A/N: This is what happens when you spend 3 hours in a bus every day. You keep getting new ideas for stories. I swear, when I wondered whether to start writing fanfiction for RvB I struggled to come up with a story. Now I have two complete multi-chapter stories. With this one, I will have two active stories. I am currently also working on six one-shots that I have no idea when will be finished. Bus rides take a toll on you.

But this fic was literally born from these lines of my other Grimmons fic called "As Seasons Pass" (you are very welcome to check it out)

"You mean if I had gotten stuck with Sarge and you would have been left with Donut." Grif could not help but snort. Just imagining that scenario was horrifying. He could not decide who would have been the most tortured person in that version.

Well, Grif, we are about to answer that question…

…Being the writer, I put my money on Bitters (I am so sorry to do this to you, Bitters!)

You will see why below the title. Enjoy.

I do not own Red vs. Blue

Shake
Over. And Out.

[Shake: noun, a disturbing blow; shock.]

The silence was tense. Everyone was holding their breath, awaiting orders. They all knew that the next move was critical, and that failure was unacceptable.

When a radio flared to life, a deep voice broke the silence. "Red Team, this is Blue Team. We are in position, how copy? Over."

One tense second later, he received a reply. "Blue Team, this is Red Team. I copy, Blue in position. Over."

That was one relief but it mattered little in a battle field. There were still so many things that could go wrong. "Pink team, this is Blue Team. All units are in position and awaiting further instructions, what is your status? Over."

The silence was deafening.

The deep voice returned, just a pitch more desperate this time. "Pink Team 2-3, this is Blue Team 1-2. Radio check, over."

And finally, earning just a brief second of relief, his question was answered. "Uh yeah, we're here Blue Team."

"Pink Team, I repeat, what is your status? Over."

"Uhhh… We're pretty good?" The voice sounded unsure. Just a bit too unsure.

"What?"

"Actually, uh, we were wondering if we could maybe change our name to, uh…" The voice cut itself off with a sigh that was deep and long and so painful that you could almost feel his agony. "Light-ish Red Team."

"What different does it make?!"

Even with the deep voice barking at him, the pained voice remained defeated. "It's a little bit better, I guess?" He sighed again and added bitterly, "Have some pity on us."

"This is not a matter of debate during a combat exercise!" There was a brief pause before he added, "Besides, I highly doubt that name will improve your situation."

Then came one final sigh of utter defeat. "I hate you all."

Somewhere, behind walls of safety, a light-ish red armored soldier was kneeling on the ground – a position that meant he would have to clean his armor later in order to keep it stainless. But of course this mission required hard work and sacrifices. So much was only to be expected.

"Come on, Bitters, try harder! You can't force a man down on his knees and still expect him to take it!"

"Donut!" a voice sounding not too happy – it was actually on the verge of being just rude – called out from behind him, and the soldier had to put his very important call on hold. Simmons was glaring at him, waving his rifle as he shrieked, "Get off the radio. The teams are fine."

'Fine' was not the word to describe this. 'Barely tolerable' fit better. And, sadly, Donut had to explain just why to his teammates. "But we established a long time ago that my armor isn't pink!"

"You established that – we disagreed," Simmons snapped at him. He took a brief moment to straighten out his back and tighten his grip on his weapon, before he continued to bark, "Now shut up. You're gonna blow our cover."

Donut had learned to put up with his teammates obliviousness a long time ago. "Fine. We'll settle with Pink until the matter is discussed again." With no other choice, he lifted his hand to call Bitters, and with a small sigh, Donut gave the orders. "Tell Blue Team we'll ignore their colorblindness for now and then you can get in position."

"I hate my life," was Bitters' reply, and Donut made a mental note to give his team a spirit-lifting peptalk later. He had to make sure everyone on his team was still with him, even the rear of his team. Maybe especially the rear. It was often the rear you had to grab the hardest in order to pull them along.

Simmons watched with narrowed eyes how the pink – yes, pink, even Kimball had pointed that out by now – soldier finally got off the ground, unnecessarily took the time to brush off the armor plates that covered his knees, even though they were just about to head into a combat scenario where dirty knees were the least of their problems.

