Prelude for Losers?: The Lieutenants

Find out what happened before the events of When We Were Soldiers in the Prelude for Losers? specials!

In this prequel collection, you'll find connected character-specific introspective one shots that delve into the backstories of our favorite mismatched group of soldiers before they arrived in Chorus.

The eighth story is the Lieutenants', told from Matthews' and Bitters' POVs.

Main Pairing(s): Bitthews, Volleyball x Kai, Jensen x Palomo, Andersmith x Cass, Grimmons

Legal Disclaimer: I do not own Red vs. Blue or any of the show's characters. They are the rightful properties of Rooster Teeth.

Prelude for Losers?— The Lieutenants:

Gunshots ricocheted off the metal, burnt-out frame of the ground transport. The two orphans had hid behind the debris as soon as the alarm had started blaring loudly, a warning that soon heavy fighting was going to be taking place in the area they were currently traversing through. One of the bullets nearly went through Matt Matthews' skull, and he fell back instinctively as a result.

"Matthews!" The shock in Jensen's voice when she noticed what had happened was nearly palpable, although Matthews could barely hear her over the din of fighting and the sound of his own frantic heartbeat, "Are you all right?"

"I—I think so!" He scrambled forward again so that the two teens were huddled side-by-side against the ruined vehicle.

Matthews met Jensen when he had traveled to a nearby region following his parents' deaths thanks to all of the Red versus Blue fighting. At the time, the auburn-haired youth had no credits to his name and was moving more due to grief than any real desire to survive. Truthfully, Matthews doubted he would have made it for much longer on his own.

Katie Jensen had been in much the same straights back then and, well, it made more sense for the two of them to travel together than alone. Somehow they had even managed to survive together a lot longer than Matthews would have put their odds at separately.

But now? Well, now they seemed royally screwed.

"You guys won't be okay if you stay out here like this!" A new voice suddenly called out over the sounds of gunshots.

They both started at the newcomer in tan and pink, a blonde only a few years older than they were. The stranger had a rifle strapped to her back along with a supply satchel, and she was firing out into the mitigating darkness with a handgun from just a few meters away. She jerked her head to a side-alley, "If you move fast, we can make it."

Matthews and Jensen looked at one another briefly. They didn't have to be told twice. People did what they had to do in order to survive.

Their rescuer simply called herself Volleyball ("An inside joke amongst my batch siblings, nothing important."). She was a genetically engineered soldier who had been cut loose when the rest of her unit had been killed, traveling by herself ever since.

Volleyball shared her story as they waited out the fighting in an abandoned building, huddled together for warmth without any commentary on any fearful flinches or shaking. She had waited patiently for Jensen and Matthews to talk about their pasts even though there wasn't much to say by comparison.

When the bullets had finally stopped flying and the explosions were a distant background noise at best, Volleyball slung her rifle and satchel back over her shoulder and shot the pair an appraising look, "We should get going before it starts up again."

It was safer to travel in numbers, after all. Just like that, two orphans of this war-torn world became a unit of three and Matthews found he had a family once more.

Chorus seemed like a paradise for the three siblings once they finally reached the region's borders. They were welcomed with open arms, as opposed to the distrust often shown to those in their particular situation in the other areas they had been to. When Volleyball wanted to join the army given her skillset and a desire to help protect their new home, Matthews and Jensen surprised her by both signing up as well.

For the first time in a long while they had more than just one another to help keep them going. They had even more friends and allies now. They had hope. They had Chorus.

Matthews intended to cherish it.

"So your name is Volleyball, huh?" The tan-skinned girl who had been introduced to their training unit as Kaikaina Grif ("You peeps can call me Kai though!") asked the blond-haired girl, winking as she did so, "That's hot."

"Thanks?" Volleyball replied, obviously unsure of the compliment even though the blush dusting her face indicated that she didn't necessarily mind it.

