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goneawayworld2020-12-01 08:29 pm
piper90npcs) wrote in goneawayworld2020-12-01 08:29 pm
HERE, HAVE SOME SPIRIT
Who: Three Ghosts and the little New Hires
What: Sharing the Christmas Spirit
Where: Good question
When: Post-Rose Tattoo
Warnings/Notes: Possible violence, angst, likely visions of death.
Are you sleeping?
Maybe. Maybe not. It's hard to tell. This could be another ARE, after all. What you can tell is that the halls are filled with mist, the smell of pine, and the sound of jingling bells off in the distance.
And then comes the wailing.
Tearing past you, screaming like a damned soul, skeletal figures flood through the halls. Some of them wear business suits, weighed down by chains crafted from ledgers and money boxes. Some of them are soldiers, bound by their own twisted weapons. Police, politicians, no one seems spared. Someone whispers, warning you, begging you to pay heed. For you will be visited by three ghosts who are on an errand of great import.
And then something charges with a howl and all goes white. Slowly, the light dims, and the mass of spectral entities is gone. Instead there stands a figure, or maybe two or three of them. For each person, it's different, as they'll have different messages and purposes for each.
One is neither male nor female, the only certain features being a well-muscled, well proportioned body, wearing a white tunic and a beautiful belt of pearl. Its hair is long, white, as if ancient, but no matter how its face changes, there's no sign of age upon it. There seems to be an aura of white flame around its head and, in a voice that belies nothing but charitable warmth, introduces itself as the Ghost of Christmas Past. It will show scenes of someone's past, offering enlightening details with little judgment.
The middle one is a large man on a veritable throne of food, tantalizing and delicious, wearing a fur-lined red robe and a crown of holly upon his head. The Ghost of Christmas Present is a big man, with brown hair, and a booming, jovial voice that can turn blisteringly harsh and back in a single sentence. He'll show what the character was doing immediately prior to their arrival upon the rig. Perhaps what they're doing right now. But he'll also be content to walk either the character's home world or this Gone Away World, viewing the sights and people enjoying Christmas with the character.
And the final one, a phantom in a dark, green robe, green smoke billowing around it. Its skin is pale, pulled gauntly around whatever body part it exposes. The gaze underneath the hood is as cold as the grave, and it would be wise not to try to match that for too long. It remains utterly silent, simply guiding its guest through the Christmases Yet To Come with a pointed finger. It will show how a character dies and how they'll be remembered by others after. It acts cold and merciless, but this very visit is a mission of mercy, one it silently prays will succeed.
The surprise, though, is that they aren't showing the character that history. Instead, they'll be guiding their guest through someone else's life. Maybe just a fraction of it, maybe a full span. But when it's all over, it's as if no time has passed. In fact, no. The characters are returned to an hour before the ghosts visited them.
[[Remember, this isn't your typical memshare. The ghosts are NPCs, but they'll be controlled by the players. They will not show characters their own histories, presents, or futures, only those of different people. They can show the same scenes to different people or different scenes to different people. One person might not even see all three of the Ghosts.]]
What: Sharing the Christmas Spirit
Where: Good question
When: Post-Rose Tattoo
Warnings/Notes: Possible violence, angst, likely visions of death.
Are you sleeping?
Maybe. Maybe not. It's hard to tell. This could be another ARE, after all. What you can tell is that the halls are filled with mist, the smell of pine, and the sound of jingling bells off in the distance.
And then comes the wailing.
Tearing past you, screaming like a damned soul, skeletal figures flood through the halls. Some of them wear business suits, weighed down by chains crafted from ledgers and money boxes. Some of them are soldiers, bound by their own twisted weapons. Police, politicians, no one seems spared. Someone whispers, warning you, begging you to pay heed. For you will be visited by three ghosts who are on an errand of great import.
And then something charges with a howl and all goes white. Slowly, the light dims, and the mass of spectral entities is gone. Instead there stands a figure, or maybe two or three of them. For each person, it's different, as they'll have different messages and purposes for each.
One is neither male nor female, the only certain features being a well-muscled, well proportioned body, wearing a white tunic and a beautiful belt of pearl. Its hair is long, white, as if ancient, but no matter how its face changes, there's no sign of age upon it. There seems to be an aura of white flame around its head and, in a voice that belies nothing but charitable warmth, introduces itself as the Ghost of Christmas Past. It will show scenes of someone's past, offering enlightening details with little judgment.
The middle one is a large man on a veritable throne of food, tantalizing and delicious, wearing a fur-lined red robe and a crown of holly upon his head. The Ghost of Christmas Present is a big man, with brown hair, and a booming, jovial voice that can turn blisteringly harsh and back in a single sentence. He'll show what the character was doing immediately prior to their arrival upon the rig. Perhaps what they're doing right now. But he'll also be content to walk either the character's home world or this Gone Away World, viewing the sights and people enjoying Christmas with the character.
And the final one, a phantom in a dark, green robe, green smoke billowing around it. Its skin is pale, pulled gauntly around whatever body part it exposes. The gaze underneath the hood is as cold as the grave, and it would be wise not to try to match that for too long. It remains utterly silent, simply guiding its guest through the Christmases Yet To Come with a pointed finger. It will show how a character dies and how they'll be remembered by others after. It acts cold and merciless, but this very visit is a mission of mercy, one it silently prays will succeed.
The surprise, though, is that they aren't showing the character that history. Instead, they'll be guiding their guest through someone else's life. Maybe just a fraction of it, maybe a full span. But when it's all over, it's as if no time has passed. In fact, no. The characters are returned to an hour before the ghosts visited them.