And they had a lot of problems. In order to keep track, Simmons had, naturally, made a list. He had put the Feds on the top of the list, since they were responsible for the two main issues: the civil war (which had not really been Simmons' problem to begin with but, well, misery loves company) and the fact that his team had been forcefully split up (which honestly was Simmons' biggest problem at the moment, but now it had all been mixed up with the civil war, and he could not admit to his troop that he gave zero shits about their struggles just because his own life sucked.)

Speaking of his troop, he also had to find a way to speak to them properly without choking on his own tongue. Communication was a vital part in any successful mission, and that being said, if they screwed up this training session, Kimball would be severely disappointed and that would mean… and that would mean…

To the sound of Caboose accidently shooting the ground (Tucker had been lucky enough to get away from these unsuccessful training exercises, leaving Simmons and Donut to keep an eye on Caboose, which really was not fair since, you know, Caboose was a Blue.), Simmons somehow managed to zone out.

He blinked a couple of times to clear his vision, realized that Donut was staring at him with a tilted helmet. The pink soldier gestured towards the security door. "You want me to penetrate the system?"

"Hack, Donut. It's called hacking the system," Simmons told him in a mutter. It was not safe to let Donut penetrate anything. Crouching down in front of the panel, Simmons held his breath as he began to work because he could not afford to fuck this up – he could not fucking afford to fuck this up, and if he did, it was his own fucking fault and Grif was-

Simmons shook himself out of his thoughts. "Okay, doors opening in approximately fifteen seconds."

Fifteen seconds was a lot of time, when you thought about it. A lot of things could go wrong.

What if it didn't work? What if it was a trap? What would Sarge say in a situation like this?

And, more importantly, what would Grif say?

Not that the lazy idiot would add anything close to calming to the situation. He would probably just insult Simmons or make fun of his worries or tell him to shut the fuck up. But Simmons would have preferred Grif's stupid comments. At least then Simmons would have been able to speak his thoughts out loud.

Who could he talk to now? Donut – no, that would become uncomfortable really fast. Caboose – Simmons would get more comfort from talking to a wall. Tucker was not even here, because somehow the Blue could suck up even better than Simmons (if sucking up also included getting good results in the training exercises.) which meant he could join Felix on super special important missions that probably sucked. Then Simmons had his squad, but he could not even give his girls orders, let alone address his mental struggles. Besides, he was a Captain now and Captains were supposed to be tough and not whining like Simmons was.

So Simmons had grown used to biting his tongue in order to keep his worries back. He was pretty sure his tongue now had a permanent dent.

The panel flashed and the password beeped in.

The fifteen seconds were over. Huh. Time flies fast when you're having a mental breakdown.

To the sound of Caboose shooting the hell out of the wall, Simmons zoned out again, closing his eyes and wondering how the hell they had ended up in this situation.

"I did not sign up for this shit!" Grif yelled but continued to shoot at the enemies nonetheless. Not like he had the choice to give up, though that did sound like a great option. Still, he preferred to keep bullets out of his body, so he kept firing his weapon.

"You've never signed up for anything in your life!" Simmons shouted back at him. The maroon soldier had just returned with Wash and Donut, after Tucker had successfully managed to recharge Freckles (still a fucking stupid name, but hey, at least it was no longer trying to kill them), which was pretty damn great. Grif would never be the first person to says that they could do this –

-That would be Wash who was shouting loud enough to be heard through the gunfire, "Alright, everyone together! We can do this!"

-but with the giant robot on their side, things were looking a little bit up. Like, instead of the pitch-dark blackness of their doom, it was instead the slightly more grey color of a shitty situation.

For a brief moment, like only a fucking second, Grif allowed himself to feel just a tiny bit relieved – and of course it would come back to bite his ass.

Things went to shit pretty quickly.

First Wash fell which was pretty fucking bad 'cause Grif had really been counting on the Freelancer to deal with the bad guys. That was what Freelancers did, right? Let the professionals do the hard work.

And then Sarge suddenly turned sentimental which Grif really should have understood was one of the warning signs for the end of the world.

"You bastards stay away from my men! If anybody's gonna kill 'em it's gonna be me!"

Donut barely had to time to sniffle, because of course Sarge's words were causing the pink soldier to tear up, before another shot rang out and then it was the Red leader's turn to fall.

"Sarge?" Grif could not help but ask, because no matter how shitty things had been he had always been able to count on Sarge to be there to make things worse for him.

