#irregular reminder that “That's how it is on this bitch of an earth.” is a beckett quote. it's better in context even.

[renaroo]

The Search (8/16)

Disclaimer: Red vs Blue and related characters are the property of Rooster Teeth. Warnings: Language, Canon-typical violence, Psychological manipulation and trauma Rating: T Synopsis: [Canon Divergence - Alternate S15] The Reds and Blues saved Chorus, but it has been a year and they are still missing. A motley crew has been gathered with the common goal of finding the war heroes, though the road is more troubled than anyone seems to realize.

A/N: Sorry for the long wait, but some things in the current running season had me rethink some things I needed to address in my own AU, and I’m hoping that the break and reevaluation makes the story all the better for it, especially on an emotional level. But thank you all so much for waiting, I really appreciate it. 

Special thanks to @secretlystephaniebrown, @analiarvb, @theshadowlord, Mayhem21, JP, @notatroll7,  Yin, and @cobaltqueen for the comments and feedback!

Corruptible

They all stood together, shoulder to shoulder, watching in utter amazement as the scene on screen unfolded before them. Though, of course, Emily highly doubted that the others dealt with the clips of memory, each like a perfect picture preserved in her mind between each and every blink.

The wide stance between every boot of the Reds and Blues, the way they seemed in perfect alignment, the fact that it was Tucker and Simmons rather than Tucker and Sarge who stepped up to the microphones when Hargrove moved out of the way. The pristine look to their armors — unworn in battle, no damage, no chipped paint, the way none of them made any move out of line or revealed any faces beneath their helmets.

Every inconsistency, every screaming irregularity, was captured by Emily’s ever watchful eyes and burned into her memories alongside every second of memory she already had on file, so to speak, of the Reds and Blues before then. And every time something didn’t match up — and none of it matched up — her brain was screaming at her to somehow make things right, to somehow fix what was so clearly broken.

“Oh my god, Dex!” Kaikaina was the first to break the silence, ripping off her helmet and leaping up to be first in front of the screen. Her body nearly bounced with her excitement as she pressed her pointer finger against the screen to line up with her brother’s image. She then looked back at them all with excitement. “I know that shade of gray anywhere! Look at him! He’s alive he’s okay! He’s…” she turned back around and squinted at the screen. “He’s lost some weight, huh? That’s weird.”

It was one of the twenty-three things that did not line up with Grif on the screen and the Grif that Emily Grey knew from Chorus. It was true, he had lost weight, but his height and still fairly stocky stature lent credit to the fact that it was most likely still him than an imposter entirely.

“Little Grif, get away from the screen,” Carolina ordered darkly, she was upset and doing a poor job of masking it from her irritation toward Kai’s excitement.

“Tucker,” Wash muttered beside Emily, looking at the screen in disbelief. “Caboose… they’re…”

“This isn’t right,” Carolina shot him down as well. “What the hell is going on? What the hell are they doing with Hargrove?”

“A press conference,” Dylan Andrews enlightened them.

That was enough to get Carolina’s head to almost swivel toward the reporter. “No fucking shit it’s a press conference! I have eyes!”

“What you need is patience then because what I’m trying to say is that if we listen to the press conference we could have a better grasp of what they’re even there for to begin with. Outside of stroke some penis-looking bastard’s ego,” Andrews defended rather snappishly herself.

“Bow chicka honk honk?” Junior offered unhelpfully.

“Dude, why’d you have to point out he looks like a penis? I’m swearing off men, sorry, Officer Washington,” Kai announced out loud.

“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?” Wash asked to the point his voice cracked.

“What gives you the right to speak to me like that, Andrews?” Carolina demanded viciously. “My family is up there on this screen like goddamn mannequins and you’re telling me I need patience?”

“Freedom of the press and freedom of speech give me the right, Agent Carolina,” Andrews argued haughtily. “And I’m invoking both of them because apparently I need to remind everyone in this crew that I volunteered out of my own good will to help you on this search and rescue mission after you and your fellow former Freelancer committed a felony by breaking into my apartment and ever since then everyone here has been guilty of treating me like absolute and total shit. So I’m going to speak out and I’m going to get some respect either through work or through force at this point because every single one of you are driving me up a wall at the moment!”

“What kind of wall?” Kai asked unhelpfully.

Eye twitching with her own irritation and having heard more than enough from the squabbling, Emily brought her foot down in a loud stomp and at the top of her lungs screamed, “Everyone shut up! That is an order!”

At once, everyone turned about face and stared at Emily in utter surprise.

