A/N: Hello all and welcome to chapter 73. It's been a long fuckin' time but hey, I managed to get this churned out in time for me to binge play Tales of Vesperia again. No, I'm not interested in Halo: Infinite, either. I forced myself to play the multiplayer beta, and it's actually pretty *bad*. Like how the fuck do you screw up sniper rifle aim?
Infinite's sniper rifle is actually the worst I've seen in any Halo game for no scopes. Even the Left 4 Dead 2 snipers are better than Infinite's.
*Chapter 73*
Grif let out a loud and obnoxious yawn, enjoying the annoyed huff that came from the maroon clad nerd to his left and the slight balling of a fist from in front. "What the hell is the purpose of this meeting? Did you seriously drag us out of bed just to waste our time or what?"
"Shut up, dirtbag," Sarge growled. "I called us here because we were looking at this whole base thing all wrong. It's not the exterior we should be concerned about, it's the interior!"
"Dude, why are you still hung up on this?" Grif asked exasperatedly. "Here I was thinking something important was about to happen."
"I don't know how I missed it, but an officer with superior training like myself needs their own space," Sarge said, completely ignoring Grif's smartass remark as usual. "A place where I can bask in my previous glories and contemplate on my nonexistent flaws and failures."
"Is this place called, 'denial'?" Grif sighed and wished he had a cigarette or two. It would irritate the hell out of Simmons, who was becoming a goddamn hipster with his whole, 'clean the air' bullshit, but it was better than dealing with this.
"Hence why I ordered Grif to erect this wall." Sarge gestured to the empty space between them.
Simmons looked around for a wall that didn't exist and sighed. "Okay, I give up."
"The sandbags," Grif deadpanned.
"What?" Simmons looked down and saw the most pathetic excuse of a wall he had ever seen in his life made up of five sandbags haphazardly thrown into an attempt of a line. He was nowhere near what could be considered an architect, but this was piss poor even by Grif's low standards. "That's the wall!?"
"Grif, I told you to give me a proper erection, not to stiff me!" Sarge growled.
"So glad Donut's not here…" Simmons muttered. Or Tex for that matter. Thank fuck Reach was keeping her away from their bullshit as much as humanely possible. She didn't need to deal with this headache when she was pregnant.
"I'm not a master fucking carpenter," Grif pointed out. "What the hell do you want from me, the Great Wall of China?"
"This isn't even carpentry!" Simmons groaned. "This is putting things in a straight line. Poorly."
"Well it's all I could find. So build a bridge and get over it."
"Hey when I build the bridge, should I use sandbags or something actually fucking useful?"
"Regardless," Sarge interrupted, "I hereby declare this section of the base to be mine. So go away."
"What!?" Simmons was torn between shock and outrage. That meant…oh no. He had to share with Grif. Also known as the sloppiest slob in the known universe. "You get an entire half of the base to yourself!?"
"Sorry Simmons! These walls are too thick!" Sarge ignored his cry of despair and just fucked off to the nearby television. "I can't hear you! Enjoy your new roommate!"
Sarge plopped down and began watching TV, the red sergeant completely ignoring the two men under his command. "Hehe…suckers."
Grif shared a look with Simmons and the orange soldier sighed in relief when he found a cigarette. He lit it, inhaled, and breathed smoke out towards his commanding officer while giving him the finger. Normally, Simmons would berate him for being an asshole, but this time he had a point. It was on his head, but the point was there.
"Okay, ground rules," Grif stated. "If there's a sock on the door, do not come in no matter what. Shit in a plant or something."
"But we don't even have socks. Or a door!"
"And for some reason, I don't have an internet connection here. But we all need some way to masturbate, don't we?"
Simmons sighed into his fist and wondered if he should have just become a farmer with Wash instead of dealing with this shit.
