim jacket and white button down tucked into tight jeans. Cigarette dangling out his lips. Exceptionally pretty, even against all the pastel flowers and banners set for the holiday.

“What a good daughter. Santa ought to put you on the nice list for sure.” He plucked the smoke out to exhale as she brought the car mirror down.

“Hell, I forgot I had red on today.You have napkins in here?” She opened the glove box to sift through papers. Billy extended his arm.

“Use the jacket, give me something messy to remember you by.” A wink followed before she took his wrist and smacked a ruby kiss into his forearm, printing the light wash. Eyes flicked as some of the red lipstick got swiped away, leaving a more pink tint behind.

“Thanks, I guess.”

“Red is the devil’s color, Evangeline.” Came some mocking in a horrid southern accent. She scoffed with her eyes elsewhere.

“You could always come help if you’re going to pout.” She dug around her purse.

“Not pouting. Churches and I don’t mix. It’s the one thing dad and I agree on.” Billy pulled his shades down and folded them into his front pocket with the cigarettes.

“Well, pick me up in an hour, we’ll go catch something scary and sinful.” She applied chapstick and rubbed her lips together.

“Sinful? I like that.” Billy’s fingers squeezed her thigh, hot on skin and just barely under the little black suspender skirt. Evie wore a brightly colored tee with sunflowers all over it. Her usual green bomber jacket covered in patches. “That new?”

“The chapstick? No, it’s tinted and smells like watermelon though.”

“Let me try.” Billy saw her offer the tube and instead pulled her in by the collar for a kiss. Mashing their lips together. He flicked his tongue out for good measure and heard her gasp against his ferocity. It still managed to catch her off guard. A light smack when he parted, tonguing his bottom lip. “Mm, tastes like watermelon too.”

“Billy, there are people over there.” She pushed his wandering hand out of her skirt.

“I’d like to see Jesus himself come out and...what the fuck is that?” Billy’s finger lifted so Evie followed it to see the Easter Bunny leaving a lone side door. Lavender fur with white tufts, huge goofy grin.

“Yeah, they have someone dress up every year for when the kids arrive, which is in about sixty minutes, so I gotta go.” Evie had Billy’s wrist again to check the time. Pecked his cheek and shifting before he about howled. “What?” Her body jumped at the sound.

“No fucking way!” Billy was scrambling out because the bunny head had come off so a quick smoke could be snuck around back. “No way! Hey, Harrington! That you, amigo? What’s up, doc?”

Steve spun on his heel, holding a cigarette in one hand and the bunny head under his other arm. His head fell back with a groan because Billy was leaning up against his chair, bent over to belly laugh.

“Hargrove?” Steve looked mortified, but played tough. “Are they really letting you within five feet of a church?” Billy was too busy cackling to retort. Fist clenched and head resting upon his arm on the Camaro.

“The fucking tail.” Billy wasn’t stopping so Evie crossed her arms.

“What happened to Gary?” Evie approached Steve, head cocking. “Ignore Billy.”

“I try to… And food poisoning. I dropped Dustin off at home yesterday to help Claudia out and she begged me last minute. I’m getting fifteen bucks for it though. Not bad for the Saturday before Easter.” He flashed a half smile. “Suit kinda smells like potpourri, I-...Is he gonna stop or what?”

“He’ll tucker himself out eventually.” Evie turned her head to see Billy unable to get air. “Billy, take a breath already before you pass out!” A huge gulp followed. More wild laughter. “Jeez.”

“I’m never gonna live this down, shit.” Steve mumbled around his smoke, flicking it. “Asshole.”

“Might want to get back in, Pastor will have a cow if he catches you smoking in the suit.” Evie took the head to help Steve back into it.

“See you, Hargrove. Remember to breathe, dick.” The bunny snuck back in the side door. Another round of laughs at the sight of the puffy tail.

“I wanna kick his ass so bad. You don’t understand.” Billy stretched out, eyes watering and cheeks blushed. Freckles glowing.

“You short circuiting still?” Evie peered down at her boots.

“I don’t know what Easter is about, but that...was the best shit I’ve ever seen.” Billy snickered like a little boy with his hand in the cookie jar. Evie only rolled her eyes.

“New beginnings, Billy.” Heels clicked up behind them so Billy straightened quick to get his composure.

“Hey, mom.” Evie leaned out from behind the boy.

Mona Fenny appeared from the main doors, her arms full of bags. Brightly colored plastic eggs packed with treats about to spill out. Hair pumped, unable to move, with a short 60s sheath dress clinging to her body. Yellow and orange print. Something that was definitely noted by the men around. Single and ready at all times. Evie felt her cheeks heat at her mother.

“New beginnings, Miss Mona?” Billy repeated, one hand sliding into his jean pocket.

“That’s what I always thought, sugar.” That southern twang thick beyond all reach.

Billy always liked to poke fun at Evie, she had the slightest Louisiana touch to her voice that came out when she was in a more fiery disposition. She swore it wasn’t true.

“Evie, they’re trying to get the dessert table set up. I didn’t realize Billy was joining us.” Mona continued.

“Oh, I-”

“You know, Billy was actually telling me he’s never been to a real Easter gathering before. Not a church event.” Evie’s sly smile crossed and he shot her a look. “I’m sure those big, strong arms you got would really help out setting up.” Evie came to him and gave his bicep a pat.

“That’s lovely, Billy. You know the kids just love this event, fun in the sun and more food than you’ll ever eat. Go on inside, you two. We have decorations to get going.” Mona clicked away, peppy in stride.

“I had a hair appointment.” Billy hissed through his teeth when Evie’s mother was gone.

“You want to tell my mother that you’re going to get your hair done somewhere that isn’t her salon?” Evie’s lips pressed. Billy’s face scrunched because she had him there. “I panicked, the people here are too much. Please stay.”

“Your mom never turns her volume down, does she? Looking more like a brunette Sharon Tate than a Dolly Parton.” Billy locked his car, stuffing the scorpion keychain into his pocket.

“Been like that since dad left, she’s...on the market. Trying to feel good. People notice and they say some not great stuff. She went from dressing like a nun to a model overnight.” Evie was holding her arms close to her chest still, making this unconscious patting motion Billy always noted like she was trying to console herself.

“Really bugs you, what people think.”

“It’s a small town, it bugs everyone.” Evie turned, skirt flitting while her curls bounced. “Don’t like all these guys ogling my mom.”

Doesn’t like that one might replace her dad. Evie peered back at Billy, lips pushed up to appear brighter. He decided he wanted to see her happier without force.

“I’ll stick around. You owe me.” Steps followed. One hand gave her bottom a firm pat.

“You know, the Easter Bunny has to do a dance before the festivities begin?” She whispered then. “It’s tradition.”

Billy perked up like a dog.

“Right, so, decorations?” He waltzed ahead with a giggling girl in tow. Spotted the moms passing boxes off. All stilling to see him there. Wind sweeping his blond locks like a beefcake out of a romance novel. Shirt open with his saint chain glinting upon his tanned chest. “Ladies.”

“Hi, Billy.” Came the chorus.

He ate that up a little.

Sunlight was barely felt through the spring breeze. Balloons and streamers glowed every direction. Twisted around Evie’s manicured fingers as she passed them up to Billy to be tied around the banner.

“Feel like I might float away here.” The wind swept up her unruly curls as she smiled below when Billy peered to see her. Pink and violet balloons. Yellow streamers. She looked like a piece of decadent candy there. “What?”

Billy snapped out of it.

“Why do I have to be on the ladder?” He snatched another bundle of strings from her to tie them up.

“I wore a skirt so I wouldn’t have to be.” Came the cheeky reply. Hawkins residents hurried all over to set up the grassy field.

“Let’s switch. Although, the view here ain’t half bad. I can totally see down your shirt.” His tongue swept over eager lips as eyes lowered to her breasts. Brows furrowed to glare at him. It was striking how cute she was, even angry. High, apple cheeks and pillowy lips. The sun brought some gold into lush, dark curls.

“Jerk.” An arm hanging with streamers covered her chest. “We’re standing next to a church. Behave yourself, you’re fixing to get smited.”

“God’s got bigger problems than me.” He shrugged, caught his tongue in teeth. Smirked. “Fixin’ to. Your Louisiana is showing.”

“Shut it, I got too much family down there still. Sometimes it jumps out. I don’t have an accent.”

“You so do. Just saying it’s cute.” He caught her cheeks flooding all strawberries and cream.

“Hey, I have to keep my clinically unapproachable ice queen reputation. You’re not helping.”

“Damn cute then.” Billy’s head cocked. A wink of those sinfully, long lashes. “Hand me another one.”

Evie’s hand came to his to offer a new bundle of balloons.

Green grass swept about as parents worked to hide eggs all over and a full spread of picnic food was set out on blue gingham tables. Kids started to pile in so Billy decided it was time to hide around the building after snagging the biggest piece of apple pie he could. Alone, they watched the crowds play beyond a row of vibrant tulips.

“One fork?” Evie leaned up against the wall.

“You had my tongue in your mouth this morning, don’t complain about sharing a fork.”

“Fair enough.” She let him feed her a bite. “That wasn’t so bad, time flew. You want to jet?” A bouncy tune played as Billy craned his neck around the corner after a huge bit of pie. Evie followed his line of sight.

“Easter is my new favorite holiday.” He let Evie snag the fork to finish off the slice, tossing the plate into the trash. Genuine laughter as Steve Harrington did a jig in his costume across the open field. Billy’s arm slid over Evie’s shoulders. “You think I can pay one of these kids to kick bunny in the nuts?”

“We’re leaving… Before you traumatize some child.” She tugged at his wrist to sneak in a side door. “Left my coat and purse over here.”

Absolutely empty and dim save for the morning sun spilling into stained glass. They passed rows of pews to the tables covered in empty boxes. Evie went for her purse and realized she already lost Billy, curiously rooting around.

“Hey, don’t touch that.”

“They actually have one of these things? I thought movies made this shit up.” Billy poked his head around the little confessional booth. Hardwood and sleek to touch. Ornate and out of place against bright blue wallpaper. Two doors on either side. “So, everyone’s planning on staying outside right? Should be entertained a few hours, hm.”

He went in and a lock clicked.

“Billy, hey.” Evie felt the urge to keep her voice low. “Get out of there. They actually don’t really use this thing anymore.”

“Doesn’t get use, eh? Too bad.” His snicker was muffled. “Get in the other side, Angel, confess your sins.”

“I’ll confess that I think the nickname is still silly.” She wiggled the handle and poked her head into the opposite side. Saw Billy’s pretty silhouette through the tiny mesh window. Both sides were cramped like an airplane bathroom.

“Roomier than I thought.”

“Some of us have hips here.” Evie huffed at him, the door shut while she slid inside. “Kinda creepy actually, let’s go.”

“You gotta confess first, it’s the rule.” His wild curls flicked so she plopped into the wooden bench.

“This is not even sexy, I feel like I’m about to be murdered here.” She pressed her hands on either wall.

“Better confess quick in that case,” Billy leaned in, she saw his lashes flutter, “what color are your panties today?”

“Billy.” She covered the mesh with one hand.

“Do they match the bra?” He continued, voice lowering.

“I’m not doing this.” Evie lifted her skirt and shifted a lacy pair of shorts aside to see. Billy’s breath drew heavier. “What’s it matter if they match?”

“If they match, you walked into this church thinking you’d be getting some later.” He said that far too matter-a-factually. “Sinner. What color? Describe them exactly.”

“You’re being gross.” She knew he heard the band of her little biker shorts snap. Caved. “Purple. Like a lilac.”

“Cotton?”

“...Satin.”

A lengthy hum from Billy at that.

“And the bra. I’m assuming the same.” He already heard Evie shuffling to check.

“Ah, shit.” She let her shirt go and he chuckled. “I didn’t even plan that. I wasn’t thinking about it.”

“Your subconscious knew, Angel. No denying it.” Billy propped his arm up.

“Okay, what do you have on?” The challenge was easily met.

“Nothing under the jeans, currently. You should try it.”

“In a skirt? Without my little shorts? My thighs would rub, I’d be miserable.” Came a whine.

“I’d massage your poor thighs, maybe blow the hot skin to cool it off if you like.” His suggestion wasn’t helpful. “Spread them and rub some ice to make you feel better. Few kisses all the way up.” That damn low baritone lingered upon the syllables like he might lick them. Evie gave a silent snort out her nose. “You’d probably squirm a little bit like you are now.”

“I am not squirming.” Evie’s chest lifted, eyes turned to Billy’s outline.

“Now, Angel, you can’t tell lies in here. The sins are just piling up for you today.” Billy peered around, couldn’t see much in here. Spotted her lips parting, but sound came out. “Betcha, you’re already soaked through those satin, lilac panties.” His purring was met with hard silence before a forcibly huff.

“Billy...quit it.” She bit her lip this time sounding like she’d smiled. Billy spotted her cheeks lifting, full and blushed all pretty he figured.

“I’ll confess, it took every ounce of fight in me to get you here on time. Lot of places in this town to stop and...park at for a bit. The one charming thing I discovered about this place.”

“How sunny side up of you.” She hummed.

“You would have let me have it because we would have parked for awhile. You’d be late. Probably left your wrecked panties in the backseat and walked around here with fireworks still going off under your skin. We both know it.”

“Probably wouldn’t have made it here at all.” Her slow reply was uttered and Billy grinned.

“See, I behaved.” He got closer to the window. “Confess, Evie.”

“Confess that you’re a total horn dog.” She drew in to meet him.

“Confess what you want me to do to you in there.” Billy murmured. She blew a curl out her face at that. “I got it, I want you to be my first.” He’d offered that with huge, glittering eyes she’d caught the glint of. Eyebrows jumped.

“What? Literally yesterday, we-”

“I never fucked in a church before.” He got her eyes rolling hard, almost to the back of her skull.

“Jesus Christ, Billy.” She covered the mesh again, heard him laughing on the other side.

“Not the name you need to be moaning right now.” Billy smacked the window closed and came out.

“Finally, we can go-” Evie had the door open. Still blushing. Chest puffed.

Billy appeared from smoke, had his hands on either side before he pushed in. Catching her lips on the way until the door could shut behind them. Cupping Evie’s face so she pressed into the wall. Back of her legs hit the bench and managed to not buckle. Palms felt around the hardwood for something to grab for until fingers bunched up Billy’s jacket.

She broke for air. Gulped on it before his tongue was back into her mouth.

“We should…” Lips swelled with kisses. “Go to the car.”

“Will you make that walk? I know I won’t.” Came the hushed reply. “We could cross something big off the bucket list.” Persuasive lips were already working on her neck, teeth tugged her ear and grazed back down. Billy got a handful of her tits and hummed.

“Not...Not sure it’s on my bucket list.” She just held onto him. Knees wobbling as Billy massaged through the bra.

“I’d add it now while you have time.” He pecked her throat. Felt the pulse under tender skin racing. “Confess.” It was a sinful purr. Evie’s head tipped back. Lungs starting to sputter. Billy made her heart a pile of volcanic mush.

“What if someone comes in?” She let him tuck her curls aside. Lips on her cheeks and jaw. Finding her mouth again. Tasting sweet sugar from the apple pie they shared.

“We’ll just have to keep it down and pray the party is entertaining enough to keep people outside.” He mumbled, coming out to pull the shirt from her skirt up over the pretty bra she had on.

Hands pulled her suspenders forth until Evie molded into him. Kissed back with the same fierce vigor he gave. Felt the chain around his neck while her fingers slipped under the collar of his shirt, four buttons already undone.

The hard lines of his body sweltered with fire. Whatever resolve she might have had melted away completely.

Evie liked how he always cupped her face to look at her features close between steaming kisses. Fingers trailed to work her bra down just enough for her to spill into his touch. Into his mouth. Bruising suckles. Teeth edging across silken skin. Tongue swirling one dark, rosy nipple than the other as she tried to quiet herself and ran fingers into his gold mane. A hiss and Billy’s eyes lifted. Evie’s head was turned aside, teeth in her bottom lip. Eyes shut.

“Cute when you try to hold it together.” Cool breath against her hard, wet nipple sent a vibration down her spine. Billy licked up her chest to inhale that amber perfume, a floral scent with a touch of vanilla from her lotion. Smelled lush to match him. She pushed his face back into her cleavage, partly to quiet him because he was too cocky.

Chuckling and breathless, Billy came up to tease her lips. Twisting her nipples just so to elicit a sigh. Low and even, Billy ran his finger over her mouth.

“Just confess, Angel, it’ll feel so fucking good when you do.” He caught her bottom lip and let it go.

“Promise?” Evie’s lips parted involuntarily at his touch, let his finger stroke her tongue and slip out.

“I promise.” That same hand already hiked her skirt to tug at shorts until they came down. His finger inched under the waistband of her panties, teasing sensitive skin. She pressed into his body, vibrating for more. Swaying. Arms snug around his shoulders to stay upright.

A shameless sound when her lips collided with his. Thigh hitching around his hips in a needy motion. Not shy about what she desired for one beat because he knew how to coax that side of her out. Billy teased lighter kisses, let his deft fingers dance along her inner thigh. Evie was stubborn and she knew what he wanted.

Confession.

A growl rippled out her tense vocal cords. Trying to reel sound in despite Billy’s inherent ability to make her see new sparks of vivid neon colors here in pure darkness.

“Okay…” She panted, pulling for him until their foreheads touched. “Okay.” A drunken moment where eyes could close. One beat of peace in obscenity. His free arm tightened around the small of her back so they were flush together. Perfect fit. Every curve to her body sloped easily into him. An almost Biblical fate because of how good they felt together. Evie parted her mouth to ghost it over his. “I sinned.”

“Yeah?” Billy’s palm inched up to reward her sighs. A smirk crossed. “How’s that?”

“Because I was hoping you’d pull over on the way here. Would have seen the new underwear in a better light. And I squirmed the whole way. Your loss.” All that cheeky strength simmered down when fingers pushed between thick thighs. Wet satin fabric slipped deliberately against her and Billy moaned at the mere feel. Rock hard.

“Fuck, you’re soaked, Angel.” His tone thickened.

Evie wasn’t able to articulate. Face in his chest with her needy fingers tight on his jacket. She played her demure self again. Billy felt her legs tremor, nudged them further apart with his boot.

“All for me? I wouldn’t call it a loss. You gotta hold yourself up a bit longer, open that mouth again.” He gave her two slick fingers to suck so he could kiss down her tits some more. Plucked and nipped at every sensitive part of her body. “Fucking god damn it, I might give religion a shot after this.”

“Yeah?” Evie licked the pads as Billy slunk down to marvel. Thought about taking her skirt off, but he decided he liked the way the straps framed her breasts partially spilling out of the bra.

One hand forced her thigh up until her foot hit the bench. Evie was curved back into the wall, holding the side frame and gripping Billy’s shoulder.

“Long as I get to go where you’re going, I don’t give a shit about anything else.” A chuckle warmed her leg as he pushed her skirt up out of the way.

“That sounded oddly sentimental.”

“Maybe I’ll bring you down to my level instead. Sinner.” Billy’s mouth placed one open kiss against her wet panties. Tongue following the hard swell of her bud. She decided she’d let him there in darkness. Every muscle in Evie’s body jumped at full attention. His divine and equally wicked mouth hummed blissfully. She craned to dig teeth into her own arm. Fists clenching.

Billy maneuvered her leg over to get the ruined fabric down. Tucked them into his coat pocket and she figured she wouldn’t be seeing them again. Kneeling, Billy scooted closer and pushed her thigh back up, baring her to his mouth.

A cry hitched, snuffing out immediately as he tasted her. Filthy, open mouth kisses until her fingers tangled into his hair. Pulled. Billy moaned into her folds. Squeezed her thighs and loved the feel of them. God, he really couldn’t get enough of this girl. Every whine she let him have. Every nerve that wanted him. Needed him to ease the frays and sizzling. He just couldn’t get enough and was fine with following her into the dark.

“Don’t stop.” Evie whispered. Hair falling into her face while her breasts rose and fell. She licked her lips and savored him.

The dirty sounds he made against her that barely carried outside the booth. Billy squeezed her breast once he was certain she could stay up so she covered his hand. Craned to suck fingers. A gasp left. Evie’s hips rolled into his mouth. Asking for even more until two fingers pushed inside.

Billy moaned when her walls clamped. Pumped through the resistance to massage her nice and deep. Evie was quivering there. Using both arms on the sides to stay up. Shameless working into him now. Billy made a vaguely amused sound and gave an obscene pop around her clit, leaning out with arousal slicking his pink lips. It was music, the sounds her body let flow into crisp air.

