A/N: This is a crosspost from Ao3. I was a bit unsure of how to upload it over here; it's a bit explicit, and it's Suckington (Kai/Tucker/Wash, for the uninitiated) which can't exactly be tagged for on . But I figured I'd give it a go. It's also a sequel to "It's a Comedy of Sorts", which is difficult to do on .

"Wait, this is a sequel?" Well, sort of. It takes place during the events of "It's a Comedy of Sorts," but hopefully I've managed to make it independent enough that you won't have to read the first entry. All you really need to know is this: York and Tex are both alive and are best friends. When I was writing the first entry Wash, Kai and Tucker seemed to be interested in having their own storyline, so here it is. Warning to people who hope to stick around: the chapters after this are probably going to be pretty smutty. I make no apologies.

Wash met Kai first, although he didn't get a name. He didn't bother. If he'd consulted his files, he'd have figured out that her name was "Private Kaikaina Grif," and probably just called her Grif, dooming himself for months of confusion with Dexter Grif.

Instead, Wash met her, dismissed her out of hand as a Simulation Trooper who was only slightly stranger than normal, and then went to meet Sarge, who then proceeded to skew the grading curve of "normal" for just about the rest of his life.

It was a long time between meeting Kai and meeting Tucker. Wash didn't count the days, although he suspected it would be less time than he thought. But the events that happened were pretty damn significant.

When Wash met Tucker, he was exhausted and exasperated and frustrated. He'd been in prison not that long ago, Donut was chattering his ear off, and Tex and York were… Wash didn't even know what they were doing, he just knew that their banter was giving him a headache.

The sight of someone wearing Connie's old armor twisted uncomfortably in his stomach. He took a grim satisfaction that his shot was likely to be deadly, especially since it was hard to believe that Tex was going to leave anyone alive to give him medical assistance.

She'd taken it personally. Wash couldn't help but approve of that.

Wash had learned the hard way not to make it personal for Tex—the bruises he'd gotten from trying to talk Church into the suicide run had taken weeks to heal. The guards had mocked him for it.

Wash hadn't said anything then, and now he kept his mouth tightly shut, ignoring the slew of double entendres and innuendos coming from the pink soldier. Instead, he focused on the familiar, comforting feeling of a gun in his hand and trying to navigate the desert without being spotted by the enemy.

There was something unnerving about the temple; alien locations often gave Wash a strange feeling, but this one was more noticeable than usual.

"How do we get in?" Wash asked Donut, uncertain of what to make of the man. This was someone who Tex and York both opted to entrust with their grenades, but his… everything made him impossible to take seriously.

"Nice and easy," Donut said cheerfully, and then he proceeded to knock on the door, much to Wash's exasperation.

"Tucker! I found a guy for you!"

The door swung open way too quickly. "One guy? Seriously?"

The man was wearing teal armor, and stood a few inches shorter than Wash. But Wash's attention was drawn far more to the sight of the plasma sword he held in his hand.

Wash forced himself to focus. "I'm Washington," he said, leaving off the title of Agent, which wasn't really true anymore. "We're here to help."

"He came at the same time as Tex and York!" Donut added.

Tucker perked up visibly. Wash tried not to be offended, but he had to admit that Tex made a very good cavalry. York, Wash was less sure about, but he guessed the Sim Troopers had been dealing with him for a while. Although admittedly, Wash was still pretty vague about the timeline for York's time in Blood Gulch. Maybe he could get clearer answers from people now that he didn't have to deal with Caboose's… Cabooseness and Church's hatred of York. "Tex and York are here? Did they bring the others?"

"Just us," Wash said. Outside, an explosion rocked the temple. He guessed Tex and York were getting to work. Somehow, he wasn't surprised they'd managed to find a way to incorporate explosions into it.

Tucker examine Wash again as he closed the door behind them. "Well. Guess we'll make do."

Wash felt an old flicker of irritation.

Despite all of Tex's complaints that York was the only Freelancer she tolerated, Tucker was pretty sure that the Freelancers were prone to following her around like ducklings.