[[Remember, this isn't your typical memshare. The ghosts are NPCs, but they'll be controlled by the players. They will not show characters their own histories, presents, or futures, only those of different people. They can show the same scenes to different people or different scenes to different people. One person might not even see all three of the Ghosts.]]
Washington
PAST
[The memory starts with him sitting on a weight-lifting bench, eyes scanning the horizon. Wherever he's at, it's not winter. He closes his eyes and seems to just be trying to soak the sun in. Even if it wasn't obvious from the way he's reacting to it, there are other signs that make it clear he doesn't get to go out in the sun as often as he'd like.]
[The signs: The barbed-wire fence around the gym equipment. The starchy prison uniform. The cuffs on his hands, which are attached to a chain that goes to his waist and then to the cuffs on his ankles. The stamp on his orange prison scrubs has the initials "UNSC: MSDF."]
["Half hour is up, Washington," says a prison guard, gun raised, like the guard thinks every moment Wash is up and walking around is dangerous.]
[Wash opens his eyes again and breathes out a long, slow breath.]
["No funny business. You try to run, I will shoot you. You try to fight us, I will shoot you -"]
[Wash's tone could cut glass.]
I think I've got it. You've painted a pretty clear picture.
[He's led back inside and down a long hall, forced to take only baby steps, the chains tinkling with each one.]
["Can't believe we're stuck on duty today," the guard says to the other guard. "I put in for holiday leave months ago, but here I am."]
Holiday leave? What holiday is it?
["It's December 25th back home," says the guard. "Yet here I am, stuck babysitting your ass." They reach a cell. It's labeled with his prisoner number. No name.]
["Remember, no -"]
- Funny business. Like I said, I've got it.
[They unchain his shackles and he walks into his cell. They switch a forcefield back on.]
["You have no messages, by the way," says the guard, clearly enjoying this a little too much. "A few inmates got Christmas messages from family. Trouble with the fam, huh?"]
[Wash sits on his bed, exhaustion held in the slope of his shoulders.]
Even if we hadn't fallen out of touch years ago, being accused of treason tends to get you taken off the Christmas card list.
[He lays down on his prison cot and turns his back to the door.]
["Suuuch a shame. Oh well, there's always your birthday, right? Maybe they'll send you a card then."]
[Wash is silent as the guard leaves, eventually laying flat on his back again. Time lapses. He doesn't move. The lights to all the cells go dim for lights out. Down the hall he hears the tinny sound of an actual Christmas card, playing music. Wash wonders how difficult and how expensive it'd been to courier that out here.]
[He closes his eyes, and there is a memory within a memory, showing what Wash himself is thinking about.]
["This may be a memory. But he took refuge in other memories himself on this particular Christmas," the ghost says. "Memories of home."]
[Instead of laying on a cot, the viewer will see a younger Wash, now only 14, laying on a couch. He's in a very nice looking house, decked wall to wall with wreathes and tinsel and holly. The smell of pine and mulled cider fills the house, and a Christmas tree in a corner sparkles with lights and glinting ornaments.]
[The house is filled with the sounds you'd expect in a home. Several girls can be heard giggling over something in another room. A man can be heard calling out, "Honey, did you remember to pick up onions for the stuffing?"]
["Check the bottom of the pantry."]
["I already checked it."]
[Wash lays there with a bedraggled, ancient calico cat purring on his chest, as he trails fingers through its patchy fur. He pets the cat contentedly as "I'll be home for Christmas" plays from some sound system somewhere in the background, just like it'd played from the other inmate's card.]
[Christmas eve will find me
Where the love light gleams
I'll be home for Christmas
If only in my dreams.]
[The image abruptly cut out and disappears. Wash is laying alone, his hand curled at his chest, where the cat had been in the other memory.]
[He stares up at the ceiling, his guarded expression finally giving way to one of misery and despair. His hand tightens into a fist at his chest, like it's mimicking the clench of his heart. It's a quiet moment, and he's not being watched, so he allows himself the tiniest bit of emotion.]
[He closes his eyes tight and a single tear squeezes out of the corner of his eye and streams down his temple. He wipes it away and doesn't allow himself any more weakness. The grimace also relaxes, too, and he doesn't allow himself anything beyond that brief moment, either. Something shuts off again and instead of showing any emotion, he stares up at cold metal with an even colder gaze.]
no subject
"He told me he'd been to prison, but... I wouldn't have believed this, otherwise."
no subject
The image flashes to a military court room. Wash stands shackled, already in a prison uniform, indicating he didn't get anything resembling bail release.
The list of counts and verdicts is ridiculous, especially since they have to read out each count and its particular verdict:
3 counts of dereliction of duty
8 counts of conspiracy to commit treason
7 counts of destruction of protected classified military property
After the first few guilty verdicts, Wash's expression simply looks flat and emotionless. The light is long since gone from his eyes. There is no hope that the sentencing later might be light. His eyes are fixed on the middle distance and the sound distorts, to reflect how he heard it in this moment. His counsel has to tug him back to his seat when it's time to sit down again. He's so out of it he doesn't notice.
The judge says something distorted about sentencing and the seriousness of these crimes. The conspiracy to commit treason crimes are open to the death penalty or life imprisonment.
He gives short responses where he's required to, usually after his counsel nudges his elbow but it's clear he's not all there.
When he's carted back out again to the military transport, they cuff him and strap him in in a way that makes him look just a few steps shy of being Hannibal Lecter.
The empty look never fades. It doesn't even give way to anger or outrage or sadness. There just is no humanity left. It's been carved out by many hands, eager to use him.
"I'm surprised at your concern," says the Spirit. It's not actually surprised but these moments are meant to test, to teach, to be lessons, to broaden understanding. "He was never a second thought for many."
no subject
"I don't believe that. He did everything he could to bring the Project to justice. Even if he was overlooked, there had to be someone looking out for him."
