Red vs Blue Excerpt
I'm playing around with a Red vs Blue fic in which Tex and Simmons end up stranded together for a few hours. It's very rough, since I'm only writing chunks at a time and since I've never written this fandom before. I don't like asking people people to beta something in process, but I really need someone who can tell me if it works or not. So, I'm putting this up in hopes of getting some sort of positive or negative feedback.
***
"Why would you booby trap the teleporter?"
"We didn't booby trap it. Sarge just added an enhancement," he replied defensively.
"Why would you enhance our teleporter?"
"Strategic reasons."
The expression on the freelancer's face made it very clear that using the words Red team and strategy in the same sentence was nothing short of ludicrous. "Your strategy was to trap us out in the middle of nowhere due to a teleporter malfunction."
"Okay, first, we didn't know it would malfunction. Second, we weren't trying to trap anyone anywhere." The Red gave her a baleful look and muttered, "Especially not with you."
Her sharp glance told him she had heard the last part, but she chose to ignore it. "Then what was your master plan?"
"Like I'd tell you."
"Ha," she snorted. "I knew you didn't have any sort of master plan. Your crazy CO was just screwing around with our teleporter and it backfired on you."
"He was not screwing around with the teleporter. He was trying to build a--" he cut himself off before finishing.
"Build a what?"
Simmons shook his head.
"Right. Screwing around," she said dismissively, turning away from him.
He sighed, the urge to defend Sarge winning out. He told her what it was.
"What? I didn't understand that."
Simmons sighed. "Hewastryingtobuidatruthray."
Tex mentally translated that, then began laughing. "I'm sorry. It sounded like you said he was trying to build a truth ray."
He sighed again, refusing to meet her eyes. "That's an over-simplification, but yes."
"Why would you want to build a truth ray?"
"To gain strategic knowledge from the Blues." When she didn't reply, he snapped, "What?"
"I'm just trying to figure out where to start explaining how wrong that statement is."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Okay, first, the Blues have no strategic knowledge."
"Sarge says they're constantly scheming."
Tex opened her mouth, then closed it. "Yeah. We don't have time to explain why any statement that begins with 'Sarge says' is ridiculous." He started to defend his CO, but she cut him off. "Second, even if, by some act of God, the Blues managed to piece together a strategy, why the hell would you need a truth ray? There are easier was to get information out of people. Like beating it out of them."
"Sarge..." Another withering look from the freelancer, but he continued, "He had read some theoretical writing on truth devices and wanted to test it out."
"With old parts from a vacuum cleaner, no doubt." This time, Simmons didn't even bother replying. "Okay, finally, assuming that the truth ray worked and the Blues had some sort of strategy worth learning, why would you attach it to the teleporter?"
"It's complicated. You wouldn't understand without the proper background information."
"You have no idea, do you?"
Simmons was silent.
"Okay, since I'm clearly never going to understand the thought processes of the Red team, let's move on to the actual truth ray. I'm not even going to ask if it works or not. My question is, while it's busy not doing what it's supposed to do, does it have any nasty side effects?"
"You don't want to know."
She glared at him. "Trust me, I do."
"Fine." He heaved a long-suffering sigh, perfected by years of interacting with Grif. "It does work." At her skeptical look, he amended, "Sort of. But not exactly the way Sarge had in mind."
"This should be good," she muttered.
"What's your problem? I don't see you doing anything like this," he returned.
"Oh, right. I'm going to defend my habit of not building bizarre devices using plans from Mechanics for Dummies to the guy who's team attached a truth ray to a teleporter. I'm the one with the problem."
*****
"That's the problem with you Reds, you're always whining. It's like you think you have the monopoly on problems."
"Oh, are you implying that we don't have problems?"
"Hell, no. I'm just saying that you aren't the only ones with problems. And frankly, I think Blue team has much worse."
"Blue team has it worse? You're kidding me. Our CO's favorite soldier is a Spanish speaking robot who not only ran away, but also teamed up with our worst enemy. And managed to lose his body. We're still not clear on that."
