Unrequited Denial
By Ptath
Beta-ed by Thalia
Disclaimer:"Red vs. Blue" is the creation of Rooster Teeth Productions. "Halo" was originally created by Bungie and is now owned by 343 Industries. All characters and images are trademarks of their respective owners. This is a fan-work and not intended for commercial gain.
AuthorNote: Well, to any of our old fans who are reading this, yes! We live! Though our digital presence has been lacking for quite some time now, our interest and drive to complete with our stories has not waned. We are still planning to complete our incomplete stories, no matter how long it takes.
Thank you for your patience.
StoryNote: Following the end of "Red vs. Blue: Season 9", the general discussion in the "Grif Thread" on the Rooster Teeth community forums picked up once again. During the conversation, the possibility of a Grif/Carolina relationship emerged and, despite being an unrequited Grif/Simmons shipper, I found the discussion quite intriguing.
Therefore, during short breaks at work, I knocked out my interpretation of the discussion. A shout-out to all the participants, including Ronxz, Hashibaarrow, HOORAH93, Vlad976, megafire and BenRG.
Grif found Carolina fascinating. Oh, sure, she was a Freelancer and could kick his ass six ways from Sunday without breaking a sweat, but she'd also gotten more than her fair share of the insanity that Project Freelancer seemed to specialize in.
Carolina had clawed her way back to something resembling sanity after having an all-out battle royale fought in her head for God knows how long. She'd been beaten to a bloody pulp before up and disappearing in what the other Freelancers thought was a terrible, awful death.
She'd been lied to, used, abused and flat out spat on by the entire freakin' universe.
Which sounded familiar.
The Grif family story went along these lines: things are kinda bad and rocky, it starts to get better then everything gets 1,000 times worse.
The list was extensive:
He and Kai had been abandoned by their parents.
He raised his sometimes brainless and idiotic sister while still a kid himself…which, honestly, wasn't a huge shift from how life had been before Mom finally left.
He'd juggled high school and every job he could beg, bribe or lie his way into. He'd scrape together just enough money so that they could shop at the cheapie food market and Goodwill, managed the occasional treat for special occasions such as Christmas and Kai's birthday, kept a roof over their heads and Child Protective Services off their backs.
Just as he finished high school and thought he'd be able to finally make enough for him and Kai to have a decent life, he was shoe-horned into the Army to fight a war he really didn't have time to care about, suffered through a series of short assignment with hateful commanders and teammates before ending up in an isolated backwater canyon. There was no one but a sycophantic nerd and a homicidal, insane commanding officer to talk to save for the few guys on the other side of the canyon who tried to kill him on a regular basis.
He suffered through the ravages of out-of-control AIs and Freelancers gone rogue, got bounced from one planet to another, was shot at, blown up, run over and still didn't manage to meet anyone new who WASN'T trying to kill or hurt him.
It had gone on for years. And then it turned out to be a joke. He wasn't fighting a real war; he'd been asked to die for some freak's pet science project.
The same project that had screwed her over and jacked her up.
So yeah, he got her. Probably more than anyone else in their group.
You were never good enough. You could never make things actually work the way they should. Just when things start to look up, someone else comes along and kicks your legs out from under you. After trying over and over and over again, things just got worse and after a while, that seems normal.
It seems normal that your life should be hell. It seems normal to grapple with your own sanity every day, wondering, waiting for that final straw that will cause everything to fracture—will cause you to fracture.
It had happened to Carolina. It damn well could have already happened to Grif.
He didn't care anymore. He felt…detached from the others, from everything going on around them.
Had he finally broken or was his ability to feel just used up?
He watched her, carefully, discretely, hidden behind his helmet where no one could tell where his eyes strayed. He deflected Sarge, ragged on Donut and poked at Simmons. Caboose was ignored; as long as he wasn't armed, he wasn't dangerous. Carolina thought she was dealing with the Reds and Blues of Blood Gulch head on, struggling to work with crappy soldiers with a variety of complexes and personal demons. And so far, she hadn't realized how much he was working them on her behalf, bearing the brunt of their own incompetence so that the burden on her was just a little lighter.
It wasn't like he really cared that much about her that much; it was just unusually cruel for anyone to interact with the soldiers from Blood Gulch for any period of time.
When she had first appeared, demanding their aid in her quest for revenge, he never thought he'd end up this interested in her. And yet…there was a vulnerability about her, a rawness that spoke to him.
But that was crazy right; it was probably just left-over sentiment from taking care of Kai for so long. Carolina wasn't his problem or his responsibility, so whatever happened to her after this didn't concern him. Besides, she's a Freelancer who is more than capable of taking care of herself. What business is it of his what she does after the Director is dead and they part ways? He shouldn't care what happened to her after that. He shouldn't. He didn't.
And if he kept telling himself that, maybe he'd actually start to believe it.
Finis.