Something exploded, the gunfire was louder than ever, and at some point Grif looked up to see that Freckles was burning. Suddenly men were swarming into the canyon, and at this point Grif had pretty much given up on understanding what the fuck was happening, and had instead settled with the conclusion that things were just fucked.

He did, however, realize what had to be done when Felix told them to run. Grif shouted for Caboose to get going because of course the blue idiot was not going to move by himself, and then he proceeded to grab Simmons' elbow and shove him forwards, even when the other man was screaming about helping Sarge. Out of the corner of his eye, Grif saw something pink, and then Donut was in front of them, taking the lead with Caboose and Simmons close behind him. Tucker was at the cave entrance too, several of the slow-as-fuck rebels running past him.

Not that Grif was quick or anything. But the rebels had not exactly showed up on time, and Grif was definitely going to remember that. Speaking of being quick, Grif was panting heavily as he thought about how badly running sucked and how he had definitely earned an extra snack cake after all this.

But the cave was right there, the others had almost reached it by now, so his lungs could soon stop burning and-

-there was an even worse burning feeling on a spot on his back, near his right shoulder, followed by a force equivalent to someone pushing him. Grif fell forward and even before he hit the ground, he knew he was not going to get up again.

He did not black out immediately. Bastards did not have the courtesy to take him out instantly, and so Grif lay on the ground, feeling like if his back was on fire. He did feel rather sleepy, though. This definitely earned him the right to nap.

But being awake for a few extra seconds also gave him the chance to become worried. He found himself unable to move his head, but he had landed in a position that let him stare directly at the mouth of the cave.

Pink and blue disappeared into it, soon followed by maroon. Grif let out a deep breath – and ignored the dark as fuck thought that told him it might be his last. At least Simmons had not realized what had happened. Simmons was the kind of person dumb enough to turn around and run straight into gunfire if he panicked.

So now Grif could close his eyes without worrying for the maroon idiot to get shot. That was… great. Yeah. Still, it would been strangely comforting for Simmons to be there when Grif died so he was not going to be alone when it happened. Could have been nice.

But there had to be worse ways to go.

Even with his blurry vision, Grif could see the rocks fall. This weird sort of finality filled his stomach – the kind that sucked, like opening the drawer only to find the pack of Oreos empty with nothing left but crumbs or back in his first days at Red Base when he figured out that Sarge's version of dessert was Grif's so-called sweet tears after being forced to run through the obstacles course five fucking times while being shot at. It was that ice-cold realization that the world sucked and there was nothing you could do about it.

Well shit, Grif thought as his eyelids slowly dropped down. That should have been his last thought before he slipped into unconsciousness, but he managed to scramble together one final complaint-

…ow.

It was by pure habit that Simmons looked over his shoulder. It was a long time ago since he established the fact that Grif was slow as fuck. That meant Simmons always had to turn around to make sure that Grif was still with him whenever they retreated from a (most often unsuccessful) attack on the Blue Base. Most of the times he would find Grif lying on the ground, and Simmons would be worried for just a second before forcing his teammate to get off his fat ass. This would be done with either insults or, in extreme matters, shooting the ground next to the idiot – Sarge had taught him well.

Not much had changed this time. Simmons looked over his shoulder, saw Grif lying flat on his belly, but instead of the annoyed sigh that Simmons would normally let out, he froze and shrieked so loudly that his voice managed to crack three times, "Grif!"

When Simmons came to an abrupt stop, Donut halted next to him. The pink soldier turned his head and saw what would forever be a mental image to haunt Simmons. "Oh no," Donut breathed out.

They both started to rush forward, and Simmons, in his panic, somehow noticed how Tucker had frozen near the entrance, calling out for Wash, but before they could run past the Blue or drag him along back into the crash site, everything just fell apart.

It began with the ceiling of the cave.

Simmons was about to leap forward – if he could just make it to the other side, he could avoid the rocks and he would have fucking made it – but Donut grabbed him by the elbow and pulled him backwards with enough force to send falling to the ground, landing roughly on his butt. How typical of Donut to make others' asses sore.

But Tucker was even worse off. Donut was too far away to grab him as well, so when the rocks started to fall the Blue took one to the head and was out faster than Simmons could have a panic attack. Donut was helping his maroon teammate back on his feet when they noticed how unresponsive the Blue had become.

