“You want her to do what?” Simmons said, the first to speak after the silence that had settled upon the lovely couple’s announcement.

“Marry us!” Donut said easily.

“She’s the highest-ranked officer here,” Doc said. “It’s important we stand on ceremony.”

“Why can’t you just stomp on it like we always do?” Grif said. “Hell, I could marry you.”

“You’re a Private Junior, I’m pretty sure that means you can’t marry people. We want you to be the ring bearer, though!” Donut produced two small circles made of straw stalks. “And Sarge, if you could be my maid of honor-“

“Absolutely not! As commander of the Red Army, I demand to be the highest ranking official! Is there something higher than maid of honor?”

Donut thought for a moment. “Matron of honor?”

“I’ll be that one! Just don’t expect me to color match. I’m wearing red.”

“And Simmons, if you could be my best man,” Doc started, but was cut off by an overwhelmed Simmons rushing forward to his him.

“I thought you’d never ask!” the maroon soldier chocked out through small, happy sobs. Doc patted Simmons on the back, carefully, before continuing.

“And as my best man, you’re going to have to ask Carolina to officiate the ceremony. Right? Right. Thanks. Go get her!”

Simmons immediately straightened up. “I resign.”

“No take-backs!” Donut accused before turning Simmons and roughly pushing him towards the base that held the key ingredient. He grudgingly walked over to Blue Base and was greeted by Caboose and Tucker arguing over who gets the room closer to the kitchen. Simmons coughed politely so as not to disturb their struggle over who needs more cookies.

“What the fuck do you want?” Tucker said, knowing he’s about to lose the fight for the prime room at the base.

“I need to talk to Carolina. I guess. And Wash. Actually, I need to talk to all of you. Together.”

Caboose turned to the base and yelled out “New-Church and scary blue lady, Simmons needs to talk to us!” Upon reflection, he added, “and also I call dibs on the room next to the kitchen no tagbacks!”

“Dude, that didn’t even make fucking sense,” Tucker muttered as Wash and Carolina slowly filed out of the base, their patience noticeably thin. “Yes?” Wash said.

“Ahem,” Simmons started, looked at his audience, and said the next sentence in one breath. “You are all semi-cordially invited to Doc and Donut’s wedding and also Carolina you’ll be the one marrying them it’s in half an hour at red base alright awesome see you then.” He then turned around and briskly ran away as he heard the confusion settle and Carolina raise her gun at him in annoyance. He reported back to one of the grooms with a smile and a “they’ll be here in half an hour”, both slightly out of breath. Donut didn’t question it.

Sure enough, in half an hour, Caboose, Tucker, and Carolina walked over. When they were greeted by Doc, Carolina hurriedly explained. “Wash couldn’t make it. He, uh, he had to run a few more files, and he felt bad about holding you guys up anyway on your very special day.”

Doc stared hard at the blue freelancer, sighed, and then mumbled a “just make sure your voice modulator doesn’t malfunction mid-ceremony, Wash. I mean, Carolina.” 

“But where’s his ghost?”

No one answered Caboose. No one could. He’d been asking the question for a few days now, and Tucker had finally given up on trying to explain. They just sat in silence, thinking that if they didn’t address it, if they didn’t acknowledge the childish innocence and earnest plea, he’d stop asking, and they wouldn’t have to say it.

“Church always used to explain things to me,” he said sourly.

“Church used to yell at you,” Tucker corrected.

“But in a helpful way! Like when I shot him.”

“Which time?”

Caboose fell silent for a moment. “I just want to know how long we have to wait until his ghost shows up.”

“Donut doesn’t have a ghost, Caboose.” Tucker muttered finally.

“Sure he does,” Caboose said, unconvinced. “Everyone has a ghost. Do you think he went to the wrong base? He could be waiting for us back at Blood Gulch!”

Tucker sat, staring at his hands and unsure how he could explain this, again, for the countless time. Instead, Sister put a hand on his shoulder and said, in a rare fit of coherency and awareness, “he probably got distracted at the mall and started modeling instead of being here, Caboose.”

