A/N: For my special friend. NJ, this is how it goes. 13 seasons, 13 chapters. I'm filled with creativity and all chapters have been planned. Let's see if I can write them all before you manage to watch the entire series. The race is on. I put my money on myself. You have to earn this gift, NJ :P Better start watching now!

I do not own Red vs. Blue

This chapter is set between episode 15 and 16.

As Seasons Pass
Chicks in Black and Knights in Greasy Armor

"Hey, do you think Donut is alright?"

Grif pulled his face away from the sniper rifle to stare at his fellow Red soldier. They were both standing on the top of the base, carefully keeping an eye on the Blues in the distance, while Sarge was resting downstairs. He had let Simmons stitch up the wound on his face, all while bragging about his amount of scars, before insulting Grif one last time and marching into his private quarters.

Judging by the sound of snoring coming from below them, so loud that they could almost feel the ground shake from tremors, Grif believed his Sargeant was just sleeping off the stress from the day's events. Grif would probably have done the same, had he not been ordered to guard their home. Normally he would have taken pride in ignoring commands, but today was… 'special' could barely describe it.

"Donut's fine." Grif shrugged at his friend's worry. "If you want to be worried, worry about us."

"U-us?" Simmons stuttered. Grif watched how his grip on his rifle tightened. He should have known that the maroon soldier was just as tense as he felt himself, and now it seemed he had accidently almost triggered a panic attack. Simmons was staring straight at him and shrieked with a voice a pitch higher than normal: "Why should we be worried?!"

"First of all, if you go any louder, you'll wake up Sarge, and I prefer the peace and quiet over a grumpy, vengeful Sarge. Secondly, Donut is far away from here. On the other hand, Blue Base is right over here, and that means that black armored chick could come back. And that's a whole other way to ruin the peace and quiet. I really don't need another beating, not from her or Sarge!"

Simmons seemed to have relaxed slightly, now when he knew that Grif's warning was old news. "But that probably won't happen, right?"

The situation had taken its toll on Grif as well, but it was clearly obvious that he would not get his reassurance from Simmons. "I don't know," he said, and tried to keep his tone light. "I'm not really counting on you to protect my hide. Can't really see you standing up to the black bitch, or, even more shocking, Sarge. How's the back of your head by the way?"

"It's fine," Simmons answered briefly, but raised his hand to rub his helmet, as if he could soothe the skin beneath it. "It's Sarge who got shot."

"Yeah, and you got knocked out. At least this time you didn't faint. I don't know how much more your poor dignity can take."

Simmons looked like he was about to place his hands on his hips – the perfect position to scold someone – but was too reluctant to let go of this rifle. "I didn't faint!"

Grif tsk-ed loudly. "You can't lie to me, Simmons. I was there."

"You were unconscious, you asshole! You didn't see shit!"

"Excuse me!" Now it was Grif's turn to look offended. "I was heroically protecting your sorry ass from the chick! Must have been the first time you needed help to get the girls away from you!"

"Oh, shut up!" Simmons snorted, but Grif was glad to see that the maroon soldier had visibly relaxed. If he had continued being that tense, Grif feared he might have shot him by accident. "Last thing I heard was you screaming 'Don't kill me'!"

"Last thing you heard before you fainted," Grif corrected him with a smug smile beneath his helmet. "Otherwise you would have known that I also screamed I was too good-looking to die, which we all know is true." The orange soldier seemed to realize his last comment had not exactly strengthened his argument, and quickly added: "And then I fought her off until I finally succumbed to my wounds."

"Which wounds? You took a hit to the head and fell like the sack of garbage Sarge believes you are. The only way you could have scared her off was if you had started to snore."

"Hey, I'm still the hero in this story! Donut's head exploded, Sarge was shot, you got knocked out, and who saved you? That's right – I did!" Grif finished proudly with a thumb pointing at his own chest. It still amazed him, but somehow he was the one who had gotten his ass the least kicked. Of course he had not counted Lopez, but if a guy was as quiet as him, it would mean he did not want to be included in anything, not even the list of heroes.