"Our rookie is in love with a tank."
"Our rookie wears pink armor."
"Our rookie probably has permanent brain damage because he went without oxygen for close to thirty minutes when his genius teammates decided to reboot his armor."
"My team isn't ambitious enough to reboot anything. Except Sarge. And then it's not so much rebooting as turning it off to attach random, unrelated parts, then turning it back on."
"Thanks to Tucker, we had to order biohazard signs from HQ for his rock."
"We had biohazard signs. Grif ate them."
"Tucker got knocked up by an alien."
There was a long pause. "Okay, you win. Or else I don't want to compete anymore. I'm not sure which."
Tex smirked. "What do I win?"
Simmons glanced at her. "The honor of being part of the most fucked up team in the canyon?" She raised an eyebrow. "Okay, in that case, how about the choice between beef and chicken?"
"The prize for having the most dysfunctional team is an MRE?" She looked at the two pouches. "Yeah, actually, that makes complete sense. And I'll take the chicken."
He tossed it to her. "Perfect. I felt like beef tonight, anyway."
She tore into the packet, taking a quick inventory of the contents. "You aren't gullible enough to believe that's actual beef, are you?"
"Let me guess. One of the things you special forces types learn is what's in the mystery meat." An inspection of his meal revealed something that probably might pass for beef...if the only comparison was fast food restaurants and mess halls.
A disdainful snort. "They didn't have to tell us anything. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure it out."
"Okay, if you're such an expert, what is it?"
She waited until he had taken a big bite of beef before answering. "You saw the movie Soylent Green?" He stopped chewing. "That would be the best case scenario." She punctuated her reply by taking a bite of her own meal.
He snorted. "That would be a lot more impressive if I hadn't spent the past four years eating with Grif."
"Messy eater?"
"No. For the first year or so we were here, I think he spent at least an hour a day trying to create a new 'special' ingredient. Apparently, he figured that if it was gross enough, we'd all stop eating and he could have triple rations."
"Did it work?"
"No. Once Sarge realized that Grif actually like the MRE's, he started making Donut and me eat double rations at every meal."
"As punishment?"
"Not really. I don't think he cared what Grif was doing. Sarge just saw a way to make him suffer. Unfortunately, we had to listen to Grif's bitching, so it really wasn't one of the more effective plans."
"Did we have the same military training? When we made plans, it was usually a way to beat the enemy. Or get better tactical position. Something like that."
"Blue team has tactics?" Simmons asked skeptically, tossing the empty MRE container at a nearby rock.
"Blue team? Hell, no," she replied, sending her empty container in the same direction as the Red soldier's garbage and smirking slightly when it landed ten feet past the other container. "I mean Special Forces."
"Oh, right. Sorry, it's just..." he trailed off, obviously thinking better of what he was about to say. "So, you Special Forces types didn’t play practical jokes or anything?"
"Of course we did. The difference is that we apparently have a natural ability to figure out the best way to make our fellow man suffer. We didn't need to plan for it."
There was a long silence. "You know, we always thought it was bad that you were working with the Blues, since it pretty much meant that you were trying to kick our asses every time those idiots sneezed--"
"Trying?" she asked in disbelief.
"Okay, you kicked our asses every time those Blue idiots had a bright idea. So, obviously, being on the other side of you in a conflict isn’t good for continued health. I'm starting to wonder, though, if the guys on your team are any safer."
"They're perfectly safe. I know how to stop short of lethal force."
"I'm sure they're very grateful for that."
"I try not to care," she said.
"But you do."
"Don't be ridiculous. Why would I care?"
"Honestly, I have no idea. But a better question is why have you spent the past four years helping them? I know you'd have to be able to make better money somewhere else."
He wondered if it was his imagination or if her face actually colored slightly. "I have my reasons."
"They don't have anything to pay you and they don't have any skills you need, so I know you're not trading favors. So there has to be another reason...."
