Ranch Dressing
Tucker sits at the dining table in Valhalla's Blue base, watching. Agent Washington stares into the fridge with a look of vague confusion and disgust on his face. They have been back for two days.
The first day was mostly dedicated to Simmons' shocked exclamations over Donut not being dead, followed by Washington's painfully awkward apologies for shooting him. Lopez shouts a lot in Spanish about Washington not apologizing to him too, and they all pretend not to understand him. Doc explains about armor lock, and then he suggests Wash have therapy. Wash pretends not to hear.
When Donut ignores them all and lunges for Tucker, wrapping him up in a bear hug, Tucker lets him.
"Oh my god, Tucker! I'm so glad you're okay! I was so worried!"
Washington watches Donut mournfully, and Tucker glares. He deserves what he gets. The only reason he's here is because they all agreed Caboose would be easier to deal with after losing Church. Tucker doesn't want to talk about the desert. He's made that perfectly clear. Donut seems to understand, as he doesn't bring it up after the initial hugging. It was just as bad for him after all.
They'll get wine drunk and light some of Donut's aromatherapy candles and talk about it eventually, but not now. Not with the others.
Caboose is easier to deal with when Washington is around. He promptly goes about whatever routine he had established while he had been here alone and Tucker had been in the desert, minus the rebuilding Church part.
Grif assures Tucker that he had come over once a week during that time to make sure Caboose was alive, eating, showering - he says it was just something that came with the territory of being an older brother, but Tucker suspects it was at least half because he was eating anything of Blue Team's rations that Caboose didn't.
Now, Washington pulls several bottles of what might be salad dressing from the refrigerator door and squints at them. Tucker made a thorough inventory of the fridge as soon as he'd arrived, while Wash was doing a perimeter check and getting shouted at by the Reds. He hasn't bothered to throw anything out - Caboose doesn't eat salad dressing because he actually likes the taste of vegetables, the weirdo, so Tucker has left things for Washington to deal with on his own. He deserves what he gets after all. He is only here for Caboose's sake.
Grif saunters in.
"... Aren't you supposed to be at Red Base?' Washington asks.
"Do you have ranch dressing?" Grif asks Tucker, ignoring Washington.
"Dude, I don't know. I've been here for two days. Be my guest." Tucker gestures at the fridge.
"Don't you get the same supply shipments at Red Base as Blue Base?" Washington asks.
"Yeah, but Simmons gets weird about open packages. He cleans the fridge out every day if his OCD is acting up - which it is. It takes weeks to get him to calm down after these fuckin' adventures. He'll toss a bottle of dressing even if it's only been used once. Once! You've got to watch him like a hawk! He was here without us for days - there's hardly any good leftovers at all! And it's not like Donut was in any shape to request a resupply."
Grif shuffles over and glares at Washington until he steps aside. Everyone had agreed - Washington was a dick for shooting Donut. Everyone liked Donut. Hell, even Church had liked Donut. Yes, the innuendos are a bit much, but he's a genuinely good dude, and if anyone needs to talk about their feelings without compromising their hardcore masculine devil-may-care image (shut up, they can pretend) Donut never spills secrets. Hell, Donut's already forgiven Washington, and Doc apparently went full Stockholm Syndrome. The rest of them have to keep up the cold shoulder just to protect them and Caboose from getting betrayed by this asshole again.
Grif takes one of the dressing bottles out of Washington's hand and unsnaps the top, squirting a generous amount on the pizza he's carrying. He hands the bottle back to Washington.
"Caboose! Dinner!" He shouts, but he leaves before Caboose comes in.
Washington makes a salad. Caboose is delighted. He only calls Washington Church twice. Tucker warns Washington not to add the dressing to Caboose's share, telling himself he's not going to hold the man's hair back when he starts puking, then crosses the canyon to Red Base to share some of Grif's pizza. Grif pretends that he doesn't share food, but that's a big lie. Tucker isn't the only one who's noticed him making sure everyone else eats first.
It's two in the morning when Tucker wakes to the sound of vomiting. He stumbles into the bathroom, worried for Caboose, before remembering.
"Dude."
"I think. That salad dressing. Was expired."
"You were staring at it hard enough I thought you would have checked the date."
"Grif ate it. I thought it was fine."
"Grif has a stomach of steel. He can eat anything. It's disturbing. Never assume it's edible just because Grif eats it."
"Noted." Washington groans like he's dying.
"Wow. A little food poisoning is getting you that bad?"
"Did you forget the part where my ribs are still broken?"
"Oh. Right." Tucker stares at Wash for a long moment. He looks so pitiful that even Tucker feels bad for him. He feels guilty for pitying the guy that shot Donut for a minute, until he thinks that maybe the reason Doc and Donut forgave Wash so easily is just that - because he is in fact so pitiful. The guy is a mess, and he doesn't seem able to ask for help, even now when he's puking up his guts with broken ribs.
Tucker doesn't hold Wash's hair back while he puked, but that's mostly because he doesn't have a lot of hair.
He does retrieve an ice pack from the freezer and lay it across Wash's neck, and hand him a bottle of water.
And he cleans out the fridge.
xxx
Author's note:
I posted this on Ao3 a while back and forgot to post it up here too until now. My friend and I were just responding to random writing prompts, and this one was something along the lines of "ranch dressing." What Grif says about Simmons throwing things out is a true story one of my co-workers told me about her family member.
