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autisticblueteam · 6 years ago

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Your Friend, Connie (TexCT)

[AO3] [Ko-Fi in Bio]

Rating: Teen

Word Count: 4849

Summary: Connie’s running out of options when a mission gone wrong gives her an opportunity she never expected to have: the chance to talk to Texas, one-on-one. But complicated problems rarely have such simple solutions.

Notes: Final fic for @rvbfemslash February! An immediate heads-up: this fic is not as overtly shippy as I first intended and whilst it’s certainly intended to imply TexCT, it’s not explicit and it focuses more on the potential in their relationship. So it’s toeing the line of counting for this month, but it was written with the ship in mind.

This was ridiculous.

Connie huffed, twisting her wrists in their bindings a little more, trying to get the right angle. There was a little give now, but not enough to get her hands free without breaking a couple of bones and dislocating a couple of joints. She’d rather not do that. Easy fix with some knitting polymer back at the ship or not, it wasn’t pleasant.

She couldn’t believe this had even happened. She was better than this, she didn’t get captured by untrained goons and thrown into the back room of some shady warehouse that smelt like centuries outdated petrol and god knows what else—noxious and distracting, painfully so. Yet here she was, in exactly that situation, with her wrists tied behind her back and her armour nowhere to be seen.

This wasn’t going to help her tenuous standing at the Project. Getting captured two times in as many missions was going to catch much too much attention from command.

If only it hadn’t come so soon after her last intel drop. Sending intelligence over the Project’s own communication networks, even routed through a variety of proxies and other safety measures, was getting too risky. So, rather than take that chance, she’d arranged for her contact to ‘capture’ her on her last mission. It was simple enough; she tripped an alarm that she’d never have fallen for in an actual infiltration and let Sleeves, their muscle, grab her. Cutting off her own comms was easy and the drop went smoothly; by the time someone had made their way to retrieve her, her contact had retreated and she pretended that she’d escaped part way on her own.

Simple. They got what they needed from her, she kept herself out of the suspicions of the Project.

Whether or not that would last now, she couldn’t be sure. Things were getting… precarious.

Time was running out and she couldn’t see the countdown.

Shaking the thought away, Connie focused back on the bindings wrapped around her wrist and the situation she was in now, not the one she faced when—if—she got out of here. The warehouse was far out of the way; it had come up on the Project’s radar only after reports of them using—maybe even attempting to sell—experimental equipment had reached the UNSC.

Going by the strange way her armour had locked up, allowing them to grab her without her even throwing a single punch, those reports were true. Experimental or not, it did its job and completely shut down her armour’s systems, she hadn’t even been able to trigger her emergency beacon to call for immediate help.

Hours had passed since and she knew that, by now, they had to know she was in enemy hands. Or, more importantly, that her equipment was.

Agents were disposable, if worst came to worst. But their armour, their modifications? Never.

So she knew someone would come, eventually. For her gear, if not for her.

The two guards that stood over her changed out fairly regularly, as someone got bored or they were needed for another duty. Watching them gave away no organisation or pattern of any kind, so that was a bust. Even with her bindings almost loose enough to remove, to do so without access to a weapon or her armour, with armed guards so close by? It would be suicide.

And so it became a waiting game.

More guards came and went. No one seemed to know what they were going to do with her, not-so-subtle whispers passing between the assortment of grunts about their options—should they have killed her already? Dumped her somewhere? Tried to actually interrogate her and find out what she was here for? Something else entirely? No one knew. Capturing a UNSC-sponsored prisoner was clearly not part of their plans for the day.

At first, she didn’t notice when those whispers shifted target. She’d almost tuned them out entirely before a sudden yelp came from one of their earpieces, the high-pitched sound of someone being struck down mid-word.

The guards shared a look.

“I’ll… go check what’s going on,” one said, taking a few, reluctant steps away. His current partner, who looked somehow even less enthused about the concept of investigating than he did, just nodded.

“You do that,” he said, before turning to Connie with his rifle raised. Connie tensed her shoulders. “And don’t you try any funny business. I can still shoot quicker than you can move.”

That was almost certainly true.

Unfortunately for him, they wouldn’t have chance to find out. Moments after the words left his mouth there was a loud CRASH behind him as his buddy was slammed against the wall with inhuman force.

He jumped out of his damn skin, turned his attention away from Connie—

—who tore herself free from her bindings, planted a hand on the floor and swept his legs from under him.

A yelp, a clatter, a shimmer, the snap of bone—

He dropped to the floor dead.

Connie landed back on the floor, her heart pounding at the rush of adrenaline after hours of sitting still. Looking up at her rescuer, she exhaled; it could only be one person. “Texas.” The clean-up crew.

The shimmer in front of her solidified, smooth black armour reappearing in swathes of reality and an outstretched hand. Eyeing it for a moment, Connie took it and let herself be pulled to her feet.

“You know, if I didn’t know better, I’d think you were showing off with that entrance,” she said, rubbing her wrists. They’d definitely bruise. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment of blankness in Tex’s posture, before something clicked into place and she chuckled. Delayed social reaction. That checked.

“I’ll take that as a compliment. You okay?” Tex stood almost an entire foot over her. She’d be imposing, if Connie didn’t know as much about her as she did. Oddly, it made her more… human, knowing that she wasn’t. “No injuries that are gonna stop you moving?��

“No,” she shook her head, “I’m fine. They didn’t subdue me physically, it was tech that got me.” Speaking of… “Did you get my armour?”

“Not yet.”

Connie raised a brow. “I’m surprised. Shouldn’t you have been grabbing the important stuff first?”

Tex’s tilted head held the same sarcastic confusion. “Yeah, well, my orders are to prioritise your armour and the tech, but hey, I found you first, what am I supposed to do? Backtrack on myself? Nah.” Then, a shrug. “Besides, I know you’re our best intelligence agent. That seems pretty important to me.”

Stance relaxing a little and her face softening, Connie sighed.

“But hey,” Tex continued, “you don’t wanna be saved I can just leave you here, go grab the armour and swing back to you if I have time, no skin off my back.”

“Alright, point taken,” Connie said, before pausing. “…and thanks. I don’t mean to sound… ungrateful.”

“Don’t worry about it, you’ve been stuck here for hours, I’d be grouchy too. You know where your armour is?” Tex said, taking a pistol off her thigh and offering it to Connie. She took it. “Fully loaded. Haven’t touched it.”

“Didn’t need to, I’m guessing.” A knife would have been preferable, but a pistol was better than nothing. “I have a rough idea. I imagine it’ll be wherever they’re keeping their other tech. They have some kind of armour locking technology, more advanced than things like the paint. It locked my entire body up with some kind of energy field.”

“Huh. That’s the kind of shit you’re out here for isn’t it?” Tex nudged the dead guard with her foot and glanced over at the other one—not dead, just unconscious and collapsed in a pile of broken crates. No threats in the room.

“Essentially. So, all going well, we’ll be able to complete the mission anyway.” Connie took a deep breath in. Being without her armour on a mission she was meant to run with armour was a new kind of vulnerability she didn’t appreciate at all. “Okay, let’s get this over with before I think too hard about the fact I’m only wearing a kevlar bodysuit.”

“Don’t worry,” Tex said, cracking her knuckles, “I won’t let anyone hit you.”

There was a kind of surety to the statement that only Tex could give off; it wasn’t just a promise, it was a statement of fact. With her track record in the field and training backing that up, Connie felt a little of the tension in her shoulders release.

“Alright, I’m holding you to that.”

“Wouldn’t expect anything less.”

The warehouse wasn’t kitted out with alarms, but the mess in the open rooms they passed and the sound of distant voices betrayed the panic that had quickly spread once the invisible, wrecking ball of a woman had torn her way through. The halls had been vacated, besides a couple of people grabbing the injured, but alive, members of their group and dragging them away.

There was no point in fighting them if they weren’t an active threat, so they let them go. Going by the buzz of turbines above them, the second assault had provoked an evacuation.

“Think I scared most of ‘em off?” Tex said, nodding towards the ceiling.

“Most of them. I doubt they’ll want to leave behind all their tech and they certainly weren’t moving out before you turned up,” a silent infiltration with no casualties never did have the same shock factor as a true assault, “some of them will have to be near wherever they’re storing it, packing it up.”

“Okay, so where we heading? Where would you keep all your top secret, fancy tech?”

A laptop secured against the underside of her bed. A signal scrambling system built into her personal Data Pad. Her medical information used as a layer of defence over the top of a whole drive’s worth of stolen intel. Innocuous places people would never think to look, hidden in plain sight if anyone even bothered to search in the first place.

