Well. This is going to be…. something different, that's for sure lol. Okay, so this is going to be much darker than a lot of my other fics, I'd say probably all of my fics, and it's been something I've put off fully fleshing out and writing for ages now, but thanks to some encouragement from good friends, I'm about to bring some unwarranted filth to this fandom again. I am sorry but also not at all sorry.
I cannot stress enough PLEASE LOOK AT MY TAGS AND WARNINGS IF YOU ARE SENSITIVE. This is not going to be a pleasant fic once we dig into things, and it's going to touch on or fully dive into all of the elements mentioned in the warnings. I do not want accidentally trigger people so please take some self care if any of the situations mentioned bother you.
There will be explicit sexual scenes in the future.
And a special thanks to goodluckdetective, secretlystephaniebrown, powerfulpomegranate, a-taller-tale, and littlefists for the encouragement/bullying to actually write this fic :P
Surrender
Chapter One: A Subtle Change
"No one shoots my men but me!" Sarge roared from his position.
The canyon they had been holed up in for the past several weeks was overflowing with members of the Federal Army that this Felix guy had been warning them about and quite frankly, it was difficult to not think of them as less enemy combatants and more canon fodder considering how unbelievably well their fortifications were holding up.
Well. All things considering since CeeCee had gone and mutinied on them with Dos-point-oh.
All those considerations that were certainly no fault of Sarge's own, of course, they were doing incredibly well prior to Donut being hit with the recursive blast of some sort of grenade. Which simply would not do! It wouldn't do at all for anyone to be responsible for the untimely demise of Red Team that wasn't either by Sarge's own hands or by that of the hands of their forever immortalized enemies, no matter what Agent Washington tried to trick them into believing, the dastardly devils of Blue Team!
"Do you hear me? No one's allowed to take out my men unless they want to take out me! So bring it, you cowardly, well organized, unthinking, white demon spawn!" Sarge continued to howl, getting up on top of his cover so as to make sure that the enemy had to look him in the eye as he slaughtered them wholesale!
"Sarge! What are you doing!?" Agent Washington snapped from below, yelling over his own return fire.
"Making sure the enemy retreats in the face of my boldness!" Sarge answered firmly. He then glanced up only to be dismayed by the lack of white retreat. "Double damn! I told you that we should have made time for warpaint! It'd be working if you'd only listened to me, Agent Washington!"
"We didn't have time for anything thanks to your fucking robot mutiny!" Wash snarled. "Now get down before you get yourself shot!"
"Ha!" Sarge called out eagerly. "One afternoon without that dirty Blue armor and you're already talking insubordination like a true Red, Agent Washington. I knew that yellow stripes are a part of our dubious code. I went to Space Woodstock, after all!"
"Shut up and get some cover!" Washington snapped again.
Sarge made a few shots from the hip, feeling only emboldened by their position. His chest swelled with pride. "Looks like we've got this under control—"
He heard the crack of the sound barrier before he could feel it.
The sound was so loud and so sudden, it built the pressure around his head to the point that even with a helmet firmly on, Sarge's ears painfully popped.
By the time the force of the hit was catching up with him and Sarge realized that his chest had been hit hard enough by the blast that it had knocked him to the grass, Sarge was utterly winded. His lungs were so empty that his chest was painful and as stunned as he was, he couldn't manage to even gasp for air.
His vision doubled — nay, tripled — before him, and Sarge was left with his limbs flailed to his sides as he laid on the ground. It was a good day to die except even as the sky above him spun and blurred and tripled until nothing was quite making sense anymore, he could somehow still hear Simmons screeching at him.
"Sarge! Get up! I can't…. Someone help! I can't pick him up on my…"
The ringing kicked up a few notches and something or someone changed Sarge's position because his scenery changed entirely, dazing and confusing him even more than he already was.
"Get the wounded!" a voice Sarge could not even begin to recognize managed to break through the surreality he was experiencing.
Everything was waited and heavy, he wasn't sure how the bruiser managed to get Sarge over his shoulder and take off at the speed he was, but he could see he wasn't alone.
Two other figures in tan and green were lifting Donut's limp and charred form between them, heading in the same direction.
They passed Grif and his stupid useless Future Cubes.
"Grrrffff," Sarge attempted to scold, unable to hear what stupid things Grif was screaming as he threw the cubes at the ever increasing enemy. "Grrrrff."
The orange figure was disappearing more and more, only to reemerge.
