Agent Washington (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
parannoyed) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
goneawayworld2021-04-08 10:09 pm
parannoyed) wrote in goneawayworld2021-04-08 10:09 pm
Entry tags:
Spiral [closed]
Who: Closed to Carolina, Tucker, and York
What: Wash has a little freakout
Where: A random little alcove
When: After "Don't Touch That Dial"
Warnings/Notes: Mental health stuff with a character kind of paranoia spiraling
[Wash had needed some time to punch things in the training room after returning from the mission.]
[He was trying not to spiral. It's not even like they'd exchanged blows. It was the simple fact that he and South had both tried (succeeded) to kill each other, they both were insulting each other and wishing death on each other or tossing around vague threats.]
[But he'd been the one North had taken a defensive posture at. He'd been the one North seemed almost ready to throw down with. He'd been the one that was suddenly an enemy. So much for all that talk about forgiveness and being friends and - and - ]
[No, he was not going to spiral. He was not going to fall down into the paranoia hole. He was not going to let a stupid moment of a friend getting protective of a sibling make him lose it. He was not going to let it make him doubt everything and start wondering if everyone else had some dividing line. Had someone who was more important.]
[Someone else was always more important.]
[It was easy to see everyone else falling away instantly. New friends and friendly acquaintances on the rig? Strangers. Why would any of them really care? Carolina and York? They'd obviously put each other first before him, when the chips were down. Tucker? Tucker would - ]
[If Church... ]
[But Church was gone. That was the thing. Maybe if Church was there, Church would come first, but he was dead.]
[Then again, York, North, and South had been dead, too. So he could chalk that up to being decided purely by circumstance. Right now, Tucker might have his back, but if there was another magical time travel resurrection, he'd have someone else he'd care about more.]
[You're spiraling.]
[It was almost worse for the fact he and South had mutually agreed on the verbal sparring to vent enough frustration to prevent actual violence. And even more painful to think that if North had known that it was all bluster, it still might not have mattered. The fact she'd betrayed him first certainly didn't.]
[He wasn't supposed to be this soft. How'd he gone from working with the Meta to do the hard things he needed to for survival, to letting himself get this vulnerable? It didn't change that his sense of right and wrong was starting to grow back, it didn't change his decision to try to screw over Jorgmund instead of help them. But it was threatening to change how much of his time as a New Hire he planned to shoulder alone. He'd been slowly letting people in but alone was safer, wasn't it? No chance of betrayal by someone telling him they were his friend and that they were going to look out for him, and then just changing their mind because someone else was always more important. Alone was less painful because nothing dragged harder on your soul than getting your hopes up, or wondering if someone would come for you when you were scared and confused and -]
[(("They'll come for me. My friends will - they'll -" he'd slurred out. She'd answered coolly: "No one is coming, Agent Washington. You know I'm right." "Not an agent anymore. Not."))]
[You think these are your thoughts, says a voice in his head, but you're only half right. You're starting to hear me now.]
[Wash lightly taps his sweaty forehead against the punching bag, resting it there.]
Of course I do, you're me.
[Am I? You're spiraling. And you know why. It's not just this moment. You can feel it now, can't you. The edges of the empty space they left. The echoes of what they did to you.]
[To us.]
There is no us! Where are you getting a plural??
[This had to be some bullshit from Epsilon, right? Leaking out because he was upset right now and missing time and whenever his brain was slightly scrambled, there was still that old damage that leaked in. But it didn't sound like Epsilon, and Epsilon had been a presence. Memories that weren't his crowding in. Not an empty space he could find by prodding around it, like the sore gums around a pulled tooth.]
[Why did his thoughts - his voice - sound like him but not him? Why was something as minor as a friend getting pissed and treating him like an enemey setting him off like this?]
[But this had happened before, with Tucker in Medbay, With York in the training area. There was something deeper underneath everything, causing reactions of panic or pain, and it was like things sometimes kicked up the silt of a riverbed and unearthed something nastier hiding underneath.]
[((The door was steel.))]
Alone is safer.
[Bzzt, wrong.]
[After an hour and a half with a punching bag in the training room, it still isn't enough. He doesn't even make it back to his room before needing to hit something again. He finds a little alcove tucked away from everyone, finds a metal wall and starts punching it until his knuckles split. Only someone paying careful attention to their surroundings would hear it, due to all the weird noises the rig made, the thunks and the pingpingpings.]
[((The door and walls were steel. The floor was concrete. He would lay on it, unfocused, drugged, gaze directed at the door, waiting for Carolina to throw it open, or the others to come stumbling through. Waiting and waiting. Waiting.))]
