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After they’ve radioed Chorus about their dinosaur vs robots mishap (which is really a phrase that could only happen with the Reds and Blues), Sarge climbs up on a fucking hill and starts hollering into an honest-to-god megaphone about ye good olde days when these newfangled dinos and fancy-pantsy robots didn’t exist, and Reds and Blues fought each other like God Himself intended.
Which means Wash goes right up on that hill too and smacks the megaphone right out of Sarge’s hands. “You stop that,” he says. “You’re going to make Carolina skittish.”
Sarge turns on his helmet amplifier: “WHYEVER WOULD AGENT CAROLINA BE UNCOMFORTABLE, AGENT BLUE? THE RED AND BLUE CIVIL WAR IS A TIME-HONORED TRADITION THAT WAS DEFINITELY NOT MADE BY A CORRUPT MILITARY ORGANIZATION.”
“Yeah, that thing,” says Wash. “Don’t do that.”
“I’M NOT DOING ANY—HRK!” says Sarge, when Wash shoves Sarge over and shoves dirt into Sarge’s armor speaker. “THE BLUES ARE—shshsk—attACK—tshk—ING, MEN, TO YOur battle stations! Grif! Simmons! Donut! Agent Washington, get your filthy Blue hands off my armor speakers! I’m no hussy! I demand a first date before you put your hands on me!”
“Then stop yelling about Carolina’s fucking dad before I punt you off this mountain.”
Sarge’s helmet is still on, but Wash can feel his eyes narrowing in glee. “I’d like to see you try, Blue .”
Wash punts him off the mountain. Sarge makes extremely satisfying clanking noises all the way down. And then Wash sits angstily on his mountain and stares into space and contemplates life and retirement and all that bullshit, until Sarge reaches the bottom and starts yelling at him again, and then Wash rolls his eyes and gets up and moves on.
Of all the games that the Reds and Blues like to play, the “Red vs Blue” one is the one that Wash likes the least.
First of all: if they want to shoot people for fun—which they do, frequently, over the most nonsensical and inconsequential bullshit—Wash would love if they could, you know, maybe use not real bullets , because it gives Wash a fucking aneurysm every time Tucker decides he wants to try and shoot an apple off of Caboose’s head for fun with real bullets like the visor of a set of armor isn’t the weakest point and also the most vital considering that the helmet protects Caboose’s brain . (Damaged as it might be, Wash quite likes the job that Caboose’s brain is doing at keeping Caboose alive.) God—whoever heard of that, just shooting people for fun, like the most terrible tradition to ever hold over from that one time they were abandoned in a box canyon for five straight years?
Second of all: nobody ever, ever has any chill about the Red vs Blue game.
One minute Tucker’s run out of pancake mix right before he made Simmons’s pancakes, which is fine, and then something happens and then all of a sudden Sarge is planting live mines in Blue Team’s half of the backyard and Caboose and Carolina are playing croquet through it because Grif dared them to, and at some point Simmons brings out the rocket launcher and Donut brings out the grenades and Tucker brings out the sword and frankly Wash considers it a miracle that nobody’s died yet.
“ Enough ,” he declares, which gets all of them to stop and look at him for about two seconds. “Put the mines away! Tucker, put your sword away! Simmons, what are you doing? You don’t even like pancakes!”
Tucker looks at Grif. Caboose looks at Carolina. Simmons looks at Sarge.
“Okay, maybe,” says Simmons. “But also Carolina’s still a coward if she doesn’t finish the game.”
“EAT MY MALLET, RED,” says Carolina.
“WE INVITED YOU TO DONUT’S RED TEAM WINE AND CHEESE HOUR,” Sarge hollers.
“YOUR CHEESE WAS MOLDY AND YOUR WINE WAS CHEAP,” Carolina hollers back.
“YOU TAKE THAT BACK AND IT’S NOT TOO LATE TO JOIN RED TEAM, BLUE SCUM!”
“I’M FUCKING TURQUOISE DO I LOOK LIKE I WANNA JOIN YOUR TEAM,” Carolina yells, and smacks a ball straight through a wicket. The ball lands straight on a landmine and then all of a sudden they don’t have much of a backyard anymore.
In the smoldering wreckage, Wash shoves the Blues into a corner, grabs a gun, loads and cocks it. Finds Sarge wheezing in the dirt. Fires an entire round into the ground by Sarge’s head. Grif and Simmons run off screaming while Donut lets out an appreciative whistle.
“I said ,” Wash says through gritted teeth, “that’s enough .”
“Never enough!” Sarge cries, and pulls the pin on a grenade. Wash seizes it and throws it away as hard as he can. Sarge kicks Wash in the chest, making Wash stagger. “Grif! Get ‘im now!”
