Grif dreams about the day he and Kai joined the freelancers.
Kaikaina was ecstatic to be accepted into the freelancers' program. So much so that she had dragged Grif off the army base camp he'd been assigned to, just to see that flying junk of tin known as Mother of Invention. They arrived on what he assumed was a stolen ship. It was fraught with issues even with it only being his fourth flight ever through the empty vacuum that supposedly held every existing thing in the universe. The ride had been peaceful despite the wires poking out of the walls and with Kai at the helm. She only almost crashed them twice. Once with an asteroid, he had to dodge for her. The other was almost with another giant ship. Grif had been too tired to move. Easily he accepted their death. Fire would probably be less painful than if they had accidentally ended up outside the ship. So it would've gone rather quickly. Too bad the other ship had people who wanted to live on it. Expertly they dodged the Grifs and Kai kept flying. Accepting his fate was all he could seemingly do. Kai wasn't letting him near the controls as they hurtled through the asteroid field. To her that hunk of junk was precious. It was carrying them away to a better life. The sort of life he had always wanted to provide for them when he was a stupid kid.
There are some moments where he finds himself still thinking the same thing about her.
When they arrived at the freelancers' super secret space ship Kai waltzed around like she was a star on a catwalk. Her excitement was so much that she completely forgot that he wasn't supposed to be there. Kai jumped from place to place, grabbing his arm and tugging him every which way. "Dex look at this!" "Isn't this cool?" "I can't wait to find my room!" She didn't even try to hide him. Maybe that was why some of the other freelancers assumed he was actually supposed to be there. Thanks to that she was able to show him every inch of their super technologically advanced space base. From the leader board to the private rooms. With a scream, they were even met by a naked Wyoming. Sputtering and shouting, the old man all but chased them out of the changing room. Kai laughed the whole exchange off. If nudity had ever bothered her she wouldn't have stripped without a second thought in front of the whole swim team back in high school.
Grif hid behind his helmet like he always ended up doing when he was near Kai. Having plenty of practice he's able to place his hands in perfect places to cover even the vaguest of facial features that may be visible through the faceplate. They met a few other freelancers before one of them finally stopped Kai on her tear through the base. Just a random dude in sort of golden-brownish armor. He was shorter than Kai but taller than Dexter. His helmet was tucked lazily under his arm as if he couldn't really care if he dropped it or not. In fact even as he blocks their path his eyes were looking everywhere else but at them. He was nervous. Too nervous. So Dex was easily able to figure out that this guy wasn't sent by the boss to greet them. He probably wasn't even aware that Dex didn't have permission to be on board. Later on, Grif would find out just how little York had cared who they were back then. Their run-in with him wasn't a coincidence. but the first of an all too often moment of them getting in his way of finding her.
Back then Grif wasn't scared of the man. Not really. Attentive sure. Concerned? About York? Never. Maybe a little worried for Kai, but never scared. Grif was already starting to lose the ability to care like that. Spending every day on a ship in the middle of space caused him to fear death a little more with each passing day. Now, he doesn't even fear at all. Even when the Meta was ready to end him Grif felt nothing. Bitterness smacks his heart as the dream begins to warp.
Kai's face starts to fade as the memory becomes twisted. That carefree smile of hers stays bright and consistent even as the world around them collapses in on itself. The walls start to fold in half. Washington's face fills the shattered windows. His hollow eyes stare at the three of them with an emptiness that could challenge the space they have spent so much of their time traveling through together. Desperation demands he try to reach out. That vainly he attempts to hold her, and pull her close, to protect her from the vacuum of space that threaten them every single day since they joined the military. Anything to protect that last glimpse of her. That final fucking smile. Of course, it haunts him. Almost as much as the fire does.
The walls fold in on themselves again. This time they squish York between them. Washington laughs evilly as York's helmet falls into theMeta's open mouth. He was gone. Kai was gone. Why the fuck should he care? Grif's body unfreezes, but still, he doesn't move. He stands against all his urges to lunge into the emptiness after her. Fighting against every inch of his urges to punch Washington square in the face. What would those actions matter now?