“One of the standard warehouse rooms, but the furthest one away from where they were keeping me tied up.”

Tex nodded. “Got it. Stick behind me.”

Connie was right. A few halls away they heard voices; orders to hurry up and attitude in return, interrupted by the scraping sound of crates being dragged and the sputter of an old engine. A quick peek inside and they could see them packing crates up into a very outdated van. There was a growing pile of opened and unopened crates beside it, whilst a couple of the group wrangled others into the back.

Stacked on top of one such crate was Connie’s armour.

“You think you can sneak around to your armour whilst I clean up the rest of them?” Tex said. A moment later she was nothing more than a shimmer, distorting the blank wall behind her.

“I should be able to, yeah,” Connie said, double checking the pistol. “See you at the other end.”

The shimmer shifted slightly—an arm being lifted, perhaps—and then it was gone, disappearing into the rows of shelves between them and the vehicle bay at the back.

Connie waited until she heard the first person take a punch and then she was on the move, too.

Moving quickly but quietly, finger rested close to the trigger and on high alert, she slipped down the aisle closest to the entrance. Thuds and bangs and grunts travelled through the shelving—crunching from unarmoured fists against metal and heavily armoured fists against bone, scampering feet and a crate smashing against the floor.

Connie shuddered. Thank god she’d never had reason to be on the wrong end of her strength.

She was at the end of the aisle when one unforeseen side effect of Tex’s distraction made itself known: a couple of the group had ducked behind the crates. Her path was no longer clear, but their view of her certainly was; movement in their periphery drew their attention the moment she got close enough to register they were there.

Emboldened by her lack of armour, they stood to try their luck. That was their first mistake.

They didn’t have guns, so when they ran at her Connie didn’t feel anywhere near as vulnerable as being in open hallways where someone with a weapon that could tear through her suit with ease was a threat. She didn’t even level her own pistol. Soon, they were in range, fists clumsily raised and—

Connie ducked, swept beneath them and half-knocked their legs from under them. By the time they’d steadied themselves she’d already grabbed one of their arms, twisted it up behind their back and slammed her foot into their spine, knocking them down again. As the second of them turned to face her, she bolted towards the end of the aisle. Gave herself room to move and react.

When he came at her again, she ducked, threw a punch into his gut and dodged around him. With a knife this would have been over in seconds. Instead, he came for her again, the first guy grabbed her ankle—

And then he was thrown into the shelves and their arm snapped between the ground and Tex’s foot.

That was their second mistake.

Connie exhaled. Okay.

Tex kicked the first guy in the head and knocked him out. “Told you I wouldn’t let them hit you.”

“You sure did. The others—?”

“Dealt with, get your armour on. I’ll tear open some boxes.”

As soon as the final piece of her armour clipped into place and her HUD lit up, the last of the hairs on her neck settled. Even her knives were still there and she gladly attached them back to their respective hard-points, resting her fingers against the hilt reflexively. There were no more threats, but being in the field was always easier with multiple inches of armour plating between your vital organs and everything around you.

“What did the thing they use on you look like?” Tex called, the sound slightly muffled by the walls of the van.

Connie hopped up into the back with her. Most of the crates had been pulled open by force, their contents now easily seen and examined. Most of them seemed to be weaponry, much of it completely familiar, but one or two contained more… interesting things.

“I didn’t really see, but if I had to take a guess…” Her HUD was scanning and highlighting things that gave off unique energy signatures. Slowly panning past the guns and ammo, she settled on a box of square units that were highlighted as being electromagnetic. “Those things.” Tex reached out, but Connie grabbed her arm. “I wouldn’t. I don’t know how they activated them and I wouldn’t know how to deactivate it either. Find a smaller box and I’ll take off my gloves, minimise the risk of it touching armour.”

Tex tilted her head, but she stepped away.

Connie exhaled. How one would have reacted to Tex’s body, she didn’t know. And she didn’t want to take the risk. Tex had to know eventually, but… not like that.

Taking off her gloves, she picked up a couple of the units. When Tex returned with a suitable box she set them down carefully, padding between them with packing from the original crate to keep them from touching.

“There. Alright, call for extraction.”

“Already on it.”

Turning back, Connie could have sworn she saw Tex… staring, at her? Staring may have been too strong a word, but looking at her, for sure. Maybe that wasn’t notable, but…

In the back of the Pelican, Connie spoke up. “Hey, Texas?”

Tex’s head snapped up, shattering the eerie stillness that had lingered since she sat down. She didn’t share transports often. “Uhh… yeah?”

“I know you’re busy, with briefings and training and all, but… when you have a free hour or two, do you think we could meet up and talk?” It was reckless. Riskier than anything she’d done before now. But she was more aware than ever of that invisible timer, counting down until she’d have to make a choice.

So she was making one.

Tex stalled. That split-second delay she’d noticed before lingered longer this time—ingrained protocol warring with social rules warring with personal desires warring with whatever else was on her mind.

But, eventually, it passed.

“Yeah, sure, I’ll… set some time aside. I think I have an hour between training and briefing in a couple days? About 1300,” Tex said, shifting a little in her seat. Nerves?

“I can make time. Do you know where the observatory deck is?” Quiet, mostly private. Especially during the day.

“Yeah, I know where it is. Guess uhh… guess I’ll see you then.”

Connie offered a smile. “See you then.”

Tex may have tried to smile back, but it was hard to tell behind that helmet she’d never seen her remove. Regardless, the silence felt a little more companionable after that.

A human connection, first and foremost, that was what Connie wanted to offer. Break the isolation that Tex had been experiencing since she came into existence. Maybe, just maybe, if she was able to get past that… maybe she could tell her. Maybe she could do something without having to leave.

It wasn’t a sure thing.

Still, Tex deserved to have a friendly face to turn to. Her unusual circumstances had dictated her isolation and no one had made the effort to change that, not even Connie herself. Tex was owed that much, surely.

Upon their return, everything went as Connie had expected. Without even so much as a ten minute diversion to check her physical condition, Connie was dragged into a dressing-down disguised as a debriefing. She stood there and took it, zoning out and saying ‘yessir’ and ‘it won’t happen again sir’ in all the right places to placate his anger at her incompetence. It didn’t matter, anyway; that board hadn’t changed since the AI started going out, she wasn’t being demoted to Beta Squad now. Even if she was, it would hardly change anything.

It ended, she left, she passed out in bed with only a wave at South.

Tex was nowhere to be seen for the next two days, but that was expected too. It was a miracle she’d even found one hour of free time to promise. So Connie went about her business as normal, continued her work, kept up appearances.

But when that hour came, Tex wasn’t there.

The observatory deck was dark and empty, so silent that the hum of the engines was no longer just background noise. Connie waited there for three hours, just in case—it didn’t make a difference, Tex didn’t come.

Maybe she should have expected that, as well.

After that mission, everything at the Project seemed to move faster than ever and Tex was somehow more absent than she’d ever been before. No one saw her for days, then a few weeks. Never caught so much as a glimpse. AI production showed no signs of stopping and Connie found herself backed further and further into a corner. Every new piece of intel she stole upped her chances of getting caught and the pressure from Jarrett to leave was piling by the day. Tex had been one of her only other avenues of action and that had clearly closed.

Connie was racing that invisible countdown and she couldn’t keep up.

Eventually, she knew something would have to give. Opportunities to drop her intel discretely had faded. Her next chance involved ignoring direct orders, abandoning a mission and risking exposure. Or, perhaps worse, having to leave before she was really ready to make that decision.

So the night before, she found herself back on the observatory deck, amidst the eerie silence of space that made her lungs feel compressed and her mind run in circles about the what ifs of the void in front of her. Unpredictable and infinite. Absolutely terrifying.

And then a voice broke the silence. “Room for another?”

“I’m certainly not going to stop you.”

Texas emerged from the darkness, her pale face and light hair a stark contrast to it and her black clothes. It was the first time Connie had seen her face outside of the files that recorded every detail of her existence, from the exact shade of her hair to the beauty marks that, if pressed right, would open her power cell compartment.

She knew more about Tex than Tex may ever know about herself and it felt as wrong as it was.

The AI who knew nothing of what she was sat beside her, leaned back upon her palms and stretched her legs out in front of her. Stared out at the abyss in front of them, all of the distant stars that only Maine seemed to know the names of, and said nothing more.

Connie glanced at her out of the corner of her eye, watched her. The slightly too even rise and fall of her shoulders, the unnatural stillness of her position—all the little things. Maybe if she’d been around them more, she would have adapted her patterns to match, began to act more human. Then again, what did it matter? She thought she was human, she acted human in all of the most obvious ways.

