So this summer is a great summer for my fanfictions. I've completed one of my Hetalia fanfictions yesterday, and I'm going to be posting more soon. I don't have anything new planned for RvB so this is the RvB representation. I still have a timeline written for this so the updates shouldn't be too long, but I still am working full-time now so there might be a little delay. Please stay with me, okay?
FearIsButFearItself -Thank you so much for your review! I hope this chapter is also squeal-worthy. XD
I do not own Red vs Blue. RvB belongs to Rooster Teeth.
I do not own Maximum Ride. MR belongs to James Patterson.
David's eyes saw only blur when he opened them, but he squeezed them shut again as pain coursed through his nerves.
"Hey! I think he's coming to!"
The voice pounded against his head, but all he could do was turn his head away, flatten his ears, and grimace. His body was sluggish and his mind was pretty much mush. Considering the migraine that swelled in his brain, you could cut the fog he was suffocating under with a knife. He was in pure instinct-mode.
"Hey, cool down, sport. You're still pretty torn up. You're lucky I'm here or else you might be able to use your hand ever again."
Before he could wonder who was talking, pain jolted in his system again as he instinctively pulled back his throbbing hand, raising his grey wing over his shoulder to hide himself under the curtain of feathers.
"Hey! No moving! I'm still working here!"
David couldn't listen (and he, honestly, couldn't hear) as he kept his eyes shut and curled up on his side, cradling his wounded hand. He trembled as trained fear drove him against his brain. His senses would tell them he was in the world, but his memories insisted he had to be back in the lab if he was in pain like this. He was being tortured. They found him again. They were going to hurt him. And there was nothing he could do about it.
Carolina watched the poor boy from where she stood off to the side. He was shaking as tears simply from the pain of the ordeal streaked his sealed eyes. She was watching York work and was also there for security's sake. She wasn't sure what happened, but, from what it sounded like, he may have almost tried to kill himself back there. All she knew was he might not be in a stable mental condition at the moment, especially since he was a lab rat like they were. It could get dangerous.
She knew as well as York did what injured experiments could do when they were scared and hurt. They had been in his position themselves many times. And she knew, just by looking at the kid, that he wasn't like North and South who had lived their lives outside the lab by some freak stroke of luck. He was like her.
"Calm him down, York. We don't need him trying, whatever that was, again."
York's thoughts were stuttered by sleep deprivation as he put his hands up.
"How am I supposed to do that?"
Carolina could see the bags under his eyes. She knew all of this healing was taking its toll on him. He was a stubborn one about it, insisting he'd heal everyone before he even caught a wink of shuteye, but she knew he had limits. And he was well within reaching them.
"So is he awake?"
479er, with timing that had no comparison, swaggered in, her hands in her pockets.
"You shouldn't be up and around yet, 9er. You're human. You're more delicate than us."
"And you can tell by my face how much I care, Yorkie."
York cracked a smile, as he ran a trembling hand through his hair. 479er walked with a limp, but none the less walked around the makeshift medical bed to stand next to Carolina and looked down at the boy with her head cocked to the side.
"He looks like a kicked puppy."
Carolina frowned.
"And why aren't you healing him?" she continued, ignoring the redhead.
"Because," Carolina grunted, "he won't calm down enough to let York do it."
"Calm down?"
"He's scared. …He's an experiment like us."
"Oh." 479er said, her tone dipping into serious for a second. But, when the second passed, she crouched beside the table that was actually the dining room table in disguise to where she was eye level with the whimpering boy and cocked a smile.
She slowly reached out a hand and started to scratch behind the grey-winged boy's feline ears.
"What are you doing?" Carolina demanded, as the boy flinched away from the touch, still refusing to open his eyes.
"He's got cat ears, yeah? Don't cat's like to be scratched?"
Before Carolina could protest more, 479er tried again, this time more gently. He flinched again, but, strange enough, began to uncoil from his tense fetal position. As 479er began to become more confident, the boy began to finally relax and even began to lean into her hand when she tried to pull away.
"Are you gonna be a good kitty for them now?" The baby talk she used woke the boy up from whatever delusion he must have been lulled into by the petting.
He opened his eyes into the dark orbs of 479er and jolted back, shocked at the proximity of another person's face to his own and because he was so embarrassed as he just came to the realization of what had been happening the past couple minutes.
York just couldn't take it anymore. He'd been up for way longer than he was capable of so he was already slap-happy. This was just enough to put him over the edge into hysterical laughter. This just made David more confused.
He sat up but cried out as he tried to move his hand. He looked down at it to see the red scarlet reflecting off the shiny glass still serrating it.
"That's what I've been trying to fix, dude! Let me see the hand."
David didn't say anything, but slowly extended his hand toward the boy, taking interest in the fascinating scar over his dead eye.
"I can heal your hand. I have awesome powers kinda like you. Now this will hurt, but hold still."
"Speaking of which," Carolina started, as York began his work again. "What was that you did to us?"
David turned his neck to look at Carolina now.
"Um, I can, ouch!, absorb electricity then shoot it out." He cringed as York pulled yet another piece of shattered light bulb out of his palm.
"Does it hurt you when you do that?"
"Ye- agh! Yes. Very much, ma'am."
Carolina was a little taken aback at the formality, but she found she actually kinda liked it.
"Then why do you do it?"
"To protect my friends." Then David remembered. "Where is she- they. Where are they?" He craned his neck to look for them.
"Recovering. They're both exhausted from dragging every one of us from a burning building and into the compound."
