#might've forgotten about doc until i was almost done and then gone 'whatever'

[sroloc--elbisivni]

RvB: A Red Team Celebration

@redvsbluesecretsanta

Merry Christmas, @mercuryblacksleg! Hope you like your Secret Santa gift!

Summary: Red Team doesn’t exactly do holidays traditionally, or tastefully, but they never fail in their enthusiasm. Featuring Lopez the Christmas tree, lights on a Warthog, and a thirty-foot menorah made out of flamethrowers. Gen fluff. Light Grimmons, light sarge/grey.

“Uh. Excuse me, but what the fuck.”

Donut looked up from where he was stringing popcorn onto a needle to see Grif and Simmons staring from the doorway.

“What?” Donut said serenely, threading another piece of popcorn before holding up the string to eyeball it. “It’s traditional. Here, Lopez, hold this for me?”

”No.”

Donut sighed, sticking the end to Lopez’s head with a piece of tape instead, just below the star. “Hmm. Now I know size doesn’t matter, but this could really use a few more inches.”

Grif was still staring, but now his hand was creeping towards the popcorn bowl, so Donut had to smack him away. “Honestly, Grif, I know you love choking it down, but you can walk to the kitchen. I’m using that.”

Simmons, his head poking through the door from behind Grif, blinked. “Is—what happens when he walks away?”

“He won’t. After Sarge got done with him, it turns out he won’t be able to walk for days!”

Lopez rotated his head, disturbing the tinsel around his neck and sending a few pieces scattering on the floor. The ornaments Donut had taped on a few minutes ago jingled, but didn’t fall off. ”Help me. Please.”

“Oh, Lopez, don’t be ridiculous. We can’t add the lights yet. Sarge hasn’t finished painting them all red!”

Grif came back from the kitchen, holding popcorn. “Okay. I’m probably going to regret this, but one question: why.”

“I told you. It’s traditional.”

Simmons made a face. “No, trees are traditional. This—I don’t know what this is, I think it might be cruelty to robots.”

”Thank you.”

“Not that it really matters, since Lopez doesn’t care.”

“I will pour motor oil on the things you love.”

“Do you see any trees around here?” Donut waved one hand to indicate the room, as well as the general idea of ‘island in the middle of nowhere.’ “And aw, Lopez, that’s sweet!”

“What is?”

“He said he loves us.”

Simmons pulled off a dubious expression very well. Half of his face being metal really helped.

“Huh.” Grif stuffed a handful of popcorn in his mouth, looking thoughtful. “Got any more of those lights?” He moved the bowl out of Simmons’ reach before he could grab some.

“Sarge took all of ours, but I think Blue Team still has some from that whole Caboose debacle.”

“Cool. See you later.” Grif took the bowl of popcorn with him.

Donut went back to stringing on popcorn, humming Christmas music. That didn’t mean he missed Simmons’ hand sneaking towards the bowl.

“Ow! Donut!”

“Oh, stop whining. It wasn’t even anywhere tender.”

Carolina hadn’t really stopped for the holidays in a long time, before Chorus. There was always somewhere to be, things to do, people to hunt down, information to find, training. Always something.

And then she had stumbled into a corner of Armonia where someone had carefully framed a computer chip on the wall, a piece of masking tape stuck onto it reading “ תוֹרָה.” On the table beneath it had been a single lamp, powered by a jury-rigged battery.

Carolina remembered standing at the doorway of that little room for a long, long time.

Now she was standing at the doorway of the base, and had been for a long time, but for a very different reason.

“Sarge,” she said, finally. “That...I appreciate the offer, but I don’t--it doesn’t need to be that much fire.”

Sarge looked up from where he was using a sledgehammer and stakes to make sure the last flamethrower was secured completely to the welded-together scrap metal. Carolina could barely see him in the gathering dark. “What?”

Carolina sighed, and took a deep breath to raise her voice. “It doesn’t need that much fire!”

“WHAT?”

Carolina cupped her hands around her mouth. “IT--DOESN’T--NEED--” She stopped shouting and looked again.

Sarge was working on the last of nine upright, oversized flamethrowers he and Simmons had spent most of the day modifying after she had asked--naïvely--if the base had any candles laying around, because she wanted to put together a menorah. The answer had been no. Or, more accurately, the answer had been no, and then Sarge getting a very worrying glint in his eye.

And now there was a giant menorah of scrap metal and flamethrowers put together on the lawn in front of Red Base. She could just barely see where Simmons was hanging onto the far left one, hitting it with a wrench.