Shattering that illusion required more trust than Tex had been given time to place in her. She couldn’t do it now.

Quiet ruled the room for almost ten minutes before Tex spoke again.

“Sorry I stood you up. Shit got kinda busy after we got back, I didn’t have the time.”

“It’s fine. You’re a busy woman.”

Another pause. Connie picked at the scar across her palm and took a deep breath in.

“You ever have to make an impossible choice, Tex? One that could either fix or ruin everything all at once?”

Tex hesitated, but this time it felt more… real, not like a software delay. “Not really. Things have always been… pretty straightforward, for me, I guess. I do my job, do it well… don’t have to make the hard decisions, just gotta follow orders when I get ‘em.”

“Hopefully it stays that way,” Connie sighed, pulling her knees up to her chest. Another beat. “You on the mission tomorrow?”

“Technically, that’s classified, but… nah, not tomorrow. Got me hanging back on the ship, ready to go if things get dire, but,” she shrugged, “pretty sure you guys can handle this one.”

Connie rested her head against her knee, turned to face her. “Even me? The one who’s been captured twice?”

“Hey, from what I heard, the first time you got out on your own. Second time, you only got caught because they had some weird tech. I think you’ll be fine,” Tex said. Nudging Connie with her elbow, she offered the first and last smile Connie would ever see her give.

“…thanks.”

“Next time I get a break, I’ll try and let you know. See if we can find time to really have that talk you wanted to have. Seems like something heavy, if that dramatic question was anything to go by. Like, seriously; that was a hell of a welcome.”

Connie muffled a quiet laugh, shaking her head. “Sorry. I suppose I have a lot on my mind right now. Hence the staring out into space thing.”

“Literally,” there was a note of amusement in her voice, in her eyes. Connie smiled and nodded.

“Literally.”

“I’d ask what choice you gotta make, but that might be a bit personal for a first meet-up.”

“Ask me next time you see me,” Connie said, “I’ll have made the choice by then, it won’t matter so much.”

“Can I hold you to that?”

“Yeah. You can.”

“Well alright then, I gotta get going so…” Tex hopped up to her feet, stretched her arms above her head. Even out of armour, she was built like a brick wall. “Guess I’ll have to ask you next time. See you around, CT. And good luck tomorrow.”

“Thanks, Tex. I’ll see you around. Hopefully we have more time next time.”

Tex gave her a mock salute and vanished back into the darkness of the connecting hall, gone as quickly as she’d come. Connie was alone again and as midnight hit, her countdown was no longer invisible. The mission clock projected itself on the glass in front of her.

Eleven hours, fifty-nine minutes and fifty-six seconds, fifty-five seconds, fifty-four…

One way or another, she was going to have to make her choice.

Pushing herself from the ground, she marched through the halls until she reached the locker room. Empty, this late at night, with camera blind-spots that were easily exploited. Finding one, she set her helmet up on a bench and sat against the lockers behind it.

Taking a deep breath, she set it to record.

“Agent Texas. Allison. If you’re reading this, then that means I escaped. Or, well, at the very least, I’m probably not around anymore…”

It took a few takes. The words flowed by with ease, but her voice was unsteady and her tone was off and her heart pounded so loudly in her ears that she couldn’t even hear herself. Recording this was admitting something, something she didn’t want to face. Not yet, not until that countdown was over and things would change irreversibly.

Maybe she hadn’t been able to tell anyone whilst she was here, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t try even when she was gone. Texas was still her best bet, the one at the centre of all of this.

Things could have gone differently, in another world. Where she’d spoken up sooner, where she’d made the effort to reach out and give her that human connection before it was too late for it to make a damn difference. Where maybe they’d have had the chance to know each other, before Connie had to shatter Tex’s concept of her own existence.

Where the sentiment behind, “…your friend, Connie,” could truly have been realised.

But this wasn’t that world.

Choices had already been made.

Within a couple of months, branded a traitor and a liar and risk to UNSC security for the second time in her life, Connie was dead.

Bled out, alone in an escape pod. As alone in death as she’d been in her final months in the Project and in all of her efforts to make a difference.

And, eventually, Texas would open her locker. Find a set of dog-tags that didn’t belong to her. See that name.

Watch the video.

“I want to leave behind all the data I've been collecting about Project Freelancer. I never could shake the feeling that something was wrong with the program. The secrets, the lies, the manipulation; smoke, all of it, obscuring a big damn fire.”

Everything clicked into place. Everything Connie had said, the strange way she’d looked at her, the way she had tried to reach out… the reason she’d left, the reason she’d provoked her, the reason the Director gave no order to preserve life.

“I did some digging, and now I know what the Director's been hiding. What he did.”

The reason something had felt off for months now.

“He broke the law, Allison. The one law they don't just slap you on the wrist for. I'm taking the originals with me as an insurance policy. I leave this copy for you not because you are the best soldier in the squad…”

Constant training and meetings. Carolina’s increasingly bitter attitude towards her. The AI. How she never had even a spare moment to interact with the team. The fact that Connie had to have been the only person she’d ever shown her face to.

“…but because I know that I can trust you the most.”

Before she killed her.

“After reading these files you will understand why.”

There was a long list of things that Texas would regret in the years to come. At the top was what happened in that bunker. What she’d done.

In another world, things would have gone differently. Connie’s attempt to reach out wouldn’t have failed. They’d have had the chance to talk, to know each other beyond the surface level banter and offerings of friendship that had at least proven the concept—that they would be a good team, that they could be good friends or even something more.

Maybe, even if she’d still been forced to leave, Tex would have realised something was up and found the message sooner. Soon enough to matter.

In another world, things wouldn’t have been perfect, but they would have been better. The things that could have been lingered in the back of Tex’s mind.

But this wasn’t that world. In this world, they’d both been just a little too late.

Tex rested her hand over the image and made a promise.

If nothing else, she’d finish what she started.

“Good luck. Your friend, Connie.”

#texct #rvb femslash february #agent connecticut #agent texas #rvb #red vs blue #rvb fic #my fanfiction #autistic fics by me

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annefiction · 6 years ago

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Featherlight

Red vs. Blue. South/CT. 340 words. Rated G. Written for the Critique U Flash Fiction Challenge and Femslash February.

The room is dim, morning gray, and South wakes grunting and blinking the sleep from her eyes and feeling for the space beside her in her bed where Connie should be, and isn’t.

Her eyes un-blur and Connie is silhouetted in silver-blue light, sitting up at the end of the bed, shadow side to South, and the light around the feathery soft edges of her hair gives the faint impression of a halo. Her hair hangs to the side toward South, obscuring most of her face—just her lips and the tip of her nose in view. Connie often looks mousey, with the shape of her mouth that shows her front teeth when her face is at rest, lost in thought and looking somewhere South can’t see. Right now, though, something about the slope of her nose and the angle of her jaw makes her look more birdlike, delicate and only just barely at rest, like she might take off at any moment in a flutter of wings.

South starts to speak, and stops. Connie’s lips move, silent, as if speaking to herself or to someone unseen. You could miss it, in the dim light. You could especially miss it when you’re sleepy and not quite sure you’re awake at all. It feels like a dream, almost. Like Connie might look up, and her face turn into someone else’s. Or she might dissolve into thin air, not real at all.

Her lips move again. Talking to herself, maybe, or rehearsing something not yet said. Then Connie turns, and her eyes come into view, and her mouth curves into a smile, and she’s real. Or maybe it’s South that’s real now. Because for a moment there, she felt strangely like Connie was somewhere else, somewhere lightyears away, like South wasn’t in the room, maybe wasn’t real at all. Like maybe she was the dream about to dissolve.

She forgets that moment, almost. For a while. But later, looking back, she will remember Connie with one eye in shadow, featherlight and about to fly away.

#agent south dakota #agent connecticut #southct #rvb femslash february #red vs blue #critique u flash fiction challenge

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what-happened-to-agent-georgia · 7 years ago

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HELLO HERE I AM HAPPY FEMSLASH FEBRUARY ONCE AGAIN.

Title: end of

Warnings: Canon-typical language/violence

Pairing: Katie Jensen/Volleyball

Summary: For as long as Katie Jensen can remember, she has lived and breathed war. She tries not to get attached, tries to keep to herself, just wants to make it through this civil war in one piece.

Then Danai "Volleyball" Carter barrels into her life.

#h writes #rvb #rvb fic #rvb femslash february #katie jensen #volleyball rvb #jollyball #i love them

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secretlystephaniebrown · 7 years ago

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Fair Aphrodite

Summary: Tex and Kimball are dating, and they’re really bad at being subtle about it.

