Prelude for Losers?: Doc
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 second story is Doc's.
Main Pairing(s): Docnut, 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? — Doc:
Frank "Doc" DuFresne had his nose to the grindstone, busy studying when he heard a loud commotion down in the makeshift clinic that served as the lower portion of his home. It was raining in the region known as Valhalla, a heavy downpour that hit the metal roofing of the DuFresne Family Clinic with a deafening crescendo.
He glanced up, brown eyes wincing behind purple eyeglasses at the disturbing noises both outside and inside the building. Doc frowned slightly at the sound of his parents below, their words drifting upwards along with an unknown, gruff-sounding voice.
If he could hear any talking sounds below through the cacophony brought by the stormy weather outside, then that probably meant that whatever the conversation was about was both dangerous and urgent. Which, to be honest, wasn't an entirely uncommon occurrence in a medical clinic given the always present and ominous Red and Blue war.
The dark-haired teen's suspicions about it being some kind of emergency were confirmed a second later when he heard his father calling for his assistance. Doc stood up quickly, racing down the stairs. He couldn't help but gulp nervously at what he saw on the lower level.
There was a soaked older man, clad in red armor. Red or blue, it wouldn't matter to him or his parents. As medics, they had seen their fair share of different armor colors over the years. Truthfully, the old soldier's armor wasn't particularly interesting. It was just the type of armor worn by any one of the many soldiers who etched out a living by fighting in the ongoing war that had engulfed the planet for who-knows-how-long.
What was interesting was who had obviously brought the red-armored soldier to the DuFresne Family Clinic. The older man held the unconscious body of a boy in pink clothes. The boy, who must have been just slightly younger than Doc given his smaller stature, was deathly pale. He also had the telltale signs of red liquid blooming underneath his shirt.
Doc noticed movement near the red-armored soldier, moving his bespectacled glance to the figure standing behind the older man. There he found a dark-skinned teen in teal clothing close to his own age. The boy was looking around the medical space with nervous energy, obviously unsure of what to make of the current situation.
Doc could relate to the younger man's anxiety even though, technically, this wasn't exactly an uncommon occurrence in the DuFresne Family Clinic. The brown-haired teen stood at the bottom of the stairs, frozen at the sight of the three strangers until his parents began barking orders at him.
That was when he remembered what he had been called into the clinic for, Doc hurrying to assist the older DuFresne medics as best he could with whatever they needed him to do.
He might not be one of the best medics-in-training, as his parents had no doubt been when they were his age, however Doc would do whatever he could to help someone in need like they would.
The injured boy's name was Franklin Delano Donut. He was evidently an orphan that the older man, a traveling soldier named Sarge, had taken under his wing after he had found the dirty blond all by his lonesome trying to survive in one of the more rural regions of the planet.
That wasn't even the first time that Sarge had evidentially picked up a "stray" either as he had explained to the DuFresne family. He had gotten the teal-wearing teen named Lavernius Tucker a few months before Donut, after the orphan had been "dumped" on the red-armored man by a rival hippie soldier Sarge simply referred to as Flowers. Naturally, Sarge claimed he was thrilled to have found a fellow Red soldier in the pink-wearing Donut, as the two of them supposedly balanced out Tucker's innate "Blueness."
Evidently, there had been a surprise attack on the caravan that the trio had been traveling with on their way to Valhalla, which was how Donut had gotten into his current medical state.
Unfortunately, such stories were not all that uncommon. In fact, the DuFresne Family Clinic often encountered groups like Sarge's as the war continued raging on. It was one of the many, many reasons that had Doc preferring to follow the path of pacifism like his parents.
At the moment, Doc was sitting with Donut. The younger boy's condition had been stabilized and his parents had declared him out of any immediate danger. Donut was drifting in and out of consciousness, but he had become lucid enough to grip onto Doc's hand when the other boy had offered to go get him some water a couple of hours ago.
So, Doc remained seated next to him, his hand still held loosely in Donut's. Doc didn't have the heart to pull away from him just then considering how happy Donut had been at the prospect of having someone keep him company, a blush forming on his cheeks at their proximity.
Tucker had just checked in on Donut a few minutes earlier. The dark-skinned teen had smiled when he saw that the pink-wearing boy seemed to be doing better before going to get the water in Doc's stead. Voices were drifting into the room from the clinic hallway, and Doc couldn't help but make out snippets of the conversation that his parents were currently having with Sarge.