It was ridiculous. It was probably going to blow up in a few hours.

And it was...actually kind of sweet.

“YOU KNOW WHAT? NEVER MIND.”

Grif came up behind her, munching on something. “Has anything blown up yet?”

“Surprisingly, no.” Carolina tipped her head to the side, watching as Simmons almost fell off. He and Sarge shouted at each other for a few more minutes before Sarge climbed down.

“HEY!” Simmons squawked. “I’M STILL--NO NONONONONON--”

Simmons did fall off this time, as Sarge started cackling maniacally, and ended up rolling onto the ground. Carolina could admit that at least all the Reds and Blues knew how to fall properly.

“I’m okay!”

“Nerd,” Grif mumbled, around a mouthful of something. “Oh, hey. Here.”

Carolina looked down to see him offering an unopened bag of potato chips. “What’s this for?”

“Simmons said you eat fried potato things. Right?” He sounded a little bit uncertain.

Carolina took the bag of chips, trying not to laugh. “Thank, Grif. It means a lot.”

“HEY! ARE WE GONNA LIGHT THIS THING OR WHAT?”

“Wait! I’m getting the cookies!” Donut rushed past with a dish of cookies that Carolina was reasonably sure--when she squinted--were frosted dreidels.

Well then.

Grif gestured with his own bag of chips. “After you.”

The remote starter Sarge had put together worked perfectly, so after Carolina had stumbled her way through the songs she could just barely remember, the buttons were pushed so first the center, then the far left spout went up in flames.

Donut clapped excitedly. Grif swiped a cookie. Sarge cackled.

“Wait,” Carolina said, as realization hit her. “Where’s Lopez?”

“I hate all of you.”

Dr. Grey made a thoughtful sound as she examined the setup. “Is that…comfortable?”

“No. This entire situation is despicable. If I had a nervous system, I would be ready to rip it out just to end the suffering.”

“Lopez says he’s snug as a bug in a rug, Dr. Grey!”

“If you’re sure,” she said, already moving on. “Ooh, Donut, those look lovely.”

“My aunt Agatha’s own recipe,” he replied, cheerfully. “And let me say again just how glad we are to have you here for the holidays, Dr. Grey.”

“Oh, just call me Emily. After all, I’m not here to patch you up!”

“Well I’d be happy to take a checkup from you anytime.”

Grif had already absconded with a plate of cookies to sit by the TV, where Simmons was arguing holiday movie selections with Caboose. No one was sure why Caboose was there. No one really knew how to get rid of him.

“No—Caboose, we’re not going to watch Love Actually. It doesn’t even count as a Christmas movie.”

“Yes it does. It is snowing. So it is Christmas.”

Carolina, from where she was watching the whole thing, snorted into her cocoa.

“It’s not—Grif, back me up here.”

“Hey, I said we should watch Die Hard.”

Simmons sputtered. “That’s even less of a Christmas movie.”

“Ooh! Stranger Things!”

“No!” Simmons put his head in his hands. “Look. Can’t we all agree on one terrible stop-motion animation Christmas special?”

“That shit is nightmare fuel,” Grif complained.

“We’ve almost died like, ten times in the past year, and that’s what you’re calling nightmare fuel?”

“Well, yeah.”

“I do not want the little elf to pull my teeth,” Caboose said seriously.

“I hate all of you,” Simmons said, flatly. “I mean it this time. I really do.”

Grif shrugged and ate another cookie.

The door to the base slammed open, heralding Sarge’s entrance. “Treason! Disaster! Subterfuge!”

The room looked up at him.

“Those filthy blues have covered our warthog—the great and mighty transportation of the Red Army—in lights! Of the worst color—blue!”

Grif quietly collected the plate of cookies and tried to sneak towards the door.

“Private Grif! What kind of desertion are you trying to pull?”

“Desertion?” Grif said, tone innocent as he could manage. “No desertion. Just going to investigate. Sir.”

“Hmph.” Sarge looked like he wanted to argue, but Grif figured the combined opportunity to get rid of him, plus the idea of figuring out what was going on, was too good to pass up. “Well. I suppose even you have to be useful sometimes, Private Grif. On accident. Barely.”

Grif rolled his eyes and grabbed another couple of cookies off of Donut’s tray before vanishing out the door.

It was quiet and dark out—aside from the five lit flamethrowers on the menorah. Carolina had pointed out that they only needed to burn for half an hour, but when they had all stared at her, she had added, “…but they can always go for longer, I guess.”

