A loud clamor shook through Blue Base, and in the process woke up the former Project Freelancer operative, Washington. There was a time back in the Project when such a noise would have jolted Wash into action, but instead, having a fairly good idea it was only Caboose getting into something, he groaned and rolled over hoping to catch a few more minutes of sleep.
"What the hell are you doing, Caboose?" Tucker grunted angrily from down the hall.
"I have to find glitter!" Caboose moaned childishly from further in the base, but still close enough to grate Wash's ears with the whining.
"Why in the fuck do you need glitter?" At Tucker's angry response Wash knew his chances of returning to sleep were diminishing rapidly, but things only got worse.
"For Church's card! It's Valentine's Day."
Crap. That day.
If there was one holiday that Wash never enjoyed it was Valentine's Day. Back in Project Freelancer it always constituted to York mooning over Carolina, and a drunken Florida trying to flirt with South, while North was too busy hitting it off with Insert-State-Name-Of-Attratcive-Female-Agent to come to her rescue.
For forever-alone-Wash though Valentine's Day was nothing more than a reminder that there were happy couples who enjoyed the romantic holiday, while he remained down on his luck in love. He had in fact held this opinion of Valentine's Day it since the second grade when Suzie Clearwater had rejected his handcrafted Valentine's Day card, adorned with copious amounts of glitter glue and uncooked macaroni. It had been his first of many rejections from women.
With one last, fleeting groan, Wash rolled out of his bed and trudged out into the hallway. In the main room of the base he found Caboose hurriedly rooting through boxes of supplies. The center of the room was littered with paper cut-outs, crayons and glue sticks. A big blue card with the words, "From You're Best Freind" scrawled on it in shaky print, took center-stage in the mess.
"Caboose, why are you even making Church a card?" Wash grumbled, glaring at the crudely shaped paper hearts glued to the card. Such a tacky holiday, he thought in disgust. "We have no idea when he's coming back."
"I know that," Caboose said, glancing up from the box he was sifting through. "But when he does come back I can give it to him, and if he misses other holidays I can give him lots of cards. Christmas cards, Easter cards, Labour Day cards."
"Well, good luck finding glitter then," Wash muttered, "We're in an army base, we're not supplied glitter.
Caboose looked up from his searching at this moment, a crestfallen expression on his baby-face. "But then how will I finish Church's card?"
Wash was about to reply with a not-so-friendly comment explaining that Church would probably end up hating the card regardless, glitter or no, but at that very moment Tucker decided to make his appearance.
He was expecting Tucker to supply an even ruder, (or sexual given the holiday) comment, but was surprised to hear him say, "I think I know where to find some glitter."
Wash turned to him, his eyebrows disappearing into his hairline. Was he offering to help Caboose?
"Where?" Caboose perked up instantly, eagerness plastered across his face and evident in his whole body language as he started hopping from foot to foot.
"Yeah, where?" Wash echoed with considerably less enthusiasm. "Like I told Caboose, soldiers don't keep supplies of glitter."
"You mean to tell me that you doubt that, that pink guy over with the Reds has glitter?" Tucker arched an eyebrow at him and grinned.
It was going to be another interesting day.
"Grif! Why aren't you upstairs guarding the base!?"
"What? Isn't it your turn today?"
"That was yesterday! Today it's your turn!"
"How was I supposed to know the day changed? We've gone over this before, the sun never sets here."
"I'd like to think that after a seventeen hour nap you'd know the day had changed! Now get up there before Sarge gets mad, you lazy ass!"
"Kiss ass!"
"Whatever, just get up there! We have to be on guard incase the Blues stage an attack."
It was at that moment that Wash, Tucker and Caboose entered Red Base, interrupting the argument between the orange and maroon clad soldiers.
"Eep! Blues!" Simmons quite literally squealed, and jumped back.
After his initial recoil, Simmons quickly straightened himself. Clearing his throat he said very matter-of-factly, "I thought the next attack wasn't scheduled until next Thursday."
"What in Sam-Hell is going on here?" Sarge thundered, appearing into view from seemingly nowhere. "Blues catching us with our hands tied behind our backs? Who's responsible for this? And by that I mean, Grif what did you do to be responsible for this?" This was followed by one of Sarge's signature chuckles.
"Joined the army," Grif muttered mournfully.
Without waiting for anyone else to say anything, Sarge went on. "Seems like you've got us again Blues. What's the ransom this time? Grif's dignity? And by that I mean that fanciful bit of imaginary phooey." Another all-too-pleased chuckle.
"Relax," Wash said soothingly, wondering if the uptight sergeant even knew the meaning of the word. "We're here in peace. Simmons was right, we don't attack again until next week. We're actually here to see Donut."
"That pinkie-pie? What could you want with that cupcake? You boys planning on doing your nails?" Sarge guffawed.
"Oddly enough, you're a lot closer than you'd think," Wash muttered.
"We need glitter," Tucker supplied more helpfully. "Or at least Caboose does," he added in response to a round of sniggers that came from the Reds. The addition did little to subside their laughter.
"I'm making a Valentine's Day card for Church," Caboose said gleefully.
"Really? It's Valentine's Day already?" Grif asked.
"Of course you'd forget," Simmons huffed in response.
"Did I not just tell you that it's impossible to tell the days when the sun doesn't set?"
"You always have an excuse don't you?"
Wash and the others watched silently as the two trailed off into another one of their arguments. If there was anyone in this canyon who should be making Valentine's Day cards for each other...