Although Wash was pretty hot for a duckling, Tucker supposed. He'd noticed that from day one, but the Freelancer's appearance only improved as the guy started to get closer to a human number of hours of sleep a night. His hair was still all streaky and grey, but it was a pretty good look for him, all things considered.

Getting assigned to the same room as Wash was pretty cool, Tucker figured. He was hot, and now that Donut had officially declared their desert fling ended, Tucker was eager to refine his techniques.

Unfortunately, Wash seemed immune to most of the basics.

He'd started before they'd even got back to Blood Gulch, but he accidentally made Wash shut down when he started asking about Freelancer things.

Tucker made a note that Freelancer was a no-zone, and then kept going, because hey, one mistake wasn't worth giving up.

He'd then gone through all of his best pick-up lines. ("Hey Wash, you've got 206 bones in your body. Do you want one more?") Wash had completely brushed him off, not even getting flustered or offended. Which was a shame, really. Wash was pretty cute when he got blushy.

Tucker tried flat out propositioning him too, but Wash told him to go away and stop bothering him.

Tucker kind of gave up for a little while after that, figuring that Wash wasn't that hot to be worth the effort, not when he still had hopes for working his way into a threesome with Tex and Church.

But then things slowly started to change.

Wash, Tucker was delighted to discover, was a massive dork. He used to ride a skateboard, his voice got really high when he was stressed or just shocked, and he tried really hard how much he was into the whole Red vs Blue thing, but they'd totally converted him.

Tucker still kind of wanted to hit that, but he figured that he could make do with Agent Washington as a friend. It wasn't like it was a new sensation for him either.

One day, after a long game of Capture the Flag, which ended with Wash pushing York off the roof of Red Base and Donut covering them all in bright pink paint, Tucker watched Wash.

Wash was dripping with the paint, lying down flat on his back, facing the sky, and smiling, looking absolutely relaxed for the first time that Tucker had ever seen.

Tucker was startled by the realization that he really wanted to make sure that Wash could make that face more often.

Not all the time, obviously, because Wash's stressed face was also a lot of fun, but that was the fun kind of stress, not… that quiet, sad look that Tucker saw way too often. Tucker liked the fun one, not that one.

The changes were slow and gradual, with Wash managing to find a place for himself in their little valley, until Kai arrived.

Things tended to change a lot faster when Kai got involved.

Sometimes Kai wished she'd taken the old guy up on his offer to go with him to find Dex and his boyfriend. She'd decided to wait for them all to get back instead of going off without any idea of where they were supposed to go, but it was taking them forever.

They'd promised they'd come back.

(She didn't think about how Mom had once promised to come back too. That didn't count. Dex had said so.)

Kai had figured someone had to stay back, in case York or Tucker's kid came looking for everyone and needed directions. Tex had been sure that York would come back, and Tex was awesome and badass and hot, and clearly she knew York better than any of them, so she would know if he'd come back.

But as the days dragged on into months, Kai started wondering if maybe Dex had been right after all and the York guy was dead. (She refused to think of Junior as possibly being dead. Tucker would be way too upset about that. She also refused to think about why Tucker being upset about something was such an awful idea to her.)

Kai kept throwing her raves, but no one came anymore, now that Lopez was gone. She dyed her hair, then dyed it back, because it wasn't like anyone was around to tell her if she'd done it the wrong color anyways.

She explored all those weird underground tunnels that the others had told her about, and buried the bodies she found down there. She was pretty sure one of them was Church, so she looked up how to do a Jewish burial service and did the best she could, even though it had been a while since he'd died. It was only fair, even though Church himself was off possessing robots. The other one was Tex, and well, Kai wasn't sure what Tex would've wanted, so she decided to make a pyre. It looked like the scene from that really old movie where the wizard kid burned his not-evil-anymore-Dad's body. The armor was even the right color.

She felt like Tex would've liked that.

Kai then read all of Sarge's weapon magazines (kinda cool; she wanted to try out that grav-hammer thing), all of Tucker's dirty magazines (she'd read better), and Donut's Cosmo collection (the sex tips were all so boring, honestly).