"Some hero you are," Simmons spat slowly. "The knight is supposed to arrive in shining armor – not a greasy one like yours, fatass." He reached forward to point at a brown sticky spot on Grif's chest plague that had been a thorn in his eye for the last couple of days. "I bet you haven't even noticed that gravy stain."

If he had tried to offend his fellow soldier, he failed dearly. Instead, Grif recognized a challenge when he heard one, and with a sly smile, he slowly took off his helmet. "That's not gravy."

"Grif, you dumbass, keep your helmet on!" Simmons clutched his rifle tightly again. "What if the Blues' chick returns?"

"Then I ask her to wait while I put it on again! Geez, Simmons, it's not like you aren't keeping watch!"

"You can't just count on me to protect you, just because you are too lazy to – Grif? Oh no, you fucking don't!"

Grif had run a finger through the sticky stain, and while purposefully keeping his eyes on Simmons the entire time, he slowly licked it off his gauntlet. "Just what I thought! This is the remains of yesterday's breakfast. No need to let a good Oreo go to waste."

"You're fucking disgusting." Simmons sighed while carefully watching the Blue Base. Two of their comrades had almost died today, and Simmons would appreciate if that number did not rise. "Can you put your helmet back on now?"

"Nope," Grif replied flatly and pulled a pack of cigarettes out from who-knows-where.

Simmons stared at him through his visor while he lit up his smoke. "You're going to die early in this war," he told his friend distastefully, and then his eyes flickered back to the Blue Base.

"Sarge tells me that every day. Pretty sure it'll be him and not the Blues that will do me in."

Simmons waved away the smoke that Grif blew in his direction. "Or those cigarettes. Do you even know how high your chances of getting lung cancer are?"

Grif rolled his eyes as he inhaled again. "Do you know how high our chances of getting a bullet through our heads are?" he asked sarcastically as he kept smoking.

"A lot higher when you're not wearing a helmet," Simmons pointed out as he brushed away the ash that Grif had let fall to the ground.

"Suck it up, Simmons," Grif muttered, not exactly kindly. He placed a foot on the helmet he had thrown on the ground as if to keep it there. "I need a smoke today. 'sides, these are my lungs. Worry about your own."

"I am!" Simmons threw out his arms in frustration. "I am the victim of passive smoking!"

"Cry me a river." Grif paused with an emotionless expression before leaning forward and blew out the smoke on Simmons' visor.

The maroon soldier stomped a foot. "When your lungs give up, I'll be at your hospital bed saying 'I told you so'!"

Grif shrugged. "Write it on my tombstone. See if I fucking care." He took his cigarette between two fingers and waved it threateningly at Simmons. "Let me tell you something, Simmons. Our real chances are that we won't even live long enough for cancer to finish us off. So I say fuck it and I smoke. Got a problem with that?"

Simmons looked like he was about to argue, with his hands raised to create gestures, but then he seemed to slump forward. "Do you really think so?"

The anger was gone from his voice and Grif could not help but feel a little bit guilty. This argument had only led them back to where they had started. He exhaled before saying: "I don't know. I mean, this war with the Blues is fucking useless, but that black bitch kinda changed the rules, I guess. She's worse than their fucking tank."

They then sighed in unison, Simmons with a rifle in his hands and Grif with a lit cigarette.

"I wonder when Donut will be back," Simmons asked out loud.

"I wonder how he'll look. That spider got him real bad."

"It wasn't a spider, you dumbass. It was a grenade!"

"No shit, Simmons! I figured that out when it exploded!"

"He can't look worse than you," Simmons then snorted as an insult.

Grif ran a hand over the tan skin on his face and continued until it went through his messy black hair. He frowned. "There's nothing wrong with my face, jackass!"

"Sarge says every real soldier should wear battlescars on his face, otherwise he can't stand looking t them. Why else do you think he prefers we keep our helmets on indoors?"

"Fuck that! I'm not even a real soldier – I'm a fucking draftee! And like I'd ever let a Blue mess up my face. Even that black bitch knew to let this beauty live on."

"Yeah, like you'll keep being this lucky… HOLY FUCK! SHE'S BACK!"