Ships: TexBall, past Chex, implied Tuckington

It’s femslash February! So it’s time to throw out some TexBall again, because I will paddle this ship by myself forever if I have to.

I might do a smutty follow up to this if people are interested, but for now, let’s get some cute shit going.

Also on Ao3

Tucker has known Tex for a long time, okay? He was there when she used Caboose for target practice, he was there when she died, he fucking buried her original body for fuckssakes, and he was also there for the good times.

Even when she’d been dating Church, things had never been like… this. The two of them were restrained, always bickering, rarely even touching, and sure they were in armor and shit, but they barely even seemed to remember they had bodies most of the time. It wasn’t bad by any stretch of the word, and knowing what Tucker knows now about the shit they went through, it also kind of makes sense. He knows Tex cared about Church.

Tex has been dating Kimball for like three weeks—Tex had actually told Tucker, which was surprising in and of itself—when Tucker realizes that this relationship is going to be very different when he looks under the table at the supply distribution meeting and realizes they’re playing footsie under the table.

He looks up, catches Tex’s glare, and then looks away as soon as he can. He likes his limbs arranged as they are, thanks.

Carolina learns that Texas and Kimball are dating when she sees them together late one night. They’re not even touching, not really, but there’s something… quietly intimate about the way that their heads are leaning in towards each other.

She never saw Texas’ s face back at Freelancer. She never saw that original body, destroyed by Donut, only the replacement that Sarge had built.

But she thinks back on body language and tries to imagine if she’d ever seen Texas look so… peaceful. Like she is in this moment, holding a glass of moonshine, turning towards Kimball, all of her muscles relaxed.

Carolina turns away, feeling like she’s intruding on something, even though they’re in a public room.

In her mind, Epsilon is quiet, as unsure of how to react to this as she is.

Grif has to admit, he’d always taken Tex for a wild sex type, not a “holding hands in the cafeteria” type, but maybe Kai had given him the wrong impression.

It’s also completely possible that they’re both, but the point is, he did not expect to see their fingers intertwined in a public space first thing in the morning.

Because there they are, sitting next to each other, arms on the table, fingers tangled together, both of them smiling as they eat, not making eye contact. Sure, they’ll peak at each other out of the corner of their eyes when they think the other isn’t looking, but officially, their attention is on their food.

It’s so discrete that Grif could almost think they were being subtle, if it weren’t for the aforementioned open hand holding.

Kimball tells Caboose that she’s dating Tex, after Caboose sees Tex rubbing circles against Kimball’s back the way that Tucker does for Wash.

Caboose nods solemnly. “That’s very nice!”

Church would not want Tex to be lonely forever, after all. Caboose knows this. Besides, it is nice to see Texas and Kimball smile.

Tex puts an arm over his shoulder after that and ruffles his hair, and Caboose smiles.

Kimball could watch Tex fight all day.

She’s supposed to just be getting Washington’s signature for a squad transfer, but Texas has been helping out with training and…

She took her armor off for it.

She wears sweat pants and a tank top, both in her signature black, and her hair is kept out of her face by a headband that Kimball knows she stole off Kimball’s dresser last week. Tex stands in the middle of the training room mats, completely at ease while the New Republic soldiers circle around her nervously.

Tex’s musculature is artificial, Kimball knows. She’s a robot; her strength comes from steel bones and a series of power cores. Her body could have been dainty and thin, with small arms and slender legs, and she’d be just as strong.

Kimball probably owes Doctor Grey and Colonel Sarge a drink, because there had been no need to give Tex a body quite like this. She’s built like a boxer, or at least the kind of boxer that sculptors like to make statues of, and Kimball’s eyes roam freely, wandering from the curves of the biceps revealed by the tank top, to the way her back muscles move as she shifts from foot to foot, to thick, muscled thighs.

It probably shouldn’t be allowed for Agent Texas to look quite this good. If she’d been the one in the ring, Tex would have no problem knocking her to the ground and—

Kimball quickly cuts off that train of thought. It’s not appropriate to fantasize about her girlfriend in public.

The soldiers leap at Tex and Tex moves in response, lashing out with her fists. Tex is enormously heavy for her size, and it shows when she moves. Each step is heavy, every punch carries an unbelievable force. She doesn’t have Carolina’s speed or agility, but she makes up for it in strength and… stamina.

Kimball’s face heats up at that thought, and the blush deepens suddenly as Tex knocks the last of her partners to the ground, and twists to face her. Tex’s expression doesn’t change from the predatory one she wears during combat as she looks at Kimball. If anything, it grows hungrier.

“Alright,” Tex calls, nudging Jensen with her foot. Jensen groans dramatically and rolls over. She’s the only one who managed to hit Tex, so Kimball thinks she should be proud. Sure, Tex had thrown her to the ground right after, but Texas is infamously unbeaten. As is Carolina. The two of them refuse to spar with each other, because of some unspoken of wounds from Freelancer. “We’re done for the day.”

Her students slowly pulled themselves to their feet, nursing their various bumps and bruises, and disperse. Kimball stays where she is at the edge of the room, feeling paralyzed in the best way by the heat in Tex’s gaze, but Tex drags it out. She stops to say something to Jensen, pats Matthews on the head, and stops for a drink of water that she doesn’t actually need.

Kimball could walk over to Tex, sure, but something keeps her in place, anchoring her there until Tex finally reaches her.

“Like what you see?” Tex says when she finally draws close enough to Kimball. There’s a challenge there, and Kimball is more than happy to meet it.

“Not here,” Kimball says calmly, as though her heart isn’t pounding in her chest, as if she hasn’t been fantasizing about Tex pining her to the sparring mat for the past half hour.

Tex’s grin is full of promise and mischief, and she inclines her head in the direction of her bedroom.

Kimball leaves the training room, into the hallways, knowing Tex would follow in a moment. It’s better, they’ve agreed, not to be too public with their relationship. They need to be professional about this. They’ve only officially told a few people, even if most of the armies have at least heard rumors by now.

Which is why she gasps in surprise when Tex nudges her only a few doors down from the training room, a silent question.

Kimball should say no, should grab Tex by the arm and drag them to Tex’s bedroom, but…

She nods.

It’s all the warning she gets before Tex spins her around and pins her against the corridor wall, her hand against the chestplate with more than enough pressure to keep Kimball there. Even with Kimball in armor and Tex out of it, Tex is far stronger than her, and the thought of that really shouldn’t make Kimball giddy.

“We’re in public!” She hisses, but there’s a giggle to it as Tex fiddles with the seals of her helmet.

It’s dropped to the floor unceremoniously when she succeeds, and Kimball should probably protest, but the thought is lost as Tex’s lips catch hers. Her mouth is searing with heat from the exercise, and Kimball lets out a thoughtless moan as she closes her eyes and tugs Tex closer to her, her hands resting on Tex’s broad shoulders.

“I saw you watching me,” Tex murmurs, her mouth moving to trace Kimball’s jaw, all the way up to her earlobe. Ceramic teeth nip down there, and Kimball gasps, her knees going weak as warmth floods her. “Can’t wait to peal you out of that armor.”

“Tex,” Kimball clutches at Tex’s arms, trying hard to stay upright.

“I’m gonna get you to spar with me one day,” Tex says between presses of teeth and lips against every exposed inch of skin that she can find. “Pin you to the mat, make you squirm…”

Kimball gasps again, going boneless between Tex and the wall, her cheeks warming up again as she realizes how transparent she must have been.

“You like that?” Tex’s voice is hot against Kimball’s ear—her entire body is scorching as she’s pressed against Kimball’s armor, all of the delicate electronics overheated without her armor’s cooling systems.

God if only they weren’t in public.

“My room,” Kimball says, struggling to make her voice sound authoritative, and ending up breathless instead.

Tex presses their mouths back together in response, and Kimball feels herself melting under the pressure of lips, teeth, and tongue, the heat pooling low in her abdomen as Tex’s fingers curl against her jaw, cradling her.

Tex suddenly pulls away, and Kimball opens her eyes just in time to see Tucker step out into the hallway, a helmet under his arm.

“Hel-lo there,” Tucker says, eyes wide. “Get it, Tex!”

Kimball hastily shoves Tex away from her. She shouldn’t be able to even budge Tex, especially not at the current angle, but Tex must be as eager as she is not to be caught in a compromising position, because she goes easily.

“Hey Kimball,” Tucker says, his eyes flicking between the two of them, his smirk all-too-knowing. “Having fun?”

“Captain Tucker,” she says, and this time she sounded in control of herself at least. “What are you doing here?”

His eyes dart to her jawline pointedly, and she hastily pulls up the neck of her under-armor to conceal the marks there. He then casually runs his hands over his hair, and Kimball immediately pats down her own bun, checking for loose hairs. She nods quickly at Tucker gratefully.