"I traded a favor to you and Grif, didn't I? And it's not like you have that many useful skills. And what was that about gay stuff, anyway?"
"Nothing! That's just Grif." He looked away, hoping she wouldn't see his face.
"No way. Normal, heterosexual men don't immediately go to 'gay stuff.'"
"That was Grif."
"And you said nothing."
"It was GRIF. It's not like logical thought works for him."
The freelancer studied him for a moment. "Huh," she finally said, smirking.
"What?" She was silent. "WHAT?"
"Oh, nothing. It's just that you seem pretty hung up on Grif."
"WHAT?" Realizing that he had just made a sound somewhere between a girlish shriek and a squawk, he cleared his throat. "I mean, what are you talking about? That's insane. Why would I be hung up on Grif?"
She shrugged. "The usual. Two relatively attractive men. Close quarters for four years. Latent homosexual urges. It happens."
"You think I'm attractive?"
"One, I said relatively. Two, you just proved my point."
"I've been on a team with Donut for four years. Trust me, I can spot insane ramblings without a point from ten miles away."
"And now we're bringing the openly gay one into this conversation. I just have one question: When you get married, are you going to have Sarge officiate?"
"Shut up!"
They glared at one another for a long time. Finally, he broke the silence. "Okay, I'm not going to argue with you over something this ridiculous. I mean, Grif and me?"
"Fine. I respect that."
"Oh, right, you-- Wait. You respect that?"
"Yeah. I respect that you're not going to tell me you don't have a thing for your teammate when you're clearly obsessed with him."
"God dammit, I'm NOT obsessed with Grif!"
"Hypocritical *and* defensive. I take back what I said about you being relatively attractive."
"That's a good thing, as far as I'm concerned. I'm starting to understand why Church is the way he is...and why you seem to think you're such an expert on obsessions."
"What did you say?" Her voice was suddenly cold.
"Yeah, it's not as funny when you're on the receiving end, is it?"
"You know what? This is why you Reds have sat there for four years without managing to beat that bunch of Blue idiots! It's not just that your CO is an idiot. It's because you're all delusional."
And then they start arguing and Tex and Church and then they either share a moment of understanding or refuse to speak to each other until rescued....not sure which.
***
"Why would you booby trap the teleporter?"
"We didn't booby trap it. Sarge just added an enhancement," he replied defensively.
"Why would you enhance our teleporter?"
"Strategic reasons."
The expression on the freelancer's face made it very clear that using the words Red team and strategy in the same sentence was nothing short of ludicrous. "Your strategy was to trap us out in the middle of nowhere due to a teleporter malfunction."
"Okay, first, we didn't know it would malfunction. Second, we weren't trying to trap anyone anywhere." The Red gave her a baleful look and muttered, "Especially not with you."
Her sharp glance told him she had heard the last part, but she chose to ignore it. "Then what was your master plan?"
"Like I'd tell you."
"Ha," she snorted. "I knew you didn't have any sort of master plan. Your crazy CO was just screwing around with our teleporter and it backfired on you."
"He was not screwing around with the teleporter. He was trying to build a--" he cut himself off before finishing.
"Build a what?"
Simmons shook his head.
"Right. Screwing around," she said dismissively, turning away from him.
He sighed, the urge to defend Sarge winning out. He told her what it was.
"What? I didn't understand that."
Simmons sighed. "Hewastryingtobuidatruthray."
Tex mentally translated that, then began laughing. "I'm sorry. It sounded like you said he was trying to build a truth ray."
He sighed again, refusing to meet her eyes. "That's an over-simplification, but yes."
"Why would you want to build a truth ray?"
"To gain strategic knowledge from the Blues." When she didn't reply, he snapped, "What?"
"I'm just trying to figure out where to start explaining how wrong that statement is."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Okay, first, the Blues have no strategic knowledge."
"Sarge says they're constantly scheming."