With a squeak, Grif dropped his cigarette and scrambled towards his helmet. He tripped over himself, landing heavily on his palms and knees, but quickly reached out to pull the helmet over his head. Then everything went black and Grif wondered just how quickly the chick could knock someone out. But even though he could not see, he could hear, and in his ears was the suspicious sound of laughter.

A few feet next to him, Simmons was doubled over as he tried to keep it back. In his hurry, Grif had managed to put his helmet on backwards, and Simmons was enjoying the sight way too much.

"What the fuck are you laughing at?" Grif asked him when he had put his armor on correctly. Simmons lifted a hand as if he could wipe the tears away from his eyes. "She's not here, you dumbass."

"No shit. You haven't fainted yet." With his vision finally restored, Grif looked down to see Simmons planting his heavy boot on the top of the barely lit cigarette that Grif had dropped in his panic. To make sure all that was left was smudge, Simmons rubbed his heel on it.

Grif's helmet tilted upwards in what Simmons guessed was a dark stare. "Wrong move, Simmons. If I were you, I would sleep with my calculator under my pillow from now on."

"Threaten me all you want, Grif. We all know you're too lazy to follow through."

"You'd be surprised what I can do, Simmons," Grif told him as he stared at the black smudge that had once been his cigarette. He would have been madder, had it not been for the rest of the package that was safely hidden within his armor. But he could not reveal that to Simmons who seemed way too smug over this one victory.

"Well, apparently you can't watch your own fucking back. You need me to do that." Simmons waved his hand to gesture towards the Blue Base. "What would you have done if she had actually attacked us?"

"I would have proven my point right, Simmons," Grif told him in a tone that was not heavily irritated. It loosened the tension in the air. "A bullet will kill me faster than lung cancer."

"You don't have to be a doctor to know that, Grif." Simmons hesitated but then quickly added: "But I don't think we're going to die. I mean, we're all going to die. Eventually. You know. But not in the war. Not this one."

A day ago, Grif would have agreed without hesitation. But during the last 24 hours, he had seen half of Donut's face explode and then Sarge had dropped to the ground with a bullet-hole in his helmet. Grif still remember how has heart had pounded against his chest and his hands had shook from panic when he had reacted on instinct and begun CPR – all caused by this feeling of fear that he had not felt since the day he had been drafted.

Back then the letter had only meant death: he was going into a bloody war and he had no idea of how to survive – how to dodge or shoot or aim or anything – and he was going to fucking die. Then he had arrived in Blood Gulch in the war had been a lot less bloody and a lot more idiotic.

But today had been different, a lot more bloody and dangerous, and now his muscles were sore from being so tense. Glancing at the Blue Base, the usual curiosity had been replaced by a new strange form of wariness.

With both Donut and Sarge recovering from their wounds, Simmons' statement was a lot more comforting than Grif would like to admit. "What?" he asked jokingly with a smile Simmons could not see. "You think Sarge will lead the Red Army into victory?"

"Well," Simmons began, drawing out the word. "I don't think he is going to give up."

"Always the kissass." Grif's eyes trailed away from Simmons to the enemies' Base in the distance. The strange worry clawed at the bottom of his stomach. "But yeah, I guess we better watch each other's ass until the chick is gone."

"I won't have a problem watching your ass," Simmons said carelessly. Then he stiffened, as if he realized what he had just said. "It's not easy to miss, fatass," the maroon soldier quickly added as an explanation.

Grif tilted his head. "And I'll watch yours – FUCK, SHE'S HERE!"

Simmons shrieked and almost dropped his rifle when he spun around to face the enemy. He had his finger on the trigger, ready to shoot, when he realized that Grif had copied his trick and no one was there. With a scowl, he turned around to scold his friend–

-only to see that Grif had taken off his helmet again and a lit cigarette was stuck between his two lips that were turned upwards in a smug smile.

"GRIF!"

A/N: Suck it cigarette. I love these two idiots. This chapter was written in hand in my loyal notebook on the beach as I have been stuck on an island with no internet for the last week. Next chapter is also written, and should be up tomorrow.