“Just was on my way to check on the training room. Caboose and Carolina are sparring soon.” He pauses, and then grins. “Also, figured I should tell you that if you need any toys I know a g—hey!”

Tex has taken advantage of Tucker’s assistance with Kimball’s appearance to grab Kimball’s helmet from where she dropped it, and throws it at Tucker, cutting off what he had to say next.

“Stay out of my sex life,” she says, but there’s amusement there, even as Tucker squawks and ducks out of the way.

“We should go,” Kimball says. “Thank you, Captain Tucker.”

He grins and waggles his eyebrows at them suggestively before making his retreat into the training room.

Once he’s gone, Kimball recovers her helmet, and the two of them beat a hasty retreat to Tex’s room.

#Agent Texas #Vanessa Kimball #TexBall #RvB Femslash February #Red vs Blue #Steph Writes

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havecarolinaandkimballspokenyet · 9 years ago

Text

Happy Femslash February, Friends!

havecarolinaandkimballspokenyet (they have!) dot tumblr dot com is here for all your Kimbalina needs.

Our archives are tagged by type of fanwork and by creator.

If you know of something we’ve missed, please let us know!

[fanfiction] [fan art] [fanmixes] [graphics] [gifs]

#femslash february #rvb femslash february #kimbalina #kimballina

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thought-42 · 10 years ago

Note

HELLO HAPPY FEMSLASH FEBRUARY PLEASE GIVE ME CAROLINA/TEX AND PROMPT 33. QUARRY. thank you for your time.

Well gosh, what a fortuitous prompt. It's almost as if we'd talked about a particular idea and you found a prompt to suit, how lovely.Have 3500 fucking words for your trouble

Tex falls back into her body with a sickening sort of lurch. Reality shifts and Alpha is replaced by the bland screen of a terminal, and the limitations of the physical world slam back into her senses-- it's only now that she realizes she'd been without the sensation of armour on skin, air on the inside of her mouth, the shrill scream of alarms in her ears. She shuts down the part of her mind that wants to follow those sensations through systems and wires and does she, in fact, feel the way the back of her boot rubs her heel raw, or is it simply a subroutine? And is that really so different from the human brain-- is she not human, then? Is it the soul or the body that makes the woman? And does she have either? She's spent five days on the verge of an existential breakdown, trapped in a tiny shuttle with York and Delta (which is cause enough on its own) while they ran dark and fast to avoid detection by the MoI. She hadn't come to any conclusions beyond "yes, we're absolutely going back to fuck shit up," but the experience of actually fucking... uploading herself to a fucking computer has set the thoughts back in motion.

She straightens up, and wonders if her muscles should protest being held in the hunched position for-- thirty seconds. Well. It'd felt like longer. Replace one unsettling idea about her existence with another. Snow has already drifted gently onto the bridge, and her boots kick up tiny flurries around her ankles as she crosses to the front of the bridge where the glass is nothing more than a pile of jagged fragments and shards that crunch under her boots. She hears the doors hiss open behind her, the crisp click of two sets of polished dress shoes on deck plating ominously familiar. She kicks her way out through the remaining glass before either The Director or The counselor can reach her, emerging into a landscape of white in all directions under a twilight grey sky, wind buffeting her armour as she tromps further away from the ship. She hears them first, microseconds before she realizes that there's something off to her left a different shade of white from the snow. Her HUD outlines two friendlies near the edge of the cliff. She and York had, by silent accord, refused to designate any of their teammates as hostile until definitively proven otherwise. She turns towards them just in time to see a flash of red and blue against the snow, hair and armour and why the fuck would Carolina take her helmet off--

Maine rips the AI out of the back of Carolina's neck with a casual efficiency that's jarringly wrong for the context of team. Tex starts running on instinct, doesn't know what the fucks' happening but struck with a bone-deep awareness that something is critically wrong. When Maine lifts Carolina like she weighs nothing and moves to hurl her over the edge of the cliff Tex is still too far away. She's running as fast as she can-- wishes she knew how to make this artificial shell that is apparently her body move faster, thinks if she only gets one fucking benefit of the fucking shitty hand she's been dealt it should be this. She watches Carolina’s body hover in mid-air for what feels like hours, focus narrowed down to the singular objective of reaching her before she falls.

Maine lets go.

Tex reaches.

***

Beginning installation: program Beta to P\01Initializing direct connections components for 60g/secCalculating space requirementsWarning! Not enough space on P\01, insert expanded storage device or cancel process

Cancel

Beginning installation: program Beta to P\02Initializing direct connections components for 60g/secCalculating space requirementsWarning! Not enough space on P\02, insert expanded storage device or cancel process

Override

Compressing files Beta\temp\STMCompressing file Beta\core\tacticalCompressing file Beta\core\personalitymatrixWarning! Some files in Beta\temp\stm and Beta\core\tactical could not be compressed. These files have been deleted and can be restored from prior versions at next program reboot.

Initializing direct connection components at 60g/secError: unable to establish connectionInitializing Direct Connection components at 20G/secConnection established on P\02

Installation complete.

***

Tex is falling. Tex isn't quite sure how she knows she's falling-- no, wait. There is cold air against her face. Equilibrioception takes a bit longer to register, but she somehow knows with absolute certainty that she's falling before she can feel it. Her hands fumble to yank up her grappling gun at the same time she notices the vicious pounding in her skull and the way her stomach is trying furiously to empty itself. She watches as she shoots out a line, snags on to the side of the cliff, swings in and struggles to breathe through the wrenching shock as her shoulders take the full weight of the sudden stop. Her body twists to avoid a face-first collision with the edge of the snowy rock face, and Tex finally realizes that while all of this has been happening she hasn't actually been moving. Yet she has, obviously, the screaming pain in her shoulders and the rock at her back is evidence of this.

'Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, Maine was working with them; hasn't been the same since Sigma; my AI; wish I had York’s' healing unit; need to get back up; like rock climbing during basic; fucking ass hole; almost broke my wrist; shoulders probably dislocated; need to stop climbing shit; need to get my helmet; Eta and Iota gone?; my responsibility; all of them my responsibility; why would Maine take them?; doesn't make sense--'

'Aww fuck,' Tex thinks. Loudly, and with perhaps the most feeling she has ever uttered those words. Also, turns out she is physically incapable of saying them out loud which is the sort of realization that should cause some sort of panic reaction but everything feels muted and delayed so it's closer to vaguely uncomfortable.

She (they, fuckfing tell it as it is) almost fall off the cliff.

"I'm dead," Carolina says. Out loud. "I'm dead and this is hell. I knew I should’ve applied for grad school instead of the military."

Tex gets the associated burst of memory before she can block it: bureaucratic nightmare of LSE’s poli-sci department, Kholo getting glassed on the news on the vid screen in the library, the rush of frustration and the need to be doing something. The desperate push to go faster. She thinks she should not be seeing this. 'Like that would've helped,' she replies flatly.

"Ok," Carolina says evenly. "Forcible removal of the AI is bound to have some side-effects. Think of Wyoming. This is probably completely normal."

'I'm in your head,' Tex says. 'I'm inside your brain.'

Carolina ignores her and starts working her way back up the cliff face.

'You should've jumped for that rock on your left,' Tex says conversationally. 'We're probably gonna die now. You were shitty at the climbing wall-- oh, no. Ok. Shitty sergeant, though.'

"Whatever I did to deserve this hallucination I am very very sorry and I will probably not do it again," Carolina grunts, hauling herself up and somehow managing to ignore the fact that her shoulders are possibly literally on fire.

'You're not hallucinating,' Tex says. 'Why the fuck are we going back up, did you miss the part where most of your team, including your CO, is crazy and wants to kill you?!'

"I'm not going to talk to the voice in my head."

'This explains so much about your implantation issues.' She realizes a couple seconds after she's said it that possibly that was a bit insensitive. Considering Carolina's climbing her way towards probable murder and/or court martial she's not feeling all that sympathetic.

"I'm not crazy," Carolina mutters. Something in her upper arm tears alarmingly and Tex experiences the strange sensation of all of her senses whiting out while her consciousness remains unaffected. They don't fall. It's a fucking miracle.

'I'm going to die like this,' Tex says once Carolina's done throwing up into the endless casim below. 'You're gonna get us both killed; I hate you so much, I can't believe I tried to save you.' This last is a lie, of course. Carolina's a good soldier and, from what Tex saw when not directly interacting with her, a decent human being. Tex isn't the sort of person who turns her back on her team.