“Damn, no wonder you don’t go here anymore. Fucking yourself so hard and pretty on my fingers like this. You couldn’t make the nice list if you paid.” Being eye level with the sight had his cock twitching almost painfully. Evie’s head was tossed back. Clearly getting herself closer so Billy pulled away. Silenced her whine with a kiss. Let her suck and nip at his bottom lip. “See how fucking good you taste?”

Evie’s hands were opening his belt. Quick and eager. Billy hitched as one palm slipped in, fingers ghosting trimmed blond hair to ease him out of the denim.

“Confess, Evie, how bad you want me to fuck you right here.” He spoke as if he still had the upper hand.

“Bet you I can do it without words.” Evie had his hips, guiding Billy to switch so he could sit. The question died and buried itself the second she sank down to lick precum pooling at his tip. Billy’s hips thrust up, eyes heavy and hooded.

“That bad?” He shuddered, legs opening so she could lean into him. Evie unbuttoned the rest of his shirt to kiss the steel muscles. Twitching and molten. Nails scraped his skin. Stopped to stroke him idly. Kissing his abdomen, thighs, and tip. Evie traced the lines of vein and muscle. Down his shaft and back up his chest. So many sharp angles to explore.

Little butterfly kisses while she leaned in until his cock slipped snug between her breasts. Spit slick and beading clear arousal. Billy moaned at the sight and gave a rut as she noticed and started to come out.

Hands latched to her shoulders. Billy hummed and rolled her nipple. Felt the weight of her tits and pushed them to squeeze his shaft. Idle fingers stilled to tuck her hair back in a way that was almost tender.

“You’re pretty like this,” he said thoughtfully, “you’re pretty every which way.” Teeth tugged at her bottom lip. A shy kiss followed. Sometimes, he got so bold, she sank. Learned to savor it. Billy whispered against her. “Have I ever told you my cock looks great between your tits like that?” Frankly, he’d be happy to get off rubbing between her breasts or thighs alone. Fingers digging into supple skin. Evie had become a drug to him. Vanilla and amber immersed him in a high.

“The occasion hasn’t really crossed.”

“I’ll have to fix that next time I can lie you down.” Billy let her stroke him again and come up. Hesitating so he had to encourage her. “Get in my lap.” He was already pulling her into him. Smoothing hair back sweetly for lingering kisses.

She long stopped worrying about feeling too heavy for him. Billy threw her around a mattress like it was nothing. Spread her legs, bent them up how he liked. Marveled at her flexibility. Kissed her obscenely and told her how pretty and blushed she looked. She liked when he was ample with her body. The boy certainly lifted enough weights, a fuller girl with hips was nothing to that. Jeans shifted lower as she straddled him. A kiss before she sank down.

Billy moaned. A low honeyed sound into her ear. Almost musical. Arms wrapped tighter. Evie thanked God for birth control and moved at his coaxing.

“C’mon, fuck me. I want it.” Billy kissed her fiercely. Nipples. Collar. Throat. Jawline. Mouth. And each time, he felt that same thrill rush his bones. A palm smacked her ass, squeezed it. Got drunk off the pulsing and little whines she gave him as if they were gift wrapped. “Confession. I want pictures of you. Spread out with my cock in you every way you like. They won’t beat the real thing, but fuck, I can’t...stop with you. Don’t want to.”

Billy looked vulnerable when he moaned so pretty.

His knuckles traced the curve of her cheekbone. Evie bounced, gripped his shoulders to stay upright with her spine curving. Unable to respond to something so passionate. Billy had that mode on him, sometimes it came out in odd ways. Filthy words to match his obscene way of caressing and worship. His manner of making Evie feel bold and sexy. Cute. Pretty. Fierce. Desired. The fact that sometimes he’d lie still for once and seek out her fingers across his curls and her lips on his cheek.

Evie Fenny was a drug and cure to him, all at once. She gave back. Made Billy feel full and light. Made him feel present. Like he could shed his fangs. Lie back and feel the sun on his skin.

“Confession,” Evie said between quick kisses with her thumb tracing the edge of his jaw, “I want more of you too. After....”

“After?” He scoffed. “Like tonight?”

“Just… After.” She slowed to rock into him. Deep thrusts that made them both moan in sync. So close. “After what’s next for us. Life. High school. Whatever. I want you to be apart of my after.”

He could blame the sex for short circuiting her brain, he’d given it to her pretty hard.

“I don’t know what I’m saying.” She rubbed her eyes, laughed because it felt silly. Felt Billy swoop in to kiss her. Wordlessly validating it wasn’t silly at all. That was another thing they did, pumped life into hopeful hearts and dwindling thoughts of something more. Something that was waiting...after.

“We’ll deal with the after.” Billy skimmed a hand between them. Stroked her until she gave a cry into the denim of his jacket. A beautiful note. Evie thought she heard the twinkling music from outside, joyful and airy. Realized that maybe it was just playing in her head. “Right now, I want you to come.” He pecked her parted lips. “Cum for me, Angel.”

“Billy.” She found his mouth again. They shared a godly nectar in one kiss. He worked her hips into his as she climaxed. Lungs heaving with a great arch. Billy watched her tits bounce and found his own release quick. Let her slip into him as he fell back to the wall. Lungs tried to find some peace. That New Orleans accent laced her tone again. “God damn it, Billy.”

“Still a church, Fenny.” He massaged her thighs. Eyes shifting while she breathed even and fixed her bra. Tucked her shirt back in.

“I need a bathroom. This is about to be a mess.” She slipped off him, pulled her undershorts back on because he wasn’t giving her panties up. Thighs hummed, sore and blissful. Billy tucked himself away to fix his own clothing back. Evie poked her head out. “Coast is clear.”

Without thinking, she laced her hand in his. Hurried him out to the bathroom to pee and wash up. Saw her patchy, red cheeks in the mirror and huffed. Patted cold water on them. Billy finished at the sink and lit a quick cigarette by the window. That chipper music lingered outside.

“Your mom is going to be here awhile. I vote your place.”

“Movie on the couch.” She flicked hair aside. Billy flashed a smile, nodding as he snuffed the smoke out.

“To start, maybe.” Two fingers grasped her chin, angled Evie’s mouth for a slow kiss. Tasted sweet, obscene, and smoky all at once. Made her dizzy.

“I’d come back here under certain conditions.” He passed to go out with Evie behind him. She found her purse and coat again.

“Let’s go, you had your fun.” She chuckled as they rejoined the event outside. Wind and all.

“Uh, I think you did too.” Billy’s arm hung around her shoulder. Easy with their height difference.

“You two leaving?” Mona had called, edging from her conversation to cross once the teens were outside. Evie pressed her legs together. Smiled. The Pastor who’d been speaking to her mother followed too. Plastic grin upon his face.

“Ah, yeah, I’ll see you later, mom.” Evie had replied.

“Thanks for coming to help.” Mona beamed. “Pastor Ray, you know Billy. Our neighbor. He was kind enough to help out.”

“Mr. Hargrove. I’m surprised to see you here.” They shook tense hands.

“Only thing I like more than Jesus is Christ. Who doesn’t want to turn water into wine.” Billy’s sarcasm was almost charming. He got a flat look in return.

“I see...”

“Evie, can you take some of the food home, honey? We’ll feed the neighbors.” Mona grasped Evie’s arm to pull her forth. “Just put it in the fridge. I’ll organize later.”

“Sure.” Evie started to follow.

“Be sure to grab the cherry pie if there’s any left. The ladies outdid themselves this year. Billy, you’re free to take some food home, son.” The Pastor addressed him kindly again. Billy’s grin flashed shiny teeth.

“I love a good cherry pie, but I filled up on angel cake.”

He caught Evie’s head whipping toward him as she went. Eyes ablaze which made his smile bigger.

“Oh?” Ray’s head cocked. “I didn’t see that over there. Must have went fast.”

“Like you wouldn’t believe, sir.” Billy patted the man’s shoulder and sauntered by. “Nice church, by the way. Pointy.” Evie hurried to his car with her arms full of Tupperware and boxes. Settled them in the backseat.

“You’re so dead.” She looked sweet, waving at her mother across the lot. Billy laughed, starting his car. “I pick the music.” Her hand swatted his and a groan followed as she tuned the radio to some Etta James. Billy revved out of the parking lot, turning some heads as he went.

“Admit it, you wouldn’t change what you did today. Sinner.” Billy’s free hand found her leg out of his usual habit. “Made my first church going experience special.”

“Don’t turn on the waterworks just yet.” She teased back, sucking her cheeks in without looking at him. “Still mad at you.” A smile pulled her forcibly grumpy expression. Billy came to a stoplight. Tugged at a curl to let it bounce so she peered at him. Nose crinkling when she broke to chuckle.

“Admit it.” Billy gave her thigh a squeeze, vibrant eyes flickering.

“Make me.” Evie said, facing the road. “Later.” Lips lifted before the light turned green. His Camaro lurched forward.

“Happy to.” Billy caught the song change. “Hey.”

“Hm?”

“It’s that song you’re always singing to yourself.” Billy turned it up. Irma Thomas. “The mushy one.” Her favorite. He played like it was a careless thing, but Evie stared at him. Warming. Reeled in too easily.

Anyone…

“Shocked you paid attention to that.” She offered after a beat.

“I have to hear it every day I see you, Evie.” Billy snorted, ocean eyes intent on the road. Evie knew better. “Not like I have a choice. Singing and plucking that guitar constantly.” He peered at the trees. “That stuff you were rambling about during the sex high about after.”

“Sex high.” She scoffed.

“Was that the fucking making a mess of you?” Billy asked slower. “Used to hate me.”

“I didn’t hate you,” Evie paused when he shot her an unconvinced look, “we weren’t agreeable.”

“Agreeable? Okay, now you sound like that prissy Austen chick you like to read.” Billy’s retort made her giggle. These little details he picked up about her that stuck with him. It was true, their relationship used to be in the negative for good reason.

“I like when we hang out.” Evie shrugged. “Labels. Whatever. I just meant, we should...keep hanging out.”

“After?”

“After.” Evie produced simply. Billy twitched amusement at her, turned a corner.

“Well,” he parked, “I don’t know, good. I guess”

“Fine.”

“Great.” Billy cut back in, challenged.

“Wonderful.”

“Fan-fucking-tastic.”

Evie grasped his jacket, shut him up with a kiss. Made the boy breathless there. Billy’s blue eyes glimmered at her. Calm seas for miles. The sun shined into his car. Made the teens glow.

“Movie?” She unbuckled to get out with him following. “Gotta get this food into my fridge.”

“Only if I pick.” Billy stood there and let her set boxes into his arms before she grabbed the rest so they could walk up the driveway.

“Sure. Our tastes align.” Evie peeked back at him with doe brown eyes. “I trust you.” She’d offered that too casually, Billy stilled at the door to watch her unlock it. Blinked.

That was the thing about them, how nonchalant their hearts beat together. A totally on purpose accident. Billy remembering Evie’s quirks and her reluctance to show certain petals sprouting from her stem for fear the world might not like the colors. Budding to flash them with some fire and vibrancy because she had a boy who encouraged them despite it all. And she teased this incandescent quality back out of him with ease. Made him work to be still and feel the world turn once in a blue moon. Billy gave this little smile to himself without her noticing and followed Evie into the house.

They hadn’t trusted each other before. And now it was approaching the after. Whatever that meant. Evie glowed to beam at him there and few things were mattering today. New beginnings.

Billy let himself hope that the after would last.

#billy hargrove #Billy hargrove x oc #Billy Hargrove imagine #billy hargrove fanfiction #Billy x Angel #writing #mine #Angel Fenny #SOMY

71 notes · View notes

wordsysayswords · 5 years ago

Link

After picking Wash up on Sidewinder, it’s going to take everyone a while to get used to the new living arrangements. Especially Wash, who’s a bit directionless now that he’s finally free of the Project. Tucker doesn’t care for Blue Team’s new leader. But he can’t help noticing some of the man’s odd habits and wondering what caused them.

Part 2: Sleeping Habits

It hits Tucker that violently shaking the sleeping Freelancer out of a nightmare might be an exceptionally stupid idea at the exact same time Washington headbutts him in the nose.

Or, Wash wakes up swinging.

Tucker doesn’t know how he manages to fall asleep, but Caboose’s snoring wakes him at about 6 am. He blinks around the room, taking in the crayon drawings and machine blueprints—also drawn in crayon—plastering the walls.

Beside him, Caboose is spread-eagle on the bed, drooling into his pillow. Tucker rolls his shoulders, trying to relieve the stiffness earned from sitting up against the wall all night. His gaze falls to his deactivated energy sword in his lap.

Right.

It isn’t like Tucker forgot what happened during the night. His chest is still tight with the remnants of nightmares that had seen the incident end differently. Bloody.

Somewhere in the base, a floorboard creaks. Tucker jolts, sword flashing to life in his hand. His eyes fly to the door.

The handle doesn’t turn, the door doesn’t open. There isn’t even the shadow of feet passing by. The base is eerily silent—save for Caboose’s cartoonishly loud snores. After five minutes, Tucker’s starting to think he imagined it. He almost misses the distant sound of a door clicking shut.

Tucker listens. One minute. Two.

Pushing Caboose’s beefy arm off him, Tucker hops off the bed and tiptoes across the room. Ever so slowly, he reaches up and unlocks the door. He takes a deep breath.

He opens the door.

The kitchen is empty. So is the common area. The base feels cold and gray in the hazy morning light. The coffee pot is off, which is weird considering the unspoken rule that the first person up and about is in charge of prepping it. That’s usually Washington, what with his absolutely fucked sleep schedule.

But Tucker doesn’t want to think about Washington right now. What he wants is an ice pack for his nose because it might not be broken, but it hurts like a bitch. Deactivating his sword, Tucker grabs some ice and heads for the bathroom.

After nudging the door open to make sure a rabid Freelancer isn’t hiding inside, Tucker looks in the mirror to check the damage. Oof. The bleeding has stopped, but his shirt looks like a crime scene. Tucker hadn’t thought to grab tissues or gauze or even a medkit before locking himself and Caboose in the blue soldier’s room for the night. He gingerly inspects the colorful swelling he’s going to be sporting for a while.

He wonders if he gave Washington any bruises to add to his already sizable collection.

Tucker pulls back from the mirror and scoffs. He doesn’t give a shit about how Washington is feeling because it serves him the fuck right after almost murdering Tucker.

Tucker heads back to the common area. There’s a basket of laundry beside the door that the teal soldier hasn’t gotten around to folding. Tucker is fishing out a clean shirt to replace his blood-stained one when he notices the boots lined up neatly in the entryway. The two sets of boots.

There’s supposed to be three.

Wash’s room is empty.

The sun has barely crept above the distant glacier peaks on the horizon. There’s no snow this close to Sidewinder’s equator, but the landscape remains a tundra of frozen earth and hardy brown plants.

Tucker catches up with Washington two miles up the road, slowing the warthog to a crawl beside him.

“You goin’ my way, baby?” Tucker drawls, leaning out of the driver’s side with a wink.

Washington doesn’t stop walking. He glares ahead at the long dirt road stretching into the windswept wasteland, pointedly not looking at Tucker.

Okay, well, fuck. Dead silence wasn’t an option Tucker considered when mapping out this conversation in his head after he realized Wash had up and left. Then again, catcalling the guy hadn’t been on the agenda either, but Tucker’s mouth is always one step ahead. He’s a lot better at this whole banter thing when the other person can dish it out as good as they get. That was one of the nice things about Church. The asshole always had an answer, even if it was just “fuck you.”

“It’s cold as balls,” Tucker says, jumping on the first thing that comes into his head. “Where the hell are you going dressed like that?”

Washington is wearing the poorly fitting fatigue pants and shirt Caboose and Tucker had gifted him (though, Tucker was a lot more begrudging about it than Caboose). The Freelancer must have found the frayed military jacket somewhere in the abandoned base they’d taken over following the fight with the Meta. One of his hands holds it shut against the perpetually icy air. The other grips a sagging duffle bag thrown over his shoulder.

Washington picks up speed.

“You going somewhere?” Tucker prods, the engine of the warthog growling as he gives it just enough gas to keep Washington’s pace.

Tucker watches the man’s jaw clench, mouth set in a grim line.

Tucker sighs dramatically. “Listen, I don’t wanna have to be the one to tell Caboose that his pet ran away, so get your broody ass back t—”

“Take it!” Washington snarls, rounding on Tucker and causing him to slam breaks. Wash hurls the duffel bag to the frozen ground beside the warthog.

“Just fucking take it, okay?” Washington snaps louder, dragging a hand through his hair as he paces the road. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have taken anything, so just fucking take it, okay?”

Tucker cranes his neck out of the idling car to look down at the contents of the bag now spilled across the dirt. Two MREs and a flashlight.

Tucker doesn’t know what Washington sees in the confusion on the teal soldier’s face, but the man lets loose a harsh laugh. Washington rips off the jacket and flings that to the dirt as well.

“There,” he says, folding his arms firmly across his chest. “You have everything. Now, just fucking go.”

Tucker just sits there for a moment.

“What the—god damn it,” Tucker snarls right back, throwing the warthog in park and clambering out. “I don’t give a fuck about a flashlight and some bags of chicken-fucking-flavored rice!”

Wash has the nerve to look pissed.

“What do you want then?” He yells, throwing out his arms. “WHY THE HELL ARE YOU OUT HERE?!”

“That’s MY LINE, you ABSOLUTE ASSWIPE!” Tucker shouts back. “What are YOU doing out here? Are you actually running away?”

“What do you want? An apology? Like that’s going to fix this?” Wash shouts. “Fine! I’m sorry!”

And the words come pouring out.

“I’m sorry!” Wash yells again. “I shouldn’t have fallen asleep, but I did, and I’m sorry. Is that what you want to hear? I’m sorry I’m broken, I’m sorry I killed Church, and I’m sorry I wasted your time.”

With that, Wash drops to the dirt, the fight sucked right out of him by the outburst. He sits there, head drooping and silent save for his uneven panting.

For some reason, it hits Tucker at this exact moment that this is the longest conversation he and Washington have ever had.

“There,” Wash says finally, voice subdued. “I said it. You can go. You don’t have to worry about me anymore.” He doesn’t make any move to stand up.

Tucker actually laughs. “Seriously, dude? The nearest settlement is like 70 miles away. What are you going to do? Walk?”

“I can handle it,” Wash says dully.

“Dude,” Tucker says, pointing to Wash’s shirt. “You’re bleeding.”

Wash startles, looking down and finally noticing the slowly growing patch of blood at his side.

“Shit,” he curses, lifting the fabric to reveal a soaked square of gauze.

Tucker pulls a face. “Ugh, I thought Doc stitched you up.”

“Tore them,” Wash mumbles, pulling at the bandage to inspect the wound and face pinching at what he finds. “...Last night.”

Wash glances up at the cold, dirt road ahead and then down at the blood seeping out from around his hand pressed to his wound, frowning.

Tucker rolls his eyes and sighs. “Alright, get in.”

Wash narrows his eyes. “Where are we going?”

“To Mars,” Tucker says flatly. “Where the fuck do you think? Back to base to get your sorry ass stitched up again.”

Wash blinks. “What?”

“No, you heard me,” Tucker says, turning heel and climbing back in the car. Last night is still too fresh for him to offer the man a hand. “Get in the car.”

Still looking a little like a deer caught in headlights, Wash shakily climbs to his feet, wincing all the way. He hisses in pain bending down to pick up his things before limping around the warthog to climb in the passenger seat.

Staring straight out the windshield, Tucker grits his teeth and grips the steering wheel like it owes him money. It would be so much easier to hate Wash if he made excuses or pretended last night never happened. It’s a lot harder to hate someone when they’re standing in front of you in the cold, bleeding and apologizing for taking a coat and some meager rations. Goddammit.

“I still hate you,” Tucker blurts out, every word tasting like a lie.

Wash just nods, tired eyes still fixed on the place where the dirt road meets the horizon in the distance. He sags against the seat, pale and with sweat beading at his brow.

“Look,” Tucker says, slumping his shoulders, “I’m not stopping you from leaving. You’re a grown-ass, presumed KIA adult and can do whatever the hell you want. I just…recommend doing it with proper supplies and when you’re not bleeding everywhere.”

Wash looks over at him.

“I can leave later?” he asks quietly.

Tucker shrugs. “It’s up to you. You don’t owe us anything.”

Wash looks like he’s about to argue but seems to think better of it. He’s visibly shivering now. Tucker cranks up the heat before turning the warthog around and heading back towards base.

“Are...are you okay?” Wash asks softly.

Tucker looks over at him, taking in how he’s slumped against the seat even as his hands tightly gripped the wound. Up close, Tucker can see a ghastly bruise peeking out from under the collar of his t-shirt. Whether it’s from him or the Meta, Tucker can’t be sure.