"…Might be staying for a while in Valhalla then. At least until he's recovered." The soldier in red was saying, obviously discussing future plans for his group.
Doc smiled slightly at what Sarge had said before he noticed that Donut was looking up at the expression on his face with a questioning gaze in his brown eyes.
"Oh!" Doc realized that Donut, still not entirely with it given his earlier injury, probably hadn't overheard the discussion amongst the adults just then, "It looks like we're going to be neighbors."
"Oh, that's awesome!" Donut exclaimed weakly-but-giddily from his bed, "I love decorating new houses!"
Though he was still in pain and heavily medicated due to his injuries, Donut managed a small smile up at Doc.
Doc thought it might have been the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.
Years passed, and even pacifist medics like Doc's parents inevitably fell victim to the war. Both had been killed trying to help injured men and women out on the frontlines. Sarge, who had remained on pretty good terms with the family of medics and even stayed longer than originally planned in the region, took Doc in following the tragedy.
In his grief, Doc made the decision to truly honor his parents' memories by dedicating himself both to pacifism and medicine. Admitably, the young man was a better pacifist than medic.
Doc tried to do what he could to keep the DuFresne Family Clinic operational, but apparently his alternative treatment methods of aloe vera and orange juice seemed to not be quite as readily accepted as the medicine his parents had successfully utilized.
As the DuFresne Family Clinic eventually shut its doors, Sarge's group moved to a new region called Blood Gulch. The move was especially hard on Doc since he had lived in Valhalla all his life, but he tried his hardest to make the best of it. After all, Sarge and the others had no choice but to do so as well.
There were currently five of them living with the older soldier: himself, Donut, and Tucker…along with an awkward young man named Simmons and a robot called Lopez that Sarge had created one day out of spare parts. The red-armored soldier claimed that he made Lopez on some kind of maniacal whim, which maybe explained why the brown-armored robot spoke a language none of them could understand.
Doc still missed his parents greatly. The dark-haired man would remember their voices and picture their faces whenever he closed his eyes. He could see his mother's warm smile, and hear his father's thoughtful and tasteful jokes…
However, he didn't want to appear ungrateful for the kindness and generosity bestowed upon him by Sarge and the others. After all, they didn't have to take in a pacifist medic with barely enough training, but they did. In fact, most would have said Sarge was insane for doing so. …Although, truthfully, most people said Sarge was insane for a lot of different things.
So, Doc covered up his sadness and grief with a smile whenever he could, even if it didn't quite reach his eyes.
It was Donut who seemed to see through Doc's act. Yes, the slightly younger Donut who had lost so much himself. Of course the dirty blond would know what it was like to hide pain behind a smiling face.
One day, the pink-clothed boy pulled him aside, touching Doc's arm gently, "It's okay to cry, you know." Donut remarked quietly, brown eyes gentle and knowing.
That had been all it took to get the floodgates open—just some kind words from a friend that Doc probably, most definitely, liked as more-than-just-a-friend.
Doc cried, muttering about how he really didn't want to appear ungrateful in-between sniffles and gasps for breath, "B—but I really miss them…!"
Donut enveloped him in a tight hug, the act nearly causing Doc's heart to stop beating as he desperately, gratefully returned the gesture in-between sobs.
"It's all right, Doc." Donut told him in a soothing voice, "You just let it all out. I can smile enough for the both of us, okay?"
When Doc finally was able to pull himself away enough to look into Donut's surprisingly tear-stained face too, he saw that the dirty blond had a watery smile just then as well. Just for Doc's benefit. Given that, the purple-wearing medic couldn't help but smile through his tears too.
This time, the smiles that they both gave one another were genuine despite all the tears and mucus streaming down their faces.
Donut would later say there was no shame in sometimes "ugly crying." At least so long as no one else saw them do it.
Their "small" family of six exploded with the sudden inclusion of Church, also called Epsilon (…long story, that one), into their lives. The sullen cyborg had brought with him, in one fashion or another, several other new faces too: Caboose and Sheila at first, followed by Carolina and Tex.
It was Tucker who later brought home Washington, despite his Freelancer ties to Church, Carolina, and Tex. The two of them had also come home with another surprise addition thrown into the mix: Tucker's infant son, Junior (also evidently another long story).