Even if that someone didn't have any power over the situation.
North draws closer to the entourage of people as Wash's guards walk him to his transport.
"Wasn't there someone who could prove what he really meant to do?"
no subject
Wash and an armored soldier in blue stand next to room full of holographic storage units. Wash is explaining something to the other soldier.
"As they continued to torture it, Alpha couldn't keep its sanity and its memories at the same time. So it had to purge them. That fragment became Epsilon. And I was just unlucky enough to have it assigned to me," explains Wash.
"So you knew," says the Blue sim trooper. "You knew from the beginning what was going on."
"Mostly. They never told anyone what they did here. I got flashes when they put Epsilon in my head. Memories of what the Director did to it. Just like you're getting now. That's why Epsilon went insane; it was meant to. It was all the horrible experiences the Alpha needed to shed to survive. And that's why it had to be removed from me."
"Did they know that you had the memories?"
"I never said a word," says Wash. "But they had their suspicions. I would never let them put another A.I. in my head. I was afraid I wouldn't be able to hide what I knew from another program. Which, ironically, is what led them to think I could be trusted."
"Well what do we do with it?" asks Church.
"We take it, and we get it in the hands of someone who can use all its information. Then they can bring down the person responsible for what was done to Alpha. And to me. And to my friends. They can take down the Director."
It flashes to a group of Sim Troopers. Wash is giving them directions.
"Right. Caboose, grab that car. Church, put Epsilon in Caboose's jeep. You guys are gonna make a break for it. Take Epsilon and turn him over to the authorities. They'll know what to do with him."
"They did not," says the Spirit. "One of them refused to give over the being."
Caboose is shown gently putting the AI unit in blue base at Valhalla. It is decidedly not being taken to the authorities.
"No second thought given to what might happen to your friend," says the Spirit, "Yet again. Eventually he found others that cared about his well-being, but those memories are locked away right now. And these times are the only ones he remembers."
An image flashes of Wash in cuffs, head hanging.
Then the vision changes to Wash sitting on his Medbay bed on the Mother of Invention, sitting with his head hanging in a similar position. When the gravity turns off he walks out into the hall with his boots mag-locked, looking up as a soldier floats through the air due to the gravity being turned off. He looks aimless, disoriented, rocking slightly on his feet, then walks back into the Medbay, sitting on the edge of his bed with his boots mag-locked on the floor.
The metal of the ship starts to sway and creak and groan, until finally there is a massive collision. Despite being mag-locked, the force is too great, and Wash is thrown off his feet into the ceiling, then a wall, then the floor. The medical staff recovers, assesses their own injuries, then briefly checks that he's not hurt and then runs out into the ship to help any casualties.
And then he sits there on the floor, surrounded by scattered medical supplies, unsure of where to go, occasionally shuddering, as if having occasional flashes of something horrible. The lights fade until the blinking red emergency lights turn on. Time lapses. Those lights fade too. He's lit up only by the small lights on his suit.
"If any of his friends had come for him, he would've told them to leave without him, that he'd slow them down," says the Spirit. "But he didn't have to tell anyone."
The person that comes for him is surprised to see him there, sitting almost lifeless, head hanging.
"Agent Washington, what are you still doing here?" says a nurse, concerned. "They've already evacced most of the ship. Are you hurt?"
Wash slowly shakes his head.
"Let's get you out of here," the nurse say, doing her best to help him to his feet and urge him along, even though he's wearing armor that's probably heavier than she is.
Maybe this is where Wash became so appreciative of nurses.
no subject
"I almost decided to go back," he says. "I had to carry South, she was hurt, though..."
He's the one who hurt her, he doesn't say.
no subject
"You were rats escaping a sinking ship," says the Spirit. "Some of you were occupied helping others survive I do not stand here in judgment of that. It is not my place or my purpose. But whatever choices were made, wrong or right, it doesn't change what was left behind. You care for your friend; I bring you understanding. Reasons he's different from the man you knew."
There is a brief montage.
Flash to Wash in the mess at what's left of Project Freelancer, his helmet maglocked to his hip. There are still agents but with the crash, half the leaderboard squad having taken off, and the Alpha moved, the program is disintegrating. And Wash is perfectly poised to take the blame from his fellow Freelancers, since his reaction to Epsilon stopped AI implantation.
As Wash holds his tray of military slop and looks for a spot at a table, he's tripped by one of the other Freelancers, nearly taking a dive and losing his lunch because of it. He pauses in place, body stock still with tension.
"Is there a problem?" he asks in a voice vibrating with suppressed anger.
"Foot slipped," says the other Freelancer.
Wash looks like he's about to completely go off, but holds it in. He heads towards an empty table.
"Hey, Wash, one thing though," says the other Freelancer. "It's Christmas tomorrow. Think Santa can bring you some sanity? Or maybe you just need a little white jacket. That seems like a small ask from the fat man."
"Dude," says another Freelancer, elbowing the first one in the side.
"What? It's his fault the program's stalling out. Now we don't get our AIs because somebody couldn't hack it."
That should be enough to make Wash flip out, but the anger from a moment before has faded to something else already. Wash doesn't freeze in place again. He sits alone at an empty table, expression hollow, eyes fixed forward on nothing. Since this is early days, before he's entirely numb, his expression briefly flashes to something more disheartened and hurt - and lonely - before going blank again.
Flash to questioning by the Counselor. Wash is wearing his helmet but the emptiness in his voice says it all.
"Are you having new feelings about the incident?"
"No. Just the same old feelings. You know, that I had another person in my head, and I got to experience first-hand as their mind unraveled while mixed with my own. That I still have trouble distinguishing between its disintegrating thoughts and mine. You know, the usual."