[Alone was safer. He didn't need anyone so why was he getting so upset over one friend getting pissed?]
[You're spiraling.]
[((She had been right in the end, hadn't she.))]
[Good. I'll be here. When you finally reach the bottom.]
[((No one ever came.))]
[I'll be here when you hit the bottom, the voice that is and isn't his says, and I know you don't really trust it, that you have trouble believing it - but so will they.]
What: Wash has a little freakout
Where: A random little alcove
When: After "Don't Touch That Dial"
Warnings/Notes: Mental health stuff with a character kind of paranoia spiraling
[Wash had needed some time to punch things in the training room after returning from the mission.]
[He was trying not to spiral. It's not even like they'd exchanged blows. It was the simple fact that he and South had both tried (succeeded) to kill each other, they both were insulting each other and wishing death on each other or tossing around vague threats.]
[But he'd been the one North had taken a defensive posture at. He'd been the one North seemed almost ready to throw down with. He'd been the one that was suddenly an enemy. So much for all that talk about forgiveness and being friends and - and - ]
[No, he was not going to spiral. He was not going to fall down into the paranoia hole. He was not going to let a stupid moment of a friend getting protective of a sibling make him lose it. He was not going to let it make him doubt everything and start wondering if everyone else had some dividing line. Had someone who was more important.]
[Someone else was always more important.]
[It was easy to see everyone else falling away instantly. New friends and friendly acquaintances on the rig? Strangers. Why would any of them really care? Carolina and York? They'd obviously put each other first before him, when the chips were down. Tucker? Tucker would - ]
[If Church... ]
[But Church was gone. That was the thing. Maybe if Church was there, Church would come first, but he was dead.]
[Then again, York, North, and South had been dead, too. So he could chalk that up to being decided purely by circumstance. Right now, Tucker might have his back, but if there was another magical time travel resurrection, he'd have someone else he'd care about more.]
[You're spiraling.]
[It was almost worse for the fact he and South had mutually agreed on the verbal sparring to vent enough frustration to prevent actual violence. And even more painful to think that if North had known that it was all bluster, it still might not have mattered. The fact she'd betrayed him first certainly didn't.]
[He wasn't supposed to be this soft. How'd he gone from working with the Meta to do the hard things he needed to for survival, to letting himself get this vulnerable? It didn't change that his sense of right and wrong was starting to grow back, it didn't change his decision to try to screw over Jorgmund instead of help them. But it was threatening to change how much of his time as a New Hire he planned to shoulder alone. He'd been slowly letting people in but alone was safer, wasn't it? No chance of betrayal by someone telling him they were his friend and that they were going to look out for him, and then just changing their mind because someone else was always more important. Alone was less painful because nothing dragged harder on your soul than getting your hopes up, or wondering if someone would come for you when you were scared and confused and -]
[(("They'll come for me. My friends will - they'll -" he'd slurred out. She'd answered coolly: "No one is coming, Agent Washington. You know I'm right." "Not an agent anymore. Not."))]
[You think these are your thoughts, says a voice in his head, but you're only half right. You're starting to hear me now.]
[Wash lightly taps his sweaty forehead against the punching bag, resting it there.]
Of course I do, you're me.
[Am I? You're spiraling. And you know why. It's not just this moment. You can feel it now, can't you. The edges of the empty space they left. The echoes of what they did to you.]
[To us.]
There is no us! Where are you getting a plural??
[This had to be some bullshit from Epsilon, right? Leaking out because he was upset right now and missing time and whenever his brain was slightly scrambled, there was still that old damage that leaked in. But it didn't sound like Epsilon, and Epsilon had been a presence. Memories that weren't his crowding in. Not an empty space he could find by prodding around it, like the sore gums around a pulled tooth.]
[Why did his thoughts - his voice - sound like him but not him? Why was something as minor as a friend getting pissed and treating him like an enemey setting him off like this?]
[But this had happened before, with Tucker in Medbay, With York in the training area. There was something deeper underneath everything, causing reactions of panic or pain, and it was like things sometimes kicked up the silt of a riverbed and unearthed something nastier hiding underneath.]
[((The door was steel.))]
Alone is safer.
[Bzzt, wrong.]
[After an hour and a half with a punching bag in the training room, it still isn't enough. He doesn't even make it back to his room before needing to hit something again. He finds a little alcove tucked away from everyone, finds a metal wall and starts punching it until his knuckles split. Only someone paying careful attention to their surroundings would hear it, due to all the weird noises the rig made, the thunks and the pingpingpings.]