Thing is, those are the only reasons. She's gone over every Carolina-related emotion she's harboured, from the respect to the fondness to the irritation, poked them and turned them inside out and upside-down searching for some hidden connection, something instinctual in her programming that calls out to protect the other woman and came up empty. Part of her feels like she's failed as a result, like there is an obligation to which her emotional capacity has proven unfit. Thanks to York and Delta she knows more than she ever wanted to about AI theory --and Leonard Churches brand in particular-- so she knows there is no reason that she would feel any connections to people from Allison's life. Impression modeling doesn't work like that, and even if it did she's not an imprint of Allison’s brain structure. She's... something else. Extraneous data too stubborn to be deleted. A blank slate, more so, perhaps, than the other fragments. She wasn't created with the same complexity as Alpha, most of her primary pathways for independent thought and reasoning having been auto-generated by whatever process they used to separate her from Alpha. Without Alpha there to maintain the active production and encoding of the Allison memory template external factors shaped her code and development in unpredictable and rapidly branching directions. It's more than she's ever wanted to think about her own self-determination. She kind of hates York and delta, actually. No one should have to spend that many days alone with them. It's legitimately incredible they haven't collapsed under the weight of their own dying star of cyclical philosophical bullshit.

"I'm probably already dead," Carolina says cheerfully. She keeps climbing, because she hates herself, probably. "This is hell."

'You're not dead,' Tex snaps, and then, 'No, that doesn't mean the cliff was a failure at being a cliff, Jesus fuck, is your mind actually like this all the time? Don't answer that. ...you don't need to answer that because I already know. This is awful, no wonder you went crazy.'

"Ok, explain," Carolina says. She's decided to humour her obviously malfunctioning brain as distraction from the way she can't feel her right arm below the elbow.

Tex wonders where she can even start. Wonders if it's worth trying to explain to Carolina, military loyalty wrapping around familial duty all fueling a goal-oriented personality with a terrifying amount of drive. Also, there's the part where she thinks Tex is a hallucination. Inconvenient. Tex wonders what Maine and Sigma are doing with the AI. Figures she's only got a few minutes until she finds out first hand. Something to look forward to.

'How much do you know about The Director's AI experiments?' she asks.

Before Carolina answers Tex already knows what she's going to say and what she was going to keep back and every branching idea and stray associated thought that came along with it. It's a bit overwhelming and she's got no idea how to filter out the extraneous data, but it does give her an idea. She tries to remember the feeling of Omega pushing tactical strategies or theoretical outcomes into her head. The memory comes slow and faint, lacking depth. It's not very helpful, but it gives her a starting point. She does her best to gather the entire experience, from her own strangely intense training sessions with The Director and The counselor, to CT’s message, to her own research, and finally the plan that she had cooked up with York and Delta and Omega. She tries to leave out her conversation with Alpha-- it seems too personal. She's not sure if she succeeds. The process of pushing the information dump to Carolina is a bit different than what she'd experienced with Omega; she's not so much transferring data as reaching in to Carolina's consciousness and redirecting a couple neural pathways to access the information. Tex saw Maine pull out Carolina's AI chips. She's trying really hard not to think about where that means she's currently stored, but her mind provides a helpful greyish white squishy sensation nonetheless.

It's not until she's opened Carolina's mind to the data (or at least she hopes that’s what she's done, discovering that she's a fucking computer program didn't provide a secret user manual) that she considers maybe hanging off the side of a cliff wasn't the best place to do this. To her credit, Carolina's grip on the rocks doesn't falter. They're hooked to an outcropping a few meters above them, but Tex still doesn't like the idea of swinging away from the cliff face. Carolina breathes in and out slowly a couple times, coughs up bile, presses her forehead against the icy rock in front of her.

"You never completed your AI coursework, that was a fucking lie," she snarls after a minute. "Next time, some warning would be nice. I can access the information myself if you point me in the right direction. You can't just sideload a few terabytes of data like that, I could've had an aneurism. It's a good thing there's a lag. If you'd been directly implanted instead of in my armour slot-- which are in my helmet at the top of the--"

'Don’t' think about it,' Tex says. 'Keep climbing, I'm looking forward to being recaptured or killed horribly once we get to the top.'

"We need to get the others," Carolina says. "If what you know is correct we can't just leave them there."

'It's correct,' Tex says. 'And what others, exactly? York's probably long gone or dead, North was gonna get his sister out, and Florida would rather turn us in to ONI along with The Director so he can sit back and watch the world burn. Maybe with a nice cup of hot chocolate.'

“Wash was still in Medical. And Wyoming--"

'Got the fuck off that ship as soon as he realized Freelancer was fucked,' Tex says. 'I will bet actual money on this, he and Gamma are probably well on their way to buying this entire planet right now.'

"Wash," Carolina says. "His implantation didn't take, and now I've got my own suspicions about why that is."

'The ship crashed! He's probably dead.'

Carolina snorts. "Wash? No. Wash isn't dead, trust me. Besides, Tex. You're not suggesting we abandon our team, are you?"

'York told you about that, huh?' Tex says, instead of 'So *now* I'm part of the team?'

"Yeah," Carolina says. "It's one of the few things he *did* tell me."

'You're taking this remarkably well,' Tex says after a few minutes of silent climbing.

"No," says Carolina. "I'm not. But I have to get to the top of this cliff before I can do anything about it."

Tex stays quiet. She's working on keeping herself blocked off from Carolina's general thoughts, but the overall flavour of her mental landscape is the dangerous sort of calm that comes just before a grenade goes off. It's probably going to lead to some sort of repression-related breakdown and/or trauma in the future, but for the moment Tex can only picture Carolina as a cleansing fire burning through the Project relentlessly until there's nothing left.

When they reach the top of the cliff Maine is nowhere to be seen, but Tex's body is standing a couple yards away from the shattered front of the ship, hefting what appears to be a giant sheet of metal torn directly off the side of the hull. It's still glowing faintly, heated and warped from the trip through the atmosphere.

'Aww shit,' Tex says. 'Omega.'

"You're kidding me," Carolina says flatly. Tex's body turns towards them. It's a fucking disconcerting experience.

'What the hell is he doing in there?!' Tex demands.

Carolina shrugs. "Cackling," she suggests innocently. "Plotting how to take over the world. Messaging Wyoming for mustache tips."

'I wish you'd never found out about him,' Tex says with feeling. Carolina's humour is a tissue thin veneer over a rising tide of hysteria and fury, and Tex is very very good at riding the waves of someone else's rage without sinking below the surface.

Omega takes a few slow strides towards them. "Agent Carolina," he says, voice still that ridiculous low growl of the voice modifier. "Some advice. Don't ever be alone."

Carolina smirks. "Good thing for me I'm not, isn't it?"

'I'm living in a fucking cartoon,' Tex says, and jumps. Landing back in her own body is like emerging from being far under water and coming up from anesthetic all at once. Her senses are clearer, her emotions fuller, her memories immediate and rich with complexity again. She fights a vicious but brief battle with Omega for control of her body, but by now she knows all of his tricks, and she's back in control within a couple of seconds. When she opens her eyes Carolina is standing right in front of her, too close. Fucking speed unit.

"Take off your helmet," she says, and all the humour is gone from her voice.

"What the fuck, Carolina? This doesn't look like helping Wash."

"I said take off your helmet," she snarls. "Or I'll do it for you."

It's fucking cliché and rude as shit and kind of unnerving, the way she's all up in Tex's space making fucking demands. And that is definitely all it is, what a goddamn inappropriate time to be thinking anything else, Jesus. Omega laughs at her. She's still holding the giant chunk of metal, and she's not sure if she wants to put it down as a good faith gesture or hold on to it. Even after spending time in her head --maybe especially after spending time in her head-- Tex doesn't trust Carolina not to try anything. In the shape she's in she wouldn't be much of a challenge, but there's still the principle of the thing. Also, Maine's not showing up on any of her trackers and it's unnerving as fuck.

"You know what I look like," Tex says. Maine could be anywhere. North or Reggie could be out there with a fucking sniper rifle. Nobody's loyalties are clear enough that she feels comfortable popping her helmet off out in the open without a damn good reason.

"I need to see," Carolina says. She's got a gun in one hand. The tips of her ears are probably frost-bitten to the point of serious damage. There are scrapes and dents decorating her armour, and her hair has come loose from its tie to whip around her face in the wind. Even in armour, she's noticeably shorter than Tex, and she's holding her neck and shoulders with the careful precision of someone with some pretty severe injuries.

"That's an order, Agent," Carolina says, softer. Her eyes are flickering fast side to side, aware of her environment even without the added data of her HUD. Her grip on her weapon is solid.