Clearing her throat, satisfied with the moment, Emily looked up toward the screen. “Now then… FILSS? Would you please be a dear and turn this broadcast up to full volume so that we can actually hear what’s being said right now? Thank you, dear.”

“Of course, Doctor Grey,” FILSS remarked, the volume bar on the screen beginning to move right across the screen. “May I also make a request that it be deemed no longer acceptable by the group that any of my screens — touch screen or not — be touched without permission. For I am sensitive to smudging.”

“Pfft, don’t be a whiny bitch,” Kaikaina snorted in retort only to have Carolina clasp a hand on her shoulder.

“Not now, Little Grif,” Carolina warned quietly.

With the volume fully up and the ship falling silent, they were finally capable of hearing what was being said by Tucker and Simmons. And while it was their voices, the speech was mannerless, without hand gestures or really any emoting. And especially without euphemisms. None of which felt normal in seeing them talk.

“So after we were coming back to Earth as heroes and all for taking down Project Freelancer, our entire ship got taken over by one of the rogue AI’s that had been used to plant into Carolina and Washington’s brains and stuff,” Tucker lied boldly on screen.

“Without control of the ship, we crashed on Chorus, where the army of the planet was preparing for a full UNSC withdrawal and took our crash as an opportunity to take hostage important figures of the UNSC’s alliance,” Simmons continued.

“Especially me. Since, y’know. I’m special to the truce between humans and aliens,” Tucker added.

“When we wouldn’t agree to work along with them, they made a deal with the Freelancers to turn their backs on us. And they recorded that message that they sent out about Mister Hargrove with their AI.”

“Oh god,” Wash uttered, looking to Carolina. “They’re… they’re framing us?”

“Not only you,” Grey corrected thoughtful, quiet. “They are setting up the entire planet of Chorus. They’re breaking any leverage for independence we had — they’re breaking our chance at peace.”

“Why are they saying this?” Carolina asked.

“Uh, only Tucker and Simmons are saying anything!” Kaikaina pointed out angrily. “Better question’s why the fuck’s everyone else quiet, that’s not normal! Especially when someone’s saying some real bullshit! When’s the last time someone was saying bullshit and my Big Bro wasn’t calling their ass out? Especially if it’s his mostly-boyfriend. Dex lives to call him out on stuff. It’s like. The best thing ever to him. It’s like his orgasm but without him crying.”

Dylan put a hand to her chin. “Because… Because it’s making a good story this way,” she said slowly. “This is… This press conference is every reporter who has been following your careers’ dream. More twists. More betrayals. More—“

“Blargh,” Junior added.

The reporter looked at him in confusion.

“More war,” Washington clarified for Junior.

“The answer to all of our questions is obvious now that we’re looking straight at it, I’m afraid,” Emily announced, pulling the group’s attention back to her. “The experiments performed here on the prison inmates, the stringing us along from location to location, gathering video footage of us breaking and entering, causing damage, fighting UNSC forces. The Reds and Blues are saying what Hargrove and bloodthirsty reporters are wanting them to say because that is what is being fed directly to their heads by these operations. We are the enemies of the state. And they will take us and all of Chorus down with us to spare Hargrove’s ego.”

The others looked at her in horror. Dylan in slight annoyance.

“Hm,” Grey reflected on her words. “No offense to present bloodthirsty reporters, of course,” she offered.

“I don’t think that’s how insulting people is supposed to work but… alright,” she huffed in response.

Carolina was shaking with anger. “This… this is utter bullshit,” she spat out savagely.

“Carolina?” Wash began to reach out but she fiercely turned away from him.

“FILSS, plot us a course to Earth. Everyone… just. Just find something to do while I think,” Carolina ordered angrily before storming off toward the bunk room.”

Everyone stood, more than a little lost.

“FILSS,” Grey spoke up, “Would you be a dear and turn off the news for now?”

“Of course,” FILSS answered before doing so.

“Thank you,” Wash muttered to Grey before following after Carolina.

Grey held her breath, watching as everyone else slowly, still very much in shock, began to fall into their own corners of the ship. No one knew what to do, save for Grey herself. And what she had to do she only hesitated on because she hated what she had to do.

He wasn’t entirely sure what he would be walking in on when he followed after Carolina, but Washington had to admit to himself that narrowly dodging a thrown chair was one of the less surprising outcomes of following their leader into the bunk room. There was a ferocious roar as she threw a different chair into the opposite wall, shattering it and breaking some pipes that Wash distantly could only hope were not overtly important to maintaining life on the ship.

“God damn it!” Carolina screamed, pounding her fist into the nearest table, cracking it.