He turns his eyes back to the road. “I’m fine,” Tucker says, even as his nose pulses in pain at the memory of the previous night.

“I should have warned you not to come near me when I’m sleeping,” Wash all but whispers.

“Is screaming like a...like an opera-singing howler monkey... normal for you?”

Wash shrugs.

“Whatever,” Tucker says. “Just try not to get blood all over the seats. I just had this thing cleaned.”

“What? How?”

“It’s a joke, Wash.” That’s weird. When did Washington become Wash?

“Oh.”

They ride in silence for a few moments before Wash speaks up again. “Tucker?”

“Hm?”

“...Thanks.”

Tucker stares straight ahead as the base comes into view. “Don’t mention it.”

#red vs blue #agent washington #lavernius tucker #rvb #fanfic #fan fic #fanfiction #fan fiction #wordsywriteswords #wordsy writes words #blue team

86 notes · View notes

anneapocalypse · 6 years ago

Text

Carolina’s Story is a Forgiveness Story but Not in the Way You Think

A Critical Look at Her Fan Guide Profile, Part 2

[Read Part 1 Here]

From the Red vs. Blue Ultimate Fan Guide:

Carolina spent the next few years in hiding before hunting down Epsilon to find and kill the Director. However, rather than taking her vengeance, she forgave the old man and decided to move on with her life.

I don’t think this is an accurate description of what’s happening there, and I want to talk about why.

(For the record, the reliability of the Fan Guide as a whole is questionable at best. You can take a jaunt through my Fan Guide meta tag for more on that.)

Let’s talk about why I feel that season 10, though pretty rocky in terms of writing, ends up the way it should for Carolina.

I know not everyone finds it satisfying that Carolina chooses not to kill the Director—both because of what he did to her, and because of what he did to other beloved characters.

I think Carolina’s decision is important. I think it’s a good one.

Part of the mistake people make, I think, is seeing Carolina’s arc as simply a retread of Wash’s arc when it’s not. Granted this is understandable, as Carolina’s arc does closely mirror Wash’s, one of the major differences in framing being that Wash’s motivations are never obscured from the audience. We know about his experiences with Epsilon from the minute go, and his desire for revenge is established just as early.

With Carolina on the other hand… despite being the ostensibly the protagonist of seasons 9 and 10, we’re largely denied her point-of-view for most of it, because to give us her POV might undermine the Big Reveal they were saving for the very end. The result of this, however, is that no one knows where Carolina is coming from, why her investment in all of this is so personal, until her arc is already over.

I think this accounts for a lot of the negative fan reception of Carolina during seasons 9 and 10.

So the takeaway for new viewers of season 10 is mainly that Carolina is hyper-competitive and making bad decisions. As present-day season 10 interweaves with the Freelancer flashbacks, all a new viewer sees is that present!Carolina is angry, impatient, and dismissive of the safety of the people she has dragged into her revenge quest.

Something which, I would like to note, Wash also did.

Season 10 Carolina is often compared to Season 8 Wash, where Wash is arguably at his worst. But the real comparison is season 6, where Wash’s actions most closely mirror Carolina’s. Season 6 and season 10 read very differently because of tone and framing. But when it comes to actions, they’re basically doing the same thing: commandeering a group of sim troopers to break into a secure facility and take down Project Freelancer. If you give season 6 another watch, you may notice that Wash very transparently has nothing for the Reds and Caboose to do once they arrive at Command; they don’t even help him get inside, and in fact having to smuggle them in is an added inconvenience. Once inside, his only orders to them are to create a diversion and hold off the guards for as long as they can. He’s explicitly brought them along as canon fodder. It just doesn’t read the same way, because the tone is different, and this goes back to a longstanding double standard in the framing of RvB where gender is concerned. When a guy is mean, it’s funny. When a girl is mean, she’s just mean.

So Carolina in season 10 is just mean. And her story is a repeat of Wash’s story, but less entertaining. And instead of rooting for her, the way most viewers root for Wash in season 6, the audience becomes impatient either for her story to wrap up or for Carolina to be put in her place. Subtle clues to her true motives, her concern for her team in the past and the loss she feels in the present, gets missed, ignored, or simply overshadowed by that overwhelming framing of her as “mean.”

What that also overshadows, of course, is that Carolina is actually trying to finish what Wash started.

Notably, while Wash’s vendetta against Freelancer is certainly personal, it’s personal in a very different way than Carolina’s. Wash certainly has hostility toward the Director; we can hear that in his voice when the Director speaks to him over the loudspeaker. Yet when he’s describing the Project’s misdeeds to Church, you might notice that he repeatedly says they. They tortured the Alpha. They harvested the fragments. He refers to the Director specifically, too, but it’s clear that for Wash, Project Freelancer is more than just the Director. His extended familiarity with the Counselor might have a lot to do with this.

In season 6, Wash’s goals are twofold: stop the Meta, and expose Project Freelancer. His plan is a two-pronged attack. One: lure the Meta inside Command and set off the failsafe to destroy the rest of the AI. Two: steal Epsilon out of storage and send the Reds and Blues to take him to the authorities, who can then use the evidence to bring down the Director.

That first prong succeeds, and the Meta is defeated, but the second prong fails, with Caboose as the point of failure: Caboose never turns Epsilon in. Epsilon was supposed to provide the evidence to have the Director arrested, tried, and convicted of everything the Chairman had already deduced he was doing but could not prove. Because Caboose fails to turn Epsilon in, the Director is never apprehended.

So Wash’s plan in season 6 is never completed. Epsilon!Tex, brought to life during season 8, also sets out with the goal of finding the Director and she also fails. This is why Recollections is not the end of the Freelancer story.

This is probably also a big part of why Wash agrees, initially, to help Carolina. He knows as well as she does that the book is not closed on Project Freelancer. He only objects, at long last, when he sees Carolina making the same mistakes he made, making decisions he now regrets. Whether or not Wash knows Carolina’s relationship to the Director, whether or not that was passed to him in the memories from Epsilon, I think he does understand better than anyone why this is important to her, why bringing the Director to justice matters.

And for Carolina herself, as personal as it is, it’s not just about herself. She says to Epsilon outright, in a brief moment of vulnerability Epsilon effectively forces out of her: “Not just for what he did to me, or for what he did to York, and to Wash, to Maine, the twins, to all of them. And for what he did to you, Church.”

This isn’t just personal vengeance to Carolina. It’s justice. It’s not just for her, but for her team.

And when Wash finally stands up to her, it is not the mission he objects to, but her treatment of the Reds and Blues—while fully acknowledging the trouble he himself has caused them.

In a way, I think Wash confronting Carolina, forcing her to see what she is becoming, is the kindest thing he could do here. I don’t personally think Carolina had any intention of actually shooting Tucker—had she shot him, she would have lost the others for sure. But if Wash hadn’t confronted her, I don’t know if Carolina would’ve come to the realization she comes to in that bunker.

Maybe a part of Wash wishes that someone had been there to confront him with what he was becoming, back in season 8—before he pulled the trigger.

Because of Wash’s intervention, Carolina and Epsilon go to the Offsite Storage Facility alone, and because they go alone, Carolina becomes overwhelmed by the army of Texbots and begins to despair— right before the Reds and Blues appear, with Wash, to give her backup, having had a change of heart.

Their change of heart is mostly about Church. It’s Tucker who initiates it, in response to Caboose’s sadness over his best friend leaving him again, and the Reds follow, and Wash, despite misgivings, comes along.

But once there, something changes.

Wash offers Carolina a hand up off the floor. He hands her his pistol. “I told you,” he says, “they’re not so bad once you get to know them.” There’s no more anger in his voice, and none of the uncertainty we heard in his earlier interactions with Carolina in this season. Wash is sure of himself again, sure enough that he can extend this gesture of forgiveness toward Carolina.

I think that’s important too.

So this is where Carolina is when she walks through that last door, into the Director’s hidden office deep in the underground facility. She’s had to face herself, to face the way she’s been misdirecting her anger; she’s felt alone and helpless; and for probably the first time in a long time she has experienced a team rallying around her, and a gesture of forgiveness.

This is the Carolina who steps into that room, and sees this old man. An old man weary from a mind more filled with memory than it is with hope. A man who abused her, manipulated her, lied to her, violated her trust. A man who was once her father. A man responsible for the violent deaths of the teammates she once called “the people who were closest to me.” Her history with him spans her entire life, and though we do not know the details of that history before Project Freelancer, it is a history unique to Carolina. No other Freelancer has the relationship to him that she has. No other Freelancer, Wash included, would be feeling exactly what Carolina is feeling in this moment.

Carolina has really been fighting her own demons this whole time. In Freelancer, and in the present. I said once before that she didn’t need two voices in her head to destroy her. She didn’t even need one. The voice she’s carried since childhood, telling her that she is never, ever good enough, has been doing a hell of a job on its own.

When she walks into that bunker, her first words to her father after “Hello” are: “So. This is what you’ve become.”

And her resolve to put a gun to his head and pull the trigger seems to dissolve in an instant.

Is this forgiveness?

If forgiveness means the absolution of a past wrong, the idea of her forgiving an abusive father, and in fact the common narrative of forgiveness as a moral imperative, might seem pretty unsavory.

But I don’t think that’s what’s happening here.

“The past doesn’t doesn’t define who you are,” Carolina says to Church, by way of explanation. “It just gives you the starting point for who you’re going to be.”

This has nothing to do with the Director. The Director is an old, broken man obsessed with doing what cannot be done. He hasn’t even eaten in days. The Director isn’t going to be anything or anyone. It’s also pretty clear he’s not going to walk out of here, even before he asks her for her pistol, so that’s important.

This is not Carolina forgiving her father.

This is Carolina separating herself from her father, and from her past.

This is her seeing what her father’s obsession with the past has made of him. This is her refusing to become that. Not just what he is now, in this room, but the man who displaced his pain onto everyone around him.

Carolina needs to let go of her father because if she can’t do that, then she can’t forgive herself for displacing her own pain onto other people.

This doesn’t mean that Carolina wanting revenge was wrong. It doesn’t make her mission, in and of itself, was invalid. There are layers to this. She had to follow that anger to get here. She needed to be angry at him. She needed to hate him. That was part of the journey as well—recognizing who hurt her and her team. But on her journey for revenge, she’s been taking her anger out on the wrong people, so the journey isn’t just being angry, but figuring out who that anger is actually for.

It’s really important, by the way, that in season 13 Carolina’s apology to Sharkface is her refusing to displace her anger onto him. It’s her refusing to find an enemy anywhere she can. That’s a major point of character development for her. Recollections Wash and season 10 Carolina saw anyone who stood in their way as their enemy. Both of them, at the end of these arcs, had to grow past that.

She doesn’t have to forgive him for what he did. But she does maybe have to find a way to forgive the part of herself that could have become him, had she continued down a similar path.

She does have to let go of him, to set herself free of him. And if she kills him—shoots him in the head with her own hand—that’s one more thing she has to carry with her out of the bunker, one more memory she has to live with.

Instead, she chooses to see that the Director has already taken the burden of his own destruction upon himself. And she lets him have that. She cuts herself loose from him, and walks out the door so she can live her life free of him—so that she can become who she’s going to be.

The conclusion of Carolina’s Freelancer arc isn’t about her forgiving her father. It’s about her forgiving herself.

#agent carolina #leonard church #agent washington #red vs blue #rvb meta #avian dentistry #project freelancer #the director #read vs blue

49 notes · View notes

hanktalkin · 5 years ago

Text

Chucker, 5k+, Single Parent AU

A fic where two bisexual, tired dads talk about their feelings and maybe have a crush on each other and stuff

Tucker’s standards are so low he’s about ready to fuck the guy next door.

He’s got this dark, flyaway hair that just makes you want to run your hands through it, and this stupid little goatee that would look gross on anyone else but somehow Guy Next Door makes it look hot as hell. He’s scrawny but not like in a beanpole way, more like he’s effortlessly toned in the people-who-never-workout-yet-still-end-up-looking-like-that sort of way. And it’s totally not fair that every time Tucker sees him shoving his kids down the hall whining about he’s not going to drive them if they miss the bus for the third time this year Theo he’s got some empty calorie one-step-above-seagull-food junk crammed in his mouth and still looks goddamned trim. It almost makes Tucker wish he’d take Wash up on the offer of leg day every once in a while. Of course, not enough to actually go, wishes being fishes and all that shit.

Still, it goes to show that being separated for (four months. Holy shit has it been four months already?) and being utterly crushed by the single dad life had been hell on his libido. He jacks off to Tina Barrett like usual and in-between your regularly scheduled programming, Guy Next Door keeps fucking demanding to be in the fantasy threesome. Fuck off Guy Next Door. Tina doesn’t share.

So it sucks and life sucks and did he mention that the Guy With the Apartment Across From Him is also a single dad? So he’s got the DILF thing going for him and maybe like attracts like, so what. The Guy Next Door is irresistible in every way.

“Hey cockbite. You leave your bike in the hallway one more time the next time you see it it’s going to be pegged in the middle of a telephone pole by the crossbeams.”

Oh yeah. Too bad the Guy Next Door is also a fucking asshole.

“Like to see you try, fucker,” Tucker says. (He wouldn’t: he’s pretty sure this dude could take him one handed, Cheeto dust or no, but Tucker has a reputation to maintain.)

Guy glares. “Just put it in your goddamned apartment. You know, the part of the building you pay for?”

Tucker takes one hand off his grocery bag to flip Guy off. Guy does likewise. They retreat into their apartments while holding up their fingers, as is their tradition.

That’s how most of their interactions go, and Tucker’s still getting hot and bothered over this shithead with perpetual bags under his eyes. Eventually, Tucker learns his name is Church, or at least his last name is, and he can determine all his kids are older than Junior if they’re going to school. Try as he might, he keeps snooping in on their lives, which totally isn’t his fault when they leave their door open half the time. There’s this guy that comes by every now and then that looks kinda like a social worker but not quite, a woman and some teen that rotate babysitting shifts, and the occasional GrubHub delivery. Other than that, Church is friendless, completely devoid of any life beyond his kids and whatever the hell job he goes to dressed in a lab coat.

Not that Tucker is doing much better. Juggling is hard, a lot harder now that he’s out of the picture. Tucker was looking forward to at least getting back into the dating scene, but every time he thinks tonight’s the night he gets home and all he wants to do is put Junior to bed and take a nap. It sucks. It’s like his life is being slupred out of him one day at a time.

So when Church stops him one day and say, “dude can you watch my kids for a second? I just have to run down to the street,” Tucker is in no mood for added bullshit.

“Do I look like your fucking babysitter?” he asks, balancing Junior on one arm.

“It’ll be eleven minutes tops,” Church says, his hair tousled in a way that says I just had the best one night stand of my life but green stain on his shirt interrupting with actually I just have a six year old. “You don’t even have to go in, I’ll just leave the door open and you can…shit just make sure they don’t burn the place down.”

“You always leave the door open anyway dude,” Tucker points out.

“Are you going to watch them or not?”

“No,” Tucker says while Junior tries to put his fingers in his nose.

“Awesome, thanks,” Church says, and suddenly he’s down the stairs and out the front door, leaving Tucker standing in front of the open apartment.

A minute passes. Six minutes pass. Tucker sticks his head in.

Well, the place isn’t on fire. However, Tucker can’t see any of the kids either, which kind of defeats instruction #1 of “watch my kids for a second.” After bouncing on his feet for a moment, debating if this is really something he wants to expend effort on, he goes in.

It’s cushier than Tucker’s, but not by much. The TV is a bit nicer but there’s still last generation’s Xbox hooked up to it, and the lamps around the room are missing their shades. Tucker peaks in the kitchen, but no terrors to speak of. He sighs and sets Junior down on the couch.

“Don’t eat anything,” he tells him.

“Blarg,” Junior agrees.

Bathroom: no. First bedroom: no. Second bedroom is locked, leading Tucker to conclude its Church’s. The apartment is also cleaner than Tucker’s, which doesn’t seem fair with triple the amount of grubby hands that are getting everywhere. Grubby hands that are nowhere in sight. As Tucker is passing through the hall he notices that the outlets don’t have those little plastic-y things in them, and that gets his mind turning to other non-childproofed things he’s seen around the apartment and oh god the coffee table had really sharp corners didn’t it? He goes rushing back to the living room to find Junior putting a plastic giraffe in his mouth.

“What did I say about not eating things?” Tucker says as he kneels and pulls out the toy, still connected to his son by a string of drool.

“Blarg,” Junior complains.

“…Right. You’re two.”

“You don’t have to worry,” a voice from nowhere says and Tucker almost chucks the giraffe at it in self-defense. “I was watching him.”

“Fuck!” Tucker whirls on the corner of the room where a boy is standing completely still. Had he been lurking there the whole time? How had Tucker missed him?

He’s Church’s oldest, a near mini-me of his father save for a pair of round glass that create a real nerd persona. When Tucker’s heart stops pounding, Harry-Potter-looking-motherfucker says, “that’s dollar for the swear jar.”

He points to a shelf next to the TV. Sure enough, there’s an incredibly full swear jar with words and prices printed on a nearby note card. There’s no way Church gives these kids enough allowance that they’re filling it themselves.

“I’ll drop it in later,” Tucker says. “Do you know where your brothers are?”

The kid tilts his head at Tucker. “I’m keeping an eye on them as well.”

Tucker is starting to feel a) creeped out, b) about as necessary as a bicycle for fish, when he’s saved from anymore horror movie children by the arrival of Church. He clomps into the apartment lugging a giant pole wrapped in fabric, a monstrosity of white canvas he can barely fit through the door.

“Finally,” Church complains, leaning the pole against the inner wall. “Dumbasses think they can just deliver this shit by the side of the road and no one’s going to take it.”

“That’s another seventy-five cents, father,” corner kid points out.

Tucker shrugs when Church looks between the two of them. “I may already be in debt a dollar.”

“I see you two are getting acquainted,” Church says blithely. “Where are-?”

“Daaaaaad.” A whine comes down the hall, followed by the pounding of feet. Two more kids sprint in front of Church, the smallest holding up a plastic jaguar. “Dad, Simon tried to eat my puma,” he complains. Hm. Toy Noah’s Ark must be some sort of delicacy.

“I did not,” Simon says. He’s the only one who doesn’t look a spitting image of Church, a redheaded middle child if you will, with brown eyes narrowed in indignation. “Spit mixed with various substances was used as an adhesive across numerous cultures throughout history. I was merely seeing if it would stick to the dollhouse.”

Church narrows his eyes. “Is this because I took away your glue?”

“…My projects have become increasingly difficult since you so shortsightedly removed the glue. Perhaps if you returned it…?”

Damn, does any kid in this house talk like a normal child? The youngest maybe, who is now looking at Simon in the fiendish delight that only getting your sibling in can bring. Honestly, the whole conversation is giving him culture shock after two years of nonstop blarg.

“Not when your ‘projects’ include gluing your brother’s ear to the bedpost,” Church tells him sternly, and Simon’s hopeful face falls.

“Why did you stand there long enough for glue to set?” glasses asks the youngest who, from his hands, is the one responsible for the stain on Church’s shirt.

“…He said if I listened hard enough I would be able to hear other people’s dreams.”

Church rubs his hands over his face, and looks at Tucker again. “Well, I guess nothing’s on fire. Guys, this is Tucker, he lives next door. Tucker, this is Simon.” He indicates the one Tucker’s already ascertained. “This one’s Theodore.” He pats the head of the youngest who still has the round, baby-face the other two have lost.

“And let me guess,” Tucker says, looking at the oldest. “You’re Alvin?”

“What? No.” Church looks genuinely confused. “This is D.”

“…You go around calling your kid D?”

“It’s short for Dell,” Dell adds helpfully.

“D and Dell are the same amount of syllables,” Simon says.

Dell doesn’t even look at him. “So are Simon and Butthead.”

Simon makes an indignant noise and shoves his brother, which barely phases him. Church is now looking at Tucker which makes him remember Ah Yes. I Also Have Children.

“This is Junior,” Tucker says as he lifts Junior into his arms. It looks like Junior was going for a discarded antelope while the Church family were making their introductions, so holding him is probably for the best. In an absence of things to say, he musters out, “nice apartment.”

“Thanks I’m a welfare queen.” Church sticks his arms in-between the two shoving boys. “Hey! Keep it to verbal abuse, that’s the kind I don’t have to take you to urgent care for.” He then looks back at Tucker. “…So. What about you. Yours this bad to handle?”

Shit. Dad talk. Have they really moved so far past their mutual dislike that Tucker has to do that? He hasn’t spoken to anyone outside Wash (or Church but that’s mainly to yell at him to take out his damn trash because Tucker can smell it from his own apartment) in so long that he’s not really sure the appropriate Dad conversation topic.