[((The door and walls were steel. The floor was concrete. He would lay on it, unfocused, drugged, gaze directed at the door, waiting for Carolina to throw it open, or the others to come stumbling through. Waiting and waiting. Waiting.))]
[Alone was safer. He didn't need anyone so why was he getting so upset over one friend getting pissed?]
[You're spiraling.]
[((She had been right in the end, hadn't she.))]
[Good. I'll be here. When you finally reach the bottom.]
[((No one ever came.))]
[I'll be here when you hit the bottom, the voice that is and isn't his says, and I know you don't really trust it, that you have trouble believing it - but so will they.]
if you need this tweaked lmk, i am happy to oblige✨
It's not that Tucker has been developing keen mystic senses and felt a disturbance, nifty as that would be to have for all of his friends. It's more that all the hustle and bustle and network chatter has made it pretty clear that everyone who went out on that specific stupid long mission is back on the Rig, and Wash is the only one on that roster that he gives a major, tangible shit about checking on.
There's a couple of people who are okay, he guesses, but they're mostly the ones easy to clock on the network already. That's whatever. He can do that any time.
So he checks the Medbay first. Just in case, because it's Wash, and they have a pretty clear understanding that Wash doesn't get left alone in there.
Wash isn't in Medbay. Related: Tucker is pretty sure that the medical staff as a whole hates him now, if they didn't already.
So, okay, obviously training room next. If it's Wash and he's either fine or simply not super bad off, that'll be the place. Tucker is willing to accept and complain about getting his ass kicked in training as a hang, since it's been a few weeks.
Wash isn't in the training room. He is also not answering Tucker's perfectly reasonable number of texts and video hails. Fuckin' rude. But okay, maybe Wash's roommate he hates is out of office and Wash actually went to his room and slept for the first time in 80 years.
If Wash isn't in his room, then Tucker figures he can hit up Carolina, and if Carolina doesn't have a finger on the pulse, they'll split the rest of search duty. Mess hall, gardens, library, common areas, up top getting fresh air, whatever. He preemptively plans to make it a whole Thing if necessary, like the melodramatic loser he is.
Which is all to say, Tucker actually is paying attention to his surroundings for once, by the time he gets into the area and hears a somewhat non-standard sound. Dangerous stuff waltzes through security all the time and attacks people. If Wash got webbed to a ceiling by a big spider or whatever, gotta be on point.
It's not hard to create the perfect storm of circumstances for Tucker to head directly towards an unexplained sound in a potentially dangerous situation. Put one of nine or so people at the other end of it, even hypothetically, and watch him make a beeline. Is it the greatest idea? No, maybe not, because he doesn't have a weapon on hand or backup or a legit plan or anything. But it's his idea, and that's what matters.
Bright side: he did it. Search over. That's a Wash.
Downside: Wash is definitely punching a wall.
Going by Jorgmund standards, there's at least a 20% chance that Wash is possessed and about to try to murder him. Considering it's Wash, mark that as 'definitely going to succeed at murdering him.' Possession is very concerning, in fairness. But the higher odds are that this is a more base-level emotionally very concerning thing.
As a wise sage once said: YOLO. If it's a personal thing, he'll wing it and hopefully not fuck it up worse, at the very, very least. If he gets murdered... well, okay, he'd be pissed about getting murdered, honestly. There's no getting around that.
Tucker makes himself known in the usual fashion, right as he starts his powerwalk into the general Wash Zone. ]
Hey, I'm pretty sure the Rig's not on Street Fighter bonus stage rules, so how about you celebrate finishing a mission by not breaking your fucking hands, Wash?
[ Tucker sounds a bit offended on behalf of Wash's hands, since Wash does not seem to be at capacity to do it himself. He doesn't mind picking up the slack. Tucker's great at being offended. And he can multitask well enough to sound worried, too. That's growth. ]
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[He backs away from the - now-dented, which is impressive - wall. He shakes his right hand - partly to hide how much it's shaking right now.]
I'm, uh, I'm just - I'm - I'm -
I just -
[He holds up his left hand, which is slightly more still, placatingly.]
I'm fine! It's fine!
[His voice goes high like it always does when he's not fine and saying he's fine. It was easy to tell when something was wrong when he had that thin, upward lilt to his voice when something something like "I'm great! Everything's great!"]
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Worrying can usurp offense as the main force at play.
Tucker crosses his arms, forehead creasing. ]
Uhhh, okay, that's obviously bullshit. Like, Caboose trying to hide a welding torch behind his back and sneak into his room level bullshit.