"I helped in that too," York added as he ripped a particularly deep piece out.
David bit his lip to prevent himself from crying out, but he slammed his good hand in a fist down on the table just because he needed something to punch in midst the agony.
"So we're all friends now. Is that what we've decided?"
A few more tears streaked his face as he knew no other way to channel the pain.
"That's to be decided later. We're repaying you for saving us first. Then we'll decide how you're going to repay the damage you've done to Wyoming's building."
"Well, with friends like you, who needs enemies?" David said, as he flinched once again.
"All the glass is out finally. Now I can heal your hand."
David's expression was priceless as he watched the cuts on his hands that would have normally needed stitches zip back together until white scar lines were the only evidence of the incredible battlefield it once was.
"Told ya, kid. I'm pretty awesome, but you can just call me York."
David brought his newly repaired hand closer to his face as he opened and closed it several times, unable to comprehend what had just happened.
After watching the kid for a little while, York got up to leave.
"Don't worry. You don't have to thank me or anything. I'm just going to go heal some more people with my miraculous awesome powers."
David snapped out of his revelry and turned to the brown-winged boy.
"Th-thank you! I, I didn't hurt anyone too bad, did I?"
David ducked his head into his collarbone as he looked toward York with pleading eyes.
"Nothing too serious. Almost everyone's feet are fried 'cause that's what part of them was touching the metal floor, but, other than that, just a bruise here and a cut there. A bloody nose is the worst I've seen yet, but I haven't checked out your Eraser friend yet. That's where I'm going now."
When he left, David followed. York led him to where the huge Eraser lay flat on his stomach, snoring on the floor in the middle of the living room. He had a heavy wing wrapped protectively over Connie to which David found he gave a great nod of approval and found he expected. If they were going to be a group, they had to protect each other. The Eraser protecting her was exactly what he should have been doing. No one would dare touch her with Sasquatch hanging around.
York walked over to them, but didn't make a move to disturb him.
"Do you wanna get him up? I kinda don't want to die."
David smiled as he also didn't want to be ripped to shreds either, but had no choice really. He cautiously approached him and poked him on the back.
"Hey. Wake up, man. This guy's here to heal you."
"And by "this guy" he means York." The scarred bird boy added.
"Yeah. Him. I told you I'm bad with names."
The Erasers growled as he moved, retrating his wings and sitting up. He turned and looked York over then pointed her shoulder at him. York got the hint and went to work.
"Your shoulder's been injured for a while. It gonna take longer for me to heal it because your body's already tried to repair itself somewhat. However, I can sense there's some minor infections. I'll see what I can do about those."
The Eraser looked pleased as he felt relief for the first time come to his old wound that had been aggravated and re-aggravated several times. York was surprised how many injuries he found that hadn't even started healing yet. The cuts on his face weren't even scabbing yet. He would have thought that with all his mutations and grafting he would heal amazingly fast. However, the opposite was just as likely to be true. There's only so much you can mess with a person's DNA before the cons start to outweigh the pros. He wondered what side of the line this Eraser thing fell on.
The Eraser was definitely the most injured and took the most energy out of him. He was starting to see stars toward the end and Carolina noticed. She sternly ordered him to go to sleep, and he used the rest of what energy he had left to pull himself up on to the couch. He was snoring before his head even hit the pillow.
Connie was up to her feet, hovering as David's side cautiously.
"So. What are your guys' names?"
They both turned toward 479er who entered the room having cleaned up the room David had been a patient in and turned it back into a dining room.
"This is Connie," David started, but was quickly cut off.
"Connecticut." She crossed her arms confidently. "He's Washington."
David raised an eyebrow before Connie shot him a glare he knew all to well.
"Y-yeah. That's me. …And he's Maine."
479er chuckled. "So I see you're going with the codenames too. Fine. Whatever floats your boat. Just make sure to get your little states in the dining room when dinner's ready, or you won't get any food. They won't wait for you."
With that she carried the supplies to the back, leaving them in the presence of Carolina while York snored on the couch. Maine seemed to perk up at the idea of food being nearby and went to investigate the kitchen. Connie gave David another look and he took the hint, following her outside the building.
"So, Connie-"
"Don't call me "Connie." We don't want them to know our identities. We don't know if we can trust them yet."
"Trust them? They healed us. Why wouldn't we trust them? Do you have a bad feeling about them, Connecticut?"
"No. Not yet. Still, I think it's best we lay low."
"That's gonna be hard to do. I don't think Maine could be subtle about anything."
All David got in response to his attempt at easing the tension was a short, frustrated snort before she headed back.
"Hurry up, Washington. We've got to take advantage of this "hospitality" for as long as it lasts."
I know nothing much happened in this chapter, but it was necessary to have the characters meet each other formally and for David and Connie to finally become Wash and CT.
The next chapters will probably be less action-y and more bonding-y. The group needs to become friends. And I need to focus on other characters other than Carolina, York, Wash, and CT! So the other Freelancers will be showcased more in the upcoming chapters. Yay for variety! (Finally!)
You can take 479er scratching Wash's ears as an implied or not. The official (eventual) pairing will be Wash/CT. It's sort of my unusual headcanon that Wash and 479er would be great friends, and I could certainly see them together. However, I can also see 479er as the I-don't-need-no-man type for sure too. So, take it as you wish.
As always, thank you for reviewing and faving! You guys are amazing-ness!
Review or fav as you so desire.
Looking forward to it!
