powerfulpomegranate prompted: ANGST So it's decades, DECADES after the events of the show. Everyone got their retirement and severance benefits and live out the the rest of their lives happy and content, and they die off one by one of old age or whatever. Except Caboose. Just like his freakish strength, he is in freakishly good health, and now lives alone, old and forgotten, with only his numerous robots to keep him company. PROMPT: he goes and visits his best friends at the cemetery and wishes they would talk back to him.
WOW. Rude much. But yes I will always gladly provide piles upon pils of angst for my Blue Son oh my gosh yesss Angsty Caboose is honestly a quick way to my heart, ngl. I don't necesarily like the "Break the Cutie" trope but for some reason. Oh man. Angsty Caboose does it for me.
Red vs Blue and related properties © Rooster Teeth
story © RenaRoo
Babbles
The truth is, his life is fairly simple.
At ninety-three, he deserves a bit of simple.
Ninety-three for Caboose is about twenty years past relevance for him. Though this doesn't particularly bother him, there's a questioning sense in the back of his mind about how the ladies at the mall have stopped recognizing him. Or how the food line workers have long since stopped giving him an extra roll for "all he and his friends have done."
This doesn't bother Caboose. Not really. Not like maybe it would if he had cared much for those advantages when they were around.
What bothers Caboose is…
He wakes up early. He goes to sleep early. He's always early for everything except the things he's late for.
And Caboose figures he's about five years late to meeting his friends. And that's very, very hard.
So when he wakes up and he is told by the nice lady that is also an alarm clock that it's time for the blue pill in the second bottle, he asks her if he's late.
The nice lady – her name is Lois – says no. And she asks him if he's ready for the news. But Caboose never wants the news and he's always late because he's not had any of his friends around in five years. So Lois is lying.
That's okay though. Lying is just what Lois doest these days.
"Your blood pressure is very good today, Mister Caboose," Lois tells him. "Your heart is very strong."
"I don't think so," Caboose says back as a bot flies by and takes the oatmeal off the stove for him.
"You're so difficult sometimes, Mister Caboose," she says. "It is time for the white pill in the first bottle, Mister Caboose."
And Caboose says okay because his pills are about the only thing Lois doesn't lie about.
Caboose has always had big families.
When he grew up with seventeen other Cabooses, he could always find his place because he was the only boy. When he was in Blue Base in the canyon, he could always find his place because he was the rookie who lost the flag. And when they adventured in Chorus, Caboose could always find his place in his family because of all the Reds and Blues he was the Bluest Blue and also a leader (sometimes, and sometimes longer than othertimes).
It's very different to always have big families and then have no family at all.
It's a lot more quiet.
So Caboose looks for places that have noise, because it's harder to feel alone when there are other voices. Voices that aren't his or Lois'.
The park, Caboose learned a long time ago, is a fantastic place for noise.
The best thing about the park is that there's always people who sound like they're from so many different places. There's voices that sound like different states and countries, different planets and colonies. Caboose becomes veryaware of these places in people's voice.
But they're from different places another way, too – young, and adult, and teenager, and adult.
Caboose sits on a bench in the middle of it all and he can imagine the voices saying things that would make everything about his day better.
He listens for Bow-chicka-bum-bum and Double-Oh-Donut and It's a good day to die! and Ever. Of all time.
Sometimes he'll hear them so close to the real words that he looks for old faces. But he never sees them.
At most he'll see people look his way, worried and whispering. Like every time he closes his eyes there is a cause for concern of the passerbys.
"Mister Caboose," Lois hums over the particularly loud laughs of some teenagers who keep stealing glances at Caboose's bench.
Caboose watches them and wonders if they'll come over and talk. He misses talking a lot.
Once in a while – not very often – someone will sit beside him and talk. Just see how his day is, make sure he's okay. Usually when he's having a very sad day. Not often enough.
But the ones who laugh rarely come talk, just whisper things about old man andwhat a weird helmet because history classes don't cover Sim Troopers so how would they ever know.
"Mister Caboose," Lois hums softly, "your show will be on by the time we get home if we leave right now."
"Okay," Caboose says. "One more stop."
"Of course," Lois whispers softly, her tiny floating orb already heading in the right direction. "I will set the program for record."
Caboose waits for the teenagers to leave and sighs before getting to his feet and following Lois.
It's always his last stop.
Arlington has several locations on several colonies. After the Great War, there were too many places it "should" have been. So they put some everywhere.
There's no benches at his place but he supposes, well, Wash wouldn't mind if his stone was a seat for his old friend Caboose.
"My heart's hurt," Caboose informs them all.
Lois bobs unhelpfully. "That's not true, Sir. It's still very healthy."
"It is the worst," Caboose continues, ignoring her as easily as he always does.
He glances toward Tucker's name and huffs. The man had been very dutiful with his Church-assigned task in life, so Caboose informs him in death, "I took all my pills today."
"You might miss the next one if we don't leave in exactly twenty-two minutes," Lois chides.
He then glances to Grif and Simmons, reserved beside each other. "There's a new Star Trek movie out. Simmons would like it. Grif would hate it."
"Such value judgements are difficult to assign at this point, Mister Caboose."
Caboose looks at Lois and shakes his head. "They don't talk back, Lois."
"I know," she says, matter-of-factly. There is no emotion from Lois – she's not a Sheila or a Lopez or a Church.
"I miss talking the most," Caboose decides, looking back to his friends. He sniffs into the back of his hand. "Talking the most for sure. Because when you're old you get a Lois and she doesn't talk, not really, and everyone else doesn't talk to you either." He sniffs some more before shaking his head. "I miss talking. Because even if we weren't always nice to each other, my friends always listened. Even when our talking was about stupid things."
He turns and looks at Lois. "We were like Star Wars. Tucker had a glowing sword. And there were rebels and a snow base – but they didn't go together like they should. But now Star Wars is someone else's story and I'm just an old guy." He pauses. "That happened a lot in Star Wars, too, I guess." He looks back and rubs at his eyes. "Star Wars always had their adventures and then they'd get old while kids played around in the next Star Wars."
Lois tilts but there's no emotion in it, no understanding. "We should leave now, Mister Caboose."
After a stretch of silence, Caboose gets up and follows Lois home again.