“He’s alright.” Nice Lavernius. Keepin’ it safe.

Tucker rolls his shoulders, and watches as Simon takes Theo by the hand and marches them off to their room, apparently having formed an irreparable brotherly rift with Dell that will be mended by tomorrow morning. Dell, for his part, begins to put plastic animals back into the Ark.

As he watches, the words just sort of tumble from Tucker’s mouth. “Can I ask…how do you keep this place so…?” He makes a general motion at the relatively clean apartment.

“Not like a tornado?” Church finishes. When Tucker makes a face, Church says, “I’ve seen inside your pad too buddy. You’re not the only one who leaves his door open.”

“Fuck you man,” Tucker says and he can hear Dell mutter, two dollars. “I’m new to this whole single business.”

“Aw, his Mommy leave you to go screw cabana boys in Aruba and now you gotta act like a real adult for the first time in your life?”

“Daddy, actually,” Tucker says for the sheer thrill of sticking it to Guy Next Door who is a capital A Asshole. The look of slightly ashamed surprise is enough of a reward. “And yeah, that pretty much sums it. F-” Tucker catches sight of Dell out the corner of his eye. “Screw you though. Maybe he died, you ever think about that?”

“Nah,” Church says, recovering more quickly than Tucker would have thought. “I know what it looks like when your spouse dies, and you don’t got it.”

Now Tucker gets to feel the slightly-ashamed-surprise which totally! Isn’t! Fair! He wonders how someone could just tell when you’ve got a dead partner, and nothing he comes up with is pleasant. He decides not to press it.

“Well fine, nice to have the olive branch slapped out of my hand,” Tucker says, and readies Junior to go. Naptime was like twenty minutes ago, anyway.

But, when he makes a move to the door, Church stops him. “Look,” he starts. He seems…uncomfortable? Regretful? “Try uh…making your meals in advance. It’s just a tip I’ve picked up, you’d be surprised the amount of time it’ll save you.”

It takes a second to realize Church is giving him what he asked for: advice.

“Oh. Uh. Thanks.” That…does sound like a good idea. “I’ll keep it in mind.”

“‘Kay. See you around.” And Church lets him go.

Tucker blinks, not sure what he should take from his strange foray into the Church household. As he’s shaking his head on the way to the door, Dell clears his throat, and when he gets Tucker’s attention, indicates the shelf by the TV. Tucker sighs, and stuffs two bills into the swear jar on his way out.

It’s pretty safe to assume Church’s wife is dead (and yes Tucker does know that it’s wife because Tucker brings up the chipmunk thing again which makes Simon complain and Church tells him it could be worse. You mom wanted to call you Sigmund.) because Dads don’t get custody unless the Mom is dead. (Cis dads anyway. Thank you state of Texas.) So that’s pretty firm in Tucker’s mind, but he never brings up again, even when he and Junior start hanging around the Churchs. Tucker doesn’t intend to latch on to them or anything, but some sort of truce was brokered by crossing that threshold the first time, and when next he saw their door open he may have lingered a little longer than usual and well. Church noticed him. Of course. Didn’t yell in their usual song and dance, just looked up from where he was finishing dinner and raised an eyebrow.

“Hey,” he said before Tucker could scurry off to hide his fluster. “Want a beer?”

And like…you don’t say no to that shit. Tucker isn’t that far from his frat boy years that the instinct to accept any and all free beer has been beaten out of him. The night ends with the kids eating mac and cheese (Junior strapped in to Theo’s old booster chair) and the adults lounging on the couch playing Halo.

When he’s done, Theodore crawls next to Church and says, “can I play?”

“Sure,” Church says, to Tucker’s surprise, and hands him a controller.

(It takes Tucker an embarrassingly long time to realize there’s no actual batteries in Theo’s controller, but at least he does realize it, unlike Theo himself. Woo, go Lavernius, one up on a six year old. Just the ego boost we need.)

It’s nice, Tucker thinks as he finishes a beer while the kids take turns “playing” with them, to not be alone in his apartment. And that’s all he spares to the matter.

So that’s how it starts out: not a plan or anything, it’s just that there aren’t any kids in the building besides the four of them, and despite the age difference they get along so well it seems only natural to hang out. Dell is used to managing his two younger brothers, and a third hardly makes a difference. (Except when Dell gets too into his Switch and Tucker finds Theo and Junior covered in glitter and wearing shawls made out of paper towel. Simon insists he needed “extras” but whatever play involves fairy wings and plastic lightsabers neither of them can actually lift, Tucker doesn’t know.)

They’re hanging out as a pair of families. That’s what this is, Tucker realizes when Church invites him and Junior to the public pool. And it’s a nice thing to have friends, ones that aren’t Doc, Wash, or the people who stopped talking to him after the separation. He could get used to it.

At least that’s what he’s thinking when zones out and loses track of Junior at the pool.

(He’s fine, he was with Church the whole time, but that doesn’t stop Tucker from spotting a random toddler he thinks is Junior, running at him, and ultimately chipping a tooth when he slips on the wet concrete.

(“They’re serious about the no running thing,” Tucker says later at the urgent care with his mouth full of cotton. “I’m going to be honest, I don’t know what the fuck is going on most of the time.”

“No shit,” Church tells him. “I’m better at keeping an eye on Little Lavernius than you are.”

“If you want to see Little Lavernius you gotta buy me dinner first.”

“Ugh. I’m talking about your son, not your dick, perv.”

Maybe the painkillers are more potent than Tucker thought because he’s kind of confused right now. “My kid’s name isn’t Lavernius?”

“You-” It takes a second for that to sink in. “Holy shit. You actually named your kid Junior?” Church starts to laugh hysterically. “Haha, I can’t believe it. You absolute fucking moron. You stupid piece of shit oh my fucking god ahahahah-”)

Church keeps laughing. He laughs so hard there are tears in his eyes when they finally escort him out of Tucker’s room. Something about unacceptable bedside manner.)

So Tucker’s made some mistakes. Befriending the really hot Guy Next Door and trying to hold his hand in a drug-addled state isn’t one of them. Maybe. We’ll see.

“Hey,” Church says, standing in Tucker’s doorway even more disheveled than usual. “I really need someone to watch the kids and I can’t reach my babysitter. Can you come over for a bit?”

“Wvhutn?” Tucker asks, fresh from nap.

“I’ll pay you,” Church presses, taking his disorientation for hesitation. “Or if you’re too proud for that, I’ll…come clean your house or something. Please dude.”

“No one ever accused me being too proud for anything.” Tucker rubs sleep from his eyes. “Bow chicka bow wow.”

Relief comes quickly to Church’s face, and it stays there for a surprisingly long time. It’s then that Tucker notices that there’s someone behind Church, someone he’s seen around before. The not-social-worker, a guy with a crew cut who glares at Tucker all while Church is talking again about how he’ll leave the door unlocked and he’s serious about owing Tucker one. Crew Cut tracks Tucker with his eyes, even when he follows Church downstairs, turning his head like a goddamn owl.

Well. This is how the day is now. Tucker collects Junior and crosses the hall into the Church apartment.

Simon is chasing Theo around with a plastic sword. Both are screaming. Tucker runs his hands through his hair.

Within thirty minutes, Tucker’s pretty sure he’s broken the fridge and there are three distinct juice stains seeping into the carpet. Theo is crying about a sword-induced head wound, and- Oof. Yep. Junior definitely needs a change. But he can’t go back to his own apartment while there’s literally a child bleeding onto the floor and speaking of the floor what if that juice doesn’t come out is Church going to be pissed-?

He can’t do this, he can’t fucking do this.

His panicking brain picks up his phone but you can’t call 911 for Dad Emergencies. What if-? What if he calls Doc? Has the high schooler come over and bail him out, and then whatever Church was going to give him he’ll hand that over. He’s desperate enough to try it, and he has his thumb over the contact button when a small hand touches his wrist.

He looks down at Dell, eyes so wide behind those glasses. He’s been so unobtrusive that Tucker’s barely paid him any mind. He gets the feeling that happens to Dell a lot.

“Don’t worry,” Dell says, a temperate echo of their first meeting.

“How do you expect me to fix this?” Tucker says in exasperation, and it feels like he’s saying it more to Church than anyone.

“Don’t worry,” Dell repeats. “If you worry, you’ll chip a tooth again.” Tucker’s mouth forms a thin line. “It’s not as bad as you think.”

Slowly, Tucker puts his phone down, letting out a draft of anxious air that had pent up inside him. Shit, kid is right. The only thing panicking has ever done was make him do something stupid.

“Okay,” he says to himself. “Okay, first things first.”

Bleeding child: apply one Star Wars Band-Aid. (Apply one kiss to affected area when child insists Band-Aids don’t work without kisses.) Broken fridge: just close it slowly you moron, (if you keep slamming it like that its going to bounce right back in your face.) Stinky son: run across the hall to the real changing table and to it there. (It pays to keep the others distracted though.

(“Alright Simon what movie are we doing?”

“You know if you let Simon pick he’s just going to make us watch Spy Kids 3 again.”

“…Hey Theo what do you wanna watch?”)

Make sure to bring your diaper bag on the way back.)

Juice stains: eh, put some paper towel on it. (You’re sure it’ll be fine.)

And just like that the apartment seems better. Well, in no worse condition than when Tucker found it. Theo and Simon fall asleep watching Shark Boy and Lava Girl and Junior is happy to try his hand at sorting various blocks by color. Tucker collapses against the back of the couch with Simon leaned against his side. Man. Kids sure are great when they’re not awake.

He spies Dell in his chair, wrapped up in his game. Tucker says, because he still doesn’t really know how to talk to these weird, hyper-smart children, “…hey uh. Thanks. Back there.”

“You’re welcome,” Dell says. He fiddles with the thumb pad. Not looking up, he adds, “you make Dad happy you know.”

Tucker doesn’t know. Happy has to be an exaggeration, right? Tucker thinks the only thing that would make Church truly happy would be seeing old ladies trip on the sidewalk.

Instead of pointing out his dad is a douche, he asks Dell, “who was that guy your dad was with?”

“You mean Sarge?” Dell finally glances at Tucker. “He’s from the VA.”

The VA? Tucker had no idea Church was in the military. Something about that fact doesn’t sit right with the loser, henpecked picture Tucker’s created of him, a loose piece in a Jenga tower. He’s about to say something to Dell but again thinks better of it.

“Hey,” he says, offering up a disconnected controller. “You wanna play something together?”

Dell eyes it, unamused. “I’m eleven, Mr. Tucker. There’s no need to patronize me.”

Church pays Tucker back and then some. It becomes a routine for them, to watch whoever’s kids when the babysitter can’t make it or one of them just needs a night out (or when Church takes Dell on a trip to go?? Sailing??? Of all things.) Usually they conglomerate at Church’s place, but once when Tucker wakes up from his post second-shift coma, he finds his whole apartment has been cleaned and he thinks he’s falling a little in love.

One Thursday, when no one’s up but him and a prostitute he had to pass to get into the building, he pushes Church’s door open to collect Junior for the night. He finds Church with glue in his hair and Mac and Cheese on his shirt passed out on the couch, Theo and Junior asleep on either side of him. Tucker hesitates. Standing over them…the world feels very still. Like everything is where it’s supposed to be. He doesn’t want to wake them.

Instead, he goes walking.

He checks in each door, where Dell is asleep, where Simon cradles a giant stuffed frog. He thinks to go into the bathroom, splash some water on his face and maybe clarify what he should be doing right now, but then he stops. The door across from the bathroom is Church’s, and it’s ajar.

For as long as Tucker has been coming here’s he’s never seen the inside of Church’s room. That’s a normal thing probably: Dad’s room locked in a house full of children under the age of twelve. It’s not unusual or anything, nothing Tucker would be suspicious about, and he doesn’t know makes him so damn curious. Maybe it’s that same thing that kept him peering into his neighbor’s open door for all those months.

Whatever it is, he goes inside.

It’s pristine. Everything is neatly folded, bed so well made you could bounce a coin off it. It’s a contrast to the rest of the house, and maybe that’s it, mystery solved. But then Tucker sees something glimmer on the vanity, and can’t help but pass through the immaculate room to the waiting anomaly.

It’s a black box sitting on its own lid, propped up enough so the contents can be seen but not so much that they’ll fall out. Tucker reaches in, fingers brushing the red fabric as he looks at the dog tags. There’s a photograph next to the box. Tucker doesn’t want to look at the name on the tags.

“Next time I’ll put a sock on the door. Apparently it’s the only thing that’ll keep you out.”

Tucker whirls at the unexpected (and yet one he should have expected) voice, and narrowly avoids knocking over the display. Thankfully, he nabs it before it goes spinning over the edge and clumsily puts it back into place. Which is good. Desecrating Dead Wife’s Memorial is not something he wants to add to his already extensive laundry list of fuck ups for the night.

“Uh!” he says. “Hey Church! Funny to see you. In. Your room.”

“Tucker,” Church says through dark rimmed eyes.

“Was just admiring your uh…tiny collection of flag pins? That you have? And also I got lost on the way to the bathroom-”

“Tucker-”

“I really sorry I don’t know what I’m doing here-”

“Tucker.” Church heaves the words like they take all his strength. “Just…shut up. Shut up, okay?”

But Church doesn’t look pissed, which is actually more alarming than if he were because pissed Church is normal Church. Now he just looks tired. He stares at Tucker for a moment before giving up on him, and sits on the edge of the bed. After a moment, Tucker joins him.

“So…” Tucker says a minute later, because what do you say to your best friend after breaking into his room? “All that veterans’ stuff…that was for your wife?”

Church nods. Before Tucker can ask, he says, “killed in action.”

“Ah. Right.”

And they sit in silence for even longer this time, the pale blue of Church’s room turning ghostly as it becomes well past midnight. Church rubs sleep from his eyes.

“Tex…” Church says, and it surprises Tucker, all the weight of a confession bearing down on him. “Was a shitty mom. And a shitty wife too if I’m being honest.” Church leans over and runs his hands through a greasy mess of hair.

Whoa. Okay. That was not what Tucker was expecting to come out of him, and it seems way too heavy for this time of night, but it’s not like Tucker is going to stop him.

“All we’d do is fight and call each other names and shit. She left me a few times and cheated on me and- fuck. We still tried to be together.” He looks into the middle distance, seeing someone Tucker can’t. “When I proposed I thought that would make everything better. And then when that didn’t work we thought having kids would make everything better, which is a shit reason I know, you don’t have to tell me.”

“Wasn’t going to.” There’s a lump in Tucker’s throat, something old and forgotten that Church didn’t even know he’d kicked over when he went walking through the garden. “It’s like…there’s this hole. Between you. And you think a kid’s going to fill that hole because that’s what everyone else is doing and it works for them, right?”

Church looks at him for the first time, really looks at him that isn’t through a haze of exhaustion.

Tucker keeps going because he’s an idiot and no one’s ever accused him of being too proud. “Things should work. And when they don’t you think you’re just not putting in enough or…there must just be something fundamentally wrong with you. Like you’re built to be a shit husband.”

Church is still looking at him, and Tucker is very aware of how stupid he sounds, the pseudo relationship philosophy that’s pouring out of his mouth, but he can’t help himself. It’s what he’s been thinking to himself, every minute since.

Suddenly, Church isn’t looking at him anymore, because he’s grabbing the front of Tucker’s shirt and hauling him into a kiss. Tucker kisses back without thinking, because after all the foul word vomit that’s left him in the space of seconds, this feels like relief. They go on like that, hands tugging at shirts, noses pressed to exposed neck, biting Church’s bottom lip. He feels like he could stay like this forever, until he cracks open an eye and sees the picture of a very intimidating woman in fatigues raising her eyebrows at him.

“Hey uh,” he says, “can we not do this in front of the shrine to your dead wife?”

Church’s brows squash together. “You didn’t know Tex, so I’ll let you in on this: she honestly wouldn’t give a fuck.” Church leans in again, but Tucker presses his lips firm together and mirrors the motion backwards. Church sighs. “Uhg, fine.”

They part, sitting on the bed once again, but the moment is over. Church stands, and stretches.

“I think that’s enough guy talk for one night,” he tells Tucker.

“Yeah. Right. Totally.” Tucker still feels the itch of the goatee at the corner of his mouth.

“You’re not at much of a fuckhead as I thought, Tucker.” Church offers him a hand up. When Tucker takes it, Church pulls him close and tells him, “but stay the fuck out of my room.”

Tucker thinks on it for a second. “Soooo…taking this back to my place then?”

He has to jump back to avoid getting punched in the arm.

#chucker #Red vs Blue #rvb fanfic #a forum for my musings #lavernius tucker #leonard l church

14 notes · View notes

bitsby · 6 years ago

Text

RvB Walgreens AU

Yes, I’m back with another one of these abominations, starring our favorite red team leader. AO3 link is here.

Sarge finds love at the local Walgreens.

Part 1

Sarge and Tucker pull into a parking spot at the local Walgreens.

Tucker works the occasional weekend for a program assisting elderly folks who don't have access to a car for one reason or another. Unfortunately, his schedule coincidentally keeps lining him up to drive around the same crazy veteran, even though he tried to change up his times to avoid getting the old geezer again and again.

Tucker walks around to open the passenger door, then places his hand on Sarge's arm to help him out of the car.

"Just 'cause they won't let me drive don't mean I can't walk! Hands off, ya dirty blue!" Sarge bellows as he swats the younger man away.

"The hell? You're the Walmart greeter wearing blue all the time, gramps," Tucker says with a smirk, having learned that mentioning this color for some reason pisses the dude off to no end.

Sarge ignores the comment so he doesn't have to deal with being completely in denial about this fact. Instead, he occupies his mind with daydreams about the local Target having an open position so he can work for a business that has good taste in corporate colors.

The routine is the same as always: Tucker wanders through the aisles to investigate discounted previous holiday's candy and decorations, while Sarge shuffles to the pharmacy area to pick up his prescriptions.

What wasn't the same was the pharmacist behind the counter today. And gosh darn if Sarge had ever seen a sight as beautiful as her. Raven hair with stunning silver streaks in a loose bun, a sleek white coat accentuating her form, and a face that would make a boy hit puberty right then and there if he hadn't already. But thankfully, Sarge wasn't a boy. And he was ready to show this fine lady what a man he was.

"'Scuse me, miss?" he says, smoothing out his normally gruff voice. She cocks her head with a large smile, responding with bright excitement, "Why, hello there! Oh, oh, please, tell me, do you have an extremely rare and life-threatening disease and not a completely boring ailment like pneumonia? That would just make my day!"

God bless America-- Sarge was in love.

"I think you have somethin' for me, little lady," he continues with a chuckle. Sarge leans against the counter and flexes his arm to show how swole he was despite his age. He couldn't see it at first since he isn't wearing his bifocals, but now that he's closer, he squints to read the angel's name tag on her uniform: Dr. Emily Grey.

Dr. Grey's face falls, seemingly disappointed. "Oh, you called ahead to order the... Beano? You know, you can get that over the counter."

"Oh, nope! Must've heard me wrong! Dang phones, right? Yep, heh, I'm, uh, I meant to say, uh-- Viagra!" Sarge scrambles for an excuse to sound like an adequate partner, and hopes that it's sufficient.

Dr. Grey raises an eyebrow, but her smile brightens. Heh. Knew it would work. The lovely doctor turns to retrieve the product from a shelf behind her.

"Yep, normally Sarge Jr. has no problems, but a good soldier is always prepared!"

"That's very proactive of you,” she offers cheerfully, “especially given that most men your age tend to have a fairly active libido but not enough manpower to satisfy it!”

"Heh, well, once ya give me that magic little pill there, I'll be able to do a lotta satisfying. At least for four hours, anyway-- then I'll have to call ya to help me out." Sarge winks. Dr. Grey giggles as she pulls up his account on the pharmacy's computer.

"You'd need my number for that... Sarge?" She tilts her head quizzically. "Oh, there must be a data entry error, it looks like they only entered your surname--"

"No error there, gorgeous! Name's Sarge but you can call me daddy." Ha, he's on a roll, smoother than he'd ever been, age be damned!

"So how does a fella go about gettin' those digits, Ms. Emily Grey? Is your middle name murder? 'Cause I've got a boner for you." He earns another giggle from this heavensent being.

"I have no idea what you mean by that, but I would love to psychoanalyze you to find out!"

"Hey Sarge, d'ya get your fart meds? What's the hold up?" Tucker asks, carrying a bag full of Valentine's Day candy even though it was nearing Halloween. He approaches the two as Sarge finishes punching her number into his Jitterbug flip phone.