She's dead.
'Grif.'
He failed at protecting her. Again. Another moment of regret that he'll have to carry forever. Joining the military wasn't the worst moment in his life. The day he heard about the fire, and cowardly stayed away wasn't the worst moment. Watching Kai die isn't even the worst.
No. The most gut-wrenching, heart-crushing, soul-destroying moment in his life was the day he got her email. It was a Tuesday, four in the afternoon right before second lunch. In a state, Simmons later said sounded like extreme apathy, his mind shut down. Even his body turned on him. Everything he had to eat hadn't lasted thirty minutes before he started throwing it all back up.
For a week after, he skipped all his drills. It wasn't a new occurrence. Skipping drills was normal for Grif, but he held contempt for the exercises he had simply seen as annoying before. Even if his reason for skipping had changed it didn't matter. His supervisors already had their opinions. With his typical lack of care, none of them noticed the change. In their eyes he was static. Someone constant and unchanging in his laziness. So Grif let them believe it. He didn't reach out to anyone who was supposed to be there to help. After all why would he? This was what he got. Kai joined the military because of him. He ran away, and she chased after him.
Maybe that's why she reaches out to him. Even now in this nightmare, it's Kai who moves toward him. Her eyes are scratched out in a blood-red mess. Her dark brown skin, which was always more sun-kissed than his own, doesn't seem drained by the contents spilling out of and covering her eyes. With a tenderness, not even their mother could show, she reaches for his face. She cups his cheeks the way only Kai ever could. That same, sickening smile on her face.
As kids, they used to be close.
There was more than one time when they needed each other. Moments where they could've died. Once when it seemed like she had. As they got older things changed. Kai became so much like their mother. Meanwhile, he became so disturbed by it all.
'Grif?'
Her hands are warm. The tip of her fingers lingers on his face. Just like that smile does in all his memories. He almost holds those hands against his face. To keep them on him forever. That way she would never be cold. Not to him. Grif doesn't move to hold her hands though. He doesn't even blink as Washington looms closer with every new fold of the walls.
When Grif can see nothing but Kai's smile, and Wash's helmet behind her, he knows what's going to happen next. Unflinching, Grif watches as Wash's helmet opens wide. The bottom half becomes unhinged like a snake's jaw. Lunging forward, in one swift swoop, the former freelancer swallows her whole.
Finally, as the floodgates open, Grif can hear Delta's voice clearly now. It's calm, and eerie in his mind. He calls out in a soothing manner even as Washington moves to consume him too.
'You can't keep hurting yourself like this.' Grif considers going back to tuning him out. Somehow he's managed to find a way to shut the AI up, but only in his dreams. The moment he starts to wake up, Delta is there. Always with plenty to say.
He allows his muscles to move. Just enough to loosen up as Washington's helmet opens once more. Grif stares into the emptiness without an ounce of fear. Is this apathy again? Not for the first time, he finds himself wishing Simmons was here. He wasn't great with emotions or people, but somehow the other red always knew the word for what was wrong with him.
'I believe this is what people would call grief.'
Fucking know it all.
'I'm an AI not all-knowing.'
He can't even let Grif float through space alone.
'You aren't floating through space. You're having a nightmare. One where Washington just defecated you into space.'
'You can see my dreams?'
'Yes. It appears so, though not visually as much as I can read the receptors firing off in your brain.'
'Delta you even make dreams boring.' Grif keeps his eyes closed as he floats further away from the destroyed ship distant stars start to go out. They flicker before disappearing forever.
'Then you may enjoy knowing that you will soon wake up.'
With a sigh, Grif wraps his arms over his chest. Viewing himself from his own vision, and somehow outside of it, Grif can see for once what he really is. Small, insignificant, a speck of dust. Not nothingness, but close enough to it. He exists. This body was real. The thoughts plaguing his mind and forcing these nightmares on him every single night were real. Even if not physically apparent.
Grif's not nothing. Not exactly, but he's so very close to not even being an ounce more than it. In one instant. In less than half of a millisecond, the universe could end him. It could turn him into that nothingness he tried for so long to become. That way everything could stop.