It wasn't Grif, though. It was the other orange that he hated. The not-Freelancer who helped end their quiet peacefulness in the canyon. That Felix fella. That…
He had Agent Washington hanging over one of his shoulders, half limping with him forward, half dragging. Washington's head hung low, his helmet cracked.
"Are you getting to the cave?" Tucker's voice burst through the ringing, he was racing up with his sword out. A fact that should have let itself open to more than a few jokes but Sarge could feel his spinning head slowing again. It was too much to take in.
"Yeah, get on in there, we're gonna have to close up the cave to make an escape now," Felix ordered. "I mean that like twenty minutes ago yesterday now. So come on—"
"Yeah, I hear you. Tell me who's still not in the cave!" Tucker demanded angrily. "I'm not fucking around, Felix, tell me who's—"
"Grrrifff," Sarge coughed out, getting Tucker and Felix's attention simultaneously.
"Right, which also means Simmons," Tucker concluded, correctly. "Do you have Caboose yet?"
"We have Agent Washington," Felix answered, like it was remotely the same thing.
"Okay, great, then give us a few minutes and I'll get the others, too!" Tucker claimed, turning to leave when Felix roughly grabbed his wrist and yanked him hard enough to nearly send him dipping backwards.
"We don't have minutes, you insufferable—" Felix tried to hiss out only for Tucker to free himself and race toward the fight. "Fucking idiot!"
Sarge chuckled, despite how much it hurt. He had a begrudging respect for the thin mint. Leaving no men behind. That was almost Red Team worthy—
"Set the charges," Felix ordered. "We're getting out of here with who we've got."
The words were unimaginable, catching Sarge not only off guard but they were so… wrong. The only thing he could muster out was a solid "No."
The word was apparently enough as Felix looked around before focusing on Sarge. He tilted his head and leaned forward. "You'll thank me later, Old Timer," he declared before reaching forward and then—
Everything went black.
It wasn't supposed to be this way.
Washington wasn't sure how, but he was reliving his greatest nightmare. Flat on his back, chin tilted back, head throbbing like his skull had been cracked open and splintered into a thousand pieces, a monitor beeping quietly nearby but not quiet enough.
Vision came to him in fish bowl lens flashes. A face he never knew, then another, then both. Muffled words, medical in nature. The sort of interest in his body and less his person that could leave even the boldest of men with a chill down their spines. Most of the time it was only a light, glaring into him, making him feel empty and bare to its insight.
What wasn't a flash of vision fading in and out of his surroundings was overwhelming numbness. Darkness.
Things were not well. Things were not what they were supposed to be.
It was years beyond Freelancer, months since the nightmares, weeks since the nightmares returned with an altogether different ship crashing and an altogether different team being failed by his same hands.
So why was he surrounded by doctors in masks and hospital machinery again? Was anything in between the two dreadful memories real?
They had to be. They were. Tucker and Caboose. They were real. They were his team. He was a Blue and—
Sarge had been shot. They were in a canyon. Donut? Was he even alive? There had been a firefight.
They were winning. They were losing.
Washington was behind cover. But he couldn't see Locus, and Locus was the one he was supposed to keep his eye on most and then…
Then his cover didn't cover much anymore.
He was dead, surely, but rather than that reality he was faced instead with a gulping breath of air as his eyes snapped open. Someone was touching his throat. His throat was bare. He wasn't in his armor or his under armor mesh. He was exposed and the hand was at his throat and he had to make it stop—
"He's awake!" the woman's voice called just before Washington grabbed her hand at the wrist and rung it back, twisting her forearm painfully until she let out a shriek. "HELP! ORDERLIES! PLEASE!"
His head was still painfully throbbing and he knew what calling for orderlies meant, he knew more than almost anyone else by that point in his fairly unjust life. Wash gritted his teeth and held tighter to her wrist. "What were you doing to me!?" he demanded.
"No need for orderlies, ma'am! Double-Oh Donut's on the job!"
Before Washington could even process who the comment was coming from, two arms looped themselves under his armpits from behind and hoisted him back, nearly flattening Wash's own back out against a broad chest. Almost immediately, Washington began to thrash without letting the doctor's arm go.
"Let go of me!" Wash ordered. "Let-Let…" he struggled less, looking over his shoulder and being met by a very familiar, though looking particularly empathetic, look. "Donut?"
"That's right, Washington. You're with friends," another sly voice said before a hand closed around Washington's own. "So how about you let go of the nice doctor here without breaking any arms today, huh?"
