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"Come on! Get your asses out here, we need to tell the viewers goodbye!" Washington shouted, leaning into the red base, his dark gray shirt almost matching the gray of the base's outer concrete walls. Tucker and Church had been the ones to propose they take off their armor and bear their regular clothes for the finale to show everyone who they really are under their normal shades of red and blue (which is actually still shades of red and blue).
Tucker, who was standing beside him, wearing his own worn teal shirt, looked fondly around at Blood Gulch Canyon. They thought that it would be fitting to end their journey together at the place where it all began. He stared across the field to where he knew exactly where blue base sat, empty and lonely.
"They're gonna be a while. Let's go find the others." Tucker said, starting to trudge off towards it, and Wash followed, hoping to find the rest of them.
---
Grif, Donut, and Simmons were still inside red base, reminiscing about all the good (and bad) times and paying no heed to the blues (and freelancer) outside.
"That's the spot where I threw up after Sarge made us run those laps. Remember that?" Grif pointed at a faded stain on the floor that had long since been cleaned up, if not regrettably.
"Yeah, that was the first time he made us run laps and the only time you ever ran them." Simmons sighed, memories flooding back.
"I'll help you run next time!" Donut suggested cheerily.
"Uh, no thanks, Donut. I don't want to run." Grif clarified, rolling his eyes and continuing to walk around the base. He came upon a faded orange door with a dusty 'Do not disturb' sign hanging on it.
"Hey look! My old room!" He opened it, the sign swinging on its hook. His eyes were wide as he slowly walked in, looking around at all his old stuff he neglected to move with their various base changes.
"Oh god, are those socks?" Simmons pointed out, hesitating at the door, not wanting to walk in.
"Yeah," Grif said, carefully stepping over them. He stopped to examine a torn poster on the wall. "Aw, my old Beach Babes poster!" He smiled reminiscently. "Why didn't I take this with me-- oh jesus, never mind." He jerked his hand back suddenly, wiping it off on his light orange shorts. "Uh, don't touch the posters." Grif grimaced and backed away from it, taking his own advice. "Or those socks," He advised Donut, who was reaching to pick up one. "Just don't touch anything."
"Wasn't planning on it." Simmons said from the doorway, repulsed.
"I still have some of those Gamer Chicks magazines, I wonder where those are?" Grif searched around inside the closet, making sure not to touch anything. He moved over to the bed, which he was naturally to lazy to store away when they left.
"Ah, they were under here." He said, voice muffled, as he rooted around beneath it.
"Oh my god." He sat up with something in his hand, narrowly avoiding hitting his head on the bed frame.
"What?" Simmons asked, intrigued.
"I found that ring you gave me back when we were based here!" Grif replied, holding a cheap plastic ring in his hand. It was obviously worn a lot due to the rubbed, scratched, and chipped off black paint, but the red Chinese dragon encircling the outer edge was still mostly visible.
"What? When did you get it?" Donut asked, plopping down beside Grif.
"It was before your scrawny ass had gotten here." Grif replied, bumping Donut's shoulder affectionately.
"Where did you get this?" Donut asked, holding out his hand to receive the ring and examine it.
"It was on some dumb 'field trip' Sarge had us take just a year or two after we were first sent here." Simmons replied, smiling fondly at the memory of stupid things they had done together.
"He said it would 'build character', but really he just wanted to go to the arcade and drink beer and make us leave him alone." Grif said, sighing happily.
"Yeah, he was off all night playing whatever game was popular back then and drinking himself into a coma. We had to drag his sleeping ass back in the Warthog after that." Simmons scoffed, remembering the unpleasant experience. "Anyway, Grif and I were left to play games, but we weren't allowed to drink, because Sarge thought it would make us 'irresponsible'."
"There's a lot of air quotes in your story." Donut pointed out.
"Do you wanna know the story or not?" Grif snapped back.
"Grif and I played all the games there, and all of the claw machine games. We never got any of those dumb stuffed animals though, so we tried our luck with the games that gave shitty prizes, like plastic rings. So, I ended up winning this ring," Simmons gestured to it, which looked just big enough to still fit around Grif's finger. "And Grif thought that since he had coached me on how to play the game, he should get it, which was bullshit."
"Hey, you didn't have any idea how to play until I taught you how." Grif retorted, taking the ring back from Donut.
"I won it fair and square." Simmons replied, rolling his eyes.
"Whatever. You gave it to me, so it's mine now." He smirked at Simmons, getting up from his sitting position ungracefully. Donut bounced up, his lightish red shoes prancing happily to the door as Grif slowly ambled out of the room.
Grif slipped the ring on his right ring finger, smiling sarcastically at Simmons' eye roll, and closed the door to his room behind him after they'd walked out.
"I'm gonna miss this place." He mumbled unexpectedly, looking at the door forlornly. Donut gently placed a hand on his shoulder.