"Ain't no holdup, son!" Sarge hollers back, although his intended annoyance is dampened by his ear-to-ear grin. As they exit the store, Tucker lightly punches him in the shoulder with a proud smile. Sarge doesn't even think to berate or shrug off the whippersnapper, too distracted by his delight.

Sarge thinks on the battle won today. The battle… of love.

Part 2

"You're a DILF, sweetie, don't worry." Emily smiles at her husband of 19 years, rocking back and forth in the chair across from him on their porch.

"But he called me a GILF! I'm not a grandpa, Simmons doesn't even have kids! Him and that dirtbag haven't--"

"And even if they did, remember, you adopted him, so it technically doesn't have to count!" Emily disputes with her soft smile intact. She pats Sarge's hand lovingly. He huffs.

"Fine. Wait, what's all this hafta do with the Walgreens commercial we're doin', anyway? And why do they call it Walgreens? It would sound better if it was Walreds. Heh. At least it's not Walblues." Sarge shudders.

"Um, Mrs. Sharge? Could you shay the motto? My phone ish running out of battery," Jensen says anxiously, steadying her smartphone at the two. "Director Church won't be happy if I don't finish thish tonight!"

"Yer not even bein' paid, intern girl! Doesn't hafta be perfect!" Sarge grunts.

Emily rolls her eyes, then directs her line at the camera, "Trusted since 1901."

"Just like Sarge's dick!!"

"Palomo!! Ugh, I'll jusht edit it out!"

Fade to black.

#red vs blue #rvb #rvb fic #rvb au #emily x sarge #dr grey #rvb sarge #lavernius tucker #rvb tucker #katie jensen #rvb jensen #charles palomo #rvb palomo #walgreens au #ao3 #fanfic

38 notes · View notes

tuckerteal · 6 years ago

Text

I just thought of the softest simple au,, I’m just going to call it the low-grav AU for now:

The Low-Grav AU: Everything is exactly the same but Blood Gulch has slightly lower gravity than normal.

(also Wash and Carolina are here too)

All the future-tech allows all supplies + armor be super lightweight:

Everyone floats a little bit off the ground, Lopez (and Shelia) are the only ones who are actually able to ‘walk’ on the ground normally.

Lopez: (fixing the Warthog, points at wrench) <Donut, pass that wrench to me.>

Donut: Okay! (Tosses the wrench to him, it ends up starting to float away)

Lopez: (office stare)

Every time Church’s robot bodies get shot, they just. Float up. Leaving the AI/spirit form behind. Like that one gif of winnie the pooh’s spirit ascending.

Donut grows and tends to a mini floating vegetable garden. It’s built out of old crates tied to the top of Red Base, Sarge and Lopez helped with that part. Donut even gave Wash a little floating patch to take care of to “de-stress”.

My favorite idea about this: Beds. The R&Bs have lightweight mattresses that have grav-locks to keep them (and whoever is in them) in place while they sleep.

Caboose keeps forgetting to lock the bed and he ends up floating out of the base in his sleep (the base has no doors!). It’s part of Church and Tucker’s daily morning routine to go out and look for him.

Once, Caboose ended up floating into Red Base. No one minded at all, in fact, Donut even made an extra plate of pancakes. The Reds probably assumed that Sarge had invited him along, since he’s basically a honorary Red at this point...

Grif doesn’t like to sleep on the mattresses, so he usually ends up sleeping in the air within the base. Sometimes he sleeps under the sky (on top of the base on along the hill), it reminds him of his old home on Earth.

Wash gets the best sleep he’s had in decades. That’s it. That’s the AU.

Ok this is ending up a little longer than I expected, so more below under the cut!

Carolina decides to use the lack of gravity to try new training drills with the R&Bs. She starts by telling them that they could pretend to be Star Wars characters to make the training fun. (”Just... pretend you’re using the Force when you vault, Simmons!”) The conversation takes a tangent as they start to argue who would get what lightsaber color.

Sarge insists Grif is so boring that he should have a white lightsaber, Simmons corrects him by saying that white sabers were actually the highest honor a Jedi could get. Grif calls him a nerd. Simmons rolls his eyes “Actually, geek is the correct term here.”

They end up not training but ultimately end up deciding that Carolina would defeat General Grievous in one go, and that O’Malley was a better villain than Kylo Ren.

Carolina smiles a lot that day. We should do this more often.

Church looses his body. A lot. Anytime something hits his body, the AI just. Misaligns. (”Tucker did it!”) Sometimes he gives up on trying to stay in the robot body and decides to ‘armor hop’ as Epsilon.

His first option is always Carolina. They’re pretty close at this point, since they’re basically siblings in some twisted manner. Her mind is unusually clear at night, and Church appreciates the quiet.

Church doesn’t willingly stay in Tucker’s armor; his sleep is surprisingly disturbed with worries about the future, or Junior. Church has stayed in his armor a couple times, both times neither of them ended up sleeping (sleepover vent time babey!!).

He hasn’t stayed with Wash yet.

Although he wouldn’t tell anyone, Caboose’s armor is his favorite to stay in. It feels like coming home. Church can actually feel Caboose’s care about him nearly personify every time he is there. It’s nice to know there was someone who did actually care about Church. The R&B-sonas in Caboose’s mind aren’t actually that bothersome, and he’s even had some super genuine talks with mind-Caboose.

As a cyborg, Simmons makes mini thrusters/boosters/idk the term for himself so that he can float around more easily and directly. He offers to make them for the rest of the team but Grif refuses because he wanted to “postpone the cyborg uprising”. Simmons scoffs, but he thinks that defence is ridiculously hilarious.

Kai throws the most Wild raves. She’d get award for creativity if there were Oscars for rave-hosting.

Kai also joins Grif on top of Red Base some nights when she’s homesick.

Tucker has a bunch of baby blankets left over from when Junior was younger, so he’s set them up floating in one corner of Blue Base (it’s known as “Cyan Comfort Corner” because they’re uncreative as hell). Blue Team has too many emotional problems, and Tucker thought it would be nice to be there for his friends in some way. Wash spends a lot of time sitting under the layers of floating blankets.

I’m imagining a bunch of mismatched blankets sitting in the air like a weird slice of lasagna, if that helps picture it at all adskfjhfkjsfh

That’s basically all I have right now, but I will definitely add more if I think of anything. Feel free to add more if you want! 💞

#low grav au #au by rex #rvb #finally an original post amiright? haha #i will be adding to this if i get any more ideas #yall feel free to do the same!! i want to know what you guys think #i like simple AUs.. they bring out the best in the characters :')#rex speaks

8 notes · View notes

autisticblueteam · 6 years ago

Text

Strange, but Good (Tuckboosington)

[AO3] [Ko-Fi in Bio]

Rating: Teen

Word Count: 1510

Summary: It’s still strange, not having anything pressing to do. No wars, no fighting, no running around after the past. It’s strange, but Wash is getting used to it.

Notes: Pure fluff without plot for @rvbrarepairweek for my original RvB OT3 that I’ve been neglecting for far too long.

“Have you two moved from there at all today?”

Wash cracked open an eye just enough to see Tucker standing in the doorway, condensation coated can in hand. He tracked it as Tucker raised it to take a sip and questioned briefly whether he was more enticed by Tucker’s lips or the cool refreshment that the drink would give. An answer that came easily when the large body that laid over him shifted and sweaty skin rubbed awkwardly.

“Not really?” he said, smoothing out the strand of Caboose’s hair that he’d been idly stimming with. “He let me get up to go the bathroom once, that’s… about it. Otherwise it’s been all cuddles all the time, even if its, well…”

Tucker raised a brow. “As hot and humid as Satan’s armpit in here?”

“That about sums it up.”

“Gross.” Taking another big swig of his drink, he stepped inside and crouched beside the bed. “How much do you think he’d jump if I touched this to his arm?” he said, shaking the can slightly.

“Don’t,” Wash warned. Tucker snickered, rolling his eyes.

“I won’t, I won’t, geez. I thought this place was finally loosening that stick from your ass,” he said, only snickering more when Wash narrowed his eyes at him. “Love you babe.”

“I’ll get back to you on that,” Wash said, which didn’t help the laughter any. “Mostly I’m worried that if you startle him awake, I’m going to get a full force Caboose headbutt to the chin. I’ve had enough concussions to last a lifetime, thank you very much.”

“Okay, okay, point taken.” Dropping to sit on his ass, he offered the drink to Wash. He took the can and several gulps of refreshing soda, exhaling heavily before handing it back. “Sooo… is it a good day, or a bad day?”

“A little bit of both, I think?” Brushing a curl from Caboose’s face, he pressed a kiss to his forehead. It wrinkled slightly, Caboose’s brow furrowing. “He did mention Church, but it was in passing; that didn’t stop him from looking sad, but… I think he mostly just wanted to spend some time together. And maybe reorient after travelling to another dimension.”

Tucker snorted. “Right, that. What the hell even was that?”

“You know what, I’ve decided I’m not even going to try and figure it out.”

“Probably for the best.”

Freeing his arm from Caboose’s tight hold, he let his hand lay open, palm-up, and readily squeezed back when Tucker’s took it. Fingertips brushed past the callouses on the inside of his middle fingers, pulling back to trace circles around the dry skin; the sword had always sat in a strange place, for human hands.

“What have you been up to? I didn’t hear any music, so I’m guessing not the band,” Wash said.

“Nah. Caboose on drums is half the fun. That and Grif had Carolina taking another lesson on being lazy; aka Lina looked like she hadn’t slept in a week and Grif’s the only one who can get her to nap—” (“He is getting strangely good at that.”) “—so I kinda just chilled outside, did some drills.”

Wash chuckled, shaking his hand lightly. “How did you not overheat?”

Tucker stared at him with a deadpan that could rival the blank stare of Lopez’s helmet. “Babe, you used to have me doing drills in the middle of a jungle canyon. This shit is nothing compared to that.”

“Fair point.”

Quiet grumbling interrupted them. Caboose shifted in his sleep, burying his face against Wash’s shoulder and wrapping thick arms tighter around his torso. Wash’s face contorted in the weirdest mixture of discomfort and contentment that Tucker had ever seen.

Barely holding back laughter, he asked, “You okay there, Wash?”

“I don’t know if I’m enjoying this or not. On one hand, this is fantastic pressure stimulation, on the other, he’s so sweaty and that is horrible.”

“The offer of waking him up is still open,” Tucker said, fingernail tapping aluminium. Wash cringed at the sound and Tucker stopped with a mouthed ‘sorry’.

“You can wake him up, but not like that.”

Huffing exaggeratedly, Tucker shifted up onto his knees. “You buzzkill.”

“I don’t want a concussion!”

“You wouldn’t get a concussion, you dumbass,” he said with all affection, ruffling Wash’s hair. “You really need to cut this soon if you’re not gonna bleach it again, or you’re going to end up with frosted tips.”

“As you’ve told me a thousand times.”

Ignoring him, Tucker took a strand of Caboose’s long, curly hair and tickled his nose with it. Wrinkles pulled at the edges of his nose, the tip scrunching up and away from the offending sensation. It chased after, until they almost expected Caboose’s entire face to retract back into his skull from how intensely his nose crinkled.

Tucker muffled laughter in a bitten lip.

“I don’t think that’s even working, Tuck—”

ACHOO.

Caboose sneezed so hard that his head rocketed forwards, missing Wash’s chin by a literal hair and shot into a sitting position. Thankfully he let go just as quickly, saving Wash’s spine from being jerked with no warning, but didn’t avoid winding him when his full weight dropped on his abdomen.

“—er,” Wash wheezed. “Jesus christ.”

Caboose blinked, processing his sudden consciousness until his eyes focused on Tucker. Face splitting in a grin, he threw up his arms. “Tucker! Hello!” A beat. “I would like to kiss you.”

“Really now?” Tucker said, folding his arms and raising a brow. He grinned right back. “You forgot to say the magic word, Boose.”

“Abracadabra.”

“There it is.”

Tall as Caboose was, even sitting on the bed, Tucker had to stand up for Caboose to reach him without crushing Wash more than he already was. Thick arms wrapped around his waist in much the same was as he’d previously been holding their other boyfriend, pulling him into a kiss and nearly off his feet.

Tucker chuckled into the kiss and pulled a face when he got to feel first hand how sweaty Caboose was. “Oh god, Boose, you feel like you’ve been drowned in Donut’s lube.”

“That is… certainly a sentence,” Wash said, still wheezing slightly from Caboose’s weight. Rolling his eyes, Tucker tapped Caboose on the butt.

“Stop crushing our boyfriend, dumbass.”

Quickly looking down, Caboose jumped as if noticing Wash was there for the first time and scrambled to sit on the mattress, instead. “Oh! Oops! I forgot that I was squishing you.”

“You sure did. Don’t worry about it, just… let me catch my breath.” He chuckled breathlessly, laying his hand over Caboose’s and giving it a squeeze. “You sleep well enough, Boose?”

“Yes, you are very comfortable,” Caboose said, nodding. “And it is fun to squish you.”

“You’re real good at it, when we’re not both melting into a giant puddle,” Wash said. He sat up, stretching out the stiffness from laying in one position for so long. “How does a swim sound? Maybe cool ourselves off a bit.”

“Oh yes! I would like to go stimming.” Pause. “That is not a word malfunction. That is deliberate. Water is the best for stimming and I would like to go and jump in right now.”

“Not in your damn boxers, Caboose. C’mon,” Tucker offered his hand and Caboose took it eagerly, hopping up from the bed, “swim trunks time. Hope you’re ready to get splashed to shit, I still haven’t forgotten your assault from last time.”

Caboose puffed his chest out. “I will reign supreme and you can never stop me. I have more splashing power than you will ever know.”

“Which only makes defeating you all the more satisfying.” Tapping him on the nose, Tucker tugged Caboose towards their makeshift footlockers of clothes.

Wash chuckled under his breath, watching them with an amused glint in his eye and a fond smile on his face. It was nice to get away from it all, to finally have an extended period of time where there wasn’t something life-threatening to deal with—well, besides the usual chaos that pervaded the group to its very core. But he’d much rather deal with that kind of nonsense than anything real and he knew the sentiment was shared, even by those who struggled to adapt to the calm.

Hell, this was the first time since the three of them had even become a triad that they weren’t in the middle of a warzone. That alone had changed things dramatically, mostly in the case of just how much time they got to spend together.

It was… it was good. Strange, but good.

“Hey, Tucker?”

Tucker looked up, already pulling on his shorts. “Yeah?”

“Love you too,” Wash said, kicking off and tossing his standard shorts over at them. Caboose paused mid-leg insertion to look at him expectantly. Wash smiled. “And you too, Caboose. I love you both.”

“Yeah we get it, you’re a big sap,” Tucker said, though his grin betrayed his half-hearted façade of nonchalance. “C’mere and get your trunks on, asshole.”

#rvbrarepairweek #tuckboosington #caboosington #tuckington #rvb #agent washington #michael j caboose #lavernius tucker #red vs blue #rvb fic #my fanfiction #autistic fics by me

44 notes · View notes

calliecat93 · 6 years ago

Text

I think my biggest issue with how Grif was done in S17 is... well, there’s no resolution for him in this saga. A saga that allowed him to develop. I’ve said that before, but what do I mean by that? Well... look at how S16 ended. It ended in Grif learning his lesson, accepting (even if reluctantly) that shit he doesn't like is gonna happen and he’s gonna have to deal with it one way or another, and beginning to do more and at the end he rejects Genkins trying to temp him.

But n the end, it resulted in i failure. Genkins successfully distracted hm. He was too late to stop the others form saving Wash. Time broke. While it isn’t at all Grif’s fault... even for him, someone as lazy and apathetic as him... that should be a bigger deal for him. I mean... look at how the other seasons went.

In any season where Church is the protagonist (Recollection, Freelancer, arguably S13) his character developed and he ended off in a better place. Maybe S9 is the exception, but he DID learn to let Tex go so it was still positive even if not int he emotional sense.

In S10, Carolina was able to get over her quest for revenge against the Director. Not because she forgives him, but she realized how it would do nothing and that she needed to move forward with her life. Not let the shadows of the past haunt her. She’s still had to face those demons later, but we always see her push through it and come out a better person with S17 especially solidifying it.

In Chorus, Tucker learned to be a better leader, fighter, and each season ended with him better than he was. Yes, even S11. There was a sense of triumph for him and how far he had come that not even S13′s finale could negate.

In S17 and to a lesser degree 16, Donut rose up over all the insults and proved just how good of a character, leader, and fighter that he could be. He’s been a joke for years, but he still triumphed in the end.

Grif’s season? He learned his lesson... and failed. With S17 not at all demonstrating any emotions or thoughs form him regarding it and while he is doing the job with minimal complaint, we don’t see how the events affect him or his growth whatsoever. It feels like Jason just... forgot about it. Which is bizarre since he wrote on that season. Hell, he wrote the episode where Grif stuck with the idea despite clearly being reluctant and lost Huggins’ friendship as a result. But there’s... nothing to show for it. That point goes completely unresolved which sucks for Grif, and even moreso for Huggins who gets dropped without warning after. All the other characters I listed had something to show and their stories progressed even after their limelight days were over. Why wasn’t Grif allowed to do the same? I assume it was the episode count, but it’s... frustraitng.

That’s why I feel like Grif was poorly handled. Not because he was OOC, he wasn’t. Not because of the backstory retcon, which I was personally fine with but some’s mileage may very. No, my issue is how it lacks consistency. It ignores Grif’s development. It ignores Grif’s feelings. It ignores all that potential character stuff that, in a saga that allowed said character development to begin with, makes it utterly frustrating. Again, I get it. They got 12 episodes. Something was gonna have to be sacrificed, and Grif was less important at that point that DOnut, Wash, and Carolina. Maybe there was a plan, ut they had to drop it because time sucks. I do truly and honestly understand, and I am seriously hoping that S18 will offer something and we can just say that with all the shit going down, Grif hadn’t fully processed everything until it was over. Which I can believe.

But still, every time I rewatch the saga, I notice that lack of continuation with Grif’s character. I can’t say if they made the right or wrong decision, and I don’t think ti ruins S17 personally. It just sucks because my favorite character was FINALLY getting the development that I had wanted to see... and it got brushed aside. I mean Grif’s first thought when he sees Genkins isn’t about the paradox or Genkins tricking him... but about him ruining pizza. Which he was over by the time he figured that out. I know it was a brief joke that didn’t ruin anything, but the more I look back over it, the more it feels like they just outright forgot Grif’s development. IDT it’s intentional cause again, episode count, but it just frustrates me the more and more I got back over it. Hopefully, 18 can offer something to make up for it, because this character arc is still unresolved. That’s unfair to the character and to the story and I want to see a resolution to it.

1 note · View note

jokerfan99 · 6 years ago

Photo

New Recruits (RWBY/RVB) Crossover by Necroceph

*RVB Opening Theme*

Another day, another series of torment in this God-forsaken box canyon they called Blood Gulch. Leonard L. Church, as always, does nothing but stand under the sun as if waiting he's for one of the Reds to end his misery by shooting him in the head. Well good luck with that buddy, 'cause who knows how many times you had died in horrible fashion, come back as a ghost, possess a new body and again...die. Suddenly, his radio picked up an incoming transmission. It's from Blue Command.

Church- "What is it Vic?" Vic- "Hey, hey. Church, my man! Good to hear ya. Say, how's the weather over there? Might be a good time for a little tanning!" Church- "Haha, I'd rather burn under the hot sun while the Reds take the flag. Now what do you want?" Vic- "Dude I got some important news for ya! Blue Command's sending you a special gift to help you take out them noisy neighbors you've been complaining about." Church- "A delivery like what? If it's a new vehicle, I appreciate it. 'Cause our tank's now a rusting deathtrap." Vic- "Hmm, doesn't say anything on Vic's List of Worthless Crap. Could be a surprise." Church- "A surprise? Now hold on, why would Command deliver us a something that we don't know.' Vic- "Has the Reds been spying on you lately?" Church- "I doubt it. One of them tried to spy on us while hiding inside a snowman... in the middle of a canyon. So when is it coming?" Vic- "Right about.... now. Bye bye. Church- "Wait, what? Vic? Hello? Goddammit."

As the transmission cuts off, Church hears a loud whistling sound right above him. He looks up to see an object getting bigger or should I say, getting closer to him.

Church- "Son of a-"

In Red Base

Sarge- "What in jumpin' Jehoshaphat was that?!?!"

That was a close call. If Sarge hadn't jump to the side in time, he would've been flattened like a pancake. He gets up before examining what almost killed him. It could this be the thing Vic talked about, this secret delivery? He quickly recognized what that hell the thing is thanks to his time in the ODST. A drop pod and speaking of drop pod, could there be someone inside? Sudddenly, the pod door ejects, incidentally landing on an unsuspecting Lopez below.

