Stains on a Blue Canvas
Title: Stains on a Blue Canvas
Fandom/Series: Red vs. Blue
Characters: Church, Wash, Lopez; Off-screen, Maine/Meta, Griff, Simmons; mentioned by name Sister, Tex
Pairings: Church/Wash; discussed, Church/Tex, Wash/Maine.
Summary:Church feels threatened by the fact that Agent Washington may or may not have had a sexual relationship with Agent Maine. In the same manner of things that Tex did to him, Church flings accusations and a very serious conversation takes place. Will they work things out before the Meta comes for their hides? (I suck at summaries - just read it for yourself)
Rating: PG-13 for my beloved F-word spamming and other bad words (17 counts of "F" in this short fic), an unhealthy relationship, explosive violence, and a sexual discussion that's actually pretty clean.
Genre: General/Romance.
Length: 1, 854 words.
Status: Complete, but unBeta'd.
Warning: Over-used metaphor and slash.
Notes: This is included in my series of sequels/prequels to Rabbit Hole, which can be found on my music meme post after this one. And for those of you who have read "Down Down The Seventeenth Rabbit Hole," this takes place some time after that. The Tree of Fate, which played a big part in "Rabbit Hole," makes a rather important cameo appearance. You don't need to have read "Rabbit Hole" to understand this, but you might want to if you're not familiar with the way I write things.
"The world today doesn't make sense, so why should I paint pictures that do?" -Pablo Picasso
--
It was just like what happened when Sister first showed up at the Blue Base, and Tex was no longer the only female around. Just like that, jealousy erupted. A spill of green, a nasty smattering.
Accusations flew at Church; though Tex the Ex was exactly that -- his ex -- she took out the turn of events on him.
Tex screamed at him for sleeping for Sister, when he did no such thing. Threatened him with death for having some sort of secret history she didn't know about, that he had been hiding from her all along.
The even more fucked up thing about all this was that Tex was the one who cheated on Church, and yet here the Cheater was the Accuser.
He didn't let her annihilate him. Though maimed, he did not succumb to her wills, and the yellow spot on the Blue Canvas continued to stain them...
Time went on, and plot happened. Tex left disappeared after blowing up on Sheila, and Sister stayed at Blood Gulch. Stuff happened to both teams. Stuff especially happened to Church.
Time went on, but things did not change for Church. Well, they did change, but nothing that made this situation unable to repeat itself. For you see, the tables had done a three-hundred-and-sixty degree turn.
This time, he was the accuser.
This time, he was the unintentional green spill staining a Blue Canvas.
There was also a mostly-black-with-bits-of-yellow-stain, a man now, but still a freelancer. Not as much of a dick as Tex, but nevertheless the victim of Church's affections.
This time, Church was also the victim.
This time, instead of the argument taking place in the middle of a battle at Blood Gulch, it was taking place in Valhalla, by the Tree of Fate. At this moment in time, it was this same tree that was the centre of peace in Grif and Simmons tumultuous relationship; but before that, the tree was somewhat a spectator as well as a matchmaker. Always had been, it seemed. Benevolent and sturdy, strong and enduring, it was a meeting place for Wash and Simmons to hash out their problems before the relationship crap happened, several months ago when the I-Am-The-Internet-and-God thing happened, and it was still the optimal place for all things conversational to occur.
This time, conversation was of the extremely negative and destructive sort.
It was all about Agent Maine, who was now an extremely destructive sort of being, and was on his way to destroy them.
So it goes.
This all took place just before battle: They weren’t even seated before the accusations hit Wash in the face. They knew the Meta was on his way, but Church wanted to get this off his chest and into the open before he ended up shooting somebody in the face out of frustration.
Church launched at Washington, “Look, dammit, I wasn’t aiming for pathetic, but I guess that can’t be helped. The fact of the matter is, you sure as hell could have told me you slept with the guy, and I gotta tell ya, I don’t like that shit."
Washington’s sensitive paradoxical detection meter was pinging hard in the back of his head. He was acutely aware of the contradictions in Church’s statement, but he said nothing of that. The smell of bullshit was overwhelming.
Now they were sitting, and instead of smashing Church’s face inward with verbal assaults of things such as fact and truth, he said, “What the hell are you blabbering about? You stopped making sense like, three seconds ago.”
“Fuck making sense! I know that you were fucking Maine! Don’t you dare fucking lie to me, you liar!”
“Church, you’re really starting to worry me.” Wash’s look of concern seemed pretty genuine, but Church was adamant at remaining jealous and vindictive. “Besides, this isn’t the time for this. We have to get ready for battle.”
“I don’t give a shit about what time it is! You’re a cheating bastard,” Church said.
“Maine’s pretty much dead,” Wash said, “and I never slept with him, Church. He wasn’t my type. Besides, how would I cheat on you with a dead guy? How is it even possible to cheat on someone using feelings? -” He didn’t let Church reply before continuing - “Maine’s dead, but the Meta’s still around. There’s no way I’d fuck him. I like living, thanks.”
“I’m about talking your goddamned history, and shit like that…you know.” Church was starting to feel stupid for bringing anything up. “It’s like you’re cheating on me since you haven’t gotten over him yet.”
Despite this, the Tree of Fate was doing its excellent job of just sitting there, a lightning rod of the universe to focus its chaos on to the puny humans stuck in an alien war, and it wasn’t of the extraterrestrial kind. Constantly, waves of energy flowed down from the crown of leaves into the roots, affecting all who sat beneath it.