"Better check if he's alive," Donut said, a bit calmer than expected. The time he had spent with Doc had probably rubbed off on him.

Simmons did not reply. He stared at the blocked entrance and only blinked when some random soldier asked him if he was alright. Simmons had momentarily forgotten that the rebels had come to save (some of) them, and he turned his head to see more rebels kneeling down next to Donut and Tucker.

"He's just unconscious," Donut informed them. "Head has a bump, but a bit of swelling has never killed anyone before."

"Good," Felix said, strolling in front of Simmons who stared at him twitching eyes. "I really don't need more bad news."

When Simmons finally found his words, they came stumbling out of his mouth to create a mess. "I- we- they-" After cutting himself off to many times, he finally just waved at the collapsed entrance. That really should say everything that needed to be said, but he added, "We have to do something!"

Letting out a small sigh, Felix turned his head away from Simmons and addressed the rebels who from the look of the scanner they were using on Tucker's head probably were medics. They were treating the Blue's wound. "Help carry him out of here. We leave now."

Simmons choked on something. Anger, disbelief, denial. "But they- we can't-"

Felix was already marching after the medics carrying Tucker. "I know the situation isn't ideal-"

"Ideal? We've lost half of the team-"

"And there's nothing we can do about it," Felix ended his sentence for him, rather harshly. A bit too harsh, actually. Something twisted inside Simmons' cyborg stomach, and he wasn't sure if it was caused by the unwavering words or the true realization of what had just happened. "Look, we have to head back to Kimball where you guys can get filled in on future plans and where I have to face a lot of consequences. No one is happy about what just happened, Simmons."

Felix kept walking and Simmons found himself stumbling after him in order to reply. He was not sure of how exactly to response – his mind was still so freaked out that he could literally hear static in the back of his brain – and in the end he settled with the question, "Who's Kimball?"

There was something strange about the way Felix finally stopped to looked at Simmons, head slightly tilted as if was aware of something Simmons was still clueless about. "Kimball is your best solution to this mess," Felix replied, his answer obscure enough to fit a mercenary.

Simmons set his jaw as Felix walked away from him. He blinked furiously in order to clear his vision (cyborg eye acting up again, probably) and flinched when a heavy hand was suddenly placed on his shoulder. Donut was looking at him, the blank visor somehow managing to seem concerned. "I'm pretty sure I saw Grif breathing."

Donut might have tried to comfort him, but the words only managed to screw Simmons' brain over to the point where the noises around him start to fade, leaving only a hollow ringing. Seeing Grif's still form on the ground had caused him to panic because it meant that Grif did not make it to the cave, that he was trapped on the other side.

"You know how Grif is always heaving for breath when he's been running – I told him the cigarettes can harm your performance – but, well, it's impossible to miss his panting even from this distance."

Simmons was still deaf to Donut's reassurances. It occurred to him that he might not have to worry about getting Grif back, because Donut could be wrong and the fatass might already be dead.

That thought was so cold and final that Simmons could feel a short circuit travelling up his spine. "I, uh… I think I might be glitching," he managed to stutter before his knees gave out.

Donut already had an arm around his shoulder, keeping him upwards as they slowly made their way forward, with the rebels encouraging them since they had to leave – they had to leave now – they would be safe at the HQ – there was nothing more they could do here.

"That's okay," Donut said, trying to sound positive and normal like their world had not been turned upside down. "That happens to everyone."

Not really. But Simmons stayed silent and grabbed Donut's arm tighter as they limped away. He was suddenly too tired to look over his shoulder to see the rocks that left them with no choice but to move forward.

When the training session was over (a completely failure, of course, but who would have expected otherwise?) and Kimball had left them with the orders to encourage their team, Simmons had no idea of what to say.

Not that it mattered much. Even when speaking to Jensen, his mind would still screw over his mouth, leaving him with muddled words instead of orders – or even something that was just close to an actual sentence. It was better just to shut up.

Caboose was rambling about how you could actually give away your flag and it would still return to you – if you just hired a Freelancer, a mean one, just to be specific. Smith somehow translated this into metaphor of how you sometimes must sometimes sacrifice what was dearest to you and then put your trust on strangers that would hopefully save the day. Much like how the rebels were counting on them to save them all. Horrifying thought, actually.

