Disclaimer: Red vs Blue and related characters are the property of Rooster Teeth.
Warnings: Language, Canon-typically violence, Character death, Depression & PTSD
Rating: T
Synopsis: [Post-Season 13 Finale] When the smoke cleared, when they finally made it back to their heroes, only one of the Reds and Blues was left standing. Caboose is all alone now.
Based on goodluckdetective and toaradical's tumblr posts all about darkest timelines and the terribleness possible from the end of Season 13 came my little practice in absolute cruelty. This is just the first installment and… I'm really sorry for being so mean. I'll find out why I am this way someday. Maybe.
Caboose Alone
Chapter One: No Goodbyes
"Wash. Washington!"
Carolina stopped short of the door, her hand still on the outside wall as she looked into the room.
Like she had hoped, Wash was there, but he was doing the one thing she hadn't been expecting him to be doing - sleeping. Honest to god passed out asleep over his desk.
She waited a moment, counted the seconds between the raises of his shoulders as he breathed.
He had a spasm in his left hand - an itchy trigger finger even after dropping unconscious from two weeks straight of not being caught asleep once. She hoped whatever fight he was in, Wash was winning.
Even seeing him like that, Carolina still almost considered waking him. Tearing him from his well deserved rest to get him where he was needed, push him to do what she couldn't imagine anyone else being capable of.
It was that kind of streak of selfishness that made it very hard for Carolina to not hate herself in the weeks following the massacre on Charon.
With a long sigh, Carolina rubbed at her face and carefully, carefully backed away from Washington's room. She even went as far as to pad the external lock, shutting the door and putting the keypad on Do Not Disturb for her old friend.
"Rest up, Wash," she said mournfully before returning down the same hall.
She wasn't sure how she was going to tell the lieutenant that Agent Washington wasn't coming to reprieve him anytime soon. And she only became more certain of that as she could hear the heavy sobbing growing louder and louder.
The New Republic lieutenant - tan armored with orange accents, Bitters she thought she had heard Washington call him - rounded on her as she neared. He seemed even more unreasonable than he had when he grabbed her mid-stride from the hallway.
Which, she fully admitted, took some serious balls.
"Did you get him?" he demanded.
"He's occupied, I'm sorry," Carolina responded stiffly, not liking that tone she was getting regardless of circumstances.
"Fuck, man, that's not good enough!" Bitters snapped. "Andersmith hasn't been able to leave for goddamn hours and he needs to get some food and rest - he deserves that."
"He's not ordered to stay in there, he's choosing to look out for someone else," Carolina countered.
"No, that's what I'm doing," Bitters seethed. "He was asked to not leave by his goddamn C.O. What kind of option does he have?"
"Caboose is not in an officiating capacity right now," Carolina reminded Bitters. "You should get one of your other commanding officers to order Andersmith away if he feels he needs it-"
"I can't," Bitters snarled, the look in his eyes was deadly. "My C.O. is dead."
Carolina glared at him, her fists tightening at her sides.
She didn't have to be reminded of what they'd all lost.
All the same, she walked into the room, the sounds coming from Caboose almost too unbearable, and neared the bed where the large tan-and-blue lieutenant was sitting on the edge, rubbing circles carefully into the broad, wounded back of the last remaining Blue of Project Freelancer.
Andersmith looked up tiredly at Carolina, every bit as worn and aged as a man triple his age. It almost made Carolina's own heart clench to see him in such a way.
"Andersmith, go," Carolina near barked.
He hesitated before slowly rising to his feet - a motion stopped as Caboose's unbroken arm flailed wildly back until it clutched Andersmith's forearm and didn't let go.
"S-smith. Please?" Caboose whimpered.
Before Caboose was even done talking, Andersmith was beginning to ease back into position before Carolina made a point of shaking her head and stepping forward.
With both over sized soldiers on it already, there was hardly room for her. Instead, Carolina came to Caboose's end, where he sat curled toward the corner and headboard, and lowered to her knees on the floor. She looked up at him.
"Caboose, your lieutenant has been here for a very long time," she informed him, searching his face for any reaction to the implication. "He's very tired and hungry."
Without saying anything, Caboose's grip visibly tightened. His chin was quivering something fierce.
"He needs to go for a little while, rest up, then he can come back," Carolina explained. "Doesn't that sound... okay?"
Caboose looked her in the eye, tears still falling, when he shook his head once.
"Everyone has a reason to go," he whispered. "I don't want to say goodbyes."
Carolina couldn't handle this situation. It was beyond her depths - she needed Wash here, to take care of Caboose like he had for every second since they burst onto the falling Charon ship and found a scene straight from their worst fears imaginable.
She knew it wasn't fair, she knew she was letting it slowly kill Wash, eat him up inside and out, but Carolina knew she was not a good person. Not for dealing with Caboose when his tears and pain came directly from the very things she was working to run away from.
But those words... that sentiment...
No one could have known them more to their core than Carolina did.
Slowly, she moved a hand to Caboose's arm, squeezed the scarred flesh lightly, and made sure to meet his gaze when he looked to her.
"I don't have a reason to go, Caboose," she said softly. "I'm right here."
He seemed to be searching her face for something, for anything, but otherwise didn't seem moved by her sentiment. At least, it did until he completely relinquished his grip on Andersmith's arm, allowing the lieutenant to fully move from the bed.
In his heavily bandaged, broken body, Caboose couldn't so much lunge as he could send himself tumbling in certain directions. And for Carolina that meant partially catching him as he began to slip from the bed.
She met him halfway, pushing them both back onto the mattress with all of her available strength, before allowing Caboose to curl completely around her.
Despite her hopes, he began to cry again, which left Carolina with only enough strength to wrap her arms under his and squeeze with all that she could.
It was still a very long road ahead, especially now that there was only three of them.