Lopez- "Oye, ¿de dónde vino esta cosa?"

Someone's emerging from the pod. Sarge draws his shotgun, just in case, as the pod's passenger finally came out. It's... a girl. This ain't such a surprise to Sarge as this isn't the first time he met women in this canyon, one's a Freelancer with a killer AI and the other is Grif's sister. The girl is wearing a dark grey standard military uniform, she has black hair with red highlights and bright silver eyes.

New Red Recruit- "Woah, what a landing! Not as awesome as the last landing." Sarge- "Ahh, so you must be the delivery Command sent us. Finally, someone to replace, Grif. Name and rank on the pronto!" New Red Recruit- "Private Ruby Rose, at your service. Ready to kick Blue butts! Sarge- "Welcome to the army, lil' girl! Ahh, so good for Command to send us a cheeful energetic soldier like you. Reminds me of me. Now tell me your specialties, soldier." Ruby- "Well I'm a very good shot with sniper rifles since I was five years old and plus I'm good with fighting close to the enemy, but only with weapons. Hand to hand's not my style." Sarge- "A born sniper huh? We could use someone like you. My men here knows how to shoot a sniper rifle but they still can't hit a broadside of a barn! Now put your armor on, let me show you the base." Ruby- "My what?" Sarge- "Your armor. You can't come here with only your uniform or else you won't last a second with that tank of theirs." Ruby- "Ooooooh armor! Command said I don't need."

Back In Blue Base

Church- "A GIRL? COMMAND SEND US A GIRL?!?!" Kaikaina- "Did you call me?" Church- "GET BACK TO YOUR POST!" Kaikaina- "Fine." Church- "Of all the things Command has sent us, they've sent a GIRL!!!" New Blue Recruit- "Excuse me, but is that the way you talk to women?"

Church couldn't believe this. Of all the things Command has send them, they send another girl, isn't Kaikaina enough? She wears a light grey military uniform, has pure snow white hair and blue eyes.

Church- "Sigh, why oh why? Ahem, sorry about that. My name is Private Church, current leader of this team." Caboose- "Hey, Church! Look what I've done with the tank, I'm smart!" Church- "Of idiots. Tell me yours."

The new recruit straightens before introducing herself.

Weiss- "Private Weiss Schnee, reporting for duty! I have been sent out here by Command to assist you in annihilating the enemy." Church- "Okay... welcome to Blood Gulch. The worst place this planet has to offer. So what do you do as in what good you're at?" Weiss- "Well for your understanding, I have an excellent knowledge of minerology, medical science and weapons research." Church- "Wow it's been a while since we got ourselves some brains. Got any combat training?" Weiss- "Of course. I'm quite skill with a pistol and a rapier." Church- "A pistol and... the hell's a rapier? Nevermind, first let me show you around and-"

BANG BANG BANG

Church- "Now what?"

That sounds like the tank's firing! Church looks down to see the tank firing with Tucker and Caboose standing next to it.

Church- "What are you idiots DOING! Can't you see I'm in the middle of something!" Tucker- "Hey, Church. Look what Caboose did, it's awesome!" Church- "Wait, how's the tank firing? Aren't the controls broken?" Caboose- "Told you I was smart! I took out some wires just to make friendship bracelets for all of us and then the tank started firing itself. I brought back Sheila!" Tucker- "As in he somehow set the tank into auto-firing mode. Now we don't need to worry about the Reds while we're sleeping." Weiss- "You two are a bunch of dopes!"

Caboose and Tucker were surprised to hear a new voice. Both turned to the source to see Weiss for the first time.

Weiss- "That tank isn't design to keep on firing like that! It'll jam the gun!" Tucker- "Whoa ho ho. ~Hello there, sweety! Been a while since we saw a new face. Caboose- "I thought Kaikaina's the new face." Tucker- "Yeah but still, she's new." Weiss- "Is this normal?" Church- "Welcome to my world. Get your armor on, there are a lot things to show here in your first day." Weiss- "I wish not to wear it." Church- "Good... I beg you're pardon?"

Back In Red Base

BOOM BOOM BOOM

Both Sarge and Ruby felt the whole base shook under their feet. Seems like tank rounds have hit the ground and one of them's got the jeep.

Simmons- "AAAHH!!! RUNAWAY!!!" Grif- "Here we go again." Donut- "I'm too young to die pink! I mean, lightish red!"" Sarge- "Where are you numbnuts going? Get out there and fight like men! Lopez where are you?" Lopez- "Todavía estoy atrapado debajo de esta losa de metal. ¿Un poco de ayuda?" Sarge- "Great! Now go flip the jeep back and prepare for counter attack! Where was I? Oh right! So let me get this straight lil' girl, you're telling me that command didn't give you any armor because you don't need one." Ruby- "That's right." Sarge- "And you're perfectly fine by that?" Ruby- "Uh huh!" Sarge- "That's madness! That's violation of military code J0-HN-117!" Ruby- "I've never read that before." Sarge- "You haven't read all of 'em. I've read every rule top to bottom and that's a violation!" Ruby- "No seriously, I'm fine without one. And besides, I've been fully trained to do so. Now may I have permission to head on to battle?" Sarge- "Certaintly not. Simmons, strip Grif's armor. This girl's naked without one." Simmons- "Girl? Is Grif's sister making naked splits again?" Grif- "I heard THAT!"

A/N: Been watching RvB lately and I decided to make a crossover with RWBY.

Deviantart: https://www.deviantart.com/necroceph

#rwby #Red vs Blue #ruby rose #monty oum #rooster teeth #weiss schnee #Michael J. Caboose

35 notes · View notes

secretlystephaniebrown · 6 years ago

Text

Back to Prison: 4/5

Summary: The Tartarus makes good things hard to hang onto. So when a couple of mercenaries offer Wash his freedom, he can’t help but think it’s worth whatever price they might ask. Even if it brings him into direct conflict with the Reds and Blues once again.

Mercenary Wash AU.

I LIVE! Sorry for the long-ass delay between chapters, I got swept up in NaNoWriMo, which ended up being my longest fic project to date. Whoops. Anyways, we're back, with another Tucker chapter, LET'S GET GOING!

Thanks as always to @jomeimei421, who inspired the fic, and @sroloc--elbisivni for betaing.

Warnings for: Discussions of injury and torture, injury, and alcohol use.

Also on Ao3

Tucker makes it out of the base with some new scars and a broken wrist to show for it. But he has his sword and his armor, and after he collapses into Caboose’s arms and after Doc tapes his wrist and then Grey re-tapes it because Doc did it wrong and after he’s told Carolina and Kimball and Doyle about the cave-in and Felix using Donut’s voice and the torture, he goes and lies down in his bunk.

Because he also has a secret.

He knows who let him escape.

And he has no idea what to do with that information.

Carolina comes to check on him pretty soon after his initial debrief with the generals, a bottle of wine tucked under her arm.

“Are you okay?” She asks. There’s something in her face that he can’t place. Guilt, maybe? She looks tired, as tired as Tucker feels. The dark circles under her eyes have blossomed and darkened, but they’re still not as large or as dark as the one’s under Washington’s—Tucker cuts off that train of thought. Her hair is damp, as if she’s come straight for the shower, and she’s not wearing any of her armor at all, instead looking oddly shrunken in just a black tank top and a pair of Grifball sweats. She’s still taller than him, but that’s beside the point.

He stares at her, trying to figure out what this is, why she’s here.

She shifts, clearly uncomfortable as he is. “Look, I—”

“Epsilon hacked Dr. Grey’s records of my injuries, didn’t he?” Tucker asks, finally putting it all together. He’d asked Grey not to tell the others, mostly because he didn’t want Caboose to be upset, but he should have realized that Church was a sneaky bastard, and Carolina apparently comes by it honestly.

“Yes.”

“Where’d you get that wine?”

“Donut.”

“Come on in, I guess.”

The two of them pile into Tucker’s bunk, and Carolina produces two plastic cups.

Back with the New Republic, Tucker had bunked with Caboose, not wanting to let the other blue out of his sight. Carolina had been gone, and from the ominous comments that Felix was making, she was being hunted by the fucking Feds, and he hadn’t wanted to even risk it.

Now, of course, there’s more room. Caboose bunks with Smith now, and Tucker bunks alone, because his other option is Palomo, and that’s not happening. It’s lonely, sometimes, but at least Tucker doesn’t have to listen to Caboose sleep talk.

(Not that he ever misses that. Not at all.)

“You ever been tortured before?” Carolina asks, tentative as removes the screw top of the bottle.

“Yeah, we’re totally not doing this,” Tucker says, grabbing the cup she holds out to him, staring at the contents.

“Tucker—” There’s a warning in her voice, but it’s one that’s gentle. The kind she does when she’s trying to stop him from hurting himself during training, rather than her shouts of rage when he hits on her or when he steals her hair dye to prank Simmons.

“Washington let me go,” Tucker says before downing his entire glass in one go.

Carolina stands frozen, staring right at him, mouth agape, Church hovering over her shoulder. If he wasn’t wearing armor, Tucker would put money down that Church is making the exact same expression.

“What?” The two of them scream together.

It’s times like this that really prove that they’re siblings.

“I mean,” Tucker grabs the bottle and pours himself more. “I told him I should’ve killed him and then he came back and like, I thought he was gonna kill me, so I pretended to be asleep cuz he seems like the kind of guy who wants to watch the life go out of you if he’s killing you to make a point, y’know?” He takes another, desperate gulp, remembering the soft sound of Washington’s armored feet padding across the floor of the operating theater. “And then instead, he uncuffs me and slams the door as if he’s trying to wake me up. I thought it was like, a trap or something, but he didn’t ambush me when I was running.”

And then Tucker had grabbed his sword and ran and ran and ran, until he’d managed to get out of the base, stealing a mongoose and driving, until he’d managed to practically crash into a search party, lead by Jensen.

It was supposed to be a search party, not a rescue party, because they’d all thought he was already dead.

Carolina and Caboose hadn’t believed it, according to Kimball. The Reds hadn’t either.

It’s nice to be believed in, Tucker supposes. Even though he knows they’d eventually have tried to mount a rescue mission, which would have brought his friends right into the enemy’s reach.

“He let you go,” Carolina says softly. The expression on her face is half wonder, half hope.

“Yeah.”

The moment fades, and her gaze refocuses on him, intense and intelligent. “You didn’t mention this to Kimball and Doyle.”

“Because I don’t know what it means!” Tucker yells, throwing his hands into the air. His injuries protest the movement, but he refuses to let it show, caught up as he is in his own confusion. “I don’t get why he did it! I literally told the guy I should have murdered him and instead he lets me go?”

He had been an inch from death; handcuffed and injured and unable to defend himself, and instead of taking the easiest shot in the world, Washington had let him go.

What is Tucker supposed to think about this? What is he supposed to do?

Carolina runs her fingers through her ponytail absently, staring off into space. A wrinkle appears between her eyebrows, as she tilts her head to one side. “You’ve talked to him a few times, right?” She sounds far away as she says it.

Tucker shifts, not sure what she means by that. Yeah, he’s talked to the guy, but usually to tell him how much he fucking sucks and how much Tucker wants him to die. It’s not like it’s the kind of speech that changes anything. Certainly not something that should make a guy decide that he’s going to let an enemy go. “Yeah.”

Her mouth parts for a moment, thoughtful, then quirks up into a smile. “Huh.” Tucker has no idea what she’s thinking, and he’s not sure he wants to know.

Tucker slumps down against the wall. He stares at the bottle for a moment, then decides that he was just tortured, so he’s earned it, and takes a swig directly from the bottle. It’s not the best wine that Donut’s ever managed to procure, but it’s also a hell of a lot better than the bathtub gin that Volleyball brews in an abandoned warehouse that serves as most of the United Armies of Chorus’s liquor supply. He swallows, wipes his mouth on the back of his hand, and then looks back at Carolina, who’s watching him with those bright green eyes of hers. “I mean, he also was the reason I got captured by Felix so it’s not like I owe him or anything.”

He stares down at his arms, where the bandages cover the thin, but deep cuts left behind by Felix. Grey had told him in her scarily chipper way, that they had been done just so, to stop Tucker from bleeding out entirely, but still to cause blood loss and pain.

Carolina is serious again. “You’re right. You don’t.” She nudges him, more gently than she usually does. “I’m glad you’re okay,” she adds.

It’s hard to believe that this is the same woman who had once held a gun to the back of his head and tried to order him to follow her into battle. The woman who Caboose had been forced to disarm to stop her from doing something that all of them might regret.

But Caboose had disarmed her, and then they had gone after her, because, despite everything, she was one of them, whether she knew it or not. She and Church were theirs. And Tucker and Caboose had reached down and pulled Carolina onto her feet, and then, maybe Carolina figured that out herself.

Somewhere, somehow, along the way, the two of them had become friends.

Neither of them have a lot of those.

Tucker tries to laugh, but it gets caught in his throat and comes out as more of a sob, than anything else. “Yeah,” he finally says, the words choked. “Me too.”

Carolina sits next to him, and, hesitating, puts an arm around his shoulders. She’s warm and her arms are corded with muscle and she smells of detergent and wine and the fancy shampoo Donut buys her to help her preserve the dye in her hair, and it’s great.

Too tired to even make a joke, let alone flirt, Tucker sets the bottle down between his knees, leans against her, closes his eyes, and falls asleep.

“I’m sorry Epsilon. The Meta captured her in the memory unit.”

The first time Tucker ever sees Washington, it’s in in the snow.

He seems almost… normal, in that moment. The fighting between him and Tex and the Meta was done, Tex was already gone (Tucker would never get to say goodbye).

“She’ll be trapped in there.”

He and Epsilon were… something. Some sort of truce. Didn’t Epsilon hate that guy? Tucker thought someone had mentioned something about Epsilon shooting a laser at him, just like he’d done at fucking CT.

“If I let her out… you have to come with me.”

A truce that involved Wash trying to fucking blackmail Church into coming with him to get Tex out of the fucking thing that he’d built, apparently. Tucker decided, right there on the spot, that he hated that guy.

“Caboose, Tucker. Get in the base. See if you can find some tools.”

How had he even known his name? Then, there had been no time to dwell on it, because at the end of the day, even after she’d fucking kicked their asses and even after she’d ditched them and even after everything…

Tex was still his friend.

Fighting the Meta is brutal and terrifying… bullets flying and all sorts of bullshit. Tucker stabs him in the chest. Sarge charges him with a shotgun.

And by the time the dust settles…

Church is gone.

And Tucker’s standing over the unconscious form of the guy responsible for it, sprawled out and bleeding on the snow.

Tucker stares down at him, nothing but disgust rolling in his stomach.

This guy shot Donut, and now Tex and Church are gone. Both Churches, even.

Because of what? Tucker doesn’t even know. Something about prison.

He nearly grabs Doc by the wrist, nearly tells Doc to fucking let the guy die, but he doesn’t, because he just realized Church fucking didn’t even say goodbye… again, and Caboose is calling Church’s name, softer and softer each time, and it’s nearly too much for Tucker to bear.

Caboose finally wanders over, sniffing. He brightens up though, when he sees Wash.

“Wash! You’re alive!”

And something about Caboose sounding so fucking happy to see this guy, when he can’t even stand Tucker half the time, even though it’s this guy’s fucking fault that Caboose’s best friend is dead…

Caboose kneels over the guy, sprawled out like a broken fucking rag doll as he is on the ice. “Tucker! He’s alive! Can we keep him?”

Tucker fucking can’t believe Caboose, sometimes.

“Leave him! Caboose, get away from that guy! He killed Church, remember?”

It stops Caboose in his tracks.

Blood spreads through the snow all around Washington, smearing it pink in places. Pink, like Donut, who’s dead because of him. The rest of it is just… red.

“No, Church is… he’s just not here right now,” Caboose says, slowly, looking over his shoulder at that fucking memory unit. “And Washington can be our new friend while we wait for him!”

“Fine, he killed Alpha! And Donut!” Tucker yells, and he can feel dampness stinging at his eyes and his throat closing up, because his best friend is gone, and never coming back, and Tucker never got to say goodbye, and it’s all too much. “And Epsilon and Tex are gone now, and it’s his fault, Caboose! He’s fucking dangerous and he doesn’t care about us and… just…” His shoulders slump. “Caboose…” He takes a deep, shuddering breath. “Let’s just go home.”

Caboose stares at Washington for a while.

The noise of a pelican fills the air, and Tucker looks up. All that noise, and explosions, have apparently given them an audience, and Tucker has even less desire to help Washington now. He has no idea how they’re going to get out of this, and he doesn’t have time to deal with anything else right now, let alone a fucking murderer.

(Donut hadn’t even done anything to this guy. Donut had been with him, in the desert, away from all of this fucking Freelancer bullshit.)

“Okay Tucker,” Caboose says, and Tucker sighs with relief because, for once, Caboose is actually listening to him.

And so they walk away, and they leave Washington behind in the snow.

Caboose comes to visit after Carolina leaves the next morning. If Tucker had more energy, he might have made a walk-of-fame joke (walks-of-shame aren’t Carolina’s style, and Tucker’s not about to shame anybody for having even hypothetical sex, especially not hypothetical sex with him), but because he was drinking, he hadn’t taken the painkillers that Dr. Grey had given him, so he hurts way too much to come up with a good punchline, let alone handle the retribution that she’d deal out for it.

They might be friends, but Carolina has a very low tolerance for pick-up lines. At least it’s all in good fun these days, rather than the time when she’d tried to shoot him. Although that might have been for eavesdropping and startling her as much as for the line.

So instead of seeing if he could finally phase Carolina, or even get up in search of breakfast, Tucker just lies down on his bed, staring at the stitches on his arm, and tries really hard not to feel sick.

Because Felix would have killed him, there’s no doubt in Tucker’s mind about that. He’d whispered it in Tucker’s ear as he’d pressed the flat of the knife against his face, already covered in blood. Promises of how long it’d take, of what it’d feel like, of how he was going to send his body back to Caboose and Kimball and even Junior in pieces.

“I think I’ll shoot you in the spine. Can’t even run as I start to cut you up. Wouldn’t that be fun? Of course, if I don’t do it right, you could die, but that’s a risk I’m willing to take.”

His friends hadn’t known where he was. He’d been given up for dead by all official channels, even if Caboose and Carolina and Sarge and Grif and Simmons and Donut and Doc and—well, okay, Lopez might have given him up as dead, but honestly Tucker wouldn’t know one way or another, cuz he’d slept through high school Spanish—hadn’t believed it. There was no way they would have gotten there in time, and he would have died there, in that operating theater…

But Washington had decided to save him, for a reason that Tucker can’t even begin to understand.

“Tucker?” Caboose says, very quietly.

“Hey Caboose,” Tucker says, trying to keep his voice cheerful. Caboose knows that Tucker’s hurt, obviously, but that doesn’t mean Tucker has to remind him of it.

Caboose looks at him, very solemn and weirdly quiet.

“Tucker, you have been very stupid,” Caboose announces.

“Hey!” Tucker says. “It’s not my fault I was tortured!”

“Noooo,” Caboose says, drawing out the word, like Tucker’s missing something very obvious. “But you have been telling Principal Kimball not to let me go on missions with you!”

Maybe it’s because of Caboose’s insistence on referring to Kimball as “principal,” but the only word that springs into Tucker’s mind in this moment is tattle-tale.

“Caboose,” Tucker starts to protest, but it’s too late, Caboose takes off his helmet, and fuck, there are tears in his giant brown eyes and Tucker hates that, hates when Caboose cries, it’s not fair, they’re supposed to hate each other, that’s how it goes.

“Caboose! I just thought Washington might be there, and—” Tucker sighs. “You liked him.”

“Well, yes,” Caboose says, sitting down next to him. “But now he’s not being very nice, and he is hurting people and he’s friends with Felix and Locus and you know I think they’re very bad influences because I really thought we were going to be friends, but you know what sometimes people aren’t your friends and… and sometimes that’s okay.” He pats Tucker’s shoulder. “Tucker, sometimes you are very stupid.”

Tucker, still trying to follow Caboose’s sentence before that, blinks. “What did I do now?”

Caboose makes a scoffing sound. “Tucker. Tucker. Tucker. I’m supposed to make sure you don’t do stupid things. That is why we are a team! Blue team! Us and Church and Carolina and Tex but she’s gone now, and Grif’s sister, even though it is very rude of her not to be here right now. We are supposed to stick together. Because otherwise someone who is not me will get lost and I know Mom said we’re supposed to stay in one place when we get lost, but I think you did the right thing this time coming to find us.”