The constant running around, fat camp, chasing after Kai, watching her make choices so similar to their mother's that he used to be scared she would become just like her. She was always better than their mother. He should have realized it sooner, just how better off she had been. He didn't want to. He was too scared to look too closely at her. What if all his fears had been proven right? There's a sudden burning that tears through his body. It's close to how he felt when he heard Kai's voice that Tuesday all those years ago when she burnt down the family house and the life-crushing guilt that took control when he refused to return.
Grif had to get away. He needed to stay away. The longer the better, and if it was forever well then that was all the greater news to him. He could become something, or fall into nothing. Either way, in the army it was all on him. It was all about him.
Not Kai. Not his mother. Not school, or the assholes, or his confusion.
It was just him, and what he could, would, and refused to do.
"Grif?" Caboose's voice brings a new light with it.
He doesn't want to be awake. Deep within his soul, there's a yearning. If it was for the nightmare, Kai, or sleep, he wasn't really sure. Of course, Grif wasn't about to try and find out. Instead, he forces his groggy eyes open. His body aches at his return to reality.
'Your body's heartrate suggests-'
'Nope. Don't start on your health shit again.'
'I merely thought you would like to know.'
'I don't.'
'As your AI partner, I should-'
"Hey Caboose!" Grif shouts as if that could truly bother Delta. It serves the purpose of delivering silence, but only momentarily. Later there will be another attempt. After another nap. Probably after another near-death experience. Most likely after another run-in with their attacker. It doesn't really stop. Never has since they stepped aboard that damn ship.
"Grif! I found food!" The blue was leaning outside of the ship, stretching towards something.
"What sort of food could you find in the middle of the a-oh."
Words stop as even the ship wobbles from the sight of Caboose holding a dead bird-looking thing in his hand. His grip around its neck is topped off by a broken bit of bone sticking out right above it. Purple feathers start to fall off. They're gone then. Lost inside the wind tunnel coming off their tail.
"Is it-"
"Edible?" Delta offers the word as if he's already considering it. "Yes."
"Why don't I believe you?"
'Is that another rhetorical question?'
"Yes," Grif answers out loud. He winces as Caboose gives him a confused look. His brown eyes light up and he walks away from the open door. The blue shakes the dead animal as he gets in Grif's face. Caboose had to bend down to really look him in the eyes. His messy, dusty brown hair falls over his forehead and into Grif's eyes.
"So we can cook it?"
"Uh, yeah Caboose." With a smile that was contagious Caboose drops to his knees. He turns the animal over in his lap and begins to pluck it clean.
'We have no way to cook it.' Delta whispers the words as if somehow Caboose could read their mind, or maybe their connection. At least the AI forgot what they were doing too.
Delta wants to argue against that thought. Grif could feel him preparing a quick response to shoot that dead in the air, but he doesn't. Maybe he could see just how little the red actually cares. Worse comes to worst he could tear some of the seatbelts off the wall. Wrap them into a makeshift campfire, and light him with his lighter and anything else that may burn in this hunk of junk.
"Your cigarettes will burn." Fucking AI.
"Really? Grif can I borrow-"
"No Caboose!" Glaring out the cockpit window, he takes the wheel.
"I am already-"
"Switch off." He doesn't mean permanently. Grif doesn't want Delta gone entirely, even if he did want space. The AI has some uses. One of them being that he has someone else to talk to besides Caboose. Though he's known plenty of conversationalists worst than the blue. Sarge may have shot him for that thought. Actually, Sarge would have shot him for doing anything.
If he was here maybe Grif would already be reuniting with Kaikaina. That was if there was an afterlife. The two of them had never been very religious. They both fell under the agnostic title but landed on different points in that spectrum There had been a few conversations between the two of them. Contemplative discussions that quickly became jokes. Kai had trouble being serious. In her mind life should be fun before they were gone. Every blow is taken as it's given. Eventually, they would find out what happens after death. So why worry about it now?
"Grif! I got a fire going!" Caboose announces with a level of excitement Grif has never heard before.