Reach heard the alarm go off inside his base and he rolled his eyes. Great. Another fucking intruder alert? This was the third goddamn time this week. Grumbling irritably, he grabbed a BR85 and slammed a magazine filled with lockdown paint rounds into it. His wife was also fed up with this bullshit and could use some stress relief that didn't involve riding him to oblivion. When in doubt, just give Texas a rifle, point her in the direction of the idiot who decided to come up and call it a damn day.
Perfect strategy that usually worked nine times out of ten.
"Reach? It's Wash. Have you seen my soldering iron?"
Oh. Okay. Reach stopped in his tracks and made his way over to the intercom. "No and I'm missing my goddamn socket wrench out of my own toolkit. Have you seen it?"
"Negative," Washington replied. "I thought I'd check with you first seeing as you are hell-bent on making this the most impenetrable hole in the ground known to man." Reach chuckled at that bit.
"Why, whatever could you mean, Wash?"
"Dude, don't even try and play innocent. We all know you fucked off to build this so that we don't have to hear you two having sex and to get away from the Reds and Blues."
Okay, he had him there. "You may or may not be correct. But I digress. So who the hell is taking our tools while we're not looking?" There's no way in hell the damn Reds could have gotten in here. Or come out alive. Tex didn't exactly miss when she was in a pissed off mood. When she was annoyed, she shot at things.
Perfectly good reason. In Reach's mind.
Hey, people coped with their anger in different ways. Tex's was just unique.
"I don't know," Washington said in frustration. "All I know is that repairing the com tower would be so much easier if we didn't have to constantly fucking run around looking for tools. I'm going to check Red Base to see if they decided to be funny and take it. Tucker's guarding the tower and hopefully not getting distracted by the new internet we have installed at base. Good idea, by the way."
"I aim to please." Reach smirked and opened the doors to let Washington in to get some coffee before he went on a murder spree. "Come on up and make a cup. Don't worry; Tex is in a food coma right now."
The aforementioned blonde let out a mumble of, "Waffles," currently passed out on their shared bed and rubbing her swollen stomach affectionately.
After a few moments the doors to Reach's base slid open and Washington stepped in, taking his helmet off. The former Spartan tried not to grimace at how bad he looked; dark rings of exhaustion lined his eyes, giving him the look of someone who pissed off some big biker guy named Bubba at the bar. Thin lines of messy facial hair lined his cheeks due to a lack of shaving and he looked a good ten years older than he actually was. Good God the stress was getting to him bad; Carolina and Church going off on their own was a big blow, but something else had to be up for him to look like someone who hadn't slept in two weeks.
"You look like a bag of shit," Reach offered helpfully.
"Thanks, coach," Washington drawled, pouring himself a cup of the unnecessarily strong coffee. "Where the hell did you find this?"
"Raided the officers' mess hall." Reach smirked and made a cup too. "Need sugar or milk?"
"Nope." Washington shook his head and took a healthy chug. "Okay, I know for a fact that South has talked to you about this, but do you feel as though something doesn't add up about our shipwreck?"
"I do." The retired Spartan nodded gravely. "Too many things happened at once for it to be an accident. How the hell does a ship of that size power down so suddenly while trying to change course and jump into Slipspace?"
"Oh for…" Washington groaned as he tripped over a giant power cable haphazardly strung just above the floor at ankle height, accidentally unplugging it from the giant generator next to it. All he wanted was a beer, not to go around falling all over the ship. He looked up at a pair of engineers and gave them a sheepish grin, scratching the back of his head.
"Sorry about that. That wasn't plugged into anything important, was it?"
BLEEEP! BLEEEP! BLEEEP!
Washington blushed and coughed awkwardly into his coffee mug. "No idea. I'm not a technical expert. Partially why I came to you in the first place. When it comes to making repairs in the field with limited supplies, you're the only expert we have here and can really use a hand since Maine and South anointed themselves as the salvage team." Fair enough.
"True," Reach conceded with a shrug. "I'll grab my toolbox and see what I can do."