At which point Grif drives a Warthog through the smoke straight at Wash, who dives out of the way and tackles Sarge, wrestling him to the ground. “I’LL NEVER SURRENDER,” Sarge shouts. “YOU CAN’T MAKE ME! YOU MIGHT HAVE MY BODY BEATEN, BUT MY SPIRIT WILL NEVER DIE!”
“Stop screaming or I swear to god I won’t make spaghetti tonight!”
“—You’ve beaten my spirit temporarily, but only until after spaghetti night!”
Wash rolls his eyes. “I swear to god,” he says, exasperated. “Do you ever let up? At this rate, I’m going to spent the rest of my life beating you up.”
Sarge gives a weird little wheeze at that, but then Tucker starts yelling about the Warthog damage, and Wash forgets about it.
The day after that, Sarge brings Wash an assortment of various guns. It includes a rocket launcher. It’s wrapped with red ribbon.
Wash suddenly has new perspective on what Donut meant when he said that Sarge could be taking retirement better.
“What is this,” Wash says.
“A bouquet! Obviously! It’s arranged by bullet diameter and everything!”
Wash looks down at the bouquet.
Sarge shifts uncomfortably.
“Why are you giving this to me,” Wash says.
Sarge seems almost offended that Wash would even ask. “Use your head! Guns are good for one thing and one thing only! They’re for shooting , numbnuts, that’s why I’m givin’ ‘em to you!”
“Okay,” says Wash, because hell, these are some nice guns, he might as well put them to good use, right? “Sure, I’ll take them.”
Wash reaches for them. Sarge snatches them back. “You’ve got to actually shoot ‘em! That’s the deal!”
“Yes, guns are for shooting,” says Wash patiently. “I’m well aware.”
Sarge squints at him. “You’re not gonna pansy out like Grif and say that we should be settlin’ down and retirin’ and not go causin’ any more fights?”
“Oh, I’ll say that,” says Wash. “And then I’ll shoot them anyway, knowing me. Actually, knowing you , who can’t stay out of trouble for more than three seconds. Give them here.”
Sarge cackles. “Excellent! Because I’ve jerry-rigged your entire bedroom with explosives.”
“You’ve WHAT ,” says Wash.
After that, Wash gets the odd feeling that he’s being watched.
“Carolina, I think I’m going crazy again,” says Wash. “I keep seeing things out of the corner of my eye. I feel like there’s someone—watching, you know?”
Carolina doesn’t stop combing fingers through her hair, pulling it into a ponytail taught against her skull. “We live in a base with ten other people. The only time people aren’t watching me is when I lock the door to the women’s showers. And now that Kai’s around, sometimes not even then.”
“Yeah, but like…” Wash makes a face. He, a person who was Section Twelve’d, really doesn’t like to admit that he feels eyes on him a little more often than usual when nobody else can feel them.
“Wash?” Carolina asks.
“Nothing. Never mind,” says Wash.
Carolina rolls her eyes. “Don’t daydream about your sugar daddy right before I kick your ass.”
“I’m not, I’m not,” says Wash. “—Wait, my who ?”
Carolina only gives one her smug, secret smiles.
“That’s not what’s happening,” says Wash.
“Okay,” says Carolina.
“It’s not ,” says Wash again.
Carolina rolls her eyes.
“Carolina!”
It would be easier to deny the “sugar daddy” comment if Sarge would stop giving him things.
Unfortunately, the list of items that Sarge gives Wash from thereon afterwards includes: guns, grenades, the keys to the Warthog, more guns, guns, several shotguns specifically, bits of armor that belong from the Locus model (for some goddamn reason), a crate of military books which is mostly just old copies of the Red Team Handbook, entire bags of coffee beans, motor oil, several robot kits, toolboxes, more guns, Simmons’s old prosthetic leg, and a singular strawberry yoo-hoo.
This is always immediately followed by Sarge doing something fucking awful, and Wash having to kick him in the teeth to make him stop.
And, yes, well, it’s not exactly a mystery what Sarge is doing. Sarge could be taking retirement a little better. But really, which one of the Reds and Blues couldn’t be? Carolina still goes on patrol every morning. Tucker is plagued by insomnia he’s never had before. Simmons now binge-watches sci-fi shows with a fervency that seems unnatural. Caboose still wanders around looking for Church.
Life is endless on Iris.
And it puts Wash’s teeth on edge.