“You think so?” the man perked up.

“Chyeah. That’s what I’d do instead of the stupid army.”

Caboose thought about this for a while. “So, when’s he coming back? I ordered all the things to start our cooking show.”

“Aw, man, more telemarketing shipments?” Tucker groaned. The subject was dropped, for the moment, and Caboose stopped staring at Donut’s grave for hours, so Tucker labeled it as progress.

completelysane replied to your post: saskiiaa33 replied to your post: So Two dreams…

*hijacks your words* “Washington, the terrible chicken raiser” What now? That is my new prompt for you

“Put your back into it!”

Wash paused in his efforts to give Sarge one long, appropriately timed start for that comment. “Put my back into catching an escaped chicken?” he repeated, deadpan.

Sarge didn’t hesitate or pause or really seem to mind the ridiculous factor his words carried. “Maybe try to lure it back with a chicken dance.”

Wash stared again until Sarge stopped giving suggestions. It took about two minutes. “Look, first you saddle me with this chicken coop that I have no idea how you got-“

“It was a donation from the tooth fairy,” Caboose interjected. “I lost my tooth one time when I fell really hard going up stairs at the base and I asked for a chicken instead of a dollar. Yep. She was probably just slow getting here because she had to bring it a house, too.”

“-just because I mentioned, mentioned, that I like cats. Which, for the record, does not extend to all animals.” Wash kept going through Caboose and every other interjection patiently. “We don’t do anything with the eggs because no one knows how to cook, and Caboose and Sister and Grif have told me I’m not allowed to kill it and roast it.”

“That’d be mean. Chickie is my friend,” Caboose added again.

“So now I’m taking care of a live chicken, and you’re all not helping me get it out from under this tiny rock cave it ran into.”

“Hey, I suggested grenades,” Tucker said with a shrug.

Wash stared. “That’s not the point.” He crouched down to peer under the rock, hearing the chicken flap its wings excitedly at the prospect of freedom. “Or helpful.”

“Hey, man, if you wanted helpful, you came to the wrong canyon.”

“Explain to me again why we need them,” Carolina said with a sigh.

“Fuck if I know,” Tucker said with a shrug. “The orange one drives shit, but he’s also allergic to doing things. Like, doing anything. The maroon one explains shit until no one actually cares what he’s talking about. Their Sergeant is-“

“-I like Sarge-” Caboose butted in.

“No one cares. Their Sergeant mostly yells at the other two to do more work, but we all know how well that goes over.”

“That is a gross misrepresentation of our team,” Simmons said at the same time as Sarge let out a “that is incredibly accurate.”

“What about the brown one? Lopez?” Carolina asked with a sigh.

“Lopez doesn’t even speak English,” Tucker supplied. “He can fix things, though.”

“Um, excuse me, Agent Carolina…sir?” Simmons said carefully to the sound of a groan from Grif. “Don’t we get to defend ourselves?”

“No,” she said briskly.

“Why do we want to be needed anyway?” Grif asked.

“Because if we’re not needed, she’s going to kill us,” Simmons explained patiently.

“But every time we go on a mission with a freelancer, we almost die anyway. So it’s die now and at peace, or die later doing work.”

Simmons stared at him in stunned disbelief. He considered saying something but his brain couldn’t decide between I don’t understand how you’ve survived this long and are you fucking kidding me?

“What?” Grif eventually asked. “Besides. Why would she kill us? Who’re we going to tell, the waterfall? It’s not like we have contact with anyone, we haven’t even spoken with Command in months.”

“Shut up,” Carolina finally said. She kept getting caught just watching these conversations take place out of sheer fascination, like one would have with a car crash. “Tucker. What do they bring to the table that we’re missing?”

“A pirate!” Caboose interjected, but quickly shut up with a look from Carolina.

“Well,” Tucker said, looking over each of the reds. “Walter knows more than Simmons and is less annoying about it-“

“-Hey!” Simmons interjected.