Just when she was starting to consider if she should actually try to see if the computer had records of her and Tucker's encounters and maybe taking notes on their performances for when they met up again, she finally got the call that they'd found York, found each other, picked up two new guys, and were settling in a place called Valhalla.

Dex was the one to make the call, but Tex was the one to send her the picture of Valhalla. Tucker sent her a picture of the room they'd be sharing, because apparently Tex and Church had the officer's quarters, and Caboose and someone named Epsilon were in the other bunk.

Kai could work with this, she decided.

She packed her things, as well as all the things that the others had forgotten or left behind, watched the videos of her and Tucker having sex anyways, because she wanted to be sure she knew what they should improve upon, and made the phone calls to arrange for the rest of her stuff to be dropped off.

Then she got on the pelican and headed off to see what kind of trouble they'd managed to get into while she was gone.

Wash did his absolute best to try to not trip over his own two feet the second Tucker took off his helmet.

Wash mentally started yelling at himself, because he wasn't eighteen years old anymore. He was too old, too mature, and too… too professional to be frozen in place by a pretty face.

Wash managed to make it through that meeting without embarrassing himself too much.

Unfortunately, Kai Grif's appearance at Valhalla was even more difficult to ignore.

Wash hadn't seen her face at Blood Gulch. They'd both been in armor. But unfortunately, she decided that it was perfectly fine to disembark from a pelican wearing a tank top and short-shorts, her hair falling loose over her shoulders.

Wash actually did trip. It had been a very long time since he had seen someone not wearing full armor. And especially since he'd seen someone quite so flat out gorgeous.

"Hey-yo!" She yelled, before flat out launching herself into Tex's arms. Tex caught her, something close to a laugh coming from her chest. It couldn't be comfortable to be held by a robot in full armor, but it didn't seem to bother Kai Grif at all, kissing Tex right on the visor before launching herself at her next target, her brother, who she happily knocked to the ground in a tackle hug before finally getting around to Tucker and the rest of Blue Team.

"Kai!" Tucker said, beaming. "You made it!"

"Fuck yeah I did!" Kai beamed. "Oooh, who's this?" She'd noticed Wash.

"This is Wash! He's the new rookie!" Tucker said.

Kai turned towards him, and Wash felt himself paralyzed as she took him in. He wondered what she saw. He was still on one knee, struggling to get up, half out of armor. His hair was probably a mess, and he knew he was blushing as he stared up at her, desperately trying to ignore the way her tank top had slipped down after all her running around.

"Wait!" Kai said, expression intent. "You're the cop?"

Wash felt a flash of irritation. "I'm not a cop!"

She tilted her head, frowning as she continued to examine him. "But you're the cop!"

"That's him," Tucker said cheerfully, finishing helping Wash to his feet. "He's our newest Freelancer!"

"Why do we need so many of them?" Kai said, propping her hands on her hips. "Tex was good enough!"

Wash really tried to be offended, but it was difficult because Tex had managed to keep these teams of idiots alive for so long, and so far all he'd managed to do was trip in front of a pretty girl.

"Hey, he's okay," Tucker said, hand still rested on the inside of Wash's elbow. Wash tried to ignore it, but the pads of Tucker's fingers tickled, even through the fabric of his suit. "He's like York."

"Nah," Kai said, and Wash prepared himself for whatever she'd say next, as she tilted her head. "He's cuter than York."

Wash couldn't help it. Maybe it was the shock, maybe it was just her… Kainess.

He laughed. He put his hands on his knees and laughed and laughed until he felt tears starting to gather in his eyes.

It had been a long, long time since Wash had laughed like that.

Tucker nodded, ignoring Wash's wheezes and panting as he slowly regained his breath.

"That's true."

York, meanwhile, was leaning close to Tex and whispering something and Tex seemed to be laughing.

There were time when Wash really couldn't stand those two.

Kai integrated into Valhalla really quickly.

Maybe a bit too quickly, if Wash had to admit it.

He'd been getting used to getting… well, getting all of Tucker's attention, if he was going to be honest. He'd liked spending time with Tucker. Just the two of them.