"What about the hostility from other agents who lost out on assignments once we suspended the use of implants?"
"What about them? Am I supposed to feel bad for them or something?"
"Do you think you could work with an A.I. or another agent ever again?"
"...No, I don't."
Flash to Wash and South are pinned down by gunfire against one man - the Meta. Maine.
"See that ship?" Wash says to South. "You get to it and take off. Get yourself and more importantly Delta back to base. I'll cover you as best I can."
"Wash, is your armor adequately compensating for your wounds?" asks Delta.
"You're hit?" asks South.
"Just twice, I'm fine. Movement on twos. On my mark: sync."
"But -"
"Sync!"
"Sync!" South answers.
"Move!" He moves out from cover and then South immediately shoots him in the back. He goes down with a short cry of pain and then is still.
"Alarm!" calls out Delta, turning purple. "Friendly target, cease fire!"
"Calm down," says South coldly, "just stacking the deck in our favor."
There is a brief flash of Wash being taken out of the armor after the incident, his under-suit bloody from multiple gunshot wounds. He is coughing up blood as the nurses and doctors work frenetically to save him.
"The healing unit kept him alive but we need to get him to surgery now."
They turn him over on his side and any time he drifts back to consciousness again his expression is numb.
Another flash to Wash in his bunk at Freelancer, suddenly waking up screaming to wake the dead, like he's being tortured. There is a brief image overlaid to show what's happening, a flash of an AI screaming in agony. And disturbingly, as quickly as it happened, it dies down, like he's just...used to this. Waking up screaming from torture that he can't tell didn't happen to him.
He calms himself down and lays in bed on his side with the same dead expression as in some of the other visions, breathing hard until his breathing finally slows.
The Spirit says, "The difference between past and present is sometimes pain. To know this grants a greater ability to offer compassion."
no subject
"It's not in my power to help people the way I wish I could," he says. "Sometimes I feel like I should have been a counselor...a real one, not like the Project's Counselor."
He pauses, staring at Wash in silence.
"I feel so helpless, seeing people in situations like this and not being able to help. If I could do nothing else, if I was trained..."
He leaves it at that.
FUTURE
The scene is striking in that it doesn't seem that far in the future. The New Hires are still together, still apparently not home yet. Wherever they are, it's an area that looks slightly high tech in nature, a developed futuristic city full of grime and flashy holographic billboards.
In an alley, over near a doorway, some of the wiring has been pulled out of the box of some kind of high tech lock. A handheld computer is still attached to it, with multiple green lights blinking to show it was unlocked. Far off in the distance, fighting can be heard. Whoever watches this vision might recognize some of the voices - maybe even their own voice - calling out things as they work together against some threat in the distance.
But Wash is here, hiding away in some back alley, possibly the one that was electronically picking that lock. The building it belongs to is innocuous. Who knows what's inside? If that lock is any indication, though, it's something important.
It looks like Wash snuck away. For what reason, it's impossible to tell. But he's looking twitchy, as if he knows his time is almost up. As if he's realized he's been found out. Off in the distance, they're about to discover some of the truth, and the only way he has a chance of covering it up is if he acts now.
He is not alone. He has a gun raised on Kokichi, who found him first. Sam is here as well and Sam's hands are in the air, like part of the agreement for not shooting Kokichi is Sam not going for his gun.
If he gets rid of the witnesses, it will be okay. Kokichi will be the traitor. Sam will be his victim, who stumbled on his traitorous actions. Wash will have come a moment too late to stop Kokichi from killing Sam and killed him to avoid getting shot. And Kokichi will be responsible for what the others are about to find, off near the fight. Since they won't have the time or equipment to do forensics, it's not like he'll need to fake any prints or mess with any forensics ballistics. He'll just have to make sure the warm gun is in Kokichi's hand.
But he's hesitating. Why is he hesitating? Sweat is beading at his brow and instead of just shooting them both he's actually listening.
"Just...put the gun down, Wash," says Sam, his voice calm and placating. "We can sort all of this out. Nobody has to die here. Just give us a chance to do that, yeah?"
Wash huffs out the ghost of bitter laugh.
"You say that like choice factors in here. Like it's a real thing. Having a choice. That's not something that happens to me. Being able to choose. I never get to choose."
Unlike Sam, Kokichi's hands hang at his sides – nonthreatening, but not placating either. His expression just seems skeptical or disbelieving, halfway smiling like it's all a joke.
"So we're supposed to feel sorry for you? You're the victim here, huh?" he needles.
"I'm not a victim. I'm a survivor. And you're not making me want to shoot you any less."
But he still isn't doing it.
This is still a kid here. An annoying kid, but still a kid. And Sam has done nothing to hurt him. There is a part of him that doesn't want to do it, that is screaming for him not to, a part of him that knows it's a road he can't backtrack on. In fact, the part of him that doesn't want to shoot is fighting so hard the hand not holding the gun reaches for it, trying to turn it away from either Sam or Kokichi, as if it has a mind of its own. Wash looks at his own hands, mystified.
Loken's appearance behind Wash is shockingly fast. And just as shockingly brutal, his chainsword roaring from total quiescence as he spikes it through his back, and out of his gut, rotors churning the teeth through him. The attack is extreme but not extreme enough to trigger Wash's protective power. Only after he strikes does he say anything.
"Survive this," he snarls, bitter fury showing on his scarred features.
The gun drops out of Wash's hand as he goes down, staggering back into the stone edge of a broken ornamental fountain and sliding down to sit on the ground. His hand goes to his torso. The initial geyser of blood comes out with a large splatter, but the rest starts pouring out in a more gentle fountain. His face goes from normal color to a deathly gray in an instant.
