Sarge and Church were standing side by side, both of them dreading this PSA.
Simmons had the camera ready, eyes scanning it carefully. "We don't get paid enough for this…" Church grumbled, a scowl inked onto his face.
Behind them were the pine trees that all of the sudden being engulfed by what looked like snow in a loud puff. The snow like substance floated slowly down and onto Church, hitting his visor. He whipped around with anger radiating off him as his blood boiled. His hands tightened on his sniper rifle and he began his rant. "I thought I fucking told! No feathers chopped up! I'll shoot you down if I have to! I'll do it right fucking now! Or maybe you'd prefer I cut down the entire goddamn tree! Tex has a chainsaw I can use! And what the hell did I say about throwing stuff at me!?" His rant continued in the background as Sarge looked at Simmons.
"Almost ready, Simmons?"
"Almost, Sir!" he exclaimed enthusiastically, messing with the variety of settings.
"Don't forget the cap," Sarge reminded, reaching for the len's cover. The sergeant pulled it off and set it on the ground next to the camera.
"Sorry I'm late," Grif spoke halfheartedly as he strolled up to Simmons's side, helmet removed and a smoke between his lips.
"Again," Simmons added as if it was part of his sentence.
"You fucking hate you, Caboose!" Church shouted louder. His only response was silence for a moment and then laughing. "Tucker, get down here before I get you down!" That's when Wash decided to drop down from the hidden branch, his helmet off and a smile on his face. "You did this?"
"The question is: why not?" The freelancer then abruptly chuckled and strolled away.
"Thought Tex would've-" Church started to mumbled, but before he could finish, she dropped down too. "Never mind…"
"You're such a loser," Tex mumbled with a smile on her face.
"No, I'm not a loser." She laughed with a roll of her eyes, and then pointed behind him.
"You're up to bat, Loser." He glowered at her as she strolled away with amusement plain on her face.
It angered him how much she enjoyed torturing him.
He turned around, his eyes searching the morons around him for Caboose. "Good luck, Best Friend!" His eyes snapped to the boy, then turned away just as quickly, a dread deep in him begging for this to stop now.
As everyone was distracted, Grif noticed the lens cover, which--to him-- looked like the lens itself. Afraid to get blamed, he picked it up and ever-so-casually placed it back on and stepped out of the way without notice.
"Can we get started now?" Simmons asked, sounding irritable.
"Go ahead," Church mumbled. "Won't make it any worse or better."
"Okay, action!" Simmons pressed the record button and stepped away, watching his comrade, rather than the received picture.
"Hello, I'm Leonard Church from the popular web series Red vs. Blue!" The excitement in his voice even now was noticeably false.
"And I'm Sarge! From the same web-show!" Sarge sounded like his old-self, of course unfazed.
"Today, we're tackling Christmas," Church sounded even more annoyed this time.
"Of course, some of you may not celebrate Christmas," Sarge continued, Church turning to him slightly to listen.
"Yeah, you might celebrate Hanukah or some other weird thing; like Tex."
"If so, we have a message," Sarge said, sounding sure of their next action.
"Suck balls. Yeah, that's right, start celebrating Christmas 'ya douche!" Church shouted like it was a great way to relieve anger.
"Or, you could celebrate something much cooler! Something that doesn't involve blue Santa!" Sarge shouted and everyone turned to him, speaking in sync.
"What?"
"Something more red! Because blue is the color of evil!" Everyone stared at him silently, and then scrambled to check their scripts. It was nowhere near correct.
"Um…suck it red! Blue is the color of serenity! Red is the color of anger!" It had been the best Church could throw together.
"But, blue is also the color of alien blood!" Sarge retorted.
"Red is the color of human blood, you fucking idiot." Sarge chuckled.
"Exactly! Which is why blue sucks!" Church frowned, but silently turned back to the camera.
"Any who, the most important thing to remember about the holiday season is to avoid family at all costs. Or, in some people's cases, in-laws."
"My only in-laws were barbaric wolves from South America!" Sarge shouted.
"WERE?" Church repeated, catching it easily.
"Well, of course! I had to kill her for food! Did I tell you I was raised by a monkey and wolf?" Church abruptly decided to return to subject.
"Um…anyway, we've put together some really good excuses as to why NOT to visit family on the holidays."
One: Avoiding Annoying Roommates
Donut was knocking excitedly on Grif's bedroom door, a huge grin plastered over his face like it was drawn there. It'd been ten minutes of just knocking, and it was really starting to annoy the lazy private. "Griiiiiiif!" Donut whined, only now getting a bit disappointed.
"Don't say a word…" Grif mumbled to himself. "It'll just encourage him…"
"Griiiiif! I made fruitcake and cookies!" He'd heard that a million times before. Lie. What to say, what to say… it suddenly hit him and a light bulb practically popped up atop his head.
"I have the swine flue!" That abruptly got a girl scream and Donut ran off to get Sarge.
"Sarge! Grif has H1N1!" The red sergeant got to his feet and got his shotgun off his desk.
"Donut! Execute plan 66!" Donut began running in a circle screaming like a school girl as Sarge cocked his shotgun. "Simmons! Plan 66!" Simmons went pale hearing the order.
"Are you sure it's that critical?" he asked with worry clouding his voice as he followed the red sergeant to Grif's door.
