Chapter Text
It was the midst of a battle. An unknown enemy was attacking their odd gang and gunfire and yelling filled the air. Behind the strongest looking wall, which wasn't saying much since their were in the middle of no where and all the walls looked like their were about to turn into dust, sat Griff and Doc, both hiding from the fight.
"Griff! Get the fuck out from there and help us kick their asses!" Sarge could barely spare a glance behind him to see if the private had listened.
"But" Griff glanced around the corner he was hiding behind only to have a bullet narrowly miss his head.
"That's an order!"
The orange soldier groaned to the sky before jumping out from behind his wall of safety, gun blasting and leaving Doc all by himself.
The team had formed a sort of defensive line, but the enemy seemed to just keep coming and coming. Each time they brought more ammo for the men already there. While the structure the team had was effective it wouldn't last forever.
"Aaahh!" Caboose fell from his place in their line of attack, hitting the ground roughly.
"What the fucks wrong, Caboose?" Washington and tucker switched place so the ex-freelancer could be closer to the injure soldier.
"I-I don't know, I think I was short but now I can't move my armor. Am I going to die?"
Washington examined Caboose's injury in his shoulder before shaking his head. "Doubtful, it looks like the bullet didn't do much damage to you, mostly just the armor. You probably won't be much help to us though in this state, you need to take shelter by Doc, he can examine you better."
"I'll go with him!" Griff exclaimed, watching the scene.
"Don't you even think about it, dickhead, we need you to help us out here." Carolina beat everyone to it in responding. Probably for the better, since Sarge and Church both had colorful responses.
"Caboose, get over by Doc! Washington, we need you shooting too!" Church shouted.
"Ah, me moving might be a problem. Since I can't move." Caboose stated. Trying to move in his already very tight armor was a problem, especially when his armor didn't seem to want him to move.
"For Christ's sake, Washington move him and get your back here."
Washington nodded and started dragging the boy away and stopping him roughly be Doc and returning to the fight.
"Hey Caboose, how's it going?" Doc questioned, staring the the boy simply laying on the ground and not moving at all.
"Oh I'm doing pretty good. My shoulder hurts a bit and and I can't move any of my body, but still, I'm good." If it had been anyone else but Caboose then Doc would've thought they were being sarcastic but Caboose really seemed to have meant it.
"Oh, okay. What happened to your shoulder?" Even though he was only separated from the battle by a wall, Doc couldn't really tell what was going on out there, and honestly he didn't really want to know.
"I may have been shot by one of those mean guys out there. But it all happened so quickly, one moment I was standing and shooting then all of a sudden I was laying on the ground in pain and I couldn't move."
Doc nodded, "I guess that makes sense, I'm going to take a look at if then if you don't mind." The medic moved to kneel beside the injured boy and examined his shoulder frowning behind his helmet, "I can't really get a good look at it with your armor on, you'll have to wait until later so you can take it off for me to really see how bad it is."
"No! I can't do that, it's not allowed!" Caboose tried to shake his head, to move, anything. He couldn't allow his armor to be taken off.
"What? Why can't you take off your armor?" Before Caboose could respond though, Washington and Tucker appeared.
"Hey guys! We did it! We kicked their asses and made them go running for the hills. Oh yeah." Tucker made a fist in the air in victory.
"I wouldn't say that, but they did retreat so I guess that's something. Church and Carolina decided that this location isn't secure enough, not with an unknown enemy knowing about it. So everyone is getting loaded into the jeeps and we're headed out of here. Caboose, can you move yet?" He stared down at the blue armor.
"Well not exactly. And by that I mean no."
"Great," Wash responded sarcastically. "Come on, Tucker, let's carry him."
"Ah man, do we have to? Can't we just leave him there and say we forgot?" The teal blue man grabbed Caboose's feet as he spoke anyway.
The ride to find a new location was surprisingly quiet, no one spoke, mostly because it was usually Caboose that did the main talking and without him jabbering on Griff and Simmons felt obligated to remain silent as well. It was nearly nightfall when Carolina signaled for everyone to stop.
"What do you thing, Washington? Church and I agree that this place is as close to secure as we'll be getting tonight." Carolina spoke as she hopped out of the jeep, glancing around at all the canopy trees surrounding them. It was so rare that they saw trees, let alone slept under them.
Washington stared at her surprised, she never cared about his opinion there had to be a catch. "Yeah, it looks pretty decent."
Church laughed, "See told you he'd agree."
Carolina grumbled to herself, obviously irratated. Washington just looked between the two of them confused until Church took pity and explained what was going on.
"We may have made a bet about whether you'd be okay with staying here. I didn't think you'd give a fuck, but Carolina thought that you'd hate sleeping under trees without being able to clearly see around you if there was an attack or some shit."