When Matthews saw his older sister and Kai holding hands and leaning against one another while they talked together during their free time, he opted not to say anything. Still, he smiled brightly at the pair later on all the same.

"Dude, you should go and talk to her!" Charles Palomo, a former Supply Runner who was also in their unit, egged on their latest recruit, an older, dark-haired male named John Elizabeth Andersmith.

The tall lieutenant in question sank further in his seat at the attention being placed on him, his face noticeably redder as he watched Cass seamlessly mingling with her restaurant patrons.

"I…I don't know." He muttered lamely in response, "I don't want to bother her."

"You never know until you try!" Jensen tried encouraging him rather gently.

A look of determination settled over his blushing features after a moment's more consideration on the matter, and Andersmith followed that display with a downing of the rest of his beer before he stood up to finally approach Cass.

"Oh, yeah, teamwork!" Palomo grinned and held up a hand for Jensen to high-five.

She did so with a smile tugging the corners of her lips, "That was fun, Charlie."

At the first ever use of what would soon become Jensen's personal nickname for him, Palomo looked as though he might jump over the moon at any second. Matthews watched him and his sister smiling at one another and couldn't help but smile himself. He was happy for everyone in his family, even if he was starting to feel just a little bit lonelier these days.

Matthews helped out at the storage and refurbishing warehouse run by the Reds and Blues in his spare time, not wanting to become something of a third wheel to either of his siblings or newfound friends. The auburn-haired teen enjoyed his time interacting with everyone who hung out there, though he especially loved helping out Captain Dexter Grif and Captain Richard "Dick" Simmons.

"No, I'm telling you if we redesigned it this way it would be so much more efficient." Simmons was currently saying about a new piece of tech they had discovered out on a salvage run.

"But if you make it any smaller, how can I use it to block the sun out of my eyes when I'm napping?" The heavyset man in orange countered.

"You shouldn't be napping out there anyway, fat-ass." Simmons chided, though he let out a small sigh of resignation at Grif all the same, "How about I actually start going over that cupholder blueprint you drew up if you let me do the appropriate adjustments to this?"

"You shouldn't tease a man about beverage holders, Simmons."

The two were grinning at one another as they spoke, and Matthews was once again reminded of how Captain Grif and Captain Simmons' interactions together always had him smiling and thinking about how nice it would be to have someone he could do much the same with in his life.

Strangely enough, only a few days later, Matthews and the rest of the lieutenants were introduced to Bitters, the newest member of their ranks.

Antoine Bitters was angry about a lot of things. One of those being his lot in life as a genetically engineered soldier under the command of asshole mercenaries, and the other being the sorry state of the world that had led to his creation in the first place.

But you know what? That was honestly fucking okay in his book. Anger was what drove him to keep going even when the rest of his batch had fallen. It had driven him to eventually escape, and it forced him to keep going in the dangerous aftermath of the war being declared inexplicably over.

It had kept him going as he wandered and did odd jobs here and there just to survive, when the multi-colored hair soldier had no idea of just what the fuck he should try and do elsewise.

Until one day, thanks in no small part to his anger keeping him alive, alert, and ready for anything, he managed to overhear talk of a region called Chorus that was willing to accept genetically engineered humans into its citizenry. Suddenly, he was making his way there as quickly as he could without once stopping to even think of why.

"Hey, Bitters!" Palomo was shouting, waving him over to where the others in their newly established unit were waiting.

Bitters hadn't been really sure just what to make of Chorus at first, but the place and its odd assortment of residents didn't annoy him nearly as much as he first expected they might. Sure, his teammates could be downright frustrating at times, and he couldn't help but be distrustful of them, but even he had to admit that they weren't half-bad.

Andersmith was clearly in love with the leggy brunette bartender who liked giving them free drinks whenever they visited her place. Bitters definitely wasn't going to complain, even if she insisted everyone but the older Andersmith get non-alcoholic ones. Everybody either teased the older lieutenant about it or tried encouraging him to make a move finally.

