NOTE: Wow. Didn't expect quite the reception for this. Alas, I've been writing more again.
Ruby had been staring at him again.
Rather, she had been staring at the decorated lever-action repeater slung over his shoulder while he fanned the small sparks into a sizable flame. By the time the campfire had grown large enough to cook raw meat, he could feel her drooling over his back.
"For the tenth time, Hyper: no," Six said tiredly.
"But I didn't say anything," Ruby deflected.
"I don't have any of that Aura crap but I can feel you gawking."
"She has a crush on you~" Yang teased and earning herself a glare from her sister.
"She has a crush on your gun," Blake pointed out.
"Ruby, please stop bothering him so he can cook our dinner," Weiss harped only to hear Yang playfully snicker something about her being jealous to which Snowball went on a tirade about some lady standards that Six could care less about.
Meanwhile, Hyper dropped back to her place beside her teammates with a visible pout. Team JNPR later joined them around the campfire with some cacti and desert fruits they foraged nearby. Well, most of them; it took a while for Jaune to limp over.
"The hell happened to you?" Six asked. Upon closer inspection, he sighed. "Really?"
Blondie burst out laughing, pointing at the many cactus thorns that Pyrrha and Ren were cautiously pulling out of Knight-boy. Still, he refused to sit down on the ground.
At that, the Courier gestured at him to turn around.
"You missed a spot," Yang choked out before laughing again.
"Not funny, Yang!"
And you want to be a fucking knight, Knight-boy? "Pull it out of your ass. I ain't doing it for you," Six ordered sharply.
"I can't reach."
"Yes, you can," everyone chorused to which Jaune hesitantly and very painfully (and much to Yang's entertainment) extracted the rather large cactus spine out of his rear.
"Hey, Ruby, 'ya want some?" Nora offered, munching on a peeled banana yucca fruit.
"No thanks."
She tilted her head. "You alright? You look a little down."
"She's just upset because Six didn't want her to touch his gun." Yang stopped midway through her bite when she realized what came out of her mouth. "You know what I meant! I meant his rifle! His rifle! She wanted to mess with his rifle!"
"Wow, thanks for making me look like a pedophile, Blondie," Six groused, letting the fire crackle at the awkward silence.
"Does it have a name? Did you give it a name? You should give it a name."
Answer the damn question and maybe she'll finally shut up.
"Seriously? Why'd you call it 'Medicine Stick'? Ooh, wait! Does it shoot medicine? Like those blow-darts but instead of poison, it heals you up? That's so cool! Why'd did you put feathers on it, though? It looks weird."
Damn it. That backfired. Screw it. Just ignore her and keep walking.
"Six, these bottle caps are making my hips itchy! Why can't we just use the NCR's paper money?"
Two more hours. Just two more hours.
"My feet hurt. Six! Could you carry me, please? Pretty please? My feet hu~urt..."
Almost there. Right up this hill.
"Si~ix, I want to pee! I need to pee!"
The Courier yanked her arm and pointed at the spot far enough away from the old truck perched over the edge of the parking lot. Some sandbags and a few metal sheets had been conveniently set up to provide protection to any potential sniper aiming to pick out whatever was down below. "Stay there and watch for any threats."
Ruby whined. "Si~ix, I really need to pee! I've been holding it in!"
Goddamn it, woman. "Fine. Go find a spot but I want you back there providing overwatch, alrigh—" Six deflated in the wake of her Semblance, grumbling at the sight of rose petals floating to the ground. Tired, my ass. Feet hurt, my ass. And you turn into the fucking Flash when I let you loose. Goddamn Hyper.
They had one job. One goddamn job.
That was to make sure nothing and absolutely nothing would compromise their flank while he crossed the Colorado River. Now Six was at the end of his rope when he got back from scouting the promontory on the Arizona side.
Half of Cottonwood Cove had been leveled. It looked as if the Boomers had flown a sortie over the whole area. This part of the Mojave Wasteland had been battered into an even worse wasteland. All because his eight shitty brats used their Dust or Semblance or Aura—whatever the fuck they called that physics-defying shit—on the poor sons of bitches who thought it was a good idea to sneak up on them while they were all skinny dipping in the water.
Skinny dipping in the fucking water. All of them. With lakelurks nearby. While people watched.
"What in the goddamn..."
"Our actions were completely justified!" Pyrrha argued, her free hand holding a towel over most of her bare body while her other arm pressed her mechanical spear-gun pressed against the throats of the uniformed and slightly singed NCR privates tied to the guardrail.
"Put some clothes on, damn it," Six ordered. "I'll handle this."
"We should castrate them," Weiss hissed from behind some rubble. In fact, all the girls bar Pyrrha were behind one of the derelict vehicles parked by the railing, stark naked, covering their bare chests with their arms, and peeking their heads over the car's frame to glare at the unfortunate sods.
"Where are the boys?"
"Over here," Ren called, his damp pale arm waving from behind the concrete structure that was once the headquarters of the Legion bastion stationed here.
"Are they done? Can we come out now?" Jaune asked.
"NO!" chorused all the girls.
"But I'm sticky, the doors are locked, and it's cold out here," he whined. "Can someone at least toss me a towel or any of my clothes?"
"Whose idea was it to strip naked and go swimming in the river, anyway?" Six demanded, his hands pressed firmly on his hips while the NCR privates whimpered underneath him.
Fingers pointed to Yang who pointed to Ruby. "Wasn't my idea!"
"Yes, it was," Cat-girl deadpanned.
"You all agreed to it!" Blondie deflected. At that, most of the girls nodded with complimentary 'yeahs' and 'it was a good idea at the time.'
Six, meanwhile, pinched the bridge of his nose. I'm getting sick of this shit. "What if it was a goddamn Legion scouting party? What if these goddamn perverts shot back at you? What if the rapids picked up? You kids could have fucking drowned! Did you ever think of that?"
"We grew up on an island," the half-sisters said. "We can swim against the current."
"At Remnant, we would sometimes hold swimming tournaments," Nora chirped. "They're really fun!"
"I doubt Jaune could swim, though," Blake remarked much to Pyrrha's amusement.
"I heard that!"
"He actually almost drowned," Weiss added nonchalantly. "Twice. He was panicking even after Ren pulled him out of the water."
"That was not the case, Weiss!"
The Courier massaged his temples to kill his growing headache. He was going to have to restock on aspirin after this. NCR is definitely going to be asking a lot of questions. What the fuck am I supposed to tell them now? "You kids are bleeding me dry, holy fucking nut-sack..."
"We're sorry, sir!" one of the privates cried. "We won't do it again, sir!"
"Please, we've learned our lesson!" another whinnied while tears and sweat rolled down his cheeks.
"Just don't tell our CO, please!" the third pleaded.
"You boys have done screwed yourselves," Six warned darkly. "If I were you, I'd forget about this whole experience and march back up to your posts. Better yet, ask for a transfer. These brats of mine won't forget your faces anytime soon."
The privates feverishly nodded.
The Courier then eyed the girls. "What the hell are you standing around here for? Put some goddamn clothes on!"
"Crap! Sorry!"
"Oops!"
"Don't look!"
"Can we come out now?"
"NO!"
Meanwhile, Six withdrew the NCR emergency radio from one of his vest pouches and began extending the range on the antenna so he could call in a ranger squad to retrieve their men. "Goddamn kids had one goddamn job and they somehow manage to fuck it up..."
ORIGINALLY DRAFTED: February 1, 2018
LAST EDITED: February 2, 2018
INITIALLY UPLOADED: February 2, 2018
NOTE: Thank you for the many suggestions. I'll see if my brain can come up with more. Also, thank you, Colossus Bridger, for suggesting the general themes for this fic.