Tex opened her mouth, then closed it. "Yeah. We don't have time to explain why any statement that begins with 'Sarge says' is ridiculous." He started to defend his CO, but she cut him off. "Second, even if, by some act of God, the Blues managed to piece together a strategy, why the hell would you need a truth ray? There are easier was to get information out of people. Like beating it out of them."
"Sarge..." Another withering look from the freelancer, but he continued, "He had read some theoretical writing on truth devices and wanted to test it out."
"With old parts from a vacuum cleaner, no doubt." This time, Simmons didn't even bother replying. "Okay, finally, assuming that the truth ray worked and the Blues had some sort of strategy worth learning, why would you attach it to the teleporter?"
"It's complicated. You wouldn't understand without the proper background information."
"You have no idea, do you?"
Simmons was silent.
"Okay, since I'm clearly never going to understand the thought processes of the Red team, let's move on to the actual truth ray. I'm not even going to ask if it works or not. My question is, while it's busy not doing what it's supposed to do, does it have any nasty side effects?"
"You don't want to know."
She glared at him. "Trust me, I do."
"Fine." He heaved a long-suffering sigh, perfected by years of interacting with Grif. "It does work." At her skeptical look, he amended, "Sort of. But not exactly the way Sarge had in mind."
"This should be good," she muttered.
"What's your problem? I don't see you doing anything like this," he returned.
"Oh, right. I'm going to defend my habit of not building bizarre devices using plans from Mechanics for Dummies to the guy who's team attached a truth ray to a teleporter. I'm the one with the problem."
*****
"That's the problem with you Reds, you're always whining. It's like you think you have the monopoly on problems."
"Oh, are you implying that we don't have problems?"
"Hell, no. I'm just saying that you aren't the only ones with problems. And frankly, I think Blue team has much worse."
"Blue team has it worse? You're kidding me. Our CO's favorite soldier is a Spanish speaking robot who not only ran away, but also teamed up with our worst enemy. And managed to lose his body. We're still not clear on that."
"Our rookie is in love with a tank."
"Our rookie wears pink armor."
"Our rookie probably has permanent brain damage because he went without oxygen for close to thirty minutes when his genius teammates decided to reboot his armor."
"My team isn't ambitious enough to reboot anything. Except Sarge. And then it's not so much rebooting as turning it off to attach random, unrelated parts, then turning it back on."
"Thanks to Tucker, we had to order biohazard signs from HQ for his rock."
"We had biohazard signs. Grif ate them."
"Tucker got knocked up by an alien."
There was a long pause. "Okay, you win. Or else I don't want to compete anymore. I'm not sure which."
Tex smirked. "What do I win?"
Simmons glanced at her. "The honor of being part of the most fucked up team in the canyon?" She raised an eyebrow. "Okay, in that case, how about the choice between beef and chicken?"
"The prize for having the most dysfunctional team is an MRE?" She looked at the two pouches. "Yeah, actually, that makes complete sense. And I'll take the chicken."
He tossed it to her. "Perfect. I felt like beef tonight, anyway."
She tore into the packet, taking a quick inventory of the contents. "You aren't gullible enough to believe that's actual beef, are you?"
"Let me guess. One of the things you special forces types learn is what's in the mystery meat." An inspection of his meal revealed something that probably might pass for beef...if the only comparison was fast food restaurants and mess halls.
A disdainful snort. "They didn't have to tell us anything. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure it out."
"Okay, if you're such an expert, what is it?"
She waited until he had taken a big bite of beef before answering. "You saw the movie Soylent Green?" He stopped chewing. "That would be the best case scenario." She punctuated her reply by taking a bite of her own meal.
He snorted. "That would be a lot more impressive if I hadn't spent the past four years eating with Grif."
"Messy eater?"
"No. For the first year or so we were here, I think he spent at least an hour a day trying to create a new 'special' ingredient. Apparently, he figured that if it was gross enough, we'd all stop eating and he could have triple rations."
"Did it work?"
"No. Once Sarge realized that Grif actually like the MRE's, he started making Donut and me eat double rations at every meal."
"As punishment?"