“Okay, Carolina, I think that’s enough,” Wash said, walking over and grabbing the fist she had just used. He was either a brave man or a stupid one given the look she threw his way after the action. Still, he didn’t let go. “We’re going to run out of chairs if you keep it up.”

“Then I can start on your teeth,” she hissed at him, jerking her hand away.

“I hear those have a limited number, too,” Wash replied evenly.

There was a frustrated, choked off noise that came from Carolina as she backed away from Washington and gave him a full look over. “Are you fucking serious, Wash? Are you fucking really making stupid jokes right now after all this shit just happened? What the actual fuck?”

“Standing around making jokes is the only coping mechanism I’ve seen work for either of us, so yeah. I guess I am serious about taking a breath and not being serious right now,” he answered, not breaking his gaze from Carolina.

It was strange and unprecedented for them. Back in Freelancer, hell, even back when Carolina first returned, a defiant stare down would not have been anywhere close to Washington’s arsenal against his leader’s temper. But it was, and it was because they weren’t just cogs in a machine anymore. Because neither of them were acting on behalf of some failed fiefdom.

Just on behalf of the family that was actively setting the whole galaxy against them on every news station.

“This just… This can’t be happening,” Carolina said lowly, her head ducking down as the bitterness added to the tremble of her voice. “I can’t be backstabbed by another family, Wash. I can’t be acceptable losses again for someone else’s stab at freedom.”

“That is not what’s happening,” Washington reassured her. “This isn’t the Mother of Invention, and the Reds and Blues are not Freelancer. And whatever… Whatever it was that was on that screen was wrong. It wasn’t them. Somehow. And I think you know that already. You heard Doctor Grey.”

“Yeah, I did,” Carolina sniffed before turning away from Wash, running both her hands through her red hair. “Goddammit. I heard her but I also heard them and that’s not something to take lightly, Wash. They set us up as criminals — somehow they became the mouthpieces of the people who have done us the most harm.”

“Yes,” Wash agreed reluctantly. “But… that doesn’t mean it was them. It doesn’t mean we’re betrayed. It means… It means something else. Because the Reds and Blues wouldn’t do that. Well. They wouldn’t do it to us. And I think you know that more than anyone deep down.”

He neared her, wondering if it was going to be comforting to reach out to her or not, when Carolina surprised him by turning around. Her eyes were red and filled with tears that she seemed to be stubbornly holding back. “If we’re not outright betrayed, if this is something to do with AI implantation and mind control and whatever else… Then we are also dealing with the one thing that no one else on this ship cares about besides me.”

Confused, Wash furrowed his brows at Carolina. “What are you talking about?”

“Everyone on this ship is here for the Reds and Blues, and god knows that I am, too. I would die for them,” she affirmed. “But I am the only one on this ship who is looking for Epsilon, too. And if… if the sort of experiments they were doing in the prison were what I think they were, and if Hargrove is the kind of sick bastard that we know he is, and if all of that was successful, just to get that stupid fucking slander out on the news… then there’s one Blue that isn’t coming home no matter what we do. And no one on this ship will feel that loss the way I am already feeling it now.”

“That’s not true,” Wash attempted to argue.

“It’s not like I don’t understand, it’s not like I couldn’t see how you could barely stand in the operation room back there,” Carolina spat out. “That’s not wrong. That’s not beyond reason. But… But I’m… I’m the only one who feels this, Wash. I’m the only one who just lost her hope watching that bullshit. And I’m supposed to inspire and lead everyone to save the rest of the Reds and Blues knowing that none of you can feel the chunk of yourself, of one of the people you love, being ripped out of you and then ripped apart by fucking animals? How am I supposed to do that?”

At a loss for words, Wash stared at Carolina for a long moment before finally reacting, finally knowing what to do.

He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her flush against his chest into a tight hug, hugging her so securely she didn’t even bother pushing him away, just sinking into the embrace.

“You’re never alone with us, you got that?” he told her. “You’re the closest to Epsilon, but if you’re right and he’s gone then we’re all going to miss him in our own ways. And when we save the Reds and Blues from whatever it is that Hargrove’s done to them, you won’t be alone in missing him either.”

Carolina sagged limply against him, as if giving into his perspective, into the truth of his words.

“As for how you’re going to lead us while going through all this shit?” Wash continued. “You’ll do it the way you always do it, Carolina. Like a complete badass.”

To that, she snorted against Wash’s chest, followed by a more natural laugh. She hugged him back and Wash squeezed her.

“It’s time to get serious. Get our boys back,” Wash muttered to her.

“It’s time to be badass,” she agreed.