"We've got an outbreak!" Simmons got his weapon out and they busted down Grif's door. The orange private shuddered in response to the crash. "Simmons! You get the plastic wrap!" Grif gulped.
"Plastic wrap?"
Two: Avoiding Family Members
Church was heading to the blue team fridge, when he overheard Sister and Tucker in the heat of a heavy discussion. It wasn't like them to be talking instead of making out, so Church froze, hand on the door and leaned towards them to hear better. "That excuse will never work!" Tucker shouted in outrage.
"What about if I just tell my brother the truth?" she asked in her teenage light and casual voice.
"If you do, he'll kill me." Church decided to interject here. He strolled in, eyes on them.
"What happened?"
"Sister can't go to Hawaii to visit her parents this Christmas."
"I got that part, but why?" Tucker and her exchanged glances.
"I have an abortion scheduled." Church just flitted between them silently before backing away.
Silence was upon the soldiers for a minute or so as they processed what had just happened in both examples. "Those weren't even really examples! Those were just clips taken from our blogs!" Church shouted in outrage, his face feeling tight from anger.
"I'm gonna kill him!" Grif shouted, running passed the camera. Tucker took off sprinting as Grif chased after him.
"Hey Grif! A 1.5 on the rector scale!" Simmons bantered loudly to his comrade's back.
"Well, this went fantastic," Church grumbled, looking away with shame and frustration.
"Were you expecting anything less?" Sarge asked and Church sighed in defeat.
"No."
"Happy holidays reds! Hope you kill some blues on holiday vacation!" Church finally looked back up.
"Oh, fuck, we forgot the in-laws." He whispered.
"I'll take this one. Don't bother! If your in-laws are wolves-" Sarge started.
"Here, just do what I did back when me and Tex weren't' ripping each other's throats out and instead, we were visiting our families and ripping their throats out. Tell them you've got plans or something, like a romantic dinner planned, or have to do something together. Or, you could always lie---if you're a guy---and say you've gotta go and get her an engagement ring, it'll get them to stop bothering you about comin' over." Tex crossed her arms over her tee-shirt and went to his side.
"No, that's an awful excuse. You remember what happened the next time we visited my mom after that, don't you?" He pursed his lips and turned away.
"Yeah…um…just…tell them you've got the H1N1 then."
"Well, this concludes another Red vs. Blue PSA!" Sarge shouted.
"Aww! And I didn't even get to tell everyone the URL of my wishlist!" Donut exclaimed, his voice whining and waning.
"And I didn't get to tell Santa hello! And Rudolf!" Caboose exclaimed. "Do you think he's watching, Church?"
"Somehow, I doubt that."
Simmons then stopped the recording and began removing the tape.
"That was pretty good." Wash mumbled sarcastically, rolling his eyes with arms crossed over his chest.
"You're just jealous of my good looks," Church said proudly, moving towards the group as Tucker finally stopped behind him.
"Hardly, you're no Brad Pitt," Wash said with a crooked smile of amusement. Donut gasped and moved over.
"You love him too!?" Wash ignored him.
"You're right, "Church agreed with a smug smile. "I'm much better."
"You're such a moron," Tex snapped, hitting his arm hard enough he flinched.
"Am I dead?" Tucker asked breathlessly, checking his limbs for transparency.
"Not yet…" Tex glared, causing him to shiver in fear.
"I'll…bust…your…brain!' Grif shouted through breathing lungs, slumped forward as he practically crawled forward.
"Oh my god, you ran like ten feet!" Simmons raged, looking scornfully at his pathetic comrade.
"Ten feet!? Awesome! New record!" Sarge sighed.
"Your presence is only an outrage to the human race!"
"Can I add narration!?" Donut excitedly exclaimed, literally jumping forward.
"No, for the last time, Donut! NO ONE wants to buy you a makeover kit!" Simmons shouted angrily, swinging his fist at the lightish red (pink) private. He whined.
"But, Simmons!"
"No buts! Now, lets go check out this video before sending it in to Rooster Teeth Productions." The group then went to the blue base and put the tape in.
"It should be fine," Church said into the silence.
"It wouldn't have been, but I fixed it," Grif said smugly, pointing to himself as they gathered in the small living room.
"What are you talking about?" Before Grif could tell them about the lens, the theme music started, the intro playing. Everyone waited patiently for the black to fade away, but it didn't.
"Huh? I thought I put the lens back on," Grif said as everyone stared at the blank screen with worry.
"Put what back on? The lens was fine, dip shit," Simmons snapped, standing from his spot on the metal. When it hit Grif what he'd done, his face went pale.
"Oh fuck, Simmons, go check the camera." They all went out and Simmons looked, feeling so angry when he saw the lens cap on that he could explode---literally.
"He put the lens cap on," Simmons confirmed through his teeth.
"Oh fuckberries," Tucker said first.
"GRIF!" Sarge shouted with bloody murder. The fat man took off running at full speed and all but the freelancers followed. It was silent as their screams of rage faded away.
"Well, this was an eventful day," Wash mumbled.
"You…wanna go get some more feathers?" Tex asked.
"Oh, sure." So they walked off.
Happy Holidays from AgentTexas/Four_Winds!
And remember: always remove the lens cap before making a movie! And if you live with dumb asses, hide it. Seriously.
ã AgentTexas/Four_Winds
RvB: Christmas PSA
X-mas '09