For a moment, Garviel's face flashes to other faces and Wash's injuries flash to other injuries - Kerrigan stands there watching him fall with a snapped neck, Armstrong holds a bloody knife that was twisted in Wash's heart. Apparently, when it comes to dying, the future has options. But what sticks is the injury from Loken.
When Tucker runs forward onto the scene, sees the bloody sword, and sees Wash staring distantly at his own bloody hands, he cries out, "WASH!"
And then drops to his knees beside him, panicking, unsure what to do. "Someone get a fucking medic!"
Wash tries to say something but all he can do is gurgle out blood as it soaks his clothes and quickly pools around him.
North had heard the commotion, and hurriedly makes his way there, too, but the look on his face makes it clear he hadn't imagined what he'd see when he arrived; a bloodbath with Wash at the center. Tucker seems guilty, but so does Loken, and North immediately shoves them aside as he kneels quickly at Wash's side.
"Medic!" he also calls with urgency and desperation. "We need a medic!" This is the second time he's had to hold Wash's guts in and it's clear he doesn't intend for this time to have a different ending. Wash had survived last time; he'd survive this time, too.
"What have you done?" Brainy says in a hushed breath, looking at Loken, eyes wide as he comes running with his medical bag. This may not be his Wash, but it's still a Wash and that means he's dealing with the horror of seeing someone identical to his friend with his guts wide open. With shaking hands he pulls out only one supply, some kind of syringe and injects it into him. Then he pulls out another, and another. To get him to the maximum dose and a little over.
"Morphine," he says with a brittle voice. "That's all - that's all I can do. I'm sorry."
Wash grips North's hand tight, another hand tugging at Tucker's sleeve, and as adrenaline rushes and his mind tries to make sense of what's happening memories come back to him, far too late.
Back when he was brain damaged, when there were good days and bad days, there were some days he didn’t realize were echoing other days, where they would all sit on one of the hills of the moon they'd been given, looking out at the gold disc slipping below Iris's horizon as the planet and its geosynchronous moon rotated out of view. The light from the nearby street light becomes the sun. Time bends. Memory blends. He sees them all here in multicolored armor with Tucker - the people he didn't realize he missed. They are always there with him.
The guest to this vision sees it flickering, the images he's hallucinating. He sees the armored Reds and Blues around him, watching his passing, waiting. One of them, a woman in teal armor, takes off her helmet and kneels in front of him, her silent presence bringing on calm despite Tucker's panic. She cups his face with her hand and gives him a little nod, as if to say "It's okay to let go, we'll be okay." Then she kisses him on the forehead, vivid red hair dangling in his face.
He stops trying to gasp for breath with lungs that are shredded and nods back despite his growing delirium.
It's okay. It means it's okay. To stop fighting.
They'll be okay.
The Reds and Blues part. In the distance, her back to the setting sun, a woman with black hair and brown armor calls out to him. There are vague armored shapes behind her, like her.
"Wash, it's time to go," she says in a voice far more gentle than it was when Wash last heard it. A massive mountain of a man looms behind her, his throat scar gone, his expression stoic but peaceful, looking the way he used to...before.
On those evenings he and his friends sat on the hillside, when he didn’t remember the other evenings when they’d sat on the hillside, he said the same thing each time, not knowing it echoed every other time.
“Some sunset,” he whispers with the only breath he can draw in and let go, another echo. Body untensing, his breath slipping away.
Then he scrambles to his feet with the tail-wagging energy of a golden retriever puppy, wearing grey armor, picking up his helmet from the ground, and trots after the woman.
His voice is friendly and unguarded in its enthusiasm. "Cool your jets," he says cheerfully, "I needed to grab my helmet!"
The vision of the fading light lingers as everything else starts to go dark. The sky is painted in bands of radiant colors, the reds and blues the brightest as they cascade over the clouds.
The sun sets on Iris.
And the hallucination within a vision fades and Wash sits there, eyes staring at nothing, his head lolling back until it rests on the edge of the fountain. Bubbles of blood pop at the corner of his mouth and the blood drips down his chin.
"WHY?!" Tucker screams, nearly feral, launching himself at Loken. "WHY DID YOU DO THAT?!"
Sam catches Tucker before he gets close, holding him back, preventing a fight and keeping him away from that chain sword. The other New Hires close in. The growing dark of the planet they're on closes in too, as the blood finally stops pooling.
Re: FUTURE
She's seen people die before -- more violently than this, even -- but it's still awful. She does make a mental note to make it clear to the medics that they aren't to provide painkillers for her or Kenzie in this kind of situation, in case that makes it harder for them to Rage up.
The fact he was wrestling himself for the gun is odd, though. She glances up at her guide.
"What am I supposed to get out of this?"
Re: FUTURE
A door Wash never got to open is a fitting portal to what's on the other side. What's there is something Wash currently can't access, but because it exists, it's part of his possible future. Two sides of the same coin.
There are suddenly great thunderous banging noises on the door, like someone hitting it with two fists and giving it their all. Bang bang bang.
The banging doesn't stop. Bang bang bang.
But there is something else she could potentially follow. A vision of Tucker is walking down the street slowly, Wash's helmet in hand, and the street is turning into a verdant world with some kind of small military encampment.
She can do one or the other, follow Tucker to see where this terrible ending she just saw goes, or dare to open the door and meet what's pounding on it so ferociously.
Re: FUTURE
She could follow Tucker and witness what happens next, what happens when he goes home with Wash's helmet and without Wash. But she'd only be able to witness that, a passive recipient of knowledge.
...Yeah, screw that, she wants to know what's trying to get out through that door-that-isn't-the-same-door. Besides, that's where the Ghost is looking.
Stacia darts forward and pounds "shave and a haircut" on her side of the door, then waits to see if she gets "two bits" back.
