It really crept Caboose out to be left alone with Church’s uninhabited body.

He would keep glancing at the motionless armor, certain that unseen eyes followed his every movement through the gold-tinted visor (if only he could see), and so he decided to sit perfectly still and pretend that the armor wasn’t there. Maybe it would lose interest and stop staring. Caboose looked at the sky, whistled some tune – or tried to: he didn’t know how to whistle (his tongue got in the way), but it didn’t stop him from trying, and maybe it would fool the armor into thinking that he didn’t care anyway – and tapped his fingers against the stock of his rifle in a manner he hoped was totally uncaring and cool in a detached way. Like Church always was.

He stole a glance at the armor, thought it was still staring, and promptly lost his cool.

But as things often were with Caboose, his mind was unable to linger on one thing for too long, and soon after scooting further away from the armor that so gave him the creeps, another thought crossed his mind and any semblance of creepiness the unmoving armor possessed outright evaporated. He scooted back closer to the armor and peered at it curiously.

“Church?” he called out tentatively. “Are you there, Church?”

The armor didn’t, unsurprisingly, yield a reply.

The visor of his armor hid the shy sort of deviousness that crossed Caboose’s features for a moment, and he slowly moved even closer to the abandoned armor. If he had been there to witness it, Church would have definitely been crept out by it since he knew Caboose and his often unexpected quirks well (better than he wished he did, in fact: he feared that being on the same page with Caboose would eventually rot his brain as well), but – fortunately? unfortunately? – he was still elsewhere and blissfully oblivious of the goings-on with his body.

Soon Caboose was sitting next to the armor, close enough to surely elicit a violent reaction from Church if he were there, but far enough to be able to dodge the blow were it to come. He placed his rifle on the ground and leaned slightly forward and to the side to look at the helmet, furrowing his brow in a fierce attempt to see through its visor. All he could see was his own helmet, reflected in gold and distorted like through a fish-eye lens.

“I guess you’re really not home then,” he said thoughtfully, more to himself than to Church’s armor. “But it’s kinda cool, you look just like you,” he continued idly, “but you’re nothing like you, you know, you would’ve already hit me if you were.”

Caboose poked the armor. It was heavy enough not to even budge.

“But it’s pretty nice, not to be hit. In that respect, you’re nicer than you, Church-but-not-really.” Caboose beamed at the armor and right then yet another new idea crossed his mind, causing him to blush and question himself for a moment – completely internally, this time – before the slight slump of his shoulders announced a defeat: of the original idea or something else entirely, who knew.

He stole a careful look at the armor, swallowed hard, and decided to try the ice first.

“Uh, Church-but-not-really?”

There was no answer, which apparently was a good enough answer for Caboose. Slowly he reached out to Church’s left hand that was leisurely curled around the handle of his rifle. It didn’t require much effort from Caboose to pry open the armored hand, and soon he was holding Church’s hand by the wrist and his heart was beating hard against his ribcage for two very separate reasons: one was in anticipation and fear of the eventual and certainly cruel backlash and the other was simply of excitement. He felt his cheeks burn hot as he pulled Church’s hand a bit closer, let go of his wrist and took the hand, their fingers entwining almost naturally without Caboose needing to coax Church’s armored glove into accommodating his.

For a couple of seconds Caboose was as stiff as a human could, shoulders all wired and fully expecting to be smitten down by the enormous wrath of Leonard L. Church. The smiting never came, the armor didn’t move or show any signs of being possessed again and Caboose relaxed, even letting out a small giggle and giving the armored hand a tiny squeeze.

“I like you, Church-but-not-really,” he said then with a smile, and after a while of staring at the pale blue armor he leaned against it and let his head fall snugly against its shoulder. He gave the armored hand another tiny squeeze and ran his thumb across the back of the glove.

All feelings of regret and fear of retaliation were soon forgotten as Caboose set off into some hazy land of make-believe where Church-but-not-really was the real Church with all the Church-like personality traits replaced with ones that Caboose preferred. Not that he didn’t like Church the way he was, down to smiting and all, but Caboose thought (wished) that it would be nice for once if Church smiled at him and told him it’s okay and gave him a giant hug and read him a bedtime story and ate some pancakes with him – he could even make the pancakes, since Caboose wasn’t much of a pancake-maker, and Church was indefinitely better than him at everything so he must’ve been better at pancakes too – and squeezed his hand back. Just a little squeeze, nothing more, Caboose wasn’t greedy. He smiled at himself, and squeezed the armored hand again, not receiving any kind of reaction.