"Humph, obviously I thought he was a better soldier. Clearly he isn't." She turned and walked away to help set up camp leaving Church chuckling and Washington feeling a little depressed at her parti comment.
"I'm a good soldier. I'm still alive right?"
Church shook his head, "Being alive does not make you a good soldier, just look at us. We've all been through shit and most of us haven't died yet."
With that Church left to follow Carolina to where the rest of the soldiers were busily working on a make-shift place to stay. Wash through up his hands in exasperation.
Over in the camp, Simmons and Tucker were helping Doc by carrying Caboose and dropping him on the blanket laying on the ground.
"Wow, Caboose, you're pretty light for being so gigantic." Simmons let go of him in a more gentle manner then the light blue teammate had.
"Oh, thanks, I think it's because I was thinking about feathers. That makes you lighter you know."
Doc moved to kneel beside the still injured man, shaking his head, he tried to reason, "I don't think that's actually how it works."
Caboose frowned looking at him, "No, I'm pretty positive that's what happens."
"Give up, Doc, that's Caboose that your talking to." Tucker rolled his eyes at the interaction between them.
Doc nodded, in all his time with these people, he knew for sure that Caboose had a tendency to not be able to understand things quite as well as most people. Or at all. He usually didn't understand things at all. "Come on then, help me take of his armor. I should look at his shoulder just in case it is worse than what we think."
The two men nodded and Simmons got behind Caboose to lift his back while they removed the armor.
Before anything could happen though, Caboose reacted agressively, swinging an arm out to get Doc away from him. "No! Leave it alone! It has to stay on!"
The younger man managed to hit Doc, sending him to his back where he held the side of his head in pain.
"Oh, fuck, Caboose why'd you do that?" Tucker stared at him in shock, Caboose was so rarely violent and this was just wrong for him.
Tucker tried to grab Caboose's arms to restrain him, which just got the teal man hit as we'll not as hard though.
"Leave me alone!" Caboose shouted trying to get free of the grasp on Simmons behind him holding on.
"What's going on over here?" Carolina arrived by them just in time to see Tucker get hit for a second time by the blue rookie.
"Caboose is freaking the fuck out about taking off his armor." Tucker responded in a half grunt.
Carolina looked to see Doc laying on the ground unconscious and nodded, "I think there's a simple enough solution for this."
"Oh yeah? Like what? Unless it involve a tranquilizer I doubt it'll work."
Carolina ignored Tucker's sarcasm and moved to in front of Caboose, who was still thrashing around and screaming to let go. She raised her arm and let it fly, punching
Caboose in the face. The boy flung back and laid knocked out from the blast. He began to snore softly and Washington whistled as Church and he arrived.
"That's one was to get someone to calm down." He nodded looking at the poor boy, Washington was really starting to like the kid. Caboose was the kind of person that grew on you, a lot like mold actually.
Tucker shook his head, "I don't care about her methods, he finally stopped attacking and that's enough for me."
Church tilted his head, "Anyone else curious about that fact that he didn't want his armor off? Or am I the only one."
Doc groaned, returning to the world of awareness and sat up holding his head, "Shit, that really hurt." He looked around and saw the state of Caboose. He frowned, "Great, who did that? How am I supposed to ask him questions if he's sleeping?"
Griff, who'd been standing off to the side watching the whole thing with Donut beside him, pointed to Carolina, "She did it."
Carolina gave him and dull look and the soldier didn't need to be able to see her face to know that he was definitely going to regret that.
Doc sighed, "Well, I guess nothing can be done for now. I'll just look at the wound and when he walks I'll talk to him." He leaned over to grasp underneath the helmet.
"You know, I don't think I've ever seen Caboose without his helmet off...." Tucker looked from the unconscious boy to Church.
The other man nodded, "Now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure I haven't either. I've never even thought about it before... I wonder what he looks like."
Sarge raised an eyebrow, "And you call yourself a captain? Hmph, you should've seen his face the very first day he arrived!"
Donut frowned, "Sir, you didn't see my face until almost three months after I arrived."
"Shut it, pretty boy."
Carolina rolled her eyes, "I think everyone is a little curious about how he looks, so why don't you actually take off that helmet rather than stare, Doc."
Doc nodded and lifted the helmet, allowing long strands of light blond, almost white, hair to fall out. The hair was followed by a head that hit the ground. Everyone stared in shock, taking in the petite face with long eyelashes and plump lips. The roses cheeks and pale ivory skin, the rather perfectly placed high cheeks bones. Long bangs framed the face and curled just the slightest at the end, accentuating the absolute delicateness of Caboose
"Holy shit, Caboose is a fucking girl."