Now, things were a bit more complicated. Tucker was spending more time with Kai—which made sense, because they were friends.

It wasn't that Wash minded Kai or anything, because she was great. Wash was surprised by how much she could make him laugh once he stopped stressing over what she was saying and just went with it.

And Wash could have worked with that. He could have worked with the two of them being unfairly attractive, funny, and nice to him. He'd have just been very careful about keeping his head down and repressing any potential feelings until they went away, and then he could have just gone about his business and kept going.

Unfortunately, Kai and Tucker seemed determined to make sure that Wash was unable to do exactly that.

Wash yelled, throwing his hands in front of his face, because it was way too early in the morning to see this.

Kai and Tucker, as it turned out, both slept naked.

It wasn't even that they were bad looking—in fact, quite the opposite, had it been at all appropriate Wash might have taken the opportunity to do a little staring—but it was too damn early for unwanted nudity.

(He pointedly ignored the part of him that didn't consider the nudity unwanted.)

Having Kai back was great for a lot of reasons. The first being, hey, Kai was awesome.

The second was that it meant that Tucker had company for "me time".

"Are we dating?" Tucker asked Kai suddenly, after they'd finished a fun round in the basement. Kai was examining her armor uninterestedly, and so Tucker got to still enjoy the great view as she slowly went through the motions of getting dressed again.

Kai paused, considering. "What's dating mean for you?" She asked. "Does it mean we only have sex with people on the list?"

"We don't have a list," Tucker pointed out.

"Well, we should have one then," Kai said, making a face as she started to wiggle into her suit. Tucker helped zip her up.

"Well, who would you want to be on it?" Tucker asked, unable to stop himself from thinking of Wash. Not that Wash would be interested—he'd made that perfectly clear after he'd spent ten minutes shouting himself hoarse about how Tucker should wear pants—but hey! The lists of "not-cheating-if-it's-them" weren't supposed to be practical.

"Wash," Kai said instantly. "And Tex. And you'd probably want Donut right?"

"I think Donut doesn't want to do that anymore," Tucker said. "But yeah that sounds good."

Kai nodded cheerfully, then paused, thoughtful. "Do you think we could get Wash to do a threesome?"

Tucker felt his brain go blissfully into full on porno mode for a second there.

Wash, naked and panting and writhing beneath him, lips bitten until they were swollen and bright red, Kai curled up against Wash's side, fingers tangled in his hair as she tilted his head back to nip and suck at his pulse point…

Tucker managed to return to reality, although he could already feel his dick trying to harden, despite just having finished.

"Hell yeah," Tucker said. Then he paused. "So we're dating now?"

Kai nodded, then lit up. "That means we totally get to cuddle on movie night, right?"

"Right!" Tucker nodded, enthusiastic.

Kai had kind of dismissed Wash after figuring out that he wasn't a cop and lived with them. He was hot and all, but he was also a total prude, didn't own any handcuffs, and got fussy about the weirdest things.

But he kind of surprised her sometimes.

Kai had been trying to climb up to the top of the waterfall. Yeah, it was stupid, but it had looked like it would have been fun and it reminded her of that time when she was little and Dex had saved up for months for bus tickets to the National Park, where they'd looked at all the waterfalls. Kai had worn her best dress and Dex had worn his school backpack, and they'd been proper tourists, running around and taking pictures and laughing.

He'd bought her a postcard afterwards. Kai still had it, taped to the wall next to her bunk, along with the other few photographs and physical things she owned.

So she'd wanted to climb up to the top, and see what it was like. She wanted to see the whole valley. And yeah, maybe she should have told Tex or Tucker or Church where she was going, but she wanted to be alone. It was something she wanted to do for herself.

At first, it went great. The rocks were dry and there were good grips and Kai hummed to herself as she made her way up.

It was when she hit the halfway point that things went… well, downhill.

Her foot slipped. Then her hand slipped. Then she slipped.

Down she crashed, hard and fast, and Kai felt something snap as she threw her hand forward to try to protect her head and face.

She yelled out, and curled onto her side. It was a long way from the bases. She'd have to wait until she felt a little better and then walk back.