Doc was thrilled to have Junior around. He had always not-so-secretly enjoyed babysitting, and seeing Donut or one of the others cooing over the glowing teal-lined baby always gave him a reason to smile.
It was a few weeks following that when Dexter Grif and his little sister Kaikaina joined their group's ranks, the last two members of what had become their makeshift family unit in Blood Gulch. At least until they eventually reached Chorus, though that too was a story for another time.
Things seemed to be going well for their group even with the crowding that accompanied a suddenly full house. Their place at Blood Gulch was definitely a lot livelier now, and Doc was usually always busy with one task or another to help keep his mind occupied.
…That was, everything was going well save for the fact that Grif and Simmons seemed to constantly get on one another's nerves.
The tension between the two was practically palpable. Doc would have said it was "like a hot knife through butter," but he did not like to use similes or metaphors with the implication of violence in them if he could avoid doing so.
Doc had turned the corner of the hallway where all of their bedrooms were located just in time to catch the tail-end of yet another argument between Grif and Simmons.
"Fine then! Stay out and see if I care, fat-ass!"
Simmons' door had slammed shut in front of Grif's face with just a glimpse of the blushing, extremely flustered redhead beforehand.
The chubbier man promptly gave the offending door the finger, "I will. Kiss-ass."
But the glare that Grif was giving the door seemed to have very little to do with anger from Doc's perspective if the blush steadily creeping over the tan-skinned man's body was any indication. Swallowing, Grif turned and stormed off, his face and neck still red. As he did so, Doc couldn't help but notice that the usually lazy man's face held an expression that was unreadably intense.
There was a whistle from behind Doc, and the brown-haired man spun around to see Donut standing there. The pink-armored man's eyes were following Grif's departure with a knowing glint in them.
"You saw that too, right?" He asked the medic-in-training, sighing dreamily as moved to stand right next to Doc, "Those two clearly adore each other. Isn't it romantic?"
"Umm…" Doc glanced over at Simmons' closed door and the hallway that Grif had disappeared down only moments before.
He wasn't so sure if "romantic" was the right word for what was going on between the two of them currently, but he did hope that they would figure out a way to resolve whatever-it-was before they drove everyone else crazy.
He glanced over at Donut curiously, "How did you figure out about them?"
Donut hummed appreciatively to the question, nodding his dirty blond head, "Oh, I have a knack for this sort of thing."
"I—I see." Doc turned his head away just then, hoping to hide the blush that was forming on his features behind his new pink eyeglass frames.
Did that mean that Donut was already aware of how he felt about him? Should he just gather up the courage to tell him?
"But things really have gotten pretty hectic around here, huh?" Donut changed the subject a second later, looking oddly contemplative.
Not trusting his voice to speak, Doc merely nodded. He found he lost his nerve to confess with the sudden change of topic.
"I like having a full house now though." Donut remarked, "We can all fill each other's holes!"
"I like having all of us here too." Doc couldn't help but respond truthfully to the apparently shared sentiment between the two of them while ignoring the second part of Donut's statement, nodding his brown-haired head in agreement.
"Even though there's obviously going to be adjustments that have to be made, I have a feeling it will all work out somehow!" Donut nodded to himself quite vigorously at this statement, "Yeah, I think that everyone's going to do great!"
Donut smiled, turning to face Doc again. Doc couldn't help but believe what the pink-armored soldier said too, especially given the conviction in the other man's voice.
He nodded in response, smiling too.
Author's Notes: I hope you liked Doc's prequel story! :) I had fun writing his as he is a character I don't usually write POVs from, though that might be slowly changing in the future. It was really fun writing all of those Docnut moments and sneaking in a bit of Grimmons too. :) Yep, Doc has obviously had a crush on Donut for a REALLY long time in The opposite of war is… {Sci-Fi AU} series and just hasn't had the courage to confess it yet. But, he will get there eventually in the When We Were Soldiers story, I am sure of it! :D
By the way, I just saw all of Season 14 of RvB this Sunday, and I really enjoyed it! :) My personal favorite episode was "Head Cannon," but they were all great. :D Definitely looking forward to seeing whatever the future will hold in Season 15 now! :)
As always, thank you for taking the time to read this! :D
Next up in Prelude for Losers? will be Church's turn! :)