#writing #rvb fic #RvB: The Search #Emily Grey #Agent Washington #Agent Carolina #Dylan Andrews #Kaikaina Grif #Tucker Junior #Lavernius Tucker #Dick Simmons

[nyxmare]

i keep to myself alot.

ive become accustomed to

drugs and not knowing trust

im sorry im so vulnerable im sorry im too strong to say how much i fear the worst

gave so much blood in my heart to keep everyone else alive i was dying the whole time

all ive ever known was “fuck bitches get money”

i laughed along but i didnt reslly everr think that was funny.

do you reslly feel me? do you reslly know? i see your halo glow.

nothing is a show.

build a home inside me lets plant a garden to grow.

undercover angels dont exist and everynight u exist inside my room

i dont want to feel impending doom i dont want to be anyone but

for you

and i have so much sadness im forever mad

never placid

my heart beat is irregular

i just need your arms on me on me on me and not -

its all a blur. its hazy.

am i the face you seek to see?

in the fog and smog

breathing in the city

ive survived a lot but take my hand please im

lost

id blinding follow you whevere you lead

just dont lead me to be deceived

i have lost myself again

for you its easy and idont always know exactly what to do

im clumsy

im fragile im soft but i stiffen

did you not hear that -listen.

listen to the silence i wake up from a dream

afraid you won’t be be beside me

i slow down my breathing

i hear your gentle sighs without even opening my eyes my body finds your lips

muscle memory

every part of you i need

retracing your face with my fingertips inside my head

its cold in my bed

its cold sometimes

am i yours? are you mine?

do you have the time?

to let me be here

to let me die

sometimes it hurts.

sometimes i want to scream into the sky.

im angry a lot.

im fucked up a lot

i hate myself and yet here you are

but the click is ticking static starts building-

i dont know who she is

i dont know who i am

you cant let me drown

turn around to face me

i hide tears like im

sorry

for feeling

i dont think i have any meaning

my compass is broken

i dont know where im going

im imploding

just want to be alone

alone with you does that make sense?

does that make sense?

my first abusier had to m me didnt it?

so i could never

had my prefrontal cortex stuck in a vorext

wait stop don’t disassociate

just yet

just yet




i still fear the mirror x2

hated having to look myself in the eyes

n see the truth

there’s nothing but pain x2

but its not born from vanity

insanity what more could you demand of me?

i just wwant tk ve the knky

hate things coming too closeg to me get away from 


paranoia \sticks like the gun to my hip

ptsd got a bag just for loaded clips, magazines


remember the fear x2

remember the hands i couldn’t pry off

me

how dare i cry x?

how dare u lie

I PANICED EMBARRESSED

SO i pRAYED TO A GOD that even my childhood didn’t really believe in 


remember girls were meant to be soft/

thts what’s you said anyways 
 like i was just a pillow in bed not a human begin/ and ur not wrong
you’re only herE

for the same reason

same song

every breakup song i write sounds the same

because you’re all the same name same face same GAME, SAME.

- taste me instead i willl possess your body like a like a

sucCUB-…..SUCH A CLICHE \MANIC PIXIE DREAM GIRL MANIC PIXIE DREAM GIRL

manic PIXIEEEEE DREAMMMMMM GIRL I OWN MY OWN WORLD.

Wild, naked, her tongue uncurled — feral image of force, bursting sheer power.

and she’s a god with skin so transparent it appears blue

nyx is the mother of the night- angel of death? no, she protects

as we cry]

ourselves to sleep at night

darkness and light

offspring of chaos like all mankind be/….

ur ONLY AZ STRONG AS UR WEAKEST LINK is\ BUT WHAT IF

the weakest link is AN ARTIST U JUST don’t agree with


but fuck you I’m not the same

MANIC PIXIE DREAM

NYX

 personification of the night

the daughter of Chaos.

USED TO QUESTION IF I WAS born at the wrong time

FELT LIKE I WAS BORN JUST TO BE DESTRUCTIVE

but with so much love to give

born out of the void,

the personification of the deep darkness and shadows.

 the brother of (earth), the underworld loves me, the abyss does too just don’t let it look back into you

carried in the womb of kali and nyx

—the mother of all power—without being reduced to the role of a housewife

you said i reminded u of eve , 
dude eat the fruit of knowledge and lets fucking leave 
the can’t be tamed one, 
not even appealing just getting pitiful and sad to watch
family stopped calling
wouldn’t want the answers anyways
i hate to lie but the truth is unbearable too often
voices in Smy head please stop them 
drown them out with a rifle 
im my fathers child 
runs in the family
brain matter paints the walls
all that’s left of me r