Tucker laughs, wincing as the motion of it pulls at the stitches in his side. “Okay, Caboose, I get it. No more leaving you behind.”

“Oh! Good. Because that was not fun.” Caboose pauses. “Felix is not very nice.”

“No. He’s not.”

Caboose stares at his hands. “Tucker… is it really my fault?”

“What?”

“Washington only shot Private Pastry because he went to prison and he says he only went to prison because I kept Church. And you only didn’t keep him because of that and then he went to jail again and then Felix and Locus let him out and now he’s hurting people again and—”

“Caboose!” Tucker is alarmed, because Caboose doesn’t even acknowledge things that are his fault, like Church’s death back in Blood Gulch or blowing things up, or… fucking anything. “Caboose, no. Washington did those things because he chose to, and it’s not our fucking fault.” Tucker banishes the sight of blood on the snow from behind his eyelids.

“It’s not.”

He’s not sure if he’s talking more to himself or to Caboose, but in the end, it doesn’t matter.

Tucker and Caboose had made their choices and made them a long time ago.

Washington had made his own.

And all of the choices have led them here, to Tucker covered in injuries, Caboose’s arms wrapped around his stomach, with the specter of Washington hanging over their heads.

In his nightmares, Washington doesn’t let him go.

The handcuffs come off, sure enough, but when Tucker stirs, when he moves too soon, Washington grabs him by the hair, bringing a knife to Tucker’s throat and cutting.

Or he does let him go, but he gives chase, through the strange and winding corridors of the base—far darker, and more twisting than the corridors had been in real life—and, just as Tucker throws open the impossibly heavy door to the base, as soon as he can see freedom and green grass and Caboose and Carolina in the distance, calling his name…

The bullet, in his dreams, goes through his spine, cutting his feet out from under him. In the nightmare, Tucker falls to the ground like a puppet released from its strings, pain shooting through his top half, while nothing but numbness fills his bottom half.

Washington shoots Tucker in the back, and he doesn’t even laugh, not like Felix would.

He just stares at Tucker, pale grey eyes surrounded by bruise like dark circles, scars stretched across his face. He doesn’t say a thing, sitting down on his haunches, tilting his head to one side as Tucker bleeds out.

Beneath Tucker, his blood stains the snow.

Tucker wakes up with his chest too tight to breathe, and he paces around the base, at least in part to prove to himself that he still can, until Palomo sees him and starts asking him questions. As Tucker hurries back towards his room and his bed to escape, he wonders if Palomo was doing that on purpose.

It’s only a week later, when Grey has finally taken out the last of his stitches and given him the all-clear, that Tucker goes out on another mission—this one with Sarge to take back a pirate base.

It goes smoothly, and there’s no sign of Washington or Felix or Locus, and it’s almost enough to help Tucker shake off the strange, foreboding feeling that’s started to settle into him every time he leaves Armonia.

Washington kept him alive for a reason, and Tucker is increasingly terrified of what that reason is.

It’s weird, that Tucker’s so scared of him, when he’s not the creepy, silent enigma of Locus, or the manic, vindictive cruelty of Felix. Wash somehow seems to straddle the line between the two mercenaries. More personal than Locus, more contained than Felix, and all the while with his eyes focused on Tucker, not because he’s interesting or pretty or irritating or whatever other form of bullshit that Felix is spouting off this week, but because of something that Tucker did.

Tucker pulled Caboose away from him, explicitly refused the Freelancer shelter and freedom when the guy felt that he was owed it, and for that, Washington wants him dead.

Except he doesn’t.

Except, he’d let Tucker go.

Tucker can’t stop rolling that fact around his head, hoping, somehow, that if he does it enough, the edges will wear away, and reveal some sort of fucking answer. It had worked with trying to figure out what was up with Church, had worked with the puzzle that was Red versus Blue…

But Washington… Tucker can’t seem to puzzle out Washington, no matter how hard he tries.

Tucker goes with Grey to the alien tower to investigate things, and decides to dick around with his sword for a bit to try to take his mind of Washington.

And then, because Tucker’s life is a fucking gigantic joke with him as the punchline, he accidentally summons the voice of alien Jesus (well okay, another alien Jesus, because to him, alien Jesus will always be Junior, and no, he wasn’t a fucking virgin, shut up Grif, that’s not the point), and they go off on another adventure to find some sort of fucking “true warrior” portal.

Tucker jumps in, because, fuck it. He’s got the sword, he’s a fucking war hero, why the hell not?

Caboose finally wanders over, sniffing. He brightens up though, when he sees Wash.

“Wash! You’re alive!”

… fuck, it’s kind of nice to see Caboose happy, for once.

Caboose kneels over the guy, sprawled out like a broken fucking rag doll as he is on the ice. “Tucker! He’s alive! Can we keep him?”

“Caboose…” Tucker groans.

“Can we keep him? Can we keep him?” Caboose is practically fucking bouncing as he kneels over Washington, getting in the way of Doc checking his pulse. And the guy had helped them fight the Meta…

“… fuck it. Anyone have any spray paint?”

No one’s ever accused Tucker of being smart, okay? And whatever, the guy’s half-dead. He might just keel over on his own, and at least Caboose will be happy.

They’re only just finished swapping the armors and getting Wash upright and instructing him on what to say, when the pelican arrives.

“I gotta hand it to you. Killing one of these agents would be tough. But three? And this guy...” The guy stops and examines Epsilon’s robot body, wearing Washington’s armor. For a second, Tucker thinks the ruse is about to fall apart, but the guy just shrugs. “The Chairman will not be happy he's dead. I think he wanted to debrief him personally. Oh well.”

“Yeah...” Tucker says, doing his best to play it cool.

“Yeah, that's too bad,” Caboose adds, with that weirdly earnest way of his that makes Tucker wonder if he has, in fact, already forgotten that Wash isn’t actually dead.

“Well, be sure to let him know we're sorry.”

… okay, nobody had told Tucker that the Freelancer was a fucking little shit.

“Whatever. You're free to go. If we need you, we know where to find you.”

Dick.

“Why are you guys helping me?” Washington demands, just like he had earlier, when they’d been getting him onto his feet.

“You helped us, Wash. It only makes sense.” Okay Caboose. Sure.

“Yeah, plus we needed to even the teams. And I couldn't put up with Caboose constantly asking “Can we keep him? Can we keep him?”” Tucker says, more lightly than he feels. Oh, this is totally a terrible idea.

“… For whatever it's worth... Thanks.”

Tucker falls out of the portal after that, a strange feeling in his stomach.

When Carolina asks him what he saw, he doesn’t tell her.

Caboose manages to figure things out, because of course he does, and he introduces them to a fucking alien A.I. named Santa, and they learn about a second key/sword and…

That’s when the pirates attack.

“Another key, huh?” The head pirate asks. She’s a woman, but Tucker doesn’t think he’s ever seen her before. “Ooh, Felix will like this. He’s not happy he let you get away, pretty.” She waves at Tucker, and he honestly doesn’t know how to deal with being flirted by a pirate who’s actively trying to kill him. “Well, okay, I’ll go let the boys know about this.”

She turns to one of the other pirates. “Shoot them as soon as that shield goes down! Felix wants the pretty one alive, but honestly… don’t bother. Locus will back me up on this.”

“Yes, Chrissie, ma’am.”

Chrissie, which is the worst fucking name ever for an evil pirate, and Tucker will go to his grave, possibly literally, because they might be about to die, thinking this.

“You really think four people are enough to stop us?” Carolina demands, her arms outstretched, holding up the shield.

“Eh, maybe not, but that little firebug of yours only can run that thing for so long,” Chrissie says with a shrug. “Have fun, kiddos!” She waves jauntily at them—or maybe the other pirates?—and then walks off. As she walks away, Tucker can hear her start to talk into her radio.

“Hey Wash, got some good news for you! Get Felix and Locus on the line, will you?”

There’s about another thirty seconds when Tucker thinks they’re about to die, but Grey and Freckles pull through…

And now, all they have to do, is fucking race Washington, Felix, and Locus, to a fucking mountain, and get the second key before they do.

Ah, fuckberries.

#Lavernius Tucker #Agent Carolina #Michael J Caboose #Merc Wash AU #Steph Writes #Red vs Blue

31 notes · View notes

wordsysayswords · 6 years ago

Link

Habits, a new series

After picking Wash up on Sidewinder, it's going to take everyone a while to get used to the new living arrangements. Especially Wash, who's a bit directionless now that he's finally free of the Project. Tucker doesn't care for blue team's new leader. But he can't help noticing some of the man's odd habits and wonder what caused them.

Part 1: Eating Habits

The first time they sit down for a meal as a team is maybe two days after Sidewinder. Tucker sets a plate down in front of Wash and before the teal soldier even finishes sitting down, the man’s already downed half the plate.

Or, Wash is weirdly protective of food. Tucker doesn't care and he certainly isn't going to do something about it. Oh, fuck, he's going to do something about it, isn't he?

Washington is a total freak.

Tucker figured that out all the way back on Sidewinder. Doc chided the Freelancer for sitting up too fast, warning the man could have a collapsed lung.

“That’s okay,” Wash had wheezed, as he swayed back and forth. “It’s only one.”

So the guy was weird. Whatever. Once the UNSC showed up, he wouldn’t be Tucker’s problem anymore.

But then Caboose decided he wanted a pet.

And it wasn't a goldfish he wanted, oh no. He wanted to adopt the rogue special ops agent who might not last the next 48 hours without some serious medical attention. And Tucker could hardly flush Washington down the toilet and buy a replacement at the pet store before Caboose found out. So there was no fucking way in hell that Wash was coming home with them.

Wash was coming home with them.

When Tucker was a kid, there was a stray dog that lived behind the local convenience store. It was stick-thin and looked like someone had dragged it behind a car going eighty for a few miles, but it was friendly enough. Tucker and his friends used to toss it sandwich crusts and leftover snacks. You had to be careful when feeding it, though.

That dog inhaled its food. Like, there was hardly any chewing involved. The scraps went from on the ground to in its stomach in a flurry of jaws. You’d think it never saw food before and expected to never see it again.

And if you got too close while it was still eating, the dog would raise its hackles and snarl. All teeth and flying spittle and crazy eyes. That dog would have fought the devil himself to protect its hotdog nub and a bit of bun. And it would have won.

That’s how Washington eats.

Tucker’s so surprised that for a moment he forgets that he hates Washington, and almost cracks a joke about them not feeding him during Project Freelancer.

But then Caboose stands up to go get the ketchup or maple syrup or whatever he’s decided to drown his meal in that day.

Wash startles hard, throwing a protective arm around his plate. He hunches his shoulders and almost slides out of his chair to pull away when Caboose walks past.

Caboose doesn’t notice. He goes happily about his business in the kitchen, humming as he does so. The Freelancer twists around in his seat, keeping the big blue soldier in his line of sight, sizing him up like he actually expects Caboose to try and take his plate from him. When Caboose turns his back to rifle through the fridge, Washington uses the opportunity to inhale the rest of his food.

“Uh,” Tucker clears his throat, causing Wash to whip his head in the teal soldier’s direction. “You want seconds?”

The agent just stares at him like he’s speaking another language, and it’s freaking Tucker out a bit.

“There’s more on the stove,” Tucker says. He stirs at his own food with his fork to give him something to do besides maintaining creepy eye contact with Washington. “Go for it, man.”

Wash still doesn’t move and Tucker’s a bit concerned he might have broken the Freelancer.

Then Caboose pipes up. “Here, Agent Washington!”

Caboose loads up another plate with food and returns to the table. He slides it over to Wash, who stares at the blue like he just offered him a handful of worms. Tucker’s glad Caboose thought to grab a new plate since he’s really not interested in seeing Washington chew someone’s arm off.

After that, the meal continues with Caboose chattering away about something around mouthfuls of food. Tucker only half pays attention, sneaking looks at Washington across the table.

Wash sits there in silence, looking between his untouched plate and the rest of the team with narrow eyes. After about five minutes, he seems to figure out no one’s going to take it back and that food is gone just as fast as the first time around.

It’s not a one-time thing, either. It keeps happening. Tucker can’t figure it out because Wash doesn’t look like he’s malnourished. And Doc would have definitely brought that up before he left. It’s not even mentioned in the handwritten notes he left behind detailing the continued care of Wash’s injuries. ‘Eats like a starving street dog’ isn’t included in the list of symptoms to watch out for, so Tucker figures they’re good, even if the whole thing’s pretty unsettling.

Tucker expects it to taper off as Wash recovers from getting the ever-loving snot beat out of him by two separate Freelancers on Sidewinder. Nope. The stitches come out and the bandages come off but Washington still eats with the grace of a rabid wolverine and with an arm curled around his plate.

“People did that in basic too,” Grif offers one day. He, Tucker, and Simmons are sitting on the rocky shore of Valhalla, all hiding from their respective COs.

“Only because you were sitting next to them,” Simmons chides. The man’s got his shoes off, feet dangling in the cold water. Tucker’s doing the same. Grif had called them both crazy and refused to drip so much as a toe in.

“No,” Grif says, ��I mean, like, you had thirty minutes to get to the mess hall, stand in line, get your food, and find a place to sit and eat. You didn’t have time to fuck around.”

“I guess,” Tucker sighs. “But this is different.”

It’s so relaxing here, staring out over the water as the sun begins to dip in the sky. Tucker can’t believe he’s wasting this quality time thinking about what a wreck Agent Washington is.

Tucker shakes his head, slowly kicking his legs in the water. “He always looks like he’s waiting for one of us to fight him for his sandwich crust or something.”

“Well, that’s probably what happens in prison,” Simmons shrugs. He tosses a stone, sending it skipping across the top of the water.

“Hm…” Tucker grunts, watching the ripples blossom and fade beneath the waves. Then, “Wait, what?”

Simmons raises an eyebrow. “You didn’t know?”

“I mean, I think I did.” Tucker’s getting a hazy recollection of something Caboose said about Wash getting a special new base. “It hasn’t really come up.”

“I saw his file at the Freelancer storage facility,” Simmons explains. “He was in prison after destroying the Alpha. Like, maximum security. And before that, there were a couple of psych wards. Military ones.”

“Fan- fucking -tastic,” Tucker gripes. He pulls himself to his feet and starts collecting his discarded shoes and socks. “The guy’s a criminal and insane?”

“Possibly even criminally insane,” Simmons points out.

Tucker snorts. “This just keeps getting better and better.”

“Have you heard about those UNSC prisons, though?” Grif says conspiratorially. “I heard the going rate for a cigarette is slitting someone’s throat.”

Simmons nods furiously. “I have a fourth cousin whose girlfriend’s brother was locked up for a while. Either for fraud or multiple homicide, I can’t remember. According to him, the guards are there to stop you from getting out. They don’t care what you do to each other inside.”

“You watch too many movies,” Tucker scoff, tying his shoes. “Like, I’m pretty sure that’s an actual movie line.”

“Whatever,” Simmons says. “But the guy lost a ton of weight because the gangs would steal his tray in the mess hall. It happened to everyone. Some sort of power thing.”

Tucker tells himself he doesn’t care.

It doesn’t matter that Project Freelancer and the nut houses and prison fucked Washington up because that’s still not an excuse for him straight up murdering Donut and deleting Church and chasing them with the Meta and kidnapping Doc. Okay, sure, it might explain why Wash is… the way he is, but still. Tucker hates him.

Wash saved Caboose’s life with the healing unit.

Tucker’s supposed to hate him.

Tucker should hate him.

Tucker really doesn’t like him.

Tucker still ends up rearranging the kitchen.

“What are you doing?”

Tucker looks up to see Wash standing in the door, rubbing an eye with his palm as he blinks blearily around the room. Looks like he actually slept for a few hours last night. Looks like he could still use a couple of days more.

Tucker picks up the edge of the table and continues dragging it across the linoleum with a horrible grating sound.

“What’s it look like I’m doing?” Tucker asks, raising his voice to be heard over the racket. “A little interior design. Thought we should change things up.”

He drops the table legs to the floor with a bang and stands back to survey his work. “That should do it. Pull the chairs over, will you?”

Wash obliges, then stands back to shift awkwardly from foot to foot while Tucker finishes rearranging the furniture.

“Okay,” Tucker says. “What do you think?”

Wash shrugs. “It’s fine.”

“Cool. Now go wake Caboose up. Tell him we’re having pancakes. That’ll get him moving.”

It’s not long before the team is gathered and the whole room smells of breakfast.

“Pancakes!” Caboose cheers, as Tucker manages a perfect flip with the frying pan.

“Don’t touch ‘em yet. They’re hot,” he warns as Caboose starts reaching for one of the plates piled high with pancakes. “Why don’t you and Washington go sit down?”

“Okay!” Caboose says, quickly bounding over to the table. Wash, who’s been quietly nursing a cup of coffee in the corner, follows at a much slower pace.

“Tucker?” Caboose calls. “Why is the table in the corner?”

“Because I felt like it,” Tucker answers.

When he comes to pass out the plates, he’s not surprised to see Wash has taken the seat with it’s back to the wall and with a full view of the door.

The new seating arrangements don’t fix everything. Wash still eats fast and watches his teammates’ every move. But he doesn’t startle quite as easily as before. And he doesn’t hunch over his food like that stray dog Tucker used to feed. It makes him seem a bit more human than before.

If Wash knows why Tucker rearranged the kitchen, he never says a word.

#agent washington #Lavernius Tucker #rvb #red vs blue #fanfiction #fan fic #fanfic #angst #wordsywriteswords #wordsy writes words #guess who is on a writing streak

163 notes · View notes

abitofafatass · 7 years ago

Text

You sit there at the top of the cliff, watching Sarge tinker with his robotics absently, and think about the first time he died.

You didnt even really know Church back then. He was just another asshole on the other side of the canyon. You watched him through the sniper scope, and wondered what they were bickering about over there. Then the rookies showed up and you actually had to go out and fight him. Driving the warthog was so much fun, and you could hear Simmons whooping in the gunner’s spot behind you before the bullets started flying. You remember seeing the tank roll up, the fear of getting run over or shot (things that would happen much later), and then you watched, stunned, as Church’s own team member lined up the barrel and shot him.

Later, you’d meet Caboose properly and understand.

That death had meant little to you. You’d never even had a proper conversation with the guy before he died.

Besides, the next year and a half, you spent with his motherfucking “ghost” anyways. What was the point of getting worked up about a dead body if you could still have beer with his spirit?

When you think about his second death, you’re floating in the swimming pool of your new water park. Everything had gotten so serious; Church was really an AI, there were real things trying to kill them, Freelancer had to be stopped. You wish there had been more time to say goodbyes before Wash is telling all of you to leave and get Epsilon out of there. The frantic drive to get away from the Emp (EMP still sounded fake as hell, thank you very much) still makes your heart beat fast and you realize that if Caboose hadnt been just a little faster, you could have lost a friend twice over that time.

At least then, there were shiney new bases, and a few months to mourn Church. It hadnt really seemed real though, you think. Tucker was also gone, and things werent business as usual at Valhalla anyways, so why should you miss the absence of another Blue? Your too busy dealing with Sarge’s bullshit and wondering if Lopez really did kill your baby sister (you doubt this heavily. Kai has gotten out of worse).

The next time you dont get to say goodbye either.

You dont like thinking about Sidewinder. Every time you do, you can feel a vise-like grip around your ankles, and you can practically feel snow and ice scraping against your armour as your pulled towards an empty abyss. It makes you shiver uncontrollably, despite the fact you’re currently laying in the warm sand, letting the tepid water of the beach lap against your feet. You draw them up and think about how Tex was worth leaving all of his friends behind.

You cant help but feel some resentment. After sticking your neck out for him for the past few weeks, Church is just going to abandon you and the rest of the team? Perhaps that anger is unfair. Epsilon was not Alpha. He did not have the same feelings for the guys, no matter how many gaps in his memory that you offer to fill. Just because you treat a guy the same doesnt mean that he actually is.

Still, you muse, watching the water spill over your little waterfall haven, that doesnt excuse all the times he’d run off without a goodbye. It might not have been a death, but you still count the time he ran off with Carolina like it was. You still went through the same feelings of anger and sadness, and even grief for a friendship that seemed forever out of reach. There had been a moment when you thought you were getting it back, but then...

Thinking about the time inside Sarge’s stupid holograph room where he exploded at you makes you angry, and you throw a fairly large rock into the pool at the bottom of the waterfall in frustration. Sure, Church had died all those times, but they’d also had to deal with it! They all had history together! They risked themselves time and time again to deal with Church’s problems. And then he just left with some bitch when he was done using the lot of you.