She was mentally weighing the benefits of Blue Base (closer, Tucker) vs Red Base (York had that healing unit thing, Dex) when she heard the sound of footsteps, fast and loud against the rock, rushing towards her.

"Kai!"

And then Wash was there, helping her up.

"Wash?" She muttered, unable to really see him because of the tears in her eyes.

"I've got you, okay? Can you move your arm?"

Kai tried, and let out a yelp of pain.

Wash's hands lightly brushed along her arm, feather light and gentle. "I think it's broken," he hissed. "Okay let's… let's get you back to Blue Base. I'll call York and get him to bring the healing unit. Can you walk?"

Kai tried to stand, but her ankle wobbled beneath her.

"Damn it," Wash carefully helped her sit back down, before checking her ankle. "Well okay, that's just sprained. I'm going to get you out of your armor, okay? I'll get Caboose to grab it later, but right now I want to get you home."

Kai nodded, and tried to use her left hand to help Wash undo the clasps on the armor she had been wearing—pretty much everything but her helmet.

Wash then carefully scooped her up into his arms.

"You're ripped," Kai noticed out loud.

"I'm wearing power armor, Kai," Wash said, but he was smiling at her. Something uncurled inside of her. "It's okay, I've got you."

Kai paused, looking up at his freckled face. He didn't have to be this nice. He could have just called York to them, he certainly didn't have to carry her back to base. He could have yelled at her for being stupid—although she knew that was coming.

But he wasn't doing those things.

"Thanks," she said, managing a smile despite the throbbing in her arm and ankle.

Suddenly Wash flushed and looked away.

"No problem," he said stiffly, but it was too late.

Kai had caught a glimpse of something interesting, and she kind of understood why Tucker wanted to sleep with him so bad.

Kai mentally moved that threesome with Wash higher up her priority list. She was going to make it happen. And between her and Tucker, she was sure they could make that happen.

Or at the very least, she was going to try to see that soft, nice expression on Wash's face again. Kai liked it.

Tucker and Kai were dating now, and Wash wasn't sure how that made him feel.

He desperately tried to tramp down anything that resembled longing or jealousy, but it was hard. Things had been easier back at Recovery One, Wash thought sometimes, even though he knew it wasn't quite true. He hadn't had to worry about stuff like this. He hadn't cared, because that sort of thing wasn't on his radar at all.

It had been survival.

The Reds and Blues had changed that. Kai and Tucker had changed that.

Wash didn't want to examine the constantly churning waves of emotions that swept through him. He wasn't sure if he would like what he found.

"You're making things too complicated," Tex advised him, as she was fiddling with the tank's mechanisms. The tank's name was Sheila, she sounded like FILSS, and Wash was done with everything.

"I didn't even say anything!" Wash protested, handing Tex the wrench she wanted.

"You don't have to. You get that wrinkly faced expression when you're stressing over random shit that you can't fix," Tex said.

Wash glanced at her, bewildered. "I do not!"

"Mmmhmm," Tex hummed instead of responding.

"I don't!"

Tex shook her helmet in that way that meant she was rolling her eyes at him. "Just go with it Washington. It goes easier."

"That is awful advice," Wash said.

"It's perfectly good for dealing with these idiots," Tex said. "How's that, Sheila?"

"Oh my! That is much better! Thank you, Agent Texas, Agent Washington!"

"No problem," Wash managed to say.

He glanced at Tex, wanting to continue that conversation, but she'd wandered off.

"Wash!" Tucker yelled from the base. Wash turned.

"I'm making lunch! You want your usual or something different?"

Something soft and warm filled Wash's chest. It was stupid. Tucker had noticed what Wash liked to eat for lunch—that didn't mean anything.

But he couldn't shake the feeling of being noticed, or being a part of something.

"Usual is fine!" Wash called, kneeling to pick up the tools that Tex had left scattered across the grass. He wasn't sure if she didn't care or if she'd known he'd clean them up. Maybe it was a bit of both.

"Wash," and then Kai was there, tugging on his arm. "Lunch is ready, you're going to be late!"