“Dude, he’s totally right,” Grif said with a snicker.

“I drive smarter than Grif-” Tucker continued.

“So does everyone,” Simmons muttered.

“-and so do Caboose and Walter. Sarge can fix things too but Lopez is better at it. You know what? Just take Lopez, he’s the least annoying and most skilled out of them.”

Silence greeted this as Carolina looked over the red team. That is, until Grif piped in with a confused “you know our names?”

“Of course I do, dipshit, we’ve been teamed up together fighting freelancers and aliens for years,” Tucker said impatiently. “Why, don’t you know my name?”

“What? Oh. Oh, sure. Of course I know your name.”

“Yeah? What is it?”

“Erm. Well. Church is the guy that Caboose is always looking for and you kinda left for a while-“

“Fuck this. Carolina, can we shoot them yet?”

“If you kill us, Command would just send more reds to take over this base,” Sarge said slowly. “Because the glorious red army will not stop in the face of hardship-“

“-since when?-” Grif muttered.

“-and we will continue to fight until every blue realizes the cold, hard truth: we’re better.”

“Does he always talk like this?” Carolina whispered to Tucker as Sarge continued on about the integrity of the military and the importance of the chain of command. Simmons listened dutifully which Grif was in a perpetual loop of rolling his eyes. Carolina suspected that Lopez had merely turned off his ears for the time being. Tucker nodded. “I’m not going to kill you,” she finally said, once it became obvious that Sarge would not stop unless he was interrupted.

“Oh, fuck,” Grif groaned. Somehow he doubted that Carolina would be as forgiving as Sarge is when he doesn’t do any work.

“Your Sergeant is right. Killing you would only draw attention. Instead, you’re now all part of this retrieval mission. Introductory meeting is in two hours sharp.”

“Sarge saved us!” Simmons said happily with only the slightest hint of disbelief, and stood up straight in a salute to Carolina.

“I did?” Sarge said uncertainly. “Well, maybe you can still get rid of Grif,” he told Carolina optimistically.

“Yeah, we won’t even report his death,” Simmons added.

“Fuck you guys,” Grif said and turned around to walk back to their base.

“Dibs!” Sarge said, cutting the silence.

“What? You can’t call dibs on a person!” Tucker protested.

“I just did, Blue.”

“Her armor is blue!”

“We have paint for that,” Simmons piped in.

“No, fuck this, she’s a blue, her armor’s blue, she’s on our team. Tough luck, bitches.”

“Is she a mean girl or a regular girl?” Caboose asked.

“Caboose, what did Church tell you? There’s no such thing as regular girls,” Tucker said patiently. “Anyway, she’s on our team.”

“Fine by me,” Grif said indifferently. He knew what another Freelancer meant: work.

“No, it’s our turn,” Simmons said pointedly. “Besides, we need the manpower. We’re still a man down since when Wa-“

“-Walter-” Tucker corrected hurriedly.

“Walter here killed Donut. Plus, Sarge called dibs.”

“What?” Carolina finally said, her fascination with the dynamics of these two teams quickly fading into annoyance. “I’m not on anybody’s team.”

“Also,” Simmons continued, “it’s our turn to get a freelancer. You had Tex.”

“There’s no fucking turns, dipshit, she’s blue. She’s blue, and we’re the blue army, I don’t make the rules, I just follow them when it’s convenient for me.”

“International dibs law dictates-” Sarge started, cut off by the new arrival.

“I’m not going to be part of blue team-” Carolina clarified.

“-HA!-” Simmons said triumphantly.

”-or red team. You’re both going to be part of my team.”

Silence settled upon everyone for a few blissful seconds.

“Wait. What?” Sister finally said. Carolina sighed as they started talking over each other. This was going to be far too long of a mission, she could already tell.

Every time Caboose says anything, I picture Joel recording that audio.

And my day is brightened.

In other news, too many ideas for something to write. Need to pick a pairing/situation and go for it, so I can unleash the flood gates properly. (All the ideas, though.)