That’s when reality cruelly invaded his sheltered little land of make-believe and his eyes snapped open. He realized that Church-but-not-really was in fact nothing-like-Church: he ignored Caboose completely unlike Church. He found himself hating it, suddenly wishing it would at least pull its hand back and hit him and yell at him. That’s the way Church was: his Church, the Church he wished would do something other than hit him and yell at him, but a thousand times better than a Church who said or did nothing: just sat there like an empty suit of armor.

Caboose lifted his head, about to open his mouth and pull his hand back and tell the Church-but-not-really that he was really nice but not the right one: “it’s not you, it’s me” was the line Caboose was thinking of using. He didn’t want to break Church-but-not-really’s heart: that would be cruel.

“Listen…” was all he said before he actually looked at the armor and found the armor had turned to face him instead of facing forward and staring into the distance like it had been earlier.

The helmet tilted to the side slightly and Caboose felt the fingers move against the back of his hand.

“What the fuck are you doing?” said the armor with the voice of Church, the tone incomprehensible: whether angry, absolutely furious or merely very surprised, it was a tone Caboose had never heard – or at least didn’t remember - Church use before. Then again, Church had probably never returned to his body only to find out that he was holding hands with someone before. Then again, Caboose couldn’t be sure.

For a moment Caboose contemplated on trying to pretend that his armor was in fact empty and that he was not there, but realized in time that it would probably not work since Church was so smart and Caboose was not a ghost, and very much inhabited his own body, and he was thankful of that (don’t get him wrong).

Maybe he could blame Church’s armor just suddenly taking his hand into its own – it must’ve been haunted! (Oh dear he was afraid of ghosts other than Church, they were all … ghost-y and creepy and not-Church-y, except when they were Church) - and… Caboose decided that it was actually a very good idea.

“Um,” he said as Church grunted angrily, pulled his hand away with a very quick motion and picked up his rifle, at which point Caboose forgot everything he was planning to say and instead brazed himself and almost gratefully waited for the blow to land.

Church said nothing and he didn’t hit Caboose either, which made Caboose feel very confused. Church was acting so unlike the real Church. The real Church would’ve definitely done something and called him names. Instead he just sat there, silent and unmoving. This caused Caboose to think if Church had left his body again and subsequently realized with a dawning horror that maybe the body was now possessing Church and not the other way around, so he asked him if he were still there.

“Yes, I’m just waiting for you to tell me what the fuck you were doing just now.”

“Well, I thought your body was possessing you because you were acting like Church-but-not-really,” Caboose replied truthfully.

Church just stared in silence, not entirely surprised by the amount of sense Caboose was definitely not making. “No, I mean before,” he said, his voice betraying that his fuse wouldn’t last for long. Caboose thought someone was selling used fuses to Church, they were always so short.

“Ohhhh, that. Well, that was, was… you see, your armor.”

“My armor what?”

“Your armor, it moved on its own!”

“Uh-huh.”

“Yes! Yes, it moved on its own.” Caboose felt accomplished and mentally high-fived himself. Church was definitely buying this story, Caboose was a genius! “It moved and took my hand and I was surprised, for how can such a thing happen, and, and, it was very strange. I would never hold your hand, Church, although you are my best friend and it would be really nice, actually, you know, friends holding hands and you could make me pancakes and…”

Caboose’s explanation was drifting into the unknown territory of utter senseless rambling not entirely unlike him, and Church sighed, covering his visor with his hand for a moment. He was used to these little things Caboose pulled off, the stories and excuses he thought were brilliant when in fact they just simply – without wandering off into needless verbosity – sucked. Even the apparent need for some sort of physical contact was not surprising: it wasn’t the first time Caboose had asked for a hug and received a shove or a punch or a kick or a bullet in answer. Church knew Caboose thought of him as his “best friend” and was unable to take a hint, even when told straight. His tireless naivety and ability to hear and see only the things he wanted to, sometimes even outright twisting reality to better accommodate his own delusions was truly astounding. Caboose had decided to put Church on some sort of BFF pedestal, and there was no power in the universe that could make Caboose see that Church regarded him with everything but friendliness and nothing short of frustration.