It didn’t hurt that it was pretty nice-looking tree. Comfortable, too.
Wash was getting pissed, thanks to the tree-energy and Church’s jealous-stupidness. “…the fuck? Church, I just said, I wouldn’t fuck the guy now, and I didn’t fuck him when he was still Maine. My romantic history is pretty much non-existent regarding the past five years, before you showed up…. You don’t know this, but the Maine I used to know was at least a one on the Kinsey scale. Maybe even a zero. He was the king of the dance floors, which made him hot stuff for both sexes, but he wasn’t interested in anybody who didn’t have a vagina between their legs.”
Church ignored the dancing-vagina remark. “What the fuck is the Kinsey scale?” He was sure Wash was just trying to confuse the fuck out of him.
The truth of the matter, Wash was not trying to confuse the fuck out of anybody.
He was merely trying to do the exact opposite, as he explained the exactness of Agent’s Maine’s heterosexuality.
“It’s a psychological-sexological scale,” he said. “Attempts to describe a person's sexual history or episodes of their sexual activity at a given time. It uses a scale from zero, meaning exclusively heterosexual, to six, meaning exclusively homosexual.” He knew he was probably giving a little too much information, but whatever. “There’s an additional grade, X, which is used for asexuality but nobody we know fits that grade… except Lopez. Lopez is the only straight robot I know of, and probably the only straight thing around. Tucker’s close. He isn’t a zero, but he’s at least a one-point-six.”
Lopez happened to be standing around at that time. He was coming to tell them something, something regarding the Meta and how they were in terrible danger, and in desperate need of figuring out a plan of action. He said in incomprehensible Spanish and unseen subtitles, <>
He was doing nothing helpful.
Wash thought maybe the robot was upset. “Sorry, bud, but you know it’s true. You’re the only one of us who is completely null on the homo-factor. Take it as a compliment, and get over it.”
<>
“You’re welcome,” Church said, “and it unless you want to catch the gay by hanging out with us homos, I suggest you get the fuck out of here.”
<>
Off Lopez went.
And the tree continued to peacefully stand there, its gorgeous leaves rustling softly and peacefully and tenderly in the wind as the comic energies rained hard from the heavens.
Just so you know, the tree’s Kinsey scale rating was -0.1. Neither homosexual, heterosexual, bisexual, or asexual. It was merely, “tree-sexual,” a near impossible definition of a bisexual-asexuality attained only by this particular species of tree.
So it goes.
“Anyways,” Wash continued, now focused. “Answer me this. How can I cheat on you with my history?”
“That’s - that’s not what I was talking about before the damn straight robot showed up!”
“You were saying something on how it’s like I’m cheating on you since I’m not over him yet.”
Church was becoming more and more embrassessed by this damn conversation and wished to hell it would all go the fuck away. With Wash still sitting there, staring at him through the tinted visor of his helmet, Church knew the possibility of this conversation vaporizing instantaneously was absolute perfect heterosexual zero.
Fuck.
“I was never with him to begin with,” said Wash. “So how the hell can I not be over someone when I never dated or had sex with?”
“…How do I know you’re not just lying to me…?” Church was aware he was losing the fight; despite this, he was starting to feel better.
It was at this time that gunshots and screaming began sounding in the distance. Voices belonging to Simmons and Grif hollered things like, “Son of a bitch!” and “Where’d the fuck did he come from!? Aw, fuck!” and “Fuck!” Explosions also went off, stone and metal debris blowing from one end of the base out the other. Fire spouted from within.
More gunshots. Electric arcs also reverberated off the walls, following the desperate cries of Red, implying that these stains may actually be actual stains instead of redundant metaphors.
Church was staring at Wash, unfazed by the horrific scene going on in the background, unsure if this whole Maine-is-your-ex-and-I’m-emotionally-threatened-by-percieved-competition thing started because of his guilt, jealousy, or if he was really starved for love from the fellow soldier.
“You’re just going to have to trust me.” That was all Washington said before he picked himself up from his favorite spot under the tree, the one spot that was brown and dying from a lack of photosynthesis. He got out his rifle, looked down at Church. “You coming? They won’t last long without us.”
Church was frustrated that Wash had cleared up the problem with only a chosen eight words - nine if you separated “you’re” to “you are.” Even so, his simulated, synthetic heart warmed with simulated, synthetically genuine emotion, and all was well.
He was no longer an unintentional unwanted stain, a spill, a nasty smattering on a Blue Base Canvas. The Meta had taken place as a white stain, what with its wrecking violence and annihilation and urine from the Reds all along his peaceful painting of Valhalla base life and what not. At peace with his himself and his seemingly begrudging boyfriend, Church took off with his rifle in hand right behind the man he loved, to go save Grif and Simmons and his lovely painting from the destruction of a white stain.
And the tree just stood there all through the battle, pleased to know it had done its job at once again helping two bumbling men resolve their unhealthy romantic issues with one another.
So it goes.
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P.S. Church's Kinsey Scale rating is 3, and Wash is a 5. I haven't figured out the rest of the cast. Seriously though, a tthis point I've realized my Tree of Fate is the best OC ever. A tree! A tree as a character! Seriously, WTF? xD Hope you liked this.