With a sigh, he lets go of the wheel. Delta switches to control of the plane as Grif heads towards the back. Instead of seeing a burning pile of seatbelts, Grif is met with Caboose holding several burning wires in his hands.
"Fuck. Caboose what did you do?"
"I got a fire going." He pulls his flaming hand away, hiding it behind his back. "To cook the bird."
Grif bites his lip. Doing his best to hold back on his sarcasm Grif asks, "How did you manage to do that Caboose?"
"I used the lights." He nervously points up with his flaming hand.
Sure enough, there was a giant hole in the light above them. Grif could tell just what Caboose was thinking. Fire lights up a room, and the lights do the same, so tearing wiring out of them would of course do the same. "Caboose take off the armor around your hand."
"Why?"
"So we can lay it on the floor and make us some dinner."
"Really?"
"Really." Grif drops to the floor of the plane, as Caboose quickly sits crisscrossed in front of him. Caboose attempts to hold the already plucked bird-thing over the flames. Grif quickly pulls the bird out of his hands. "Not with your bare hand Caboose. Watch this." Grif takes one of the seat belts, runs it through the bird, and holds it over the flames. He hands the end to Caboose. "Now rotate it over the flames. Slowly."
"Like this?" His eagerness was cute. Grif struggles not to think about Kai again. They weren't the same. No matter how much Caboose sounds like she did when he first taught her how to make mac 'n cheese. Caboose was a lot older than Kai had been. Not to mention his sister was pushing the whole time she cooked. Yeah, they were nothing alike at all.
"Just like that." Grif smiles under his helmet.
"I can't wait to show Tucker!"
"Why's that?"
Caboose lowers his head, staring at the bird as if it might still fly away. "I wasn't allowed to cook at the base."
"How come?" Grif leans back on his hands.
"I set things on fire. One time the base burned down."
"The whole base?" Grif doesn't remember either of the bases disappearing. Had he ever paid much attention back then? Nah, not really. So the blue base could have burned down. If so why doesn't he remember Sarge celebrating it?
"No. Well maybe. The whole inside. Church said I was lucky the walls weren't flammable." His voice grows quieter at the mention of Church.
"You miss him?"
"Yeah. He was my friend." The fire crackles on the glove.
"I guess that is a reason why."
Caboose leans in towards Grif as if he was about to whisper. Instead, he asks, "Don't you miss Simmons?" as loud as he had shouted about the fire before. He goes to hold his ears only for his hands to clank against his helmet.
"What? Why would you ask about Simmons?"
"You two were always together at the bases. Just like Church and I!"
Grif rolls his eyes. "Yeah, that's not really the same thing Caboose."
"Why not?"
"Simmons wouldn't call us friends." He lays down on his back.
"Why not?" Caboose asks as he leans over him.
He shrugs. "I don't know." Simmons just doesn't call him that. When Grif thinks back, he couldn't recall one moment when Simmons had called him a friend. Even when they went to that Las Vegas planet together. "He just doesn't say that."
"Church didn't say it either, but that doesn't mean we weren't friends."
"How do you know that you were?"
"He was always there when I needed him." His answer was so straightforward and simple. A response so simple in a world that's so complicated. Was it that easy? Ever since they met, Simmons had been there right by his side. If Grif was sick, Simmons would sneak him extra rations. When he was tired, Simmons always did his work, even when the maroon soldier didn't want to. Even after everyone split up after Blood Gulch, Simmons had remained by his side.
"Yeah, maybe that's all a friend needs to do."
"Yeah." Caboose agrees as he stares back at the fires. The crackling slowly lulls Grif back to sleep.
"I do miss my friend, Caboose." A final admission before once again drifting off into his dreams.
Just before completely losing consciousness, Grif swears he heard Caboose whisper, "I know Grif. I know." What was more surprising was Delta's words.
'York considered you a friend.'
Fucking asshole. Couldn't he even fall asleep without being reminded of the dead? Despite his initial anger, sadness plagues his dreams once again. No matter how little he wants to admit it, Grif had once considered him a friend too. Despite all their differences, Grif does wish that York wasn't dead.