Re: FUTURE
The next few knocks are also different, with the pauses after each knock short or long.
Short, short, short. Long, long, long. Short, short, short.
Morse code. An SOS.
Re: FUTURE
She thumps on the door a couple times, hopefully indicating to whoever's on the other side that she's heard them, then takes a step back to examine the door. The last time she'd encountered one in a not-quite-dream, it had been unlocked, all it had needed was for her to turn the handle and step through. This one probably isn't going to be that easy. If only she had--
Wait. Is this reality as she knows it on the Rig? It's somewhere between a dream and a projection of the future and maybe a third thing entirely. Do the rules she's adapted to in her time here still apply? There's one easy way to find out.
Stacia rolls her shoulders and pushes her hair back with both hands, shifting herself to the mindset of Stacia Nothing-to-See-Here, Athro of the Shadow Lords. With her hair pushed back, she can't tell if it starts streaking itself blond, the way it's done before in weird spiritual liminal spaces. She concentrates on the lock and reaches for the idea of Open Seal.
One of the first Gifts she'd learned when she'd officially joined the Garou Nation, she'd still been angry about everything, about what was being asked of her, but she'd seen horrible things already and what was she going to do, pretend it wasn't happening? Pretend there weren't things out there who wanted to destroy her and her family and everyone she knew? No, she wasn't going to, and she needed to be able to get through locked doors to do it, to bend the mechanisms or code with nothing more than a spiritual effort, a flex of something between a muscle and an act of will. She'd learned it from a raccoon spirit, with its creepy-clever hands and its mouth full of sandwich enchanted so it could be shared with something other-than-physical. She'd opened better locks for less reason, she was a Ragabash and all locks fell before her, she had every confidence that this one would be no different...
cw: brain gore
The sight before her is that of a very high tech hospital room. The gray haired man in the bed there looks peaceful, and is surrounded by a gaggle of elderly people. The group is smaller than it once was, but all of the surviving ones are there.
The man in the bed looks peaceful.
That Wash anyway.
There is another Wash standing before her at the door, one that flashes with uncertainty like the light passing through the tracks as a train chugs over them overhead.
He tries to voice something to her but his neck is heavily bandaged - a symbol. This Wash is one that accepted his neck injury and the brain damage it caused. This Wash is at peace with it, just like the other Wash is at peace with death in his hospital bed.
But something is terribly wrong. Blood pours down the face of the Wash right in front of her. A section of his head is cut open, a chunk of skull is gone, cut away with surgical precision. Tissue is drawn back. There are diodes and instruments sticking out of that section of his visible brain.
Even if Stacia can't lip read, the words "help me" are pretty obvious. He gestures wildly to the scene behind him, as if to say this vision of death is the right one, the real one, the most likely one.
And then the flickering goes even faster and suddenly the gruesome vision is gone. The serene hospital room and the elderly Wash remains.
no subject
The science-horror ghost-Wash is barely necessary; the locked door and the two wildly different futures give her plenty of information that something is up, that something is very much not right. She makes note of the edges of his head wound anyway, the man's going to be unconscious around her at some point and he doesn't have Garou healing to fade out his scars. She'll have to talk to his buddy from home, maybe he can give her more pieces to assemble into a fuller picture.
And, of course, she'll have to be very, very careful who she brings this to.
For now, though, maybe she can sit back and watch an old man pass away peacefully in the company of his loved ones. She doesn't expect to be privileged enough to see a lot of that in her life.
no subject
He's on oxygen.
"I think it's almost time," he breathes out, catching her gaze.
"Are you sure, Wash?" asks an older man wearing mostly pink. "You could still try that genetic therapy again, they said it's not too late."
"It's time," Wash repeats firmly. "The treatments don't last long enough. And I still feel like death warmed over when they're done. I hate it."
Donut sits back, his expression sad.
"If you're ready," Carolina sniffles and has trouble getting the rest of the words out, "then you're ready."
"It's okay?" Wash asks, as if it's not entirely his choice, because it's hard to let go of feeling like he needs to be there for them. It's like he needs permission.
"It's not our call," says Carolina. "It's your choice, old man."
She says "old man" like she doesn't look almost as ancient.
She goes on, "But if you need someone to say it...it's okay, David. We'll be okay. You don't have to keep fighting forever. No one can. No one should have to."
With that, she leans over to press a kiss to his forehead, and then one to the knuckles of one hand. The worry lines on his face stop creasing so sharply.
"I know you - I know it's hard to stay, but - but I don't want you to go, Agent Washington," says another man with an almost childlike voice, with deep sadness. "Because you're going to go, aren't you. Like most of Red Team. And Church."
It's still "agent" after all these years, because that's what he was when they met. And it's hard sometimes for Caboose to remember things. Especially now that he's older. Memory fades with age, and his was...never that great to begin.
"Think about it this way, Caboose," says Wash, "Where I'm going, most of Red Team is already there, setting up their base. And you know Church didn't get much done in all these years, so Blue Team's already playing catch-up. I have to help Church."
This is one of many timelines. In most of of them Sarge did go first - he was the oldest. But not all of them had Simmons and Grif pass on before the rest of them. In other timelines Grif didn't die after his fourth heart attack, and a heartbroken Simmons didn't die only several months after.
But even in this one they had lived a long time, at least. They all had lived a shockingly long time given the lives they once led. And someone or another was always destined to pass on before someone else.
"Church does get distracted, because he's always yelling a lot," says Caboose.
"Exactly. We've got to have both bases, right?"
"Right," Caboose agrees. "I guess that makes sense. Because then we can have the bases, and we can run back and forth, and we can yell a lot - I liked all the yelling - and we can play with flags. Just like old times."