Suddenly Sarge grunted obnoxiously loudly, bringing an abrupt end to Grif and Simmons' bickering.
"Well, if you're not here asking for a surrender, I see no reason why we should do what you wa-"
Sarge was unceremoniously cut off by a whirlwind of pink and sparkles bursting into the room.
"I heard someone say they needed glitter, and boy am I your man!" Donut babbled, as he presented an armful of sparkles.
"Now I'm not sure exactly what kind you want, but I'm sure that I've got it," Donut barreled along, before anyone could say so much as a syllable. "I've got craft glitter of every kind and colour. Opaque, transparent, mettallic, holographic, spray on, small particle, large particle. Some of that you'll need glue for, but if you don't have any, I do have some glitter glue that should work in its place. If you're not looking for craft glitter, I have some body glitter left from my Officer Hot-Pants routine. I also have some sequins, and even though they're not technically glitter, they look simply fabulous with anything.
All of this flew out of Donut's mouth without him appearing to take a breath, and he held up each individual type of glitter as he described it.
"Son, we gotta have another talk about what kind of possessions a soldier should have with them," Sarge rumbled.
"Sarge," Donut pouted. "I already told you, it's for my scrapbooking, which I have already cleared with Command as an appropriate way to keep a log."
"Ahem," Tucker called, bringing attention back to the visiting Blues. "As much as we enjoy observing firsthand how dysfunctional you all are, we were hoping you would actually help is."
"Oh right," Donut said, turning to them. "So what is it that you want? You thinking of putting on a show of your own Wash and need some body glitter?" He asked, a little too suggestively for Wash's comfort.
Images of Donut, doused in body glitter and wearing a skanky police officer costume crept unbidden into Wash's mind, accompanied by insistent screeches of "Cop!".
"Erm, no," Wash replied, shuddering inwardly and taking a cautious step back. He forced the disturbing picture, and the shrieking voice, out of his mind.
"I need glitter for Church's Valentine's Day card," Caboose spoke up.
"Oh the day of love," Donut practically swooned. "Might I suggest some lightish red, and maybe a little mauve to accent it?" He held up the corresponding pink and purple packets of glitter.
"Blue would be nice," Caboose replied simply.
"Well, if you really don't want to take my advice," Donut let the words trail off.
"Just blue," Caboose affirmed.
Sighing in defeat, Donut handed over a packet of sparkly blue dust to Caboose, who was now grinning childishly from ear to ear.
"I guess we'll be leaving then," Wash said to stave off the awkward silence he felt was about to set in.
"Guess so," Simmons agreed. "Next Thursday then?"
"Next Thursday," Wash nodded and turned to leave.
Why can't all wars be like this? He asked himself wistfully.
Back at Blue Base Caboose hummed happily to himself as he applied the final touches to Church's card. As much as Wash expected Caboose's card to be accepted as well as his for Suzie Clearwater was, he had to smile at how happy the dimwit was, and it all happened because of the soldier standing next to him.
"What's with you today?" Wash asked Tucker.
"What do you mean?" Tucker replied, his tone non-committal.
"I mean you're not acting like yourself," Wash said, and then elaborated. "You haven't made a single comment about the girls you've been with, or chicks you could pick up, heck you didn't even make some crack when Donut ran in with glitter galore, and to top it all off, you offered to help Caboose. Without any convincing or even complaining."
Tucker just grunted in response. "Really Tucker, today of all days, there hasn't even been a single innuendo from you."
"That's just it Wash, today's the one day out of the year that I quit the romantic bullcrap. There are other kinds of love you know."
"Huh?" The evasiveness was gone from Tucker's voice, and Wash was curious about the downright serious note in it.
Rather than answering his questioning grunt, Tucker asked a question of his own. "Did I ever tell you that I've got a kid somewhere?"
"The creepy blue alien of whom you're one of two biological fathers?"
"That's Junior," Tucker beamed. Wash just shook his head. There were some thing he would never quite understand about the Reds and Blues. Easily accepting male pregnancy and time travel were among them.
"Well dude, I just think Junior would have loved all this arts and crafts shit, so I don't mind humouring Caboose once in awhile," Tucker concluded, then began to walk down the hall toward his room.
Wash had to smile at the almost tender note in Tucker's voice. Maybe Valentine's Day didn't have to be this constant reminder that every girl he'd ever asked out turned him down.
Clearly it didn't have to just be about romantic love. It could be about Caboose's dedication to a distant friend, or a father's love for the son he misses. That didn't mean he would ever understand Sarge's unique relationship with his shotgun.
Maybe it could even be about the love for a place you were beginning to think you could truly call home.
"Oh, and Wash?" Tucker called.
"Yeah Tucker?" Wash looked up from his musings to see the cyan colored soldier standing in the doorway to his room.
"If you ever tell Church what I just said I'll deny every word." Wash nodded, but his smile only broadened into a grin. Tucker was still definitely Tucker.
A/N:
Hey guys!
I'm sure you all know what today is! ABJBHRGESHTFVKJHBJHVHG NEW SEASON! NEW EPISODE!
You may be wondering why I'm posting a Valentine's Day fic in June. Well, to be honest it's been in the works since February, and some of the ideas can be traced back to October, but a combination of being crazy busy for months, followed by a period of writer's block, kept it delayed, but I really wanted to post something in honor of the coming of Season 11. I cannot wait for more crazy RvB shenanigans!
Oh, and as always I love constructive-criticism, so please let me know what you thought of the piece, and feel free to point out any typos or mistakes (: