Red vs Blue and its characters are the creation of the crew at Rooster Teeth. It is itself inspired by Halo, owned by Bungie and Microsoft.

Inspired by the season 12 PSA "Match Breaking." Mild spoilers for episode RvB12-11 "Long Time No See."

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The twins stared at the floor while Tucker dodged spray from the fire extinguishers and drinks thrown by angry clubgoers as he staggered away from what was left of the karaoke machine.

"Eta, Iota," Epsilon said sternly, "you should be very ashamed of yourselves."

"Are we forfeiting this assignment?" asked Delta.

"No," said Epsilon. "I have put so much effort in. We have to fucking finish this."

"You're getting kind of scary," murmured Theta.

"You know what's scary? Tucker holding this over me forever. That's scary."

"We do not abandon the mission," growled Omega.

"I do not want all of this to have been for nothing."

"Your attitude suggests throwing good effort after bad. Perhaps we are simply not capable of fulfilling Captain Tucker's request. Finding another way to earn his forgiveness might be best in the long run."

"Bullshit, Delta. That's nothing but—" Epsilon steadied himself. "That wasn't fair. I'm sorry."

"You realize you are apologizing to yourself."

"Delta!"

"...accepted."

"Thanks for all your help, guys, but I'm gonna try to do this myself."

"Good luck," said Theta. Delta exchanged a look with Gamma and shook his head. Omega just folded his arms as they all faded away.

"Hey, baby. You must be tired because you've been running through my mind all day. Also your feet must hurt because you were wearing nothing but stilettos!"

"Tucker, stop that. I got another idea."

"Your legs must be peanut butter 'cause I can't wait to spread 'em. On top of my—" he ducked as another woman swiped him across the visor.

"Tucker!" snapped Church. "That was gross!"

"I guess I deserve that. It wasn't my best work. Is it time for the next brilliant plan yet?" asked Tucker.

"Sort of." Epsilon looked around. "Great, we're already at the bar. Pull out that stool a little, would you?"

"Why?"

"Because you have a physical body and I don't."

Church's projection blitzed as he reappeared full-size and sat down. "How do I look?"

"Isn't your butt supposed to be, like, on the seat?"

"Yeah," Church projected a little higher. "Better?"

"You're still transparent."

"Close enough. Now order two of something."

"But you can't drink."

"Well duh. They're both for you. I just need an excuse to pretend to sit here."

Tucker motioned to the bartender. "Yes, could I have two Dirty Axon Scouts please?"

"Really?" asked Church

"I didn't pick the name," he protested. "It's the closest thing they've got in here to something drinkable. If you don't think too hard, it tastes almost like Sex on the Beach."

"I really don't want to know if you—"

"And I mean actual sex on the beach! Bow-chicka-bow-wow." Tucker picked up a glass. "Seriously, it's like sand, mildew and dead kelp. Nobody comes here for the booze." He sat down. "Okay, now what?"

"Now? Now we are two guys who had a hell of a week at work and came in here for—"

"For the overpriced girly drinks that taste like Caboose's desert-adventure-time socks?"

"For the atmosphere. Whatever. Just chill out and act like you don't give a fuck and came here to drink."

Tucker adjusted his bendy straw and took a gulp. A woman in pink-accented armor walked by. "Hey darling, you—"

"No," snapped Church.

"What? I was going to say 'you must be Fire Team 'cause you're makin' me hot.'"

"No pickup lines, no nothing. You have to commit if this is going to work."

"That's usually my cue to call her a cab."

"Not this time. You already tried all the proactive stuff, so now we sit here looking approachable, and we're patient and we see if anyone comes to us."

Tucker eyed him skeptically.

"Well what if someone comes over here and asks about the holographic dude?"

"Then I talk about how my super-nice girlfriend was so cool about my spending a night out with my very very available guy friend."

"Uh, I meant the part where you're transparent, not the part where anyone in her right mind would talk to you when I'm right here. Also, 'super-nice girlfriend'?"

"I'd be doing some acting."

"Acting," Tucker pointed his visor at his drink, "that's dumb..."

The music boomed. Church had to hand it to the bouncer or the MC or whoever was drawing them in, but there were significantly more girls than guys in here. Tucker shouldn't have been having this much trouble. Unless he preferred getting smacked to getting in the sack. Church was having his suspicions about that at this point.

"Don't fidget," said Church. "Look like you're not waiting for anything."

"Does this ever work?"

"It was the only thing I ever had that worked on Tex."

"Going on a date with a dude?"

Epsilon rolled his visor toward the ceiling. "Paying more attention to something else than to her." Tucker raised his eyebrows behind his visor. Church sighed and explained, "You know how if you try to pet a cat, it'll either bite your hand or sit there all if-you-must, but the second you sit down to do something else, they come and shove their ass in your face and claw the shit out of you until you rub their belly?"

"That's more than I needed to know about Tex."

"At least my work was—" he stopped short. "The Director," he corrected, "could get absorbed in his work, and that made the human Allison jealous. As for me and Tex," he continued slowly, separating the memories like pages of a book that had stuck together, "she preferred it when I was more focused on you guys or whatever crazy shit was going down than on her. She liked it when I'd let her come to me."

"'Liked' is a strong word. I'd go with 'tolerated.'"

"...I guess that's fair," Church finished.

"So if this ignoring Tex thing works, then why didn't I ever see you do it?"

"Because always knew when I was faking. And I never could think about other stuff when she was around. That woman was in my head, Tucker."

"No kidding! You were so whipped we could have used you to top a Frappuccino."

"Hey, I was a romantic! Though in retrospect, trying to bring her back from the dead was probably taking it a little too far."

"Yeah... I didn't want to say it, but you took on a pretty creepy stalker vibe for a while there."

Church snorted into his untouched vial of overpriced colony-made vodka.

"What?" asked Tucker.

"It's just that your double in the replica of Blood Gulch that I constructed in the memory unit told me the almost same thing."

"...the creepy part? Yeah, I'm still feelin' that."

"Excuse me?" came a voice.

Epsilon hid a smirk as Tucker turned in his seat and gave the newcomer a two-second up-and-down. Squishy organic brain or not, he could process data at an impressive rate when it was in a class he liked. Boob capacity: 82%. Sexitude: 97 kiloHoneys, Classification: F-I-N-E.

"Sorry to interrupt..." she said, spreading graceful fingers on the bar. "I noticed you sitting here, and I thought maybe..."

"Oh! My friend here was just being really nice and listening to me while I talked about myself and my problems," said Church. "Well mostly I was complaining about my girlfriend. She's kind of a bitch." Church mimed to Tucker.

"Hey! Don't refer to women as bitches just because they call you on how you never clean out the microwave."

Ha! Great follow-up, Tucker.

"I was serious," he muttered softly.

Oh. I... Huh.

"Wow," recited Church, "I sure learned a lot about how not to be a dick. From this guy. Now I am going to get up and call my girlfriend and tell her how Tucker convinced me that she was right. I hope you two are good alone for a while." Church mimed walking out of the woman's field of view and then deactivated the projection.

Just talk to her and see if she came here to hook up. Feel her out ...FIGURATIVELY.

"Uh, Church? About that ...thing?"

Time slowed to the space between heartbeats. "I could use a bioscan if you're not too pissed at me, Delta."

"Already complete," he answered. "Captain Tucker's prospective companion appears disease-free."

"Fantastic."

Church tossed the answer to Tucker's HUD.

No shortcuts this time, Tucker. Ask her if you want to know, and protect yourself no matter what.

"Wait," asked Theta, "why didn't you just give him the results?"

Church shrugged, "If he's going to keep sleeping with women he barely knows, he's got to learn to talk to them. As long as I know he's safe, it's fine. Well..." he eyed the woman's compact and muscular frame, "...safe from germs. She might still knock him on his ass if he pisses her off."

"What were you guys really talking about? It sounded intense," asked the woman, cautious interest radiating off her blue-and-gray armor like heat off an engine.

"Well I'm an intense kind of guy, lady."

Theta crossed his fingers.

"Soo..." Tucker trailed off. "I know I don't have crabs this week..."

"What?!"

"Also herpes. I don't have that either. Just in case you were wondering."

What she said: WHAT?!

"How about you?"

"Wha—what kind of girl do you think I am?" the striped fist balled up and Tucker went flying with an unholy crash.

Tucker pushed himself to a sitting position next to the smashed remains of the tiki lantern, shaking off splinters like water.

"What. The. HELL?!" Church projected two inches from Tucker's face, lines of red threading through his image like veins in a bloodshot eye. "So maybe she wasn't your type, but why were you a dick to her? She was into you," he shook his arms at the ceiling. "We were almost done with all of this!"

"Church, you okay?"

"No!" his holograph flashed crimson. "You—Tucker! It's like— It's like—"

"You feel like you got kicked in the face?"

"Yes!"

"Or maybe in the balls?"

"Your stupidity is way worse than getting kicked in the balls! Even if half, even if only a tenth of the shit that comes out of your mouth is true, how could you be this inept?! Where was that beach, the Bermuda Triangle? You'd have to know better!"

Tucker leaned back and folded his arms.

"Almost like I'm doing it on purpose, huh, Church?"

"Yeah, it's almost like—" Epsilon's image froze as Tucker got to his feet, the wheeling blue lights from the dance floor suddenly cold. "No," he said.

"Oh yeah." Tucker nodded.

"No."

"Oh. Fuck. Yes," finished Tucker.

"You... you annoyed the hell out of like eight women, got yelled at, got belly-kicked across the room and set on fire ...because you're pissed at me?"

"Super pissed."

"Tucker, that's insane! That's—"

"That's your problem, Church," an aqua finger flicked in his face. "You always think you know what's best for everyone. I didn't want you to make it up to me. I wanted to punch you in the dick so we'd be even and then get on with our lives." He smirked. "Guess I'm not having trouble with the concept of a holograph any more."

"So you ...you wasted an entire night in this horrible skankpit just to get back at me?"

"Don't flatter yourself." Tucker turned in his seat to where a woman in white-accented armor was sitting behind him. His posture, tone, even the gleam off his gauntlets changed as abruptly as a curtain being whipped off a Greek statue. "Hi, I'm Tucker," he said with uncanny charm.

"I'm Stacy," she said. "Does your armor have a hydroelectric power source, Tucker, because daaaaaaaaaaaamn."

"Nice delivery!" Tucker answered appreciatively. "Wanna do it?"

"Sure."

"Wha-what?" squeaked Church.

"She's been staring at me all night," Tucker murmured out of the corner of his mouth. "She was either trying to eye-fuck or plotting my assassination. Feeling out the ones who want to hook up? Learned that a long time ago. Also, she just watched me turn down every other chick in here, presumably because I'm super-picky and I think she's hotter than they are. Some chicks dig that." He turned back to Stacy, suggesting that they walk out arm in arm.

"You mean you could've— This was—Ugh. Fine. Have your night out. I'll just..." Epsilon flicked in place. "Tucker," Epsilon's voice pitched a warning, "what did you do to my logoff command?"

"We're not even yet, Church," Tucker answered.

"Tucker, let me log off!"

"Hey, baby, 's okay if my friend here watches? He's an artificial intelligence fragment that was based off a corrupt evil mastermind."

"That's hot!"

"Let me log off!"

Tucker put one arm around his new friend and gave Church the finger.

"This is not happening," muttered Epsilon.

"I suspect that the logoff function will require at least three hours to repair. Given body temperature and pupil dilation, it is highly unlikely that Captain Tucker will not engage his new sex partner before then."

"Just do what you can, D!" he frazzled.

"Well," said Theta, crouching down next to him, "should we tell Tucker she has pinkeye?"

"No, Theta," said Church. "I think he can manage."

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THE END?

...nah!

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Originally posted to Tumblr as Darkfrog24 under the title "Atonement part IV."

drf24 at columbia dot edu