When Donut took the word, he talked about it was important to grab each other and then pull… the person along, in order to make sure that all the teammates were in the same boat and understood each other.

As Donut faced the Lieutenants, Simmons was still trying to figure out what to tell the young soldiers. Maybe everything had been said once Donut's was gone and then Simmons did not even have to open his mouth.

At some points during Donut's speech, Simmons realized he was no longer staring at Jensen, preparing himself from the intense stare she always had when he was addressing her. Instead, Simmons found himself glaring at Bitters.

The Lieutenant, who had been forced to paint his armor partly pink when he had been given to Donut, was standing in front of the Captains, but his slouched form revealed that he had stopped paying attention a long time ago. Donut did not seem to mind. Perhaps he could not see it. Perhaps Simmons was just so familiar with the stance that only he realized that Bitters was thinking about everything else than his Captain's words.

It was not because Simmons did not understand why the Lieutenant was always gloomy. Being forced to wear pink would do that to a person (unless that person was Donut). It was understandable why Bitters had desperately tried to find a way to change color or even team, as an even better solution.

Maybe Simmons could have taken pity on the young Lieutenant who had been shoved into a pink-striped armor. After his years in the women's league, Simmons should have been the first one to show empathy.

And Simmons knew Donut and his… choice of speech. He should understand why being Donut's Lieutenant, especially when that position had been forced upon him, was not exactly easy. He should have, well, comforted the soldier. Or, more likely, just given him a pitiful nod with his head or lie to him and tell him that things were going to get better. Which they weren't. 'cause things sucked.

Perhaps he should ask Kimball if Donut's squad could wear some different colors. A darker shade or something. Not that it would help much, but at least he would have tried.

Or he should just tell Bitters that yes, it did indeed suck to be him. He should acknowledge the Lieutenant's struggles to let him know that not everyone ridiculed him.

The keyword in all of this was should.

Donut's speech ended, Simmons quietly muttered that he had nothing more to add, and the Lieutenants were dismissed.

After shifting his feet, Simmons turned his head to stare at Bitters who was not helping clean up the mess the training session had created. While the other soldiers were dutifully picking up dropped weapons and trying to put out the fire that was currently eating the engine of a crashed warthog, the Pink Lieutenant shuffled away to settle down on some nearby crates.

Simmons gripped his weapon tighter and watched.

He watched the way Bitters leaned back to find a comfortable position, the way he crossed his arms in defiance, and when Smith came over to tell him to get going, Simmons could not overhear Bitters shrugging him off with a "Whatever."

Simmons watched the too familiar relaxed posture until there was a twinge in his stomach and his throat started to close up.

He tore his eyes away from the Lieutenant in the pink stripes and decided that Bitters was a lazy excuse for a soldier who most definitely did not deserve his pity.

Besides, pity sucked.

But if someone deserved pity, it was probably Bitters. It was certainly not Simmons.

So if someone could tell Donut to stop looking at him like he was about to have a meltdown at every second, Simmons would appreciate it.

A/N: It took me forever to decide who should be staying with the Rebels. But I knew Grif would be stuck with Sarge and Simmons with Donut, and then I imagined Sarge as a Captain – he would be yelling crazy plans to his men. So not much would have changed. Then I imagined Donut as a Captain… and my world was blown away. It gave me a creativity boost and I have written too many Captain Donut scenes already. It was pretty much the idea of him and then poor Bitters in pink stripes that moved this story from my 'Crazy-stuff-that-may-or-may-not-be-written-folder' (and that one is huge) to 'stuff-I-have-to-work-on-the-moment-I-have-the-time-folder'.

JUST TO MAKE THINGS CLEAR: this will NOT be just a rewritten version of season 12. Yes, you will recognize some scenes (especially this chapter has a lot of familiar scenes, but that was because the opening scene fit so well that it was pure gold) here and there, but this story will mostly be all the things we didn't see (especially what happened at the Feds' compound) and of course entirely new moments now when the duo has been split up.

I shoot Grif way too much. I think it's my inner Sarge controlling me. I'll find a way to balance myself later.

*cracks knuckles as I stretch my hands* Back in Grimmons corner! To be honest, I've missed it a bit. I'm glad to be back. This story will be a bit more fluffy and perhaps a bit more angsty than my other stories, but I hope you will still enjoy it.

Thank you for reading my work.