That reporter had really dropped a bomb into the middle of everything, you think to yourself, hunched over and staring at the wall of your secret cave. The last time he’d died, it had felt so final, so permanent. Ten months, you’d spent trying to reconcile the fact that he was never coming back. Sure he had before, and you’d never tried to work through those times. Why should you if he was just going to reincarnate as a bigger asshole?

There are hot tears between your helmet and your cheeks, and you know from experience that its going to get uncomfortable soon, but you dont dare remove the helmet. Everyone is getting ready to leave Iris, your home, your happy life together, to go save a guy who cant figure out how to stay dead, and who didnt want to be around them much in the last year of his life anyways. You think to yourself that he really shouldnt be dead anyways. Maybe if you’d been a better fighter, Church wouldnt have needed to create fragments of himself and then die.

Maybe you shouldnt be so quick to write him off.

Thinking of rescuing him again just makes you tired though, deep in your bones. Its been hard; Church’s problems have taken up almost all of your adult life, and you’ve gotten almost nothing in return. His words in the holo-room haunt you, and for a moment you seriously consider going after Church. Then you also remember waking up at Crash Site Bravo and finding out he’d taken off again, and the anger comes back strong enough that you feel like you need to throw up.

You still feel like this when the reporter tries to guilt you into going. She says things that you’ve tried to hide and pretend arent part of you -- caring for these people means you’ll get hurt. Just like with Church.

“FUCK CHURCH!” you scream. The anger feels good, it feels right. It feels better than the literal years of denial that he’s been carrying around. Later, it’ll be nothing but guilt, but you relish the release of emotions that comes with shouting now. You take that anger, low and simmering, with you when you tell the people that you call friends that you quit. You just cant deal with Church anymore.

The guilt eats away at you for weeks. How could you just leave him when he might be alive? How could you let him do that to himself? Why werent you better so he didnt have to fragment?

You stare at a deflating volleyball, and feel the words fall from your mouth just as fast as the tears do. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

#dexter grif #grif #red vs blue #rvb #ok to reblog #long post #khristle writes #i got real inspired #and i've literally never written in second person before #headcanon #i just really wanted to do a deep dive into how grif feels about church in season 15

141 notes · View notes

callie-the-snarky-geek-blog · 7 years ago

Text

RvB16 Episode 15 (Season Finale) Review: Paradox

(Old Blog Repost)

Fifteen weeks ago, RvB16 began and all that we know going in was that it involved pizza quests, Donut the God, and time travel. Over these many weeks we’ve had sex adventures throughout time, the return of O’Malley, an in-universe Red vs Blue movie, the adventured of Grif and a sentient lens flare, Gus the Cyclops, Alien Gods who are actually AI, and buckets full of feels. Well, after all of that and so much more, it has all come down to this. Hoping to save Wash from his brain damage, the remaining Reds and Blues venture back to save him, but we discover that doing this will spark the end of time itself. So the question that remains is: what the FUCK are we in for?!

I got to see this yesterday as Rooster Teeth livestreamed it early. It… it… well I’ll be discussing it down below. Before I get to it though, I want to say thank you to Joe, Miles, Kyle, Josh, the animator team, David Levy and Trocadero, the voice cast, and everyone involved in this season if Red vs Blue. It has been an incredibly fun ride form start to finish and I’ve enjoyed it immensely. A lot of work went into this and I can’t even imagine how exhausting it all had to have been. But I.think that I speak for many of us when I say that we greatly appreciate every second that was put into everything, and again thank you for one Hell of a season.

Alright, well… lets do this everyone. Be afraid. Very afraid.

Overview

We begin with the Reds and Blues already back in the past inside the underwater base, going over the plan. They have 18 minutes before Wash gets shot and they are going to do their damnest to be careful and NOT cause anymore serious damage to the timeline. As they go over their plan, they get caught by a random Blue, provoking both Carolina and Tucker to beat him up. While Carolina does get seen on the security camera, the gang continues to stick to the plan. But their plan may have another potential snag as DOnut returns to Chrovos, The Hammer in hand.

As the guys move forward, they end up at a locked door and are forced to go around. Before they can however they’re forced to hide due to Locus, Carolina, and a delirious Wash about to pass by. Before he hides though, Grif smells something that alarms him. Once Carolina gets a delirious Wash to continue on his way, the guys get ready to resume before Grif calls their attention to the scent. He recognizes it as a Sammie Raphaello’s pizza. Why is this important? Well remember that by this point the restaurant had been destroyed, pizza got wiped out existence, and the Blues and Reds only ever had fish. All of these factors cause Grif to realize that another time traveler is there and he decides to go after whoever it is while the others focus on the mission. Simmons is reluctant, but Grif says that they don’t have time to debate and runs off. Simmons can only watch him go (anyone else have Season 15 flashbacks?) as he and the others press on.

The Reds and Blues make it to what they assumed was an empty hangar, but lo and behold it’s covered in guards. They have only two choices, go ahead and fight them off or chance waiting for them to leave and end up running into their past selves. Fortunately they get a little help when Simmons form a few minutes into the future contacts them. In the meantime, Chrovos tries to have Donut give him The Hammer, and as he talks about the guys being mean to him again, it looks like that Donut is indeed about to do as told. Back at the base, Grif follows the pizza scent and finds the mystery time traveler: Genkins. Grif aims his gun at him, even fighting off being tempted by the pizza, but Genkins says that he’s not here to fight and simply brought the pizza over as an apology. it better be for killing Huggins (even if I still refuse to believe it) you sick fuck!

Back with the others, future Simmons gives the guys advice: to use what they learned and that they’re going to do great. Carolina is confused, but Simmons tells her to let them handle things from here. Back with Grif, he pieces together that Genkins was responsible for Kalirama attacking them at Sammie Raphaello’s and was the one who wiped pizza out of existence. Genkins confirms this, trying to again tempt Grif with the pizza but he simply says that he doesn’t care and presses him to explain why he set them up. Genkins answer? Simple, he’s bored. That’s right guys, Genkins is Chaotic Evil. The Reds and Blues meanwhile fight off the guards. Highlights include Sarge luring two into a portal and onto Iris where they’re faced with the Female Gus Cyclops, Tucker dropping horses on them via the portal gun, and Simmons telling Caboose that the guards stole his penny to anger him enough to clobber them with the golf club. I’m so proud of my boys! So proud! They press on, but not before Simmons contacts his past self to set everything into motion.

Back with Donut, he hesitates and asks about Chrovos why he saved him. He says that he simply took pity on someone in trouble, again asking for The Hammer. He also explains that once freed, he’ll gain power that’ll allow him to kill the Cosmic Powers but promises to still spare the Reds and Blues. Donut points out how his friends are jerks to him more often than not… but that they are still his friends and that Chrovos was both responsible for what happened to him and has only been using him He decides to instead use The Hammer to reinforce the prison, but he’s stopped by O’Malley. They struggle and with Donut continuing to refuse to listen to him anymore, Chrovos orders O’Malley to kill him. It leads to one HELL of a fight scene across time. Due to it being a fight, I won’t go into details but guys it is AMAZING. The animation and choreography are perfect. It goes from on top of airliners, to Blood Gulch, to the moon, to a wrestling rink, and finally to a city. O’Malley tries to act as Doc to make Donut back down, but Donut doesn’t buy it. So how does Donut defeat O’Malley? Well during the Blood Gulch portion, he threw a grenade at him and seemed to miss. In the city however, he opens a portal and the grenade flies out, landing before O’Malley and blasting him away. Donut takes The Hammer and teleports away to take care of Chrovos.

All throughout this, Genkins reveals to Grif his motives. He’s grown tired of their current universe, finding that it has gotten boring as of late. So wanting to spice things up, he agreed to help Chrovos when offered power and wishes to become an actual God to change up the universe as he sees fit. Oh God, is Genkins one of those RvB fans who keeps sayin that the show has gone stale and wants to change everything?! Grif says that by now, the others are already in position to save Wash… to which Genkins responses positively. It causes Grif to realize that Genkins isn’t there to stop them, but to ensure that they succeed. If Wash doesn’t get shot, neither he nor Locus will leave and they’ll be able to take down Temple before he turns the time machine on. If it isn’t turned on, then Donut never gets zapped by Chrovos and therefore none of the events that caused the time travel to begin with will commence. Therefore creating a paradox, one that will have enough power to shatter the already weakened timeline.

Grif runs to reach the others and at the same time, Donut makes it to Chrovos and lifts The Hammer to trap him once more. But unfortunately… it’s too little too late. Grif arrives just as Carolina shoots down the soldier that hit Wash, causing time to freeze. Everything soon fades to white, the Reds and Blues realizing far too late what they have done. They all too begin to fade away, Tucker trying to talk to Sister one final time as Sarge tells them all, especially Grif and Simmons, that it has been an honor. Soon, everyone is gone and the screen cuts to black.

As a new Trocadero track begins to play (I believe that David Levy said that the title was Rush in the livesteam chat, love it by the way!) we soon get a panning shot of some grassy-like area before we see our new location: Blood Gulch. From what I’ve seen more Halo-savvy people say, they are now using the Halo 2 Anniversary engine. So why are we in Blood Gulch? Hell if I know, but we see Sarge calling Grif and Simmons, Grif asking if it’s because they wont he war. Sound familiar? Like that being the same dialogue from Episode 2 of the very first season familiar?! Yeah… from how it looks, time has reset and has sent the Reds and Blues back to the very beginning of their journey, their memories wiped.

It’s not long before we see that things aren’t quite the same however. When we cut to the Blues, we see Tucker with a cobalt-clad soldier… but the second he talks, it is very clearly not Church. For one he’s in a good mood and sees rather optimistic, so definitely not Church. He even offers to let Tucker hold the sniper rifle, to which Tucker days that he doesn’t like them. Yeah, things are NOT right Anyways, Not-Church (there’s speculation if this is Jimmy, Temple, or even Genkins currently) mentions that they’re getting ‘new recruits’ (unassumingly Caboose and maybe Sister) and maybe even a tank. Back with the Reds, we see Grif and Simmons on top of the base as we did back in the beginning so long ago. Grif starts to ask the “do you ever wonder why we’re here?” line… but stops due to the sense of deja vu, asking Simmons about it. When Simmons starts to comment about it being one of life’s great mysteries, he too pauses at the feeling. But they simply go back to standing and doing nothing, the camera panning down and giving us one more glimpse of the Red Base before cutting to the credits.

My friends, Season 16 has oficially ended. Ad ther eis only one proper way to express how I feel about it...

Review

HOLY

SHIT

I was in shock when I watched this the first time. This was my fifth time watching it and I am STILL in shock. This finale was incredibly well done. I think that we all knew, or at least thought about, that Wash was probably going to be saved and that in doing so, a paradox would happen. But even knowing it, I wasn’t ready for it. There’s a lot of questions. What happened to the timeline? What happened to Donut? Why is everyone back at Blood Gulch? Does Freelancer still exist since Church isn’t there? Who is Not-Church? Will the guys regain their memories? Joe left SO MANY things open, and we’re going to have to wait a year to find out the answers. Boy is hiatus time going to be fun…

I’m going to have a section devoted to speculation for the next season, but before we do lets discuss the finale. We’re going to do the Reds and Blues first, then Donut’s scenes, then Grif confronting Genkins, and finally a bit about the ending. SO beginning with the Reds and Blues, it was SO GOOD to see them working as one unit. It really shows us how far they have come since the Blood Gulch days. Everyone has their focus on the task ahead, Carolina remains calm and properly leads the team, Simmons essentially assumes second-in-command (a HUGE step for him) and handles it like a champ, being the one to put the plan to fight the guards into motion and unassumingly coordinates everyone’s efforts. While succeeding ended up a bad thin,t he fact that they DID succeed so flawlessly really shows how effective they all have become and how in-sync they truly are. I wasn’t kidding when I said that I was proud of them despite what ended up happening. It still shows how much they’ve progressed, and for that I am very happy.

Donut though is very much the MVP of this episode. Despite having every reason to not give a shit about the others, and even he point sit out, ultimately he realizes on his own that he’s being used and that his friends are still his friends. Before this season, Donut was easily my least favorite Blood Gulch Crew member and my least favorite Red. The past few episodes made me feel bad for him for the first time, and this one turned EVERYTHING around. Joe did such a good job at giving Donut a personality beyond just being a walking fountain of innuendos. He is smart. He is more than capable of holding his own. He can be hurt and does recognize how the guys treat him, simply wanting them to be nice to him. These are all things that a LOT of people have wanted to see out of the character for years, and Joe seemed to have listened and decided to do so. I’m really glad that he did. Donut feels like a much more layered character, keeping the comedic elements but having those traits that the audience can relate to and ultimately made him sympathetic and his actions understandable without overdoing it or making him look bad.

And int he end, Donut decided to be the better person and to stand up to Chrovos. Which led to the oh so AMAZING fight scene. It was done SO WELL. Like the animators experience with doing the fights over in RWBY really shines here. The usage of the portals was very clever and all the settings were used to both Donut and O’Malley’s advantage. They all felt unique and both parties were evenly matched. But Donut won by using his experience with the gun and cleverness with the portals, resulting in by far his best grenade throw since originally grenaded Tex. O’Malley was certainly no slouch though, even trying to revert back to Doc to try and throw Donut off. It failed, but that was still a clever move. It is one of the best fights in the series in my opinion and was well done by everyone involved. You can tell that Matt and Dan gave it their all with the performances (Matt sounded like he was having a LOT of fun doing O’Malley for that long again), and they did an excellent job.

Onto Grif now. I have made it no secret that Grif is my favorite character and imo the best done character in this season. That continued to shine through here. First, him being obsessed with food and his desire for pizza actually proved useful when eh deducted just through he scent that something wasn’t right. Like he pieced everything together all by himself, and even moreso when he discovered Genkins. And while going alone wasn’t the best option,t he fact that he was willing to do so to give the others time to carry out the mission shows just how far he’s come. Especially when he only gets tempted by the pizza for like three seconds before forcing himself to focus and outright telling Genkins that he doesn’t care. Yes, the one thing that Grif wanted all season? He doesn't are about it anymore. He cares about helping his friends and getting the job done. Despite their falling out, Huggins influence on him really shined through and shows us just how capable that Grif is when he actually does try. He’s smart, brave, and unwilling to back down no matter tempts him or what gets in his way. I could not be more proud of him.

Genkins plan was definitely brilliant. He set forth the events like destroying Sammie’s by telling Kalirama where the guys were and wiping pizza out of history to provoke Grif and Doc to try and remake it, provoking the events that resurfaced O’Malley and everything following. As he said, time traveling and changing history will weaken time, leaving it more than vulnerable to being shattered by a paradox. It was all clearly planned to happen, just as Jax said back in Episode 9. And because of how eccentric he is, the Cosmic Powers didn’t suspect anything even when Genkins outright said that he was the traitor back in Episode 5. He is absolutely Chaotic Evil, and for all intents and purposes he won. He distracted Grif long enough for the others to carry out the plan (which makes it interesting that he called away Grif specifically to ensure that happened since if he didn’t show up at all, chances are it still would have happened) and now time is screwed. If Chrovos keeps his word, Genkins can shape the universe into who knows what.

So yeah… that ending. I just remember everything fading to white and being in total shock. Chat was losing their collective minds throughout all of it, that I DO remember, I didn’t know how to process it, and I still don’t. As nice as it is to see Blood Gulch again, there’s that feeling that it’s just… wrong. Especially when we see the Blues and realize that Church isn’t there and that Tucker isn’t acting right. And when we got to :Do you ever wonder hwy we’re here”… I was gone. Every time that I’ve watched that part, I have cried. It is the one time that I didn’t want to hear it and just further emphasized how wrong things feel. It was an evil move by Joe, and he NAILED IT. I’ve never felt so weirdly satisfied but broken inside. Not even RWBY Volume 3 did that, and that broke me for days. SO yeah… the emotional blows all very much connected and waiting for April is going to be HARD. IDK if even RWBY V6 is going to help make the wait anymore bearable. But I’m positive that the wait will be worth it.

RvB17 Speculations

With this being the finale, and one Hell of a finale, I have a LOT of thoughts about what might happen next. So as we saw, things have been reset back to Blood Gulch. Going off the ‘deja vu’ bit, the guys memories are likely being suppressed and I assume that they’ll be triggered more and more next season. I guess in a weird way, it’s like in Season 9 with the Epsilon Unit int hat the’re going to relive Blood Gulch, but the events won’t be quite the same. This time it’s not because of Epsilon going through memories to meet Tex again though, plus this time no one remembers anything. It also raises the question about how the characters will behave. Likely the Reds are back to their old personalities (Sarge is murderous over the Blues and Simmons is an insecure kissass) but what about Caboose? With Church gone, the events that made him how we know him now won’t happen. Will he be like he was in Season 1 again? What about characters like Sister, Carolina, and Wash? And Donut? He was still in Chrovos’ domain, so will his memory be intact? Or since the Reds don’t mention a rookie, will he be there at all?

There’s a lot of questions, and we have a lot of time to think them over. So here is where I stand so far. There’s been a LOT of talk about who Non-Church is… but currently I’m going to say it’s Genkins. If only because the inflections int he voice sound very much like Genkins voice actor, plus it would mean that for now Genkins needs to keep the Reds and Blues in check while Chrovos does whatever he’s going to do. As for how the guys will remember… it’s hard to say. Enough similar-looking events may happen that it triggers their memories, or maybe Genkins will restore them to spice things up. It’s also possible that if Donut is at Blood Gulch, having been at Chrovos domain he may still have his memory and has to try and get everyone else to remember. If not, if I had to guess who’s gong to remember first… it’s probably gonna be Grif. I think that Joe built it up enough that we can assume that Grif is our main protagonist, plus he’s the only one who knows the true details over what happened. There’s also still that time loop theory due to Grif’s deja vu in Episode 14.

Which brings me to my next theory. I don’t think that the timeline necessarily reset. I think that Chrovos got free and placed the Reds and Blues in an alternate timeline, suppressing their memories since they would be the only ones who could interfere with him. This also means that Wash isn’t there since we last saw him in Chorus, so he’s back in the regular timeline. I think that the timeline is currently frozen outside maybe the Cosmic Powers, who Chrovos is going to try to kill as the timeline slowly shatters apart. Of we go with my theory of Grif eventually regaining his memory, he’ll figure out that Not-Church is Genkins (or even have a confrontation happen when memory-less that make sit impossible for him to ignore the deja vu so Genkins, wanting to see his reaction, grants him back his memory), confront him, and Genkins will shoot him into a Black Hole the same way that he did Huggins, which will lead to them reuniting and reconciling to fix everything. I don’t knwo how they’d escape, but it would lead them back to the broken timeline and Grif has to go through it to prevent the paradox from happening. Which will lead Chrovos to sending his forces, which if the Shisno thing still stand may include the Reds and Blues, to stop him. Bonus if Donut escapes and goes to help, and if the Cosmic Powers are alive they’ll likely also get involved if they see that Huggins survived.

But this is very much a long-shot and going off what we’ve seen so far and how the paradoxes work. I had a theory that all the scenarios may happen, which it looks possible. Chrovos creating an alternate timeline confirms that theory and if time hasn’t been fully destroyed yet, it creates a buffer period with the explanation that the process is still on-going. If all of them go back, it doesn’t change too much of the theory, it just means more people. Likely the mroe I watch the finale and speculate, the more that this will change. But for now, that’s all I’ve got. Will I be proven right? Probably not, but we won’t know until at least April so.. we’ve got time! Unlike the Reds and Blues, haha… and I made myself sad.

Final Thoughts

The finale was insane in all of the good ways. It had a great fight sequence, great character moments, and one mindscrew of an ending that I don’t think that anyone will ever forget. If I had to guess, we’ll probably start next season kind of like in Season 9, with some similar event splaying out and as they do, the guys memories will potentially be triggered. All we can do is wait for April to come and find out. But all in all, it was a great finale and I loved every second of it.

With that, I want to take this time to say thank you to everyone who has read these reviews. This is only the second season of RvB that I watched regularly and the first one that I reviewed as it was coming out. I had a lot of fun doing it and I’m glad that people really liked my silly ramblings! There will be one final review for the season coming up, an overall review of everything I liked and disliked about it, that should hopefully be out this time next week. After that, that’ll be a wrap for RvB16. If any of you guys are RWBY fans, I’ll be reviewing Volume 6 in the same format when it starts this Fall and I may also be doing Gen;Lock if I like it. I’m also going to be doing reviews of the other RvB seasons during the hiatus, so I’ll have plenty of RvB-related material until next season rolls around. Again, thank you all for reading and I will be back again to do RvB17 next year. So I hope to see all of you then!

#rvb #rvb16 #rvb reviews #old blog repost

2 notes · View notes