It feels like there should be more to do, like Wash should be training the Reds and Blues for something terrible about to happen. Even when they were on Chorus at the crash site, they had something to do—radio for help, mostly—and it was just the Reds and Blues who were incapable of doing anything without turning it into the most ridiculous game of live-ammo paintball that also involved a Mantis droid while Wash dragged all of them single-handedly towards survival. When they were in Valhalla in the days before Carolina found them, they were on the run from the UNSC, Wash breathing shallowly through his wounds and all of them looking over their shoulders, fearing when the officials would drag Wash back to prison. When they were running around with Carolina, it was the same except they were both following and fearing the fire-breathing woman in charge.
On Iris, the days go on and on and on. They do dumb shit all day long and the other shoe never drops.
Wash, actually, doesn’t really remember the last time he wasn’t in some kind of pressure-cooker. Days on Iris unravels like messy threads, tangled and pointless and going nowhere. There should be some sort of mission to prepare for, some sort of event, some danger to stave off, some impending doom on the horizon, he catches himself thinking. He catches himself getting up early to train, but it isn’t the same, because he doesn’t know what he’s training for anymore. He doesn’t miss the pressure cooker, but he’s missing— something .
He’s missing it more and more, nowadays, because Wash is beginning to realize that this, right here on Iris with a pack of thirty-year-old frat-boys, might actually be the rest of his life.
If Sarge wants to give him weird things and all Wash apparently has to do in return is kick his ass—and Wash was going to do that anyway—what’s the difference?
It takes Wash six hours to figure out who’s watching him, which is impressive, considering that the culprits are Grif and Simmons. Once he’s got that nailed down, it takes him less than thirty seconds for him to drag them out by the collar and sit them down at the kitchen table and, in his Mom Voice, demand to know what’s going on.
“Is it recon?” he says, when they don’t reply and only look at each other like guilty children. “Is Sarge doomsday prepping for the next robot-dinosaur war? Did someone make Caboose cry?”
“Oh, what, us?” says Grif.
“Yes, you . What are you doing.”
“Little old us, doing nothing and saying nothing and thinking nothing?” says Simmons.
“And are therefore definitely not doing the thing you’re thinking that we did?” says Grif.
“The thing that we know nothing about because we’re not thinking about anything.”
“That’s us, sure is us, yep. Is that the us you’re talking to?” Grif says.
“The ones who are doing nothing?” Simmons ask.
“What can we do for you today, since we are so clearly doing nothing and particularly not the thing you think we’re doing, Agent Washington,” says Grif.
Wash stares at them. They stare back.
Not to sound like a filthy Blue, but honestly? Fucking Reds.
“Then if you’re not doing anything, stop following me.”
Grif and Simmons look at each other. Don’t say anything. Look back at Wash.
“What. Now ,” Wash says through gritted teeth.
“Look,” says Grif.
“Not that we don’t think you totally have this in hand,” says Simmons.
“‘In hand’,” says Grif, winking. Wash gives him a wide, unblinking stare.
“But we’re also, you know, maybe a little concerned,” says Simmons.
“Nothing to do with you.”
“More to do with Sarge.”
“See, as it’s common knowledge that Sarge has a delicate, breakable heart of glass—”
Wash chokes on nothing. “You have to be joking,” says Wash. “Are you serious right now?”
“Joking? Us ? Have you met us?” Grif says.
“We never joke,” says Simmons.
“Red Team is hundred percent serious about everything all the time,” says Grif.
“And we especially do not joke around about the fragile state of Sarge’s inability to reach out to others in an honest manner without using military proceedings as a crutch,” says Simmons.
“Heart of glass,” Grif whispers.
Wash has no idea what expression is currently on his own face, but he suspects a mixture of disbelief and incredulity.
“Okay, first of all,” he says, “I don’t know what you’ve assumed, but Sarge and I are not—involved.”
Simmons looks at him pitying. “Oh, it’s okay, Wash. I’ve been there, done that. I understand.”
“SECOND of all,” Wash says, talking over Simmons, “we can’t possibly be talking about the same person. Sarge does not have a heart of glass.”
Simmons covers his mouth, clutching at imaginary pearls. Grif looks genuinely floored. “ You’re joking,” Grif accuses.
“And you’re pulling my leg,” says Wash. “Sarge? Him ? Genuine? That’s—ridiculous. He gave me a bouquet of fucking guns . That’s not courtship, that’s just Sarge being Sarge.”
“Of course it’s Sarge being Sarge. How else did you think Sarge was going to do a courtship?” Simmons asks.
“Can we not call this a courtship,” says Grif. “I feel arthritis setting in just from the vocab.”
“Well, what else are we supposed to call it?” says Simmons.
“Mating ritual?”
“Mating dance.”
“Mating call.”
“Mating announcement.”
“Mating personal advertisement.”
“NOBODY IS MATING,” Wash interrupts. “That’s worse than courtship. Christ, this isn’t some creepy alpha-beta-omega story.”