"We all will, Grif." He reassured him, a sad look on his face, too.
Simmons peeked into his old room across the hall, but found everything as empty as he'd left it, aside from many years worth of dust blanketing the maroon floor, the same color as his tattered shorts. He sighed, just as depressed as Grif that they had to leave. Donut paused only briefly to look in his dusty room, the lightish red paint faded and peeling, but still there.
"C'mon guys, I thought I heard Wash calling for us." Donut said, leading them slowly out of the base.
---
"Yeah, and he had this huge--"
"Doc, son, I'm gonna stop you right there." Sarge said firmly, having had enough of Doc's medical horror stories from when he was away.
"Sarge, don't you want to hear about how I had to--"
"No. I don't." Sarge replied, scanning the field between the red and blue bases for signs of life. No one was outside yet, they were probably all crying over their old bunks, the pansies, Sarge thought.
Lopez leaned against the canyon wall, looking bored, as usual, wearing his same brown tank top, as usual, and not giving a shit about anyone else, as usual.
Sarge and Doc were standing on the ledge where many years previously, Sheila the Tank had famously killed Church whilst being manned by Caboose.
They'd come up here to rest for a while in the shade before Tucker came out and drug them by their ears to make them stand in the blistering heat to film their finale.
"Let's sit down, it might be a while." Doc suggested to Sarge, knowing Lopez wouldn't care.
"You sit down, boy, I'll keep watch."
"Watch? For what?"
"It's just what I do, son."
"Whatever." Doc sighed and plopped down onto the ledge, dangling his purple shoes and swinging them back and forth.
Sarge just looked around the canyon, crossing his arms over his vivid red wife-beater.
"Do you think we're gonna miss each other, Sarge?"
"What, just you and me? Or everyone?"
"Everyone! We've spent the last however many years together every single day. This is our life, and now we just have to... give it up."
Sarge grunted. He believed that showing emotion was a sign of weakness, and was for babies, so he avoided doing it as much as possible. He did feel strange that they all had to part ways, but he'd never admit he was really a bit out of sorts.
"It's just... What are we gonna do?" Doc asked.
"Go back to our normal lives."
"But this is our normal lives!" He waved his arms for emphasis. "We've built actual lives in this place and now we have to go back to Earth, to a place that's not our home anymore."
"It's wasn't our choice to leave, son. We're done here. You know, sometimes I want to get away from you dirtbags, but then I think about what our pathetic lives have become, and it makes me want to leave even more." Sarge replied gruffly, averting his gray eyes from Doc's somber hazel ones and shuffling his boot-clad feet.
Doc's eyes were wide as he stared at Sarge sadly. "Aw, c'mon, you don't really mean that."
"I... Maybe I do."
"No, you don't."
Sarge just stared determinedly at the dirt around his feet.
"I don't think you really do." Doc said firmly, gazing out over the sunny canyon again. He heaved a sigh, his body deflating with the air leaving his lungs.
"I know I'm kinda gonna to miss everyone." He said, reminiscing.
"Y'know, I haven't even really been part of this very much. I'm just a medical mercenary. But I really have felt most at home here with you guys. Even if you did almost start a war on who I belonged to once." He chuckled quietly at the memory.
Sarge just grunted, secretly knowing he would feel bad, at least a little bit. It was their home after all, like Doc had pointed out.
"All I can hope for is that we leave on good terms." Doc said.
"If that's possible." Sarge grunted.
There was a few moments of silence where the only sounds were the buzzing insects in the blazing summer heat.
"We should go find Washington, I thought I heard him calling a little while ago." Doc suggested.
Lopez muttered a bored, "Cualquier." [A/N: means 'whatever', but i used google translate so it's probably wrong, sorry]
"Sure." Sarge also said, watching Doc stand up, a critical gleam in his eye. He seemed to be fine, just emotionally unstable. Sarge huffed as he clicked his heels and walked next to Lopez down to the open field with Doc trailing behind.
---
"Hellooooo?" Caboose called to the musty, empty base.
"Caboose, there's no one here. There's been no one here for years!"
"Oh. Yeah, I forgot... What is this place again?"
Church sighed heavily, rubbing his hands over his face exasperatedly.
"This is Blood Gulch Canyon. We were stationed here many years ago."
"Yeah... Is that when I first joined you guys?"
"Yep... Worst day of our lives." Church said, but he smiled at Caboose, showing him he was joking.
"I'm kidding, Caboose. You know we love you." Church gave him a sweet peck on the cheek.
"You love me." Caboose clarified.
"Yeah, I do. Tucker and Wash like you... In a different way." He reasoned, waving his hand noncommittally.
"Okay." Caboose said, smiling at Church and walking with him into their old base.
"Aw, now I remember this. Kinda. This is where we had that flag. And where we lost that flag." He said, brow furrowing.