"Right. I'll go over to Red Base and find out what the hell they did to my soldering iron." Washington downed the rest of his coffee and reached for his helmet. "I so did not sign up for this. How the hell do you deal with it?"
"Caffeine and alcohol make many things more tolerable, but I don't think that's what you need at the moment." Reach hefted up his toolbox and double checked to make sure nothing else got stolen. Fuck this jungle canyon. Still, at least the rain was good for making it less miserable than Blood Gulch. "You need to get some sleep."
"I'll sleep when I'm dead." Washington snorted.
"At the rate you're going, you are going to end up dead." Reach rolled his eyes. "Get back to base and sleep; I'll handle the damn tower." It wasn't the most exciting job in the world, but Wash needed a break before he started snapping necks.
"Thanks for the pep talk." The blue armored Freelancer laughed bitterly. "Really making me feel at home here."
"Wash—"
"You know I was one of the worst Freelancers in the squad, right?"
Reach stopped. Where the hell was this coming from? From what he saw from his field performances, Washington was far from being one of the worst Freelancers. If anything, he was one of the best, especially in midrange combat. Not to mention his adaptability. He didn't have one specific specialty like the rest of those on the leaderboard, but no one save for Reach himself was quicker at adapting to any given situation.
"I never actually got to lead. Not when the team leaders like York and Carolina were on the field. Even North was given command of a team. But me? I used to be known as the guy who got a grappling hook stuck to his balls." Washington chuckled again. "You have no idea how hard it was to even crawl into the top ten because of that."
"I know the feeling." Reach grimaced. "Before Noble Team, I never did well with teams in the field. Worked better on my own. Never was the one leading a charge. Infiltration and espionage were my specialties, not leading a team." Carter knew he didn't have the experience in leading, being used as the UNSC's Grim Reaper. Yet, the commander gave him command of squads on a few separate occasions. The recon mission with Jun was one such event.
"I guess I'm still new to all this." Washington sighed. "I don't know if the calls I'm making are the right ones or not. How do you know?"
"You never really do," Reach replied earnestly. "Just have to have faith. And if you screw up, so what? You've got us to catch you if you fall flat on your ass. But you'll be no good to anyone if you don't go the fuck to sleep. Either you go, or I wake up Tex and tell her you ate her last stash of Oreos."
The passed out blonde stirred slightly in her sleep and the air became thick with her sense of murder. No one fucked with Tex's cookie stash and walked away unscathed.
"…I'm gonna have to pass on that one." Washington slowly backed towards the door. "There are quicker and less painful ways to commit suicide."
He turned to leave and yawned. "Alright, you've made your point. I'll go get some rest. In the meantime, kick the Reds' asses if you find my toolbox in there."
"Will do." Reach smirked and suited up after he left, taking a sniper rifle with him. Call it paranoia, but something was definitely wrong about this jungle and he was in no mood to get caught with his pants around his ankles. He just couldn't put his finger on it entirely. 'I have a sneaking suspicion someone wanted our ship to crash. But who? Project Freelancer is dead. We all saw to it.'
'One thing at a time. Our focus is to get a distress call out before our food supplies run out. If Grif doesn't stop shoving his face, we'll all be sorry.' Reach ruffled his wife's hair before leaving, activating his little fortress's locks to keep people (mainly the Reds) out.
Outside it was humid as all hell. Not entirely unexpected, given they crashed in a jungle, but even with his suit's filters he could feel the stickiness of the air. The lesser and cheaper suits issued to the simulation troopers would feel the strain more than his. A dull roar of thunder echoed in the distance and he rolled his eyes. Yet another damn problem. The constant rainstorms made work on the tower a slow and tedious process; every time they made a few repairs they had to cover it to protect it from getting shorted. 'So much for enjoying my retirement on that nice tropical island I bought. Why can't things ever be simple for once?'
If this was some sort of lame joke, Reach was not amused in the slightest. When he found the son of a bitch responsible for this mess, he'd beat them to death with their severed arm. Or he'd let Tex do the impossible and do it with their skull.