Washington looked back toward the voice and saw Felix, in full armor, standing by him. Then he looked to the doctor's look of sheer terror and pain, a disturbing flip in his stomach giving a measured response. "I… I am so sorry," he said, releasing the doctor's hand. "I…"
"You… were in shock, and had a violent reaction," the doctor tried to explain, rubbing her reddened wrist while taking an extra step away from them. "It's underst—"
"What the nice doctor means is that it's totally understandable that you'd have a reaction like that," Felix cut in. "I mean, look at your record."
Wash stiffened again which prompted Donut to hold onto him tighter. "What record?"
"All of you with Project Freelancer. None of you have exactly had it easy, have you?" Felix remarked almost gently.
There was nothing Washington could think to say to that, fortunately, Donut was still holding on for dear life.
"You're telling us!" Donut responded with a bit of a huff. "Heck, I was even supposed to be on shore leave!"
Felix's gaze stayed locked on Wash's despite the fact that it was Donut talking. Something about it was… unnerving. "Huh," he said. "You look younger than I thought you would."
The comment took Wash aback so much he physically came to a stop, which apparently had been the sort of reaction Donut was waiting for as he finally released Wash's arms. "Excuse me?" Wash asked, still dumbfounded.
"Just a compliment, you look younger than you sound, crazy of a compliment as it seems," Felix continued lightly with a shrug.
"Is it a compliment?" Wash asked sharply which then caused Donut to move toward him until Wash held up his hands and stopped Donut by his chest. "I'm fine. I'm not… going to wig out. I'm just…"
"Disoriented and greeted by someone who tends to be a bit too flagrant with his language," a stern voice offered. A woman walked through, armor a military tan with bright, light blue accents. Her helmet was at her hip as she walked through, showing a distinct military haircut and eyes that were sharp enough to remind Washington of an old drill sergeant. "I apologize for Felix. When he was hired we were not aware that a mouth was coming with it."
"Aw, Kimball," he snorted with too much familiarity, though surprisingly the woman didn't seem to mind even though her looks would say otherwise.
Washington could feel the beginnings of a headache already working on him so he shook his head once and waved his hands. "Okay, I need to know who you people are, what you did to me, and most importantly of all, where the hell my men are," he ordered with as much ferocity as he could manage. "Because believe it or not, this is about as compliant as I am without any of that information, and my patience is already wearing thin."
Donut tilted his head. "Jesus christ, Wash," he muttered before growing overly excited. "That was amazing. You should give speeches like that more often!"
"Donut," Wash hissed.
"You have a right to all that information, Agent Washington, and more," Kimball addressed him, genuinely surprising the former Freelancer. "After all, we've all read the stories about you, seen the reports. We know that all of you have worked tirelessly to bring war criminals to justice and to bring yourselves to the honors you currently have earned. Yet you would, of course, know nothing of us."
"You're right," Wash said impatiently. "We don't know anything about you but the briefest of descriptions your paid mercenary gave us when he found us."
Felix, leaned back against the wall behind Kimball, shrugged. "I'm not hearing a whole lot of thank yous going around for that, by the by," he said smoothly.
"You want a thank you?" Wash snapped.
"Felix," Kimball said thickly without even looking in his direction.
"Shutting up," he replied.
With her attention fully back on Washington, Kimball took a breath and stepped forward, closing the gap between her and Washington. "My name is Vanessa Kimball. I am the general of the New Republic Army of Chorus. We are a small fraction fighting a large enemy, attempting to save our people and their freedoms from the former oppressive regime that would have seen us starve and die of disease after the UNSC forgot our colony. It has been a long and bloody war between the two fractions, and only hope has been fueling my soldiers throughout this all. And hope, as you can imagine, has been hard to find. But I believe in hope, and I believe that things happen with reason. Which is why, when Felix came across you and your men, I knew we needed you — we all needed you — to give my soldiers something to believe in again."
Beside Washington, Donut wrung his hands, taking a deep breath. "Aw," he said. "I've never been someone's only hope — well, I've been someone's only hoe but this is definitely the first time I've been an only hope—"
Washington was significantly less moved. "General, I can respect that you are an authority here, and I can respect that your conflict is heartfelt and well fought for," he said, using every bit of patience he could to not let his anger accent every word. "But you are not our authority, and if you were, well, we don't deal well with most authority figures. I'm not anyone's beacon of hope, I'm just a leader of my men. And you still haven't answered where they are."
Donut leaned back. "Snap."
"Damn, balls of steel," Felix snorted again. "Even I don't talk back to you like that."