Grif took his cookies well away from the giant columns of fire, heading for the Warthog covered in Christmas lights.  

He hadn’t been the one who changed them all to blue. He would have done it, if he’d thought of it, but he hadn’t. So sue him.

Point was, Grif hadn’t done it. And the only one who’d been out here since they’d gone inside after lighting up the menorah had been Sarge. So either it was the Blues pulling a prank—which, Tucker and Wash were alone in their base with Caboose gone, so Grif would bet they were busy—or someone else.

Grif was betting on the someone else.

He put the plate of cookies on part of the frame while he climbed up into the back, legs dangling off the edge. His heels kicked, almost absent-mindedly, and Grif pulled a gingerbread cookie off the plate to bite the limbs off while he watched the dark.

It was almost easier watching for this without a helmet. Seeing the world through a visor, you got used to distortion, little ripples flickering around everything. It was harder to pick out what didn’t belong.

Bare-eyed, he could see the soft flicker of camouflaged armor moving towards the Warthog.

There were a few loud creaks, and the Warthog shifted as weight pressed on one side of its frame, but the air next to Grif still looked pretty empty.

“Dude,” Grif said, rolling his eyes. “I don’t care what kind of superpowers you’ve got. If you want one of these, you’re gonna have to take the helmet off.”

There was a long pause, and then Locus’ familiar armor shimmered into view, and his hands reached up to pull off his helmet.

You look like shit, Grif kind of wanted to say, but he didn’t, because he knew that feeling. So instead, he grabbed another couple of cookies and shoved the plate over.

Locus took one, hesitantly, and turned it over to examine the sprinkles.

“Blue?” Grif asked, just to fill in the silence. “Really?”

“Green seemed…too obvious.” He glanced back at the Warthog in all its twinkling glory. “Your handiwork?”

“What, you’re gonna pretend you weren’t watching?”

The silence spoke for itself. Grif snorted.

“Yeah,” he said, running one hand over the lights. “It’s something…back home. It was this whole thing, when I was a kid. People would put lights all over their cars, and on Christmas day there’d be this big parade. One giant party on the beach.” It felt weird, admitting that, even though he knew he’d said more embarrassing shit when Locus was helping him recue the guys.

Locus didn’t say anything, just chewing on the cookie.

“Look,” Grif said, finally, after the silence had gone on way too long. “Do you want to come inside? We’re gonna argue about stop motion for probably ten more minutes and then put on the Muppets Christmas Carol. There’s popcorn and shit. It’ll be fine.”

“That seems…unwise.”

Grif shrugged. He hadn’t been sure it was going to work. “Suit yourself.”

But he didn’t make any move to go anywhere for another few long minutes.

When there was a faint scream from inside the base, though, he sighed and rolled forward, landing on his feet. “Anyway. I better go back in. Offer’s open if you get cold. And keep the cookies, Donut’s been baking like a nutcase.”

Locus looked up from the single cookie with a bite out he was still playing with, and nodded.

Grif made it five steps away before he heard his name called out, and turned back around to see Locus watching him, almost sheepish.

“I…thank you.”

Grif shrugged. “No problem, dude. Merry Christmas.”

When he made it back inside, the alien and the rat puppets were already up on screen, yammering about something or other, so it seemed things were right on schedule. Lopez was in the corner, muttering death threats, so whenever Sarge reactivated his leg servos Grif was going to go on a long walkabout. Donut had settled on the couch with Caboose, Sarge and Dr. Grey were cuddled up together in a chair (ew ew ew ew ew) and Carolina was resting her feet on an old engine and working her way through another cup of cocoa.

Simmons was on the far end of the couch, so Grif detoured to grab some cookies and a blanket before flopping down at his feet, leaning back against the couch and making Simmons jump.

“Dude, chill.”

“You chill,” Simmons muttered, darkly, but didn’t flinch away again.

Cookies. Cheesy movies. Giant flamethrowers and lurking reformed bad guy outside. Blanket and Simmons to lean against.

Not a bad setup, all things considered.

Grif gave it ten minutes before asking, “So, Die Hard?”

Simmons’ hand, where it had been creeping into Grif’s hair, yanked away to bring a pillow thumping down on his head.

#hope this fits what you asked for! #might've forgotten about doc until i was almost done and then gone 'whatever' #Red vs Blue #rvb fanfic #rvbsecretsanta17 #this was fun #internet blew out for most of the day sorry it's kinda late #sroloc writes stuff #red vs blue fanfic #red vs blue fanfiction