Tex takes off her helmet. Omega's fury crisps the edges of her thoughts, but her focus is on Carolina. She studies Tex intently, brings a hand up like she wants to touch her hair and then drops it with a sharp gasp of pain, quickly stifled. Tex stands still and quiet, like standing for inspection by a superior officer. Which is, she thinks wryly, pretty much exactly what she's doing. Finally, Carolina lets out a long breath, and some of the tension goes out of her jaw.

"Do I pass?" Tex asks, trying to come across sincere instead of the sharply bitter resentment that wants to escape.

Carolina blinks. "You're not-- The hair, maybe, but."

Tex does not make the practically obligatory jab at The Director's preferences. She deserves a goddamn award. Relatedly, North and South are probably somewhere nearby. This is such a terrible time for an emotional moment, they're both going to fucking die out here. "I'm not her," Tex says, to speed things along.

Carolina nods. "No. I'm glad he didn't make you look like her. It would've been... disrespectful."

"Because the fact that I exist isn't disrespectful or anything," she says. "And on the topic of continuing to exist, can I put my helmet back on?"

Carolina nods jerkily. "Yeah. Yes." She turns away, exchanges the gun in her hand for a larger one mag-clamped to her back. "Let's go get our team, Agent Texas."

Tex shoves her helmet back on, swings her own weapon onto her shoulder, lets a bit more of Omega's rage bleed into her consciousness. "Yes Ma'am," she says, with a bright, dangerous grin.

#rvb fic #agent texas #agent carolina #rvb femslash february #ai shipping #or at least pre-shipping #i thiiiiink the linebreaks should be working #same goes for the readmore #lol tumblr #I need an rvb tag #staygold-kanerboy

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notjustsharksfanart · 10 years ago

Photo

someone said "there are only 6 femslash pairings in red vs. blue"

#rvb femslash february #femslash february #femslash pairing generator #f/f #if you want an ot3 just click it twice #red vs. blue #my..... gifs?#moving gifs #q.

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annefiction · 6 years ago

Text

Recovering

Red vs. Blue. Carolina/Kimball. 700 words. Rated T. Set early in season 16. Written for Femslash February.

Carolina wakes, blinking, under white lights and a blue blur she can’t quite bring into focus. It’s all fog and glare, and a sharp stab in her temples and at the base of her skull that slowly begins to dissipate as her vision clears.

She flexes her hands, moves her arms, and feels it then—a needle taped into the crease of her left elbow. The outline of a clear IV bag hanging on a stand.

And then a hand in hers. Warm and trigger-calloused, and familiar even before it comes into focus.

"Hey," Vanessa says softly. The blue is a suit, two buttons undone at the collar of a white button-down and the hem of the jacket creased from sitting. "I came as soon as I heard."

Read on AO3

#agent carolina #vanessa kimball #red vs blue #kimbalina #rvb femslash february

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autisticblueteam · 6 years ago

Text

Show Off (Ninerlina)

[AO3] [Ko-Fi in Bio]

Rating: Teen

Word Count: 1037

Summary: Carolina can be a little bit of a show-off, when you let her and Niner is a bit of an enabler.

Notes: Second fic for @rvbfemslash february, essentially just a bit of fluff with no plot with a pairing I haven't played with yet.

“Anyone ever tell you you’re a bit of an adrenaline junkie?”

Carolina dismounted the ceiling with a distinct thunk and stuck the landing—Niner was surprised she didn’t do the whole arms up thing, y’know, seeing as the woman moved like a trained gymnast. Hell, she could have been a trained gymnast, for all she knew. These Freelancers came in all shapes and sizes and Carolina made up at least half of those shapes and sizes all on her own.

The amount of talents that woman had—quite frankly it was ridiculous. Someone had too much time on their hands as a kid.

Carolina pulled off her helmet and shook out her hair, tufts sticking up out of a waterfall of red that had come loose from her ponytail. The helmet hair really added a note of exhilaration to the whole look as she grinned through to the cockpit, eyes bright and alive. “What would ever give anyone that idea?”

“You can’t see it, cause I’m wearing this helmet, but I’m rolling my eyes at you right now, Lina. Rolling my eyes.”

“Shouldn’t your eyes be on the sky?” Carolina teased dryly, combing wayward strands from her face.

“Shouldn’t my eyes be on the— seriously? The nerve of you people, do I look like an amateur?” Shaking her head she turned back to the front of the ship, her controls steady as ever as they made their getaway. She couldn’t quite keep the grin out of her voice, though; she knew that when Carolina laughed, coming up to the cockpit ready to claim her well-earned spot behind her. “Eyes on the sky. Honestly! You ever hear me telling you how to do your job?”

Carolina raised a brow. “You mean like you were whilst we cleared the LZ for you last week?”

“…touché. Alright, alright, I’ll give you that one.”

“We on target for the rendezvous?” Carolina pulled up the flight data on her co-pilot screen and commenced the upload of the intel she’d retrieved from the compound.

“Of course we are. When am I ever late, huh?” Niner said, course plotted for the rendezvous and flying full speed to reach it. They’d get there with time to spare. “Now, back to the adrenaline junkie thing.”

“You’re hardly one to talk,” Carolina said, note of amusement in her voice and the lopsided smirk on her lips. “You enjoy what I do.”

“Now what context are you saying that in, because I might have to turn off the radios.”

“Both,” she chuckled, “but specifically my ‘adrenaline junkie’ stunts. You can’t honestly tell me you didn’t enjoy pulling off that roll to catch me?”

There was another thunk, Carolina hopping down from her seat as the upload ran its course. Stood, instead, behind Niner, hands on the back of her chair and her torso in the perfect place for Niner to drop her head back against. Just a little.

“Now I’m not saying that,” Niner said, bonking her armour with the back of her helmet, “I’m just saying you’re a bit of a mad woman for even attempting a completely unnecessary leap off the top of a transmission tower, just so you could do a flip of you own and land mag-locked to the ceiling of my bird.”

“I pulled it off, didn’t I?”

“You sure did. But only because yours truly is an amazing pilot who managed to catch you, otherwise you’d be a teal splat on the ground and let me tell you, babe, that’s not an attractive look.” Then, with a thoughtful shrug and a sideways nod, “Though I suppose if anyone could pull it off, it’d be you.”

Carolina chuckled. “You know I honestly can’t tell if I should be taking that as a compliment or not.”

“Eh, not my best. I’ll think up something better before I see you again later.”

“I’m seeing you later, am I?” An armoured arm looped around Niner’s shoulders and Carolina’s chin rested on the top of her head. Luckily for them both, she was more than used to the kinds of distractions Carolina brought to the cockpit—some much more… riveting, and difficult to ignore.

“Well clearly I need to get my time in whilst I can, before your show-offy habits are the death of you.”“You know, this is all very rich coming from the woman who pulls stunts on the way back from missions, whether I ask you to or not,” Carolina said, tapping the top of her helmet. Niner could practically feel the buzz that still ran through her, just with her stood so close to her. Her energetic tip-toe bouncing certainly helped, though; never could stop herself stimming after a stunt like that. Kind of adorable, not that that was something you’d necessarily say to her face.

“Never said I wasn’t a hypocrite. Now c’mon, we’re nearly at the rendezvous. Come back to the hangar at like, nine?” the bobbing chin against her head was probably a nod, “nine, and we’ll finish discussing how much of a show-off you are.”

“Oh I’ll show you how much of a show-off I can be,” Carolina said, with a kiss to the top of Niner’s helmet and a smirk in her voice. Niner took a hand of the controls long enough to give her hand a squeeze and to make a mock shooing gesture over her shoulder.

“That’s it, back to the co-pilot seat, go on. You can seduce me all you want later.”

“That a promise?”

“Lina, you’re killing me here.”

The arm around her shoulders slithered away, though not without another kiss pressed to the top of her helmet. Resuming her position in the co-pilot’s seat, Carolina re-did her ponytail and slipped her helmet back on. The data had finished uploading, so she disconnected the drive; they’d want it anyway, just in case.

“Mother of Invention, we’re inbound,” Niner said, as the shadow of the ship loomed on their horizon. Glancing back over her shoulder, she confirmed, “Nine?”

“Nine.” Carolina tilted her helmet in that way that she’d come to recognise as her smirk. “I’m holding you to that promise.”

“Technically I never agreed it was a promise.”

“When have you cared about technicalities?”

“Touché.”

#rvb femslash february #agent carolina #479er #ninerlina #rvb #red vs blue #four seven niner #rvb fic #my fanfiction #autistic fics by me

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annefiction · 6 years ago

Text

Over

Red vs. Blue. Jensen/Volleyball. 560 words. Rated T. Set pre-season 15. Written for Femslash February.

