Author's note: Merry late end of the year *insert* Pagen Holiday, I did try, but so much procrastination really catches up to you. Alright, finals are finally done and I can get back to writing. I sure hope I passed my last class, anyway. Sorry I've been gone for so long. After giving it a long thought, I'm going to try something with this story, see where I end up.
Disclaimer: I don't own Red vs Blue.
Leadership
"Uh….Donut," Simmons murmurs nervously.
"What?" asks the confused private.
"Um…." Simmons stammers slightly, unsure of how to gently bring it up, "It's about your armor."
"What about it?" Donut asks innocently.
"How do I put this... Your armor is, um…" Simmons stammers, not wanting to come off as mean, he decides to off load that responsibility to Grif. "Grif, uh, you wanna help me out here?"
"It's pink!" Grif blurts out, "Your armor is frickin' pink!"
"Yeah, that's it," Simmons nods in agreement, "Pink."
"Pink?" Donut owlishly blinks, "My armor is not pink!" he vehemently denies.
"PINK!" Grif states more loudly.
"Yeah, definitely pink," Simmons states in agreement.
"You guys are color-blind," Donut snaps, now growing more and more agitated. He then asks "Why would they give me pink armor?"
"Hey, don't ask, don't tell," Grif snickers.
Simmons pauses, deadpans, and then looks over at his teammate. Did he really make that joke?.
"That's….not really funny," Simmons cringes.
"It's a little funny," Grif chuckles.
No infact, Simmons thought it was stupid.
"I thought it was stupid but whatever," Simmons mutters before turning back to Donut.
"Look at it, it's not pink. It's like, uh.. a "lightish red"," Donut defensively denies.
"Guess what? They already have a color for lightish red. You know what it's called?" Grif sarcastically asks, "Pink."
"I hate you guys," Donut grumbles.
They are then joined by Sarge and Rowe and walk up the ramp. Upon seeing Donut, Rowe immediately burst into unashamed laughter.
"Donut," she wheezes, "When I told you to get new armor, I didn't mean to pick the first thing they offer you."
Even Sarge started to crack up at the cost of the private's embarrassment.
"You know, they give you at least a handful of options!" she cackles, "Not many, but you do, and of all the ones you picked…." she pauses to take a breath before continuing, "You literally picked the worst possible option, it's like you were asking for us to poke fun at you."
"Hehe, alright, that's enough Specialist," Sarge chuckles while placing a firm hand on Rowe's shoulder, signaling for her to stop. He mistakenly touched her injured shoulder.
"Ah," Rowe hisses in pain.
"Oh, sorry," he apologizes.
He turns to Grif and Simmons and greets them with "Well hello Dirtbags…" He then cracks a wide smile and says to Donut "And a fine hello to you, madam."
"It's LIGHT red!" Donut angrily exclaims.
As Rowe walks over to join Grif and Simmons, and Grif comments "You don't really notice it."
Rowe looks over to him in confusion by what he meant.
"How's the arm?" he asks.
"It hurts," she plainly replies, stating the obvious.
"War is hell," Grif jokes.
Sarge casually waves him off saying "Don't get your panties in a wad there, Barbie. Do you have a package for me?"
"Psst, Rowe," Grif whispers, "What do you think this is?"
"Umm…" Rowe ponders for a moment, "I dunno, some new part for the warthog?"
"Puma," Simmons jokingly corrects.
Grif glares at him and proceeds to firmly stomp his foot down.
"Ow!" Simmons hisses, "My foot!"
"You saying something, Simmons?" asks Sarge, turning to face him.
"Uh…no nothing Sarge," Simmons replies while glaring at Grif.
Sarge shrugs and says to Donut "Alright, hand it to me."
"Here you go Sarge," Donut happily chirps, "One, brand new speech unit."
"Speech unit?" Grif asks, scratching his head in confusion.
"Took you long enough," Rowe snorts as she recalls Sarge telling her how long they've had Lopez.
"Well specialist, that is just how the army works," Sarge huffs, "Things tend to take a while. Just be glad you aren't in the Marine Corp."
Sarge cuts open the box and pulls out the device.
Sarge turns to the others and explains "Command was fresh out of speech modules when I started building Lopez, but once I get this baby installed, I'll finally have someone intelligent to talk to. Well, either than Rowe of course….though…"
Sarge awkwardly shifts on his feet, unsure of how to say this without offending the only female on their team.
"You good there Sarge?" asks Rowe, bemused at her team leader's awkward state. "Hey Sergeant, it's alright, I'm a big girl," she teases, "We can talk like adults."
Sarge deadpans and replies "Someone intelligent and male." Sarge turns to Simmons and says "...No offense, Simmons."