"Just like old times," Wash agrees, reaching out a hand to briefly hold onto Caboose's. He finally seems reassured.
"I just wish this didn't have to happen here, in a hospital room that smells like disinfectant and arthritis cream," says Wash bitterly.
"This is bullshit," says an older man that can only be Tucker. There's something about the punchy tone of voice, even elderly. And some of young Tucker can still be seen in his features. "There's no reason you should have to stay here."
"They just want to drag it out," says the woman, Carolina. "Sometimes they lose sight of the fact keeping someone alive as long as possible shouldn't be the goal. There are ways around it but we'll have to fight them a little on it, maybe arrange for at-home hospice. We should've taken care of this sooner -"
"I tanked a little fast for that, Carolina. I should've - I should've planned... I just hoped after that last course of treatment..." He breaks off into a sigh. "By the time we get everything, I'm not sure I'll..."
The group all eyeballs each other over his bed, getting the exact same idea, at the exact same time, a shared braincell of pure chaos.
"Do you still have that portable ox-generator at home?" asks Tucker.
"Yeah, why?" asks Wash.
Donut is already on his feet and hobbling down the hall to make a jaunt towards the teleportation hub. He's one of the most spry after all these years.
"Wait, what's going on, what are you doing?" asks Wash.
"We're springing you from the joint," says Carolina, and Wash smiles.
It takes some doing and is somewhat hilarious to see, a bunch of elderly folks working in heavy cooperation to actually pull off the heist of a person. Despite the fact half of them need canes and Wash is in a hover-wheelchair on a portable oxygen generator, they somehow pull it off, all of them laughing slightly as they hear a nurse enter his room to check on the pulled lead from his vitals monitor, and say, "Hey, wait a minute!"
But they're in the elevator before then.
After getting him secured in their ship, Carolina asks, "Where to?"
"You know where. It should be evening time near...uh, the spot we used to go," says Wash softly.
The where is the hill-side on Iris, the same one he had dying visions of in the Bad End. They bundle him up, so the cool air doesn't bother him, and shove the hover wheelchair where it needs to be, helping him down to lay on blankets and pillows in the grass, having to arrange the same for themselves. It's not an easy effort, when they're all getting a little feeble, when some of them don't have the same mobility that they used to. But they pull it off.
Carolina helps arrange it so Wash is half lying in her lap, bundled, cushioned and comfortable. But Tucker is close too, winding a hand in Wash's, un-self-consciously.
"Love this moon. Best years of my life. But there were some nice ones in a few canyons, though," breathes out Wash weakly, with a warm smile. He draws in a long, quiet breath. "Don't know what else to say. There's so much I - I..."
His eyes water. Carolina's eyes water, too.
"We already know it, Wash. All of it. You said it all, everything we could've ever wanted or needed to hear. Even before Sarge was gone, before Grif and Simmons... We all got to hear it."
He sighs in contentment at that, at not needing to give a last speech on how amazing they are, how much he believes in them, how proud he still is, how much he loves them. At knowing he made it clear enough to the ones they already lost.
"Some...sunset...huh?" he breathes out instead.
"It's beautiful. Always was," says Carolina.
After a little bit of time, Tucker suddenly chuckles, remembering something.
"Wash, you remember that time that Caboose looked straight at it for too long and you had to take him to Dr. Gray to fix his retinas after?" asks Tucker. There is no insult in it, they all did ridiculous things that Wash sometimes had to play clean up over.
"My eyes were filled with ants and sadness!" Caboose offers helpfully.
But Wash doesn't answer.
"...Wash?" says Tucker, and they all look away from the setting sun.
His eyes are closed. His face is peaceful. His mouth is almost curved into the shadow of a smile. His last breaths weren't even ragged gasps or death wheezing, they were a sigh that went unnoticed because it sounded so much like contentment.
Carolina smooths a few stray tufts of gray hair off his forehead as tears stream down her face. She's not the only one crying. The setting sun glitters off those tears like the first stars that start flickering into being in the parts of the sky taken over by deep blue.
They hold him this time, not ready to let him go at first. They sit for a while that way.
The sun sets on Iris.
no subject
This is a much better death than the first one she saw. Old age, surrounded by the type of friends who'd bust you out of a hospital so you could die somewhere pretty? They should all be so lucky.
(She almost certainly won't be. She tries not to be jealous.)
Stacia starts giggling during the heist and doesn't stop until it's all over, though it gets damp there at the end. She wipes her eyes with the back of her hand and looks around for her escort.
"So, I'm guessing what I'm supposed to get out of this is that something's wrong with Wash and it's fixable?"
no subject
The image shifts again and both Stacia and the spirit are standing on the roof of a building, looking down on a street that leads to what may be the capitol building of a country or planet. There are an abundance of flags waving in front of the capitol building.
The spirit points down.
A funeral procession is passing through. Its moving slowly. Carolina and the others are acting as pallbearers, each of them with a hand on the hovering platform carrying the casket, the work of lifting it taken care of for them. The procession is going at the speed they can actually move.
Thousands of people are filling the streets. The outside walls of the building have had countless flowers and wreathes heaped against them, so much they might have to be bull-dozed later. His casket is draped with three flags, one red, one blue, and one that matches the flag on the capitol building, the official flag of Chorus.
When they reach what is very obviously some kind of capitol building, the flags are taken off the casket by an honor guard and folded with great ceremony, taken away to be preserved. His friends will receive the red and blue flags. The other will be stored in the Capitol building and someday be kept in Chorus' history museum.
The casket is lifted to a place of great honor on a dais covered with yet more flowers. A holographic projection of Wash's face the size of a billboard plays over her head, shifting through pictures. Some are goofy, some are candid, caught during times he was laughing with his friends. In others, he's wearing his armor, pondering over maps with a woman in grey and blue-striped armor.