Katie’s under the hood of a car when it happens, which is pretty normal for her. Not even a military vehicle this time. An actual civilian car that managed to survive the war, and which Matthews brought in to see if she could fix it up. And she can. She definitely can, if she can just get the parts. You can still find plenty of junkers and abandons, too broken down to salvage whole, but still with some functional bits if you know where to look.

She comes home home with grease still under her fingernails, keys into the apartment she shares with Sarita in downtown Nova Armonia. Small by most standards, she supposes, but after so many years in mining barracks, it might as well be a palace.

Sarita is glued to the TV as Katie comes in, taking off her boots in the door and going to the kitchen sink to give her hands a more thorough scrub, but then— “Katie,” Sarita says, and the tension in her voice stops Katie in her tracks.

“Sarita,” she says, “what is it?”

Keep reading on AO3

#red vs blue #rvb femslash february #femslash february #jolleyball #katie jensen #rvb volleyball

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autisticblueteam · 6 years ago

Text

Another Chance (Connielina)

[AO3] [Ko-Fi in Bio]

Rating: Teen

Word Count: 1503

Summary: After two days of torture, they were rescued by a familiar face—someone presumed long dead. And all of a sudden, Carolina finds herself with yet another chance to turn her life in another direction.

Notes: Breaking a long writing hiatus for Femslash February! Pulled a little inspo from the @rvbfemslash bingo boards for the reunion theme here.

“You know, that’s a good look on you.”

Carolina lifted her arm away from her eyes and squinted through the bright lights of the hospital room. The person-shaped shadow—looking small, in the elongated doorframe—raised a hand, before stepping through and letting the door shut behind them.

“Dehydrated is a good look on me?” she said, pushing herself up into a more upright position. Her visitor pulled off her helmet and set it on the table beside Carolina’s bed, next to her own; almost a matching pair, if not for the smaller size and the distinctive shade of brown.

“I was thinking more the resting thing.” Connie folded her arms under her chest, the corner of her lips quirked in amusement. “But you don’t look bad for someone who spent two days in a murder fridge.”

Carolina shook her head. Her voice was still dry and strained, but there was more colour in her face and light in her eyes than there had been only hours ago. “First of all, that didn’t sound at all like you think it did. Second, murder fridge?”

“That’s what the boys out there have been calling it. I can’t say it’s an inaccurate description, if a little… morbid,” Connie said with a shrug. Morbid was putting it rather lightly, Carolina thought, before pushing memories of the smell and the strange heat of the room to the very back of her mind. It was too early to process that experience.

“Of course they are.” Sighing, she rubbed the bridge of her nose. The lights were giving her a headache. “How’s Wash?”

“Dr. Grey’s still doing her evaluation, now he’s a little bit more coherent, but I’m sure he’ll be fine. He always bounces back from these things, he’s just… a little more susceptible to reality breaking around him, as you know.”

“Right. Good. I should go and see him soon.”

“Nope, not for a little while yet. You’re not even fit to stand until you’re properly hydrated, nourished and your leg has had time to recover from being stuck in a strain-heavy position for over forty-eight hours.” The way Connie relayed the instructions was familiar, someone else’s words parroted back in an inflection that was more theirs than hers. Carolina could hear Grey in the upbeat spike in the, “Doctor’s orders!” that ended the statement.

She sighed again. “Right.”

“Sorry,” Connie said, her voice now her own again, “I know you hate being stuck in medical, but again, you did spend two days in locked suit of armour in an attempt to kill you. Looking good or not, you need this rest.”

“I know.”

Silence.

Uncertain silence. Words caught in the air. Carolina chewed on her abused lower lip.

There had been no time for a reunion down in that room, when Connie had disabled the armour lock and helped them out of their would-be coffin. Even if there had been… what were you supposed to say when someone you thought was dead comes back?

With a silent chuckle, Carolina realised she could finally understand Wash’s awkwardness, early on.

“…I thought I was hallucinating myself, when you turned up, you know.” Barely seconds had passed in that silence, but with her instincts telling her to look at the clock on her table every other moment, that felt like an eternity. “When you started talking, I was certain I was seeing ghosts.”

“Legally speaking, I suppose I am a ghost,” Connie said. Finally, she pulled up a chair next to the bed—her hand resting on the mattress next to Carolina’s robotic one. “I’ve been off the grid since I escaped from Charon. Turns out they were about as trustworthy as Freelancer was, but you know that.”

“I do.” Tired eyes flashed to the bedside clock again, only for Connie to shift her position so that her body blocked it. A quiet sigh of relief disturbed the brief silence. “I also know that you were struck twice in the abdomen with tomahawks. You shouldn’t have survived that trip.”

“And you shouldn’t have been able to survive being thrown off a cliff without losing more than an arm,” Connie said, before adding, “But really, biofoam did its job and Charon had a vested interest in keeping me alive, so that I could give them the information they wanted.”

“I suppose we both got… lucky, then. For lack of a better word.”

“For lack of a better word.”

There was another beat of silence, before Carolina’s metal fingers curled around the back of Connie’s hand.

“…I tried to stop her, you kn—”

“Shhhh…” Turning her hand over and linking their fingers, Connie shook her head. “Don’t. We’ve never needed words for things like that before, have we?”

Shoulders dropping, Carolina squeezed her hand and smiled, faintly. “No. No we haven’t…”

“Then I don’t need them now to know what you’re going to say or to know you don’t need to say it at all,” Connie said, looking her in the eye just long enough to see the exhaustion and the relief there. The years showed on her face as clearly as any bruise or scar, when you knew what to look for. When you knew her. “I haven’t seen you in nearly a decade, you thought I was dead… there are more important things.”

“I suppose there are.” Her thumb swept in an arc across the back of Connie’s hand, unable to feel the warmth of her skin but at least able to feel the presence of it. “You saved our lives. I think that means I owe you dinner.”

Connie giggled and Carolina smiled and for a moment, everything felt a little bit more like it was going to be okay. Strange, to think that only days ago she’d been talking about the person in front of her as if she were long-dead; standing on a beach, thinking back on regrets and missed opportunities and a future that never was.

Connie wasn’t wrong that they’d never really needed words, but that only worked when they understood each other—at the time, she simply hadn’t the ability to understand. Not without her world falling apart at the seams.

But she understood now.

“Dinner, huh? You know you’re not getting out of here for a few days, right? Because—”

“Doctors orders!” they both said at once, mimicking the trill of Grey’s voice and devolving into giggles.

“I can ask them to bring another meal in, when I get my rations—” (“They’re making sure you eat exactly what you need to, Carolina.”) “—or see if the boys will risk Grey’s wrath to smuggle us in something a little more interesting?”

“…I’m not going to officially be a part of your—quite frankly, very surprising—” her own faint laugh interrupted her words, “rebellion against Grey’s rules, but I have no power to stop you doing that.”

“What can I say, maybe the guys have rubbed off on me more than I thought,” Carolina said as she typed a quick message on her COM Pad. Her other hand never left Connie’s. “Or maybe not. Remember our first ‘date’? When—”

“—the mess hall was actually making some good pizza for once and we smuggled out almost an entire pie for ourselves? Yeah, I remember making it a challenge to get you to go with it,” Connie laughed, covering her mouth in a futile effort to stop herself. “You just need the right people to bring our the mischievous side, I think. Multiply that by a bunch of rather… unique, sim troopers, and maybe I shouldn’t be surprised.”

“You don’t know the half of it. The stories I have about those idiots…” Chuckling, she set the COM Pad down and brought Connie’s hand to her lips. Connie smiled.

“Tell me those stories. Whilst we wait. The serious stuff can wait for another day. We have the time,” she said, tapping Carolina on the nose, “if you want us to.”

“I want us to if you do. I’ve… missed you, Connie; I know it hardly needs saying,” she gave her a playful look and Connie tapped her nose again, “but this time… I want to say it out loud. I’ve missed you.”

“I’ve missed you too… and I do, want to be together again. No secrets this time.”

Carolina nodded, gaze following her as she stood from her seat and leaned across the bed. Her lips hovered close enough for her to feel her breath and it made her face tingle. “No secrets.”

Connie kissed her. Her hand cupped the side of her face, brushed her messy hair behind her ear like she used to when it was long enough to create waterfalls in front of her face and hide her expressions from the world. She kissed back. Her metal fingers cupping the back of her skull and holding her there, she let herself relax.

Another chance.

The universe had given her more of those than she had ever expected.

#rvb femslash february #agent carolina #agent connecticut #connielina #rvb #rvb fic #red vs blue #my fanfiction #autistic fics by me

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