Simmons’s eyes lock onto Wash. “If it’s so creepy, how do you know about them?”
“I—that’s—well—”
“Are those the things Sarge reads sometimes but won’t let us see?” Grif asks.
Simmons snickers. “They even have the same taste in por—”
“STOP TELLING ME WEIRDLY SPECIFIC THINGS TO MAKE ME AND SARGE LOOK COMPATIBLE. THIS SHIP HOLDS NO WATER.”
Simmons holds up his hands. “ We’re not doing anything! That’s all you two. It’s you guys who are obviously cashing in on your unrequited gay sexual tension from the last ten years.”
"What unrequited gay sexual tension from the last ten years?!"
"Something something your yellow stripe has always tempted Sarge," says Simmons, completely deadpan.
“But Wash didn’t even know the first thing about Sarge,” says Grif. "Maybe Wash has got a point."
“He likes guns,” says Wash flatly, before he can stop to think that he’s arguing in favor of himself knowing the first thing about Sarge. “He likes war, and murder, and killing Blues.”
"Bzzt! Wroooooong." Grif ticks off his fingers: “He’s desperately lonely, loves to pamper people—seriously, you should see him with Caboose or Donut sometime—he has difficulty being honest and settling down after spending his whole life in the military, but still wants to make it happen and doesn’t know how—”
“WHAT DID I JUST SAY ABOUT TELLING ME WEIRDLY SPECIFIC COMPATIBILITIES BETWEEN ME AND SARGE.”
“Did you really not know this?” Simmons demands.
“No??? Why would I?!”
Grif and Simmons exchange another Significant Look.
“What now ,” says Wash.
“Actually... if you don't even know this about Sarge? I don’t know if you two dating is a good idea after all,” says Simmons.
“We’re not dating,” says Wash automatically, and then: “Wait, what?”
“Yeah, it kind of sounds like it’s better for everyone if you two called things off,” says Grif.
“Like, these are basic Sarge facts,” says Simmons.
“Sarge 101.”
“The first-date kind of Sarge material.”
“Why would Sarge tell me about his crushing loneliness and inability to function outside the military on the first date?” Wash says.
Simmons looks at him like he’s stupid. “Well, you’ve already done your prerequisite decade worth of pining, right? You guys should be way past that point.”
“Wh—”
“Give it up, Simmons,” says Grif. “Obviously this Blue Team scrub isn’t worth Sarge’s time. Honestly, if you wanna insist you’re not dating so badly, that’s probably for the best.”
Wash’s brain fumbles for the right response to this, because it feels like he’s got ten different radio stations in his head and none of them have the same opinion, and he doesn’t even know what to believe anymore, and this is definitely why the first thing out of his mouth is: “You can’t tell me what to do.”
“Can to, Blue,” says Grif. “If you haven’t noticed, you’re on Blue Team, and we’re on Red Team, and basically we’ve got dibs on Sarge.”
“You’re not Sarge’s keeper either,” Wash argues. “He can flirt with whoever he likes.”
“Okay, fine. When you break Sarge’s heart because you haven’t even bothered to remember the first goddamn thing about him, we’ve got dibs on breaking your kneecaps.”
Wash sits up straighter and crosses his arms. “I’d like to see you try.”
“Doesn’t even try to deny Sarge’s heart will get broken,” says Grif to Simmons. Simmons shakes his head. “Fucking Blues. Should’ve known Blue Team can’t do anything without tears and drama.”
“Nobody’s heart is getting broken,” Wash snaps. “What kind of relationship scrub do you think I am?”
“A Blue one,” they reply immediately.
That does it. “This is prejudice,” Wash hisses. “Blue Team is perfectly capable of having a relationship without tears or drama!”
“Oh yeah?” says Grif.
Simmons sniffs. “I’ll believe it when I see it.”
Wash stands up. Marches straight into the kitchen. Pulls out Sarge’s bottle of whiskey. Chugs three shots worth straight from the bottle and shoves it back into the cabinet. “Watch me,” he snaps, pulls out three packs of grenades, a loaded magnum, and two condoms from under the kitchen sink, and walks straight into Sarge’s bedroom.
Because you know what? You know fucking what? If this terrible retirement is going to be the rest of Wash’s life and everyone's going to be convinced Sarge is his fucking sugar daddy, he might as well make it fun .
When Wash has gone, Grif and Simmons look at each other.
“Sarge better appreciate this,” says Grif.
“Honestly, I’m just glad Wash is moving his ass,” says Simmons.
“They would have been pining forever,” says Grif.
“Years, even.”
“Maybe a decade.”
“ Sixteen years, even.”
“God, that would have been fucking annoying.”
“Glad we got that sorted out.”
Grif and Simmons nod in unison, satisfied.