"Not really. I don't think he cared what Grif was doing. Sarge just saw a way to make him suffer. Unfortunately, we had to listen to Grif's bitching, so it really wasn't one of the more effective plans."
"Did we have the same military training? When we made plans, it was usually a way to beat the enemy. Or get better tactical position. Something like that."
"Blue team has tactics?" Simmons asked skeptically, tossing the empty MRE container at a nearby rock.
"Blue team? Hell, no," she replied, sending her empty container in the same direction as the Red soldier's garbage and smirking slightly when it landed ten feet past the other container. "I mean Special Forces."
"Oh, right. Sorry, it's just..." he trailed off, obviously thinking better of what he was about to say. "So, you Special Forces types didn’t play practical jokes or anything?"
"Of course we did. The difference is that we apparently have a natural ability to figure out the best way to make our fellow man suffer. We didn't need to plan for it."
There was a long silence. "You know, we always thought it was bad that you were working with the Blues, since it pretty much meant that you were trying to kick our asses every time those idiots sneezed--"
"Trying?" she asked in disbelief.
"Okay, you kicked our asses every time those Blue idiots had a bright idea. So, obviously, being on the other side of you in a conflict isn’t good for continued health. I'm starting to wonder, though, if the guys on your team are any safer."
"They're perfectly safe. I know how to stop short of lethal force."
"I'm sure they're very grateful for that."
"I try not to care," she said.
"But you do."
"Don't be ridiculous. Why would I care?"
"Honestly, I have no idea. But a better question is why have you spent the past four years helping them? I know you'd have to be able to make better money somewhere else."
He wondered if it was his imagination or if her face actually colored slightly. "I have my reasons."
"They don't have anything to pay you and they don't have any skills you need, so I know you're not trading favors. So there has to be another reason...."
"I traded a favor to you and Grif, didn't I? And it's not like you have that many useful skills. And what was that about gay stuff, anyway?"
"Nothing! That's just Grif." He looked away, hoping she wouldn't see his face.
"No way. Normal, heterosexual men don't immediately go to 'gay stuff.'"
"That was Grif."
"And you said nothing."
"It was GRIF. It's not like logical thought works for him."
The freelancer studied him for a moment. "Huh," she finally said, smirking.
"What?" She was silent. "WHAT?"
"Oh, nothing. It's just that you seem pretty hung up on Grif."
"WHAT?" Realizing that he had just made a sound somewhere between a girlish shriek and a squawk, he cleared his throat. "I mean, what are you talking about? That's insane. Why would I be hung up on Grif?"
She shrugged. "The usual. Two relatively attractive men. Close quarters for four years. Latent homosexual urges. It happens."
"You think I'm attractive?"
"One, I said relatively. Two, you just proved my point."
"I've been on a team with Donut for four years. Trust me, I can spot insane ramblings without a point from ten miles away."
"And now we're bringing the openly gay one into this conversation. I just have one question: When you get married, are you going to have Sarge officiate?"
"Shut up!"
They glared at one another for a long time. Finally, he broke the silence. "Okay, I'm not going to argue with you over something this ridiculous. I mean, Grif and me?"
"Fine. I respect that."
"Oh, right, you-- Wait. You respect that?"
"Yeah. I respect that you're not going to tell me you don't have a thing for your teammate when you're clearly obsessed with him."
"God dammit, I'm NOT obsessed with Grif!"
"Hypocritical *and* defensive. I take back what I said about you being relatively attractive."
"That's a good thing, as far as I'm concerned. I'm starting to understand why Church is the way he is...and why you seem to think you're such an expert on obsessions."
"What did you say?" Her voice was suddenly cold.
"Yeah, it's not as funny when you're on the receiving end, is it?"
"You know what? This is why you Reds have sat there for four years without managing to beat that bunch of Blue idiots! It's not just that your CO is an idiot. It's because you're all delusional."
And then they start arguing and Tex and Church and then they either share a moment of understanding or refuse to speak to each other until rescued....not sure which.