"Oh, don't worry, I know who you meant, Sergeant," Simmons reassured.
"Why do you like to tease Sarge and Donut like you do?" questions a curious Grif.
"Their reactions are funny, it's like the only entertainment I get around here," she replies nonchalantly, "I can't do it on you guys because, well you're too lazy to give a decent reaction, Lopez is literally a robot, and doing it to Simmons is…" Rowe looks over to Simmons.
"Kind of pathetic?" Grif says loudly.
"Hey!" snaps Simmons.
Rowe glares at Grif for outing her like that, Grif just shrugs. He then remembers something she had said and also recalls what Sarge had said.
He puts two and two together and openly asks "Wait, Lopez is a robot?"
Everyone stops and stares at him while wearing different emotions on their faces. It was hard to tell with their helmets on, but their body language said it all. It ranged from bafflement from Sarge to disappointment from Rowe.
Rowe sighs as rhetorically asks "Why am I not surprised that you're the only one who hasn't figured it out?"
"Like, you didn't notice that he never talks?" asks Simmons.
"I just thought he was a really quiet guy," Grif reasons.
"Or how about that time you literally walked in on Sarge while he had Lopez's legs disassembled for maintenance and left him plugged into the wall outlet?"
"I just thought he had a prosthetic leg," Grif replies.
Okay, that seemed somewhat reasonable responses, so Sarge decided to drop a bomb that most people would have picked up on.
"And the fact that he sleeps standing up and drinks motor oil didn't get your attention?" asks Sarge.
"Well I-I did think the motor oil thing was a bit odd... Uh, I just thought he was trying to impress me," Grif replies honestly.
Sarge and Rowe share a disappointed look at one another before Sarge gets back on task.
"So, the chip," Sarge announces.
"Hey, sergeant," Simmons said, "You really should ground yourself before handling that card."
"How come?" asks Sarge.
"Because static could damage the card," Simmons warned.
"Come on. That's an urban legend they use to sell those stupid bracelets," Sarge laughs off.
Grif and Simmons look at each other as Rowe steps forward slightly to stop him.
"And I suppose Pop Rocks and soda's gonna make my stomach blow up!" he laughs as he shoves the card into the slot and visible streaks of electricity flash, shocking Sarge. "YOW!" he yelps.
"You better pray that the card is still alright," Rowe tells him.
"Sergeant, I won't say I told you so," Simmons comfortingly tells him.
Sarge turns and nods at him approvingly before saying "Good. I'd hate to make Strawberry Shortcake here my new favorite Private."
"It's not pink, it's lightish red!" cries and irate Donut.
Meanwhile at Blue Base, Caboose has just finished scrubbing down Tucker.
"All done Sergeant!" Caboose smiles and throws a thumbs up before stepping back.
Lockett nods and then in one hand, raises the hose nozzle and fires off a stream of water while casually sipping from a cup of coffee in the other hand.
"Oh shit! Lockett! That's freezing!" Tucker sputters, jumping from the cold water hitting him.
"Hey, we're in the middle of a dessert, some cold water would be a great way to cool off," Lockett replies.
"It's winter though!" he snaps.
"Oh yeah," Lockett muses, "Well, you're just gonna have to embrace the suck then."
"Embrace my ASS, Sergeant!" Tucker angrily retorts.
Caboose leans over and informs him "Sergeant you missed a spot."
"Oh really?" Lockett squints his eyes, "Where?"
Caboose points to the location and just as Tucker wiped away the excess water on his helmet, he is hit again with another stream of water. This one sorting a direct hit on his visor.
"Ack! Pffft!" Tucker sputters, "That's not cool Sergeant, not cool! I swear, some of this shit went through my air filter and into my mouth!"
"Alright, looks good enough," Lockett tells Caboose, "Go dry him off and meet me on the roof."
"So, what happened to me anyway? I recall something about a spider on my head?" asks Donut.
"Right," Grif sighs, "That was a grenade."
Donut then proceeds to recall what he remembered from the attack.
"Well before that, I remember Rowe crying out, then that loud bang," he points over to Simmons and says "And Simmons fainted."
"See!" Grif declares triumphantly, "Told you so!"
"I did not faint," Simmons firmly denies.
Before anyone could retort, Sarge had finished installing the speech unit into Lopez.
"Done and done. Lopez. Activate speech unit!" Sarge happily bellows.
"Buenos días. Y gracias da por activar mi función del discurso. Soy el número de modelo cero uno cero uno uno tres cuatro ocho ocho dos tres," Lopez said in Spanish. [Good morning. And thank you for activating my speech function. I am the model number zero one zero one one three four eight eight two three.]