And yet there were times when Church looked at Caboose and just saw a kicked (and a tiny bit retarded) little puppy. He knew that while Caboose had probably never been the sharpest tool in the shed, it was actually Omega who was at least indirectly responsible for the worst of inanities Caboose pulled off. For that Church could not blame Caboose: he even felt bad for him on occasion, and subsequently scolded himself for even bothering to waste time and effort feeling bad for such a remarkable idiot when he had his own problems, which – everything considered – were much more important than anything Caboose suffered from.

Caboose was still rambling quietly to himself when Church took a deep breath, placed a hand on top of Caboose’s helmet and leaned towards him, his helmet meeting Caboose’s with a sharp metallic clink.

“Shut up, it’s okay,” he said, still sounding a bit aggravated and thinking that it was a good thing (if Caboose’s pea-brain was even able to pick it up). He was already giving the kid more room than was necessary: any more and he would never hear the end of it. He didn’t want Caboose thinking that holding hands would be an okay thing to do, but rather that the act wasn’t completely uncalled-for: that he understood, and in a way accepted the gesture. While part of him did think that the whole holding-his-armor’s-hand thing was in a way kind of adorable, he would naturally never admit it, ever - that was the way of the Church - but throwing Caboose a bone every now and then felt like the right thing to do.

Caboose’s rambling met its end in the middle of a word, the syllable lingering briefly on his lips before devoured by a pleased, albeit surprised little grunt. He bumped his helmet against Church’s in reply, and – much to Church’s relief – remained silent.

Or maybe Caboose's silence meant that he was devising some diabolical plan to take advantage of Church’s unguarded and very well hidden fluffy side, which immediately caused Church to decide that the bone-throwing was now over and Caboose had enough evidence of their (however one-sided) BFF-ness to last for a lifetime. He patted Caboose’s helmet twice in a brotherly, reassuring manner, and stood up quickly, stretching his limbs and promptly turning his back to the kid, hoping that he would for once get the hint.

Of course, with Caboose things were never that simple.

“Chuuuurch,” he heard from behind him, the name dragged on in a vaguely melodic manner. Church visibly shuddered, closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and told himself that he totally had it coming, that he could only blame himself, that he should’ve never thrown Caboose a bone; should’ve never ever expected him to get the hint or not read too much into it.

Church spun around to face Caboose again. “What more do you want?! Jesus fucking Christ!”

Caboose just stared at him, not moving, not saying a word, and for a moment Church just wanted to yank his visor up so that he could see his face and stop guessing what was going on in that messed-up head of his.

“Can you make me pancakes?” came the question, his excitement clear as a day.

Church sighed. “We don’t have any ingredients.”

Caboose stood up and hopped towards Church. “Really?” His disappointment was evident. “But if we had, would you make me pancakes?”

“Sure, I would make you pancakes,” Church replied with a frustrated sigh, deciding that he had nothing to lose and complying to Caboose’s inane request would be the quickest road towards getting him to shut up. He started towards the base.

“Yay!” Caboose exclaimed excitedly, practically skipping behind Church, his armor clanking slightly with every bouncy step. “Church, you are the bestest friend ever,” he then declared and without any warning hurried to Church’s side and grabbed his hand between his own.

“Stop that!” Church barked and yanked his hand away, bumping his shoulder against Caboose’s in a warning manner, although he feared that Caboose would definitely fail to realize that it was meant as such.

No surprises there. “Mister Grumpy-pants,” Caboose said gleefully, sought Church’s hand again and yanked it possessively to himself, curling his fingers around Church’s and then just letting their joined hands dangle between them as they walked.

Church didn’t know why he stopped resisting, why he let Caboose hold his hand, why he was giving him so much room; why didn’t he just hit him, kick him, tell him off and leave him behind. There was something to his joyous tone of voice, the skip to his step, the way he brushed his thumb across the back of Church’s hand or the gentle little squeeze he gave that just simply killed all resistances Church had. All the usual idiocy Caboose came up with was replaced with simple contentment to just hold his hand, and he was quiet, not even muttering anything unintelligible like he often did while idle.

It was as if he wasn’t broken at all.

There was something very wrong with that thought, something very wrong and very sad that made Church feel almost guilty for things he had never even done or been responsible for, and he decided that he had definitely gotten enough of this crazy shit. He gave Caboose’s hand a very brief, very soft squeeze, then shook his hand free and with a very audible scoff and a muttered "stupid fucking idiot" he hastened his steps, leaving Caboose trailing behind.

Caboose thought that it was the best day of his life. Now if he could only get the pancake ingredients…