Kai and Volleyball were two other genetically engineered humans like Bitters, though they both acted completely different from him in most situations and got on with one another in a way that was definitely more than just friendly.

Palomo was an inexplicably cheerful kid who had somehow survived being a Supply Runner of all things. He was head over heels for their fellow lieutenant Jensen and, while he could be more than just a little annoying at times, Bitters could tell his and Jensen's hearts were in the right place.

As for Matthews…

Well, there were a lot of things about him that frustrated Bitters to no end. Like his kiss-ass nature, especially to Captain Grif for some reason, and his more timid tendencies. But still, the kid wasn't so bad either. None of them were, really, and at first finding that out had freaked Bitters the fuck out.

He rolled his eyes in response to Palomo continuing to call him over while waving his hands up and down in the air as if the problem had simply been that Bitters hadn't seen or heard him yet, "Hold up, I'm coming!" Bitters grumbled out.

…He had to admit they were growing on him some though. All of the lieutenants were, in one way or another.

When Bitters was ordered by Agent Washington to help out Captains Grif and Simmons in the salvage warehouse during his precious free time because he was always late to training, he ended up interacting with Matthews a lot more. …Seriously, who actually volunteered for this shit? Kiss-asses like Matthews, that's who.

"That is…that is the dumbest thing I think I've ever heard!" Simmons told Grif emphatically.

The tan-skinned man smirked in response and raised an eyebrow, "Is it, Simmons, or is it in fact the most ingenious thing you've ever heard?"

"I've gotta go!" Simmons replied, suddenly avoiding the topic by rushing through his inventory checklist.

"You just don't want to accept the truth!" Grif called out after him, following the cyborg further inside the massive space of the warehouse, "You can't run from this, kiss-ass!"

…How the two had gotten onto the subject of cloaked picnics was inexplicable to Bitters. How the subsequent debate on said topic had gone on for five hours was even more mystifying.

And Bitters had a feeling that both men were just prolonging the debate out further now because they didn't want to acknowledge their matching blushes and sudden shared awkwardness from when Grif had challenged Simmons to an "invisible picnic date" and the flustered nerd had accidently blurted out "yes" in response.

Those two seriously needed to just get it over with already. Didn't they realize by now how fortunate they were to have one another? As he watched the two older soldiers carry on as if all the unresolved tension between them wasn't always at an all-time high, Bitters turned to see Matthews smiling wistfully over at the pair.

He caught the younger man's hazel eyes, and Matthews looked incredibly embarrassed at having been caught staring at the two captains' bickering by Bitters of all people, his whole body tensing and bracing as if in preparation for getting reamed at, "Er…" Matthews began nervously, fidgeting awkwardly where he stood.

But Bitters surprised both of them by simply smiling slightly over at Matthews and rolling his eyes in the direction of the two older men as if to say "Can you believe they're still doing that?" instead since the yearning expression he had seen on Matthews' face earlier was one that he couldn't quite get out of his head.

After a few moments of unsure hesitation, Matthews returned his smile in earnest, the sound of the other couple's banter still droning on pleasantly in the background. Just for once, Bitters didn't feel angry at all. He cherished it.

Author's Notes: Yes, I do for some reason head canon Matthews' first name as being "Matt." I had to put it somewhere in this series! XD

I wasn't sure if I should separate Bitters' and Matthews' POVs into two separate stories or not, but I kind of like the flow of combining them together since Bitters joined Chorus a bit later on in this story-verse than the other Lieutenants! Hopefully I did all of the Lieutenants' justice here, and did Matthews' and Bitters' POVs all right in particular. :)

Next up in terms of prequel stories are two Grimmons one shots set in this universe detailing important earlier events for their relationship. I hope that you will enjoy them! But first, I do believe a new chapter of When We Were Soldiers is underway and will hopefully be posted in a timely fashion! :)

Thank you, as always, for reading! :D