As Lopez was reciting numbers, Donut asks everyone "Am I the only one not understanding any of this?"
"Somehow, saying I told you so….doesn't quite cut it," she says to Sarge, rather calmly.
Lopez then introduces himself by saying "Me llamo López."
"Lopez, he just said Lopez! I understood that. I can speak Spanish!" Grif happily cries.
"Lopez, speak English," orders Sarge.
"Mi procesador de inglés ha funcionado mal. Se habla solamente español," replies Lopez. [My English processor has malfunctioned. I speak only Spanish.]
"Huh, I think you shorted out his speech unit with that static, Sergeant," explained Simmons.
"Uh, what exactly are my options, Specialist?" Sarge asks Rowe.
"Well, the easiest thing would be to send the processor back, the warranty usually lasts for two years and would normally cover things like this," Rowe explains, she turns to Sarge and asks "Did this come with a warranty?"
Sarge didn't respond.
"I'm going to assume that the speech unit didn't come with a warranty, how much did it cost?" she asks.
She never never looked at him, and her calm demeanor barely held back her growing laughter.
When he failed to respond, Rowe tilted her head slightly towards him and called out "Sarge?"
"50 credits," he says blankly.
"I won't badger you about it, your pride has already taken quite a beating right now," she empathetically tells him. She then asks "Think we can fix it?"
"I don't know how to satur," replies, he looks over to the rest of them and says "And neither do they."
"Well, there's two more options," she offers, "The best one would be to still try and send it back, and worst case scenario, the full cost for repairs will be out of pocket. Absolute worst case scenario is that you have to buy a new one."
"Good luck with that," Simmons grumbles, "With the war going on, it will probably take a while before it ever reaches us, seeing as how this wouldn't be considered a priority to command." Simmons ponders for a bit before suggesting "Rowe, you speak another language right?"
"I speak Cajun French, and only a little," she replies.
"Hey, Princess Peach," Sarge barks at Donut, "You sure this is the right model?"
"Seriously, dude. For the last time: Not pink," Donut angrily growls.
"What do we do now?" asks Grif.
Sarge, growing weary, he barks out "Lopez. I order you to speak a language we understand!"
"Negativo."
"So you're saying he's stuck on only Spanish?" Rowe asks incredulously.
"Sí."
"Well this is just dandy," Sarge grunts. Growing desperate Sarge bellows out "Lopez, HOW - DO - WE - FIX - YOUR - SPEECH - U-NIT?"
Grif lets out a snort and taunts "Why are you talking so slow? He understands us just fine. Maybe you should try listening slower."
Without breaking a sweat, Sarge asks Lopez "Lopez, would you like to shoot Grif?"
"Sí sargento. Gracias," Lopez robotically turns and raises his magnum at Grif.
In a panic, Grif cries out "No, stop! Uh, alto, alto!"
""Alto" is tall, dumbass," chides Simmons.
"Then why do they put it in stop signs?" questions Grif.
"Wanna try looking for a Spanish Dictionary in the base?" Rowe asks around.
Now on the roof, Lockett had his team assembled save for Fergo in a horse-shoe around the newly liberated Agent Texas. Fergo had to make sure thier communication equipment worked so Lockett told her she didn't need to attend formation. At the moment, Tex was locked in a silent staring contest between Church and her. You could literally feel the tension coming off the pair. Something Lockett did not want to deal with.
"As far as I'm concerned, I'm square with you," she spoke, her sharp voice finally breaking the silence.
Church scrunches his eyebrows together in confusion at what she said.
"I saved you from a life of imprisonment. How the hell are you square with me?" snaps Church.
Lockett let's out a silent snort while Caboose and Tucker simultaneously turn to face Church.
"You know, I don't really see how not killing somebody is the same thing as doing them a favor," argues Church.
Caboose and Tucker face Tex while Lockett fights his urge to visibly groan.
"Well, if you don't appreciate it, I could just kill you right now," she snidely taunts back.
Church throws out his arms and confidently boasts "No, you can't! I'm already dead, bitch! I guess the joke's on you!"
Finally fed up with the back and forth Lockett makes his presence known.
With only a slight shift in his tone, Lockett says in a calm but firm manner "I am going to ask you two to not do this right now."
Tex and Church immediately stop and everyone turns to face him.
"Technically speaking, your job was finished the moment our flag was returned," Lockett's steady and piercing voice rumbled throughout the group, "I risked their lives pulling you out of the fire, and if it were up to me, you would be on the next flight out."
No one said a word as Lockett pauses to breathe. Lockett glances at Church.