The older woman that steps up to the podium to speak is wearing sharp, dark clothes that look like you'd expect a politician to wear.
A man introduces her, "First to speak will be former president, Ms. Kimball."
She is handed the mic. She takes a deep breath, steadies herself. Clearly this is hard for her, actually personal, like she knew him.
"We are gathered here today to honor the passing of a great man," Kimball says. "He had another name, but on Chorus, we all knew him as Washington, and he...never asked for anything else over the years. A long time ago, as the general of the New Republic, I wouldn't have been caught dead without my armor, due to fear of snipers. On Chorus, during the Civil War everyone wore armor, because those who didn't quickly found themselves killed."
"Today, I stand before you armorless as your ex-president instead of only an ex-general. Today, the people of Chorus go armorless too. Today, this funeral procession passed through a city and a world that has rebuilt itself, instead of one that destroyed itself."
"We were able to survive the Civil War we had been tricked into by selfish and greedy individuals trying to drive us to destruction for their own personal gain thanks to the heroes that helped us save our world: the Reds and Blues."
"While they were all heroes to the core, Wash always stood out as a leader. After the Reds and Blues helped us realize we had been duped, I was officially in charge of our combined armies with the late General Doyle. But to pretend we weren't in over our heads would be wholly dishonest."
"We had, as a people, spent years at each other's throats. We had just learned that the mercenaries we thought were aiding a lost cause had been the ones to cause us to fight in the first place. Doyle and I were the only leadership that was left, after all our superiors were killed, one by one by a war that was meant to tear us apart."
"Washington stepped in, and helped us plan our battles. He adapted in the field, helping us survive when everything went wrong. He trained our troops, never ceasing in his efforts to help us join together as a cohesive whole. But it wasn't just tactics that he helped us with, or team-building. When the Reds and Blues came, they gave us hope, but it was Washington that gave us inspiration. He made the people of Chorus - and his friends - believe in ourselves, at a time we needed it the most."
"It meant something when he believed in you because he was effortlessly selfless, thoughtlessly brave -" A slight shadow of a smile, like they're all in on the same joke - like they all knew that all of them were a handful. "- and infinitely patient, with friends who were learning to be heroes, and two factions of people who were learning to stop being enemies."
A pause.
"Okay, that's not entirely true. He was patient up until you messed up a drill for the sixth or seventh time because you were too busy slap-fighting with the soldier next to you because they used to be in the opposing faction. And I say this as someone who used to slap-fight General Doyle."
There is a light murmur of amusement from the crowd.
"Then Wash could be a tyrant, only because you deserved it, because you needed it. But when we weren't driving him crazy, he was encouraging and kind. He was relentless when trying to protect others, something that allowed himself and Agent Carolina to prevent a genocide by keeping the temple of the Purge from being activated."
"He refused to turn his back on a world that the rest of humanity had forgotten. There were many heroes during the battle against Malcom Hargrove's forces, but without Wash, it all would've fallen apart, and we would not be standing here today. Chorus would've just been rust and dust, its people long forgotten."
"So let us take three minutes of silence to say goodbye to a great hero, a respected leader, and a good friend. One minute for each group he inspired during the war: a minute for the Federal Army, a minute for the New Republic, and a minute for his friends, the Reds and Blues."
The silence makes room for the crying, from a people that have let themselves feel things again, thanks to the battering machine of war having been stopped. The older people seem most affected.
After the silence, others step up to the podium but the vision flashes to evening, a setting sun. Only after the long day is through has his funeral run out of speakers apparently. The casket is borne by the Reds and Blues into the capitol building and set on another dais there, to temporarily rest in state. Kimball keeps talking to her people.
"For those who want to show their gratitude, flowers have been brought in from the farms in the countryside." Though she remained composed for the speech, a few tears finally drip down President Kimball's face. "Let this be our last token of gratitude to Wash. We were a people that were facing doom and near starvation - and now we've become a people that grows flowers again."
Massive trucks filled with them are near the dais. His friends are given time at the casket first, Carolina linger first and the longest, her head pressed for a long time against the closed casket.
After his friends, the former president places her flower down next, with quiet words meant for Wash alone. Then other mourners stream by in neat lines curling around the dais, paying their respects. Many of the first to do it are survivors of the war, like some of the lieutenants.
Young children are lifted up to place their flowers. Families fell apart during the civil war. Children and teens lived long enough to either become adults with guns in their hands or didn't survive at all. No children came after them until the war was over. Just like the flowers, Chorus is a world that got to have children again, too.
Even after the trucks run out of flowers, the line doesn't stop. It stretches off down the streets, around a corner and out of sight.
The spirit gives Stacia a long and significant look. If it has eyebrows it might be raising one under there.
This is all she needs now, to know for sure. The man on the rig is not kind, not encouraging, and certainly not inspirational. He is not the kind of person who would have a state funeral. He is the kind of man that might get killed for being a traitor because he did something shady. And it is important that someone can see that things really have gone terribly wrong.
no subject
"Don't you give me a judgemental look, you're the one who brought me here and refuses to communicate beyond pointing and significant hood movements," Stacia says, mostly without heat. "I've literally talked to chattier rocks."
She watches the funeral in a contemplative silence, every passing minute making it more and more clear how different this Wash is from the one she knows from the Rig. This may be a possible future, sure, but it's clearly not the possible future of the version she knows. Something's wrong, something's been twisted, something needs to be put right. When the Ghost gives her a significant look, she rolls her eyes.
"Oh come on. You have to know that I was already planning treating his head like a puzzle toy. Metaphorically, not literally, literally would be gross."