"Not now, Felix," Kimball said, her eyes still locked on Washington's. Her lips pursed in a way that told Wash everything he needed to know. Her hesitation spoke volumes.
"No," Wash said darkly. "Where are they?"
"Your Sergeant is a room over, he cracked a few ribs and the doctors have him on bedrest for now," Kimball answered.
"And… he's staying in bed?" Donut asked, finally sounding half as skeptical as Washington felt at the moment.
"There is also… some sort of robotic unit that some of my men brought with them from the canyon you all escaped," Kimball continued. "We don't have many engineers to spare so one of our lieutenants who was a four-year battle robotics winner is handling it for now."
"I hope that's Lopez the First and not Dos Point-Oh," Donut stage whispered.
Washington ignored Donut's interjection for a moment, waiting for Kimball to continue with listing off their compatriots. When her lips pursed again, the fire already lit in Washington's chest grew monstrously.
"Where is everyone else? Where the hell are my men?" he demanded.
"I wasn't at the scene, I only have the reports," Kimball answered reluctantly. "But from what we can tell, Privates Michael Caboose, Richard Simmons, Dexter Grif, and Private First Class Lavernius Tucker, did not make it to the caverns in time to follow the escape route—"
"No," Wash said lowly.
"—and so did not make it to the rendezvous point prepared for the rescue mission," Kimball continued/
"No," Wash said louder.
"It is our current intelligence that they are captured by the enemy but alive," Kimball quickly responded.
The heaviest of silences fell between all of them in the room.
It was terse and angry, though Washington suspected that a decent amount of the anger was purely from him at that time. And loathe as he was to be predictable, he concentrated it squarely on the only authority to be found in the room.
Surprisingly, even for Wash, though, he was not the first one to shatter the silence.
"That's terrible," Donut announced, a bit of a waver in his voice. "Like… That's bad. I'd personally be ashamed if I scored anything less than fifty percent. You're at… what?" he glanced momentarily at Washington as if somehow Wash was supposed to be following along with his logic, let alone computing for it. He then turned back to the general and mercenary. "You're like at twenty-five percent! The only percentile lower than that that I claim is the proud-and-out eight-to-ten. Which is totally not the same thing and is way cooler."
Washington's mind was racing to process what he had just been told, and for the first time since… well, since he could remember at all, he was grateful to have Donut at his back. Figuratively speaking.
"Please, we understand your frustration, but as long as our objectives align, I believe we should try to work on our problems together," Kimball pressed.
"No. You don't understand our frustrations. And, frankly, you can't. No one can," Wash snapped, sending a deathly silence over the others in the room. "You say the others are alive. That's what we needed to hear."
With the ease of an expert, Washington pulled himself free of drips and monitoring equipment and swung his legs over the side of the bed. He anticipated the wooziness but pressed past it. Everyone seemed to flinch at the action but, at least in Washington's mind, it was smooth as silk.
"Come on, Donut," he ordered. "We're getting Lopez and Sarge."
"Alright!" Donut responded cheerfully enough. There was still a note of concern in his voice, but it was something Washington was ignoring.
His people were out there. His people were in danger. And there was something about all of it that left him unsettled and angrier than usual.
"You're going to get yourself killed," Felix called out after Wash, arms folded unimpressed across his chest.
"As long as the others are alive? I don't care," Wash answered without so much as looking in their direction.
Instead, he and Donut left right out the door.
Felix wasn't sure if he was feeling more impressed or more enraged at the former Freelancer as he walked right out the door and nearly ruined everything he was working toward.
He made a mental note to determine which it was once he was away from Kimball and able to more freely be himself. Until then, he had an image to protect.
So he looked at Kimball in a somewhat charming fashion, gingerly tilted his shoulders in a shrug, and eased a quick, "Well, that certainly could have gone worse."
The general was not having it, though she bought into the persona as well as usual. "I can't see how," she said icily. "You fucked up, Felix. You fucked up big time."
Tersely, Felix reminded himself of his role, of his play. Still, he allowed himself to square his jaw and bite back on his molars before letting out a tight, "I know."
"You're not getting your full payment," she reminded him, assessing that to somehow be punishment enough.
"I know," he repeated, his temper flaring just beneath the surface.
"And I expect you to somehow make this right," she warned him. "You heard what he said. They are invested as long as their friends are still alive. Of course they are, who couldn't be? That means, we can still do something. We can still offer them help in return."
"Believe me, Vanessa," Felix breathed out calmly, the cool satisfaction of a plan forming in his mind, "I know what to do. And I'll be keeping an eye out for our Agent Washington especially."