"Now, you were only paid for the flag," Lockett looks back to Tex, "PFC Church thinks it would be a waste of military resources to call you in and send you back after you were done."
"Well, when you put it that way," Tex says softly while suspiciously eyeing Church, she turns to fully face Lockett and asks "I guess I owe you guys for the save, anything else I can help you with? I can stay as long as you need to finish this, or at the very least help you guys catch up."
Lockett turns and looks at the rest of Blue team opening the floor for suggestions.
"Do you know how to fix a tank?" asks Tucker.
"Yes I do," Tex nods.
Caboose steps forward and asks "Wait, you-you know how to fix Sheila?"
Tex slowly nods.
" ...I love you," Caboose softly states.
Everyone looks at Lockett and announces "Dismissed."
As everyone starts to leave, Lockett calls over to Tex.
He asks "Agent Texas, would you kindly stay back for a moment?"
The other's stop and look back at them.
"Go ahead and meet me there, I won't be long," he tells them.
Caboose and Tucker look at each other before shrugging and making for the cliff. As they left, Lockett saw the Church's ghostly figure still remained.
Lockett gives him a stern look as he tells him "That includes you too, Church."
Church was reluctant, switching his gaze between the freelancer and his leader. He ultimately relented and faded out of sight. Now it was just him and Tex.
"Before you came here, Church told us a little bit of the history between you two," explained Lockett.
"Oh course he did," grumbles Tex.
It was so typical of him, Tex rolled her eyes at the thought.
"Look, it's none of my business, so I won't pry, but you can not act up like you did with Church earlier," lectures Lockett, "I know Church plays a part in it and I will deal with him, but if you two are going to argue, do it in private. No one here needs to know about your's and his dirty laundry. Are we clear?"
"Crystal," replies Tex.
"Alright, I'll meet you out there," he tells her and turns to the direction the others went.
Tex sat there for a moment, debating about something with herself. Before Lockett could walk down the ramp, she calls to him.
"I never said thank you."
Lockett stops and looks back at her.
"You know, for saving me," she continued, "I know you didn't have to but you did anyway….thanks."
"You don't have to thank me," he tells her simply, "I would have done it even if I hated you," he smiles, "Seven years going eight and I've never left behind a fallen comrade, I don't intend to start now."
"He told you I was cheating on him, didn't he?" she suddenly asks, she quickly adds at the end "Church?" to make sure they were talking about the same person still.
Lockett pauses and then asks "You were already part of the Freelancers when you started dating, weren't you?"
Tex was surprised at how quickly he figured it out, she slowly nods.
"I never told him," she replies.
Lockett was caught off guard by this, she kept this a secret to her own fiancé, why?
"There's plenty of sensitive stuff that my work tends to cover, a lot of it is classified," Tex continues, her tone had shifted at this point. "It's why I ended the relationship the way I did."
Gone was her cocky demeanor and in its place something a lot more pure and dare he say, a little vulnerable. Lockett, though he would never agree with her decision, at least understood where she was coming from.
"My missions became a lot more frequent and…."
Lockett, recognizing a difficult subject, cuts her off "I understand."
Lockett still held his apprehension towards the Freelancers in general, but it slowly started to wane at least just Agent Texas. He could sense the pent up loneliness and the repressed regret, something that he was all too familiar with. He also sympathized with her, being in the Special Forces makes maintaining any relationship incredibly difficult thing at times, and he has had to deal with some nasty break ups that his soldiers would end up bringing with them to work. Lockett could only imagine the kind of strain that a Black-Ops group like the one Tex was apart would put on the human mind.
"If you want to talk about it with me later…." Lockett offers. "No one has to know."
Tex ponders for a moment and then nods.
"Alright," Locket straightens his back and says to her "Come on, they're waiting for us. Maybe on the way you can tell me some old horror stories you have of Church," he jokes.
Tex remained silent as she followed him out.
Author's Note: And that is a perfect spot to stop. Thank you all for reading, I'm playing catch up now with my stuff. I actually was half way through writing an outburst from Lockett only to stop mid thought. No, an experienced NCO like him wouldn't just lose it like that without a really good reason, especially in front of the other soldiers. Lockett isn't exactly the person who I would imagine losing his cool like that, it sets a bad example for his junior enlisted when they are supposed to be looking up to him. I'm going to do something a little different with Tex this time around. She is still going to "die" at the end of Season 5 like in the show, but I'm going to take time and build more of a friendship with her and Lockett. There's a reason for that, that I am going to keep to myself for now. Also, be on the lookout for another story I'm currently working on. It's a crossover between Halo and My Hero Academia, if you like both, go ahead and check it out. I hope to see you guys soon, as always, remember….Big Brother is watching.