"It wasn't your fault. Donut took it, remember?" Church reminded him. "He was also saying something about headlight fluid, whatever the fuck that is." He added, remembering bemusedly for a second.
"Yeah... He looked different back then."
"He had red armor, yeah."
"Now it's like, uh, lightish red."
"Sure, if that's what you wanna call it." Church replied, wandering farther into the base.
"Wait, Church, I'm coming!" Caboose yelled, running for his boyfriend and clinging to his broad shoulders.
"I wasn't going far," Church said, giving him an exasperated look. "Our rooms were right over here, remember?"
"Uh, sure." Caboose replied, rubbing the back of his neck. They all knew he didn't have the best memory.
Church glanced down for a second at Caboose, only wondering for a moment what his problem is (this was a normal thing for Caboose to have problems), but his mismatched socks caught Church's eye.
"Are those- why are you wearing one of my socks?" Caboose indeed did have one dark blue sock and one pale blue sock on.
"Oh, that's yours? I thought maybe one of them just got lighter." He shrugged.
Church looked down at his own socks, which were accidentally mismatched as well.
"Oh well," He sighed, smiling at Caboose. "Now we're unique." They continued on, hand in hand.
"Oh god, here's that stuffy-ass room we all had to share." Church pointed out, leaning into it with Caboose peering in behind him.
"What?" Caboose said, also leaning in, but a bit too far, causing Church to loose his balance.
"Caboose!--" Church shouted, the force of Caboose pressing against his back causing him fall down into the room and Caboose falling with him.
"Oof!" Caboose grunted, the air leaving his lungs as he made hard contact with Church's back.
"Caboose, get off me!" Church groaned, feeling suffocated, even if Caboose didn't weigh very much.
"Oops, sorry!" He chirped lightly, rolling to the side and propping himself up on one elbow to gaze at Church, who sat up to catch his breath.
"Why the fuck did you do that?" Church glared at Caboose, but Caboose just smiled widely at him.
"You're cute when you're mad." He laughed, poking Church's stomach.
"Oh, do you wanna start that?" Church said playfully, launching himself on top Caboose to tickle him mercilessly.
"No, no! Stop!" Caboose gasped, giggling profusely.
Tucker suddenly appeared in the doorway of the room with Wash trailing behind him, who was gazing around the base.
"Hey! Fucking weirdos, quit your love-making and let's go film this shit so I don't have to watch you do this creepy-ass love rituals anymore."
"Yeah, and we're gonna have to find everyone else too, since they're on little reminiscence tours... like you." Wash chimed in, leaning around Tucker to talk with them.
"Alright, alright, assholes." Church grumbled, helping Caboose up.
"Okay, c'mon." Tucker waved a beckoning hand, walking out of the base.
"Wait," Caboose grabbed Church's arm before they exited, pulling him back a little.
"We'll be together 'till the part when it's over?" He asked, his eyes betraying how frightened he was to leave his friends.
"Yup. You're my best friend." Church replied, smiling kindly at him and putting his arm around Caboose's shoulders.
"Let's go before Tucker pops a fucking blood vessel," Church sighed, rolling his eyes, and they continued on their way.
---
"Okay, you here and you here--"
"Tucker, I'm the fucking leader of this team, not you!"
"I am also technically a leader," Wash started, but a death glare from Church immediately stopped his dangerous words.
"Yeah? You're the leader, Church? Does a leader leave their team without even fucking telling them?" The anger behind Tucker's eyes and words made Church recoil, but still stand his ground.
"Tucker, we've already talked about this. It was for a good cause." He replied, almost pleadingly.
"Whatever. I'm not even gonna fucking talk about it." Tucker spat, turning back to his work of arranging people once more. He was obviously still hurt and resentful towards Church, but they knew he cared about him all the same.
Church turned to Caboose, who shrugged, a forlorn frown on his face.
"He'll get over it sometime." Church said softly. He was sorry he left his team, but he knew he really did have good intentions.
"Simmons, Grif, over there, Donut, over there by Doc, and, yeah, Caboose, that's good." Tucker directed, rearranging as needed.
"Wash, you're by me." Tucker said, waving him over, the smallest blush creeping on his cheeks when Wash smiled happily at him, something that didn't go unnoticed by the others.
"Now, are we all in place?" Tucker asked to the group as a whole.
A uniform mumble of assent came from them, aside from the babyish whine from Grif.
"I can't see the camera!"
"There is no fucking camera, stupid. Has there ever been a camera when we film? We fucking live in the future!" Simmons griped, his tone, body language, and expression exasperated.
"Alright!" Tucker said, backing into his place and facing the spot they'd get filmed from.
"...3!"
"God, you're fucking dumb." Simmons sighed to Grif.
"...2!"
"Well, you're a fucking asshole." Grif snapped.
"...1!"
"At least I know how to film after however many goddamn years it's been."
"Go!"
"Shut up, asshole. You married me."