"I'm coming, I'm coming," Wash said, exasperatedly rolling his eyes.

"Not yet you're not," Kai said.

Wash froze in place, cheeks flushing.

"Wait, what?"

"What is with you and Washington?" Church complained to Tucker one day. "I thought now that you and Kai were getting it out of your system you'd stop… mooning, but you're just as weird about it now."

"Shut up Church," Tucker said, throwing an apple at his friend's head. "Where are Caboose and Epsilon?"

Church scowled, like he usually did when he was reminded of Epsilon. "Off doing shit in the Red's hologram chamber again. I don't know. Don't care either."

"Dude, are you seriously sore that Caboose is spending time with him? I thought you wanted Caboose to leave you alone."

"Shut up Tucker," Church said. "I don't like that guy."

"Isn't he you?" Tucker asked.

"What's that got to do with liking him?" Church said.

"… okay that got dark," Tucker decided. "Anyways. That's none of your business."

"It is if it means I'm going to have to turn off my audio sensors even more often!" Church snapped. "We had to teach Epsilon to turn off Caboose's helmet so he couldn't hear already! You two could tone it down a notch before incorporating someone else!"

Tucker shrugged. "We take it out of the base pretty often," he offered.

Church sighed. "I hate you so much."

"I know, Church," Tucker said, picking up the knife to keep chopping.

"Are you serious about it?" Church finally said, after a long, companionable silence. "Because like. I think you guys might break him if you don't tone it down. Seriously."

Tucker's ears heated up. "Why are you asking me that?"

Church rolled his eyes. "York was worried. But he always worries about Wash, so it's probably nothing."

"That guy needs to stop with the guilt thing," Tucker said. "Seriously."

"I'd rather he stopped sneaking off with my girlfriend," Church muttered rebelliously, snatching a chopped carrot to eat.

"You realize that if Tex was going to sleep with York, she'd have done it ages ago right?"

"Shut up Tucker."

There was another long silence.

"So you really like this guy, huh?"

"You're a gossipy little shit and you're fishing," Tucker told him.

"Yes," Church said, unabashed.

"Yeah," Tucker said, finally. "I do. We both do."

"When did you start getting mature? And care about things beside sex?"

"You're such a dick," Tucker said without heat, snorting. "When did you start caring about people besides Tex?"

"Don't make this weird, Tucker."

"You started it."

"We should have sex," Kai said, suddenly.

Tucker gave her a look, stopping mid-thrust, which was not exactly what Kai had been going for here. "And what exactly are we doing right now?" He asked.

"No, not like this!" Kai sighed. Tucker was still not moving anymore, which she didn't entirely approve of. He needed to get better at multi-tasking, honestly.

Tucker frowned, still not getting it. "I mean, I thought we were waiting for the rest of your dildo collection to come in the mail but if you're in the mood…"

"Not that either!" Kai said. "But we totally should, I haven't gotten to peg you yet!"

Tucker nodded in agreement and clambered off her so she could start searching for the dildo she wanted and her belt. She pulled the crate out from underneath their bed and started shuffling through their motley collection of toys and lubes. Really, that shipment better come soon, because this was honestly pathetic.

"What was it that you wanted to do then if not pegging?" Tucker asked, already starting to stretch himself out. Kai grinned, enjoying the noises he was making. Tucker was deliciously noisy. Talkative too, usually, but Kai liked it best when he was too addled to talk much. It meant she'd rocked his world.

"Oh! Right!" Kai looked up at him. "We should totally have sex when Wash will see us!"

Tucker paused, fingers still up his own ass, looking considering. "You think he'd be into that?"

"Why wouldn't he be?" Kai said, carefully selecting her favorite dildo and slipping it through the ring on her belt. "I mean, I'm hot. You're hot. Us having sex is hot. And then he'll get super jealous and want to join in!"

Tucker's eyes gleamed. "That would be fun," he said. Kai grinned at him, and clambered onto the bed to kiss him, wrapping her fingers around his dick as she did so.

"So," she said, reaching down to tweak his nipples with her other hand. "How do you want to do this?"