Yeah, that sounded nice. There were people in this jungle that would pay good credits to watch that. Who could blame them for wanting to? Tex used to make murder look like an art form. Though her ways of killing were much…sloppier, for a lack of a better term, than anything he did when he was on ONI's payroll.
Making entire terrorist organizations and leaders disappear was much cleaner than beating the piss out of someone with their own skull. It was also a hell of a lot more difficult.
'I am seriously not paid enough for this.' Reach let out a sigh and jogged over to Red Base. This was going to be a long day, he just knew it.
"Hey, roomie, you got a second?" Simmons asked, joining Grif in the makeshift armory. "Have you seen my toothbrush anywhere?"
"Um, no," Grif replied, not even bothering to look up.
"Huh…that's kind of strange." Simmons narrowed his eyes. "Because I'm pretty sure I saw you using it last night."
"Dude, you're being fuckin' weird." Grif snorted.
"Hmm? What do you mean?" The maroon trooper asked innocently.
"I mean, you're obviously accusing me of stealing your toothbrush. But instead of coming out and saying it, you're just being really passive-aggressive about it," Grif answered.
"Mmhmm…"
"And I keep feeling this weird tension between us. Like when I left the lights on or when I didn't do laundry. I feel as though it's going to burst over something minor that under normal circumstances we would laugh about over a few beers."
"Well you know I wouldn't accuse you of stealing it if I didn't see you using it." Simmons could feel his sense of murder spike immensely.
"I used your toothbrush," the fat orange armored soldier deadpanned.
"YOU FUCK!" Simmons raised his rifle up and pointed it at his teammate.
"Dude, what the fuck!?" Grif slid off the bench entirely. "What the fuck is wrong with you?"
"The fuck is wrong with me!?" Simmons laughed mirthlessly. That was rich. "The fuck is wrong with you!? You keep piling dishes in the goddamn sink! I don't even think you've eaten off half of them. For all I know you're doing it because you're fucking bored!"
"Wait, isn't the sink just where dishes go?"
"No, asshole! They go in the fucking cupboard!"
"Keep it down!" Sarge yelled from his section of the base. "I'm trying to watch my stories!"
Simmons nearly broke down and ran over to his commanding officer, pleading on his knees. "Sarge, please tear down this wall! I can't deal with Grif's sloppiness in close quarters! You know that!"
"Sorry, son." Sarge smirked. "But we all have to make sacrifices. Except for me, because I'm in charge."
"Oh, Simmons?" Grif poked his head in with a doughnut in his mouth. "This is probably a bad time, but, uh, we're out of toilet paper."
"What!? How!? I put a fresh roll in two days ago!"
Washington's eyebrow twitched. His beard grew. His hair turned greyer.
The overwhelming urge to shoot someone was almost unbearable.
"TUCKER! WHY THE FUCK IS THERE TOILET PAPER ALL OVER OUR BASE!?"
"I don't know." Grif shrugged. Bullshit. He knew; he just wasn't going to say it.
"Ahem." A newcomer had joined them and all three Reds looked to see a very annoyed Reach standing behind them. "Where's Wash's toolbox?"
"Why?" Simmons asked.
"To fix the tower," Reach deadpanned. "I'm sure you idiots are content playing house, but I'd really prefer to leave this place as soon as possible."
"Upstairs." Grif pointed.
"Show me."
"Ugh, fine. But don't touch any of my stuff."
Grif led Reach upstairs and Simmons winced at the cutting tone of their former leader. "This place is a pig stein. And are those Wash's socks?"
"Yeah…he probably doesn't want them back."
Simmons curled into the fetal position and cried, rocking back and forth.
"I hate them…"
"I hate all of them."
A/N: And that's it. I'll see you for another chapter soon, and don't forget to check out the new poll on my profile. Whichever gets the most votes will be next month's exclusive focus.
-Kagerou#0007