[ He would add 'no offense', but he wouldn't mean it if he said it. So he doesn't bother. If he's in charge of the Blue Team leader brain cell right here and right now, he'll exercise his right to judge.
Even without all his memories of home, the time they've spent together on the Rig may have Wash familiar with the sharp-eyed look Tucker gets if he's set to dog-with-a-bone dig his teeth in and leave them there. ]
So how about we skip the part where you keep trying to bullshit me, and you tell me what's going on? And then we'll-- I dunno, clean your hands up so you don't get space-gangrene or something.
[ Other-dimensional-gangrene? He has no idea. That would be a solid minute to check the levels on potentially broken bones, though. Wash and Carolina have some fucking ridiculous durability, but it's the principle of the thing. ]
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[Of course he focuses on the pedantry and correcting him.]
[Wash leans back to the opposite wall and slumps down to the floor, sitting there and looking at his hands.]
You don't have to worry, I'll be fine.
It's nothing.
[No, that's not right.]
It should be nothing. I don't know why I'm so upset.
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Eh, it's a nice thought.
Tucker pulls up some awkward hallway sitting for himself. Props to the luck of the day: way less awkward than the mistletoe thing.
What would regular-brand Wash do here if the situation were reversed, he wonders? Like, as basically the most semi-well-adjusted and okay with being sincere of all of them?
Apart from for some reason believing in them all despite literally everything about them. Which Tucker does already, reversal-speaking, but it doesn't seem super relevant to this whole situation. ]
I mean, short answer? Maybe it actually shouldn't be nothing and your standards for yourself usually suck.
[ ... just because he would like to approximate the effectiveness level of regular-brand Wash doesn't mean he's gonna plagiarize. ]
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[He could push Tucker away. He probably should push Tucker away. If he talks about this, he'll probably just get false promises about friendship.]
[Or...they won't be false. And maybe he can get help figuring out why this is causing a stronger reaction.]
South and I agreed to something of a truce. I don't know if she'll hold to it but we formally agreed to not kill each other, that - [he angles his had to make sure they're alone] - you-know-what was a worse enemy we needed to be willing to fight instead.
Part of the agreement is we can still insult each other and tell the other we hope they drop dead. You know, just to vent and not actually attack each other.
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Tucker doesn't know all that much about her. In his defense, he doesn't want to. He already picked his side of this beef. ]
Oh, standard truce stuff, yeah. Sounds legit.
[ It's very Blood Gulch of them. The easiest kind of truce to stick to, as in only barely technically a truce at all. ]
So what went wrong?
[ If Wash doesn't know if she'll hold to it, then that probably means that so far she's not not holding to it. Since 'she immediately broke the truce and I'm mad about that' would've been on the tail-end otherwise. ]
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[The emphasis here being that the aggression was mutual.]
But I'm the one he almost threw down with over it. I know it's his sister. I get it. [He doesn't really have them in his life now, but he's a big brother. There were times he'd throw down at the drop of a hat with people insulting his family.] There are people I would choose over other people in this place.
[Tucker knows this even more than Wash does by virtue of remembering one of those moments when Wash can't. ("Don't. Do that.")]
But if both halves were someone I supposedly cared about it, I'd probably want to mediate, or just tell them both to knock it the fuck off.
Not just -
[He drags his hands down his face.]
I don't know why this is bugging me so much! It's - it's hitting on something else. It's not even that she started the whole thing between us.
[Because she had. She'd shot him first and when he killed her later it was because she'd established herself as a threat.]
My head's spiraling into this whole loop of "everyone's going to screw you at some point." And there's one part of me that's trying to say "no, you have people that won't do that." But I don't really know that.
Not for sure. When I can't remember you.
And it's - it's like it's not what happened but something underneath, that's too slippery to get my hands on -
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Step one: go ahead and say stuff without thinking. It's bold to call it step one when Tucker doesn't know what he's doing and is, in fact, not bothering with the forethought to have a step two in mind yet. ]
So first thing. Just, to put it on the table or whatever before we talk about the other stuff. I'mma totally talk through the other stuff with you. [ You mean emotions, Tucker? Is the other stuff emotions? Yes. And he means that. Even if it's not his forte, he's already here for the trying. ]
But, do you want me to go kick his ass after that? 'cause that sounds like a double standard bullshit move to pull, and I'll bring my problem with it to his face.
[ He's only, what, a foot taller and way more jacked and experienced? Whatever, Tucker can teleport now, he'll figure it out. He'll be like the world's most confrontational jetpack. Because he knows how to have a problem with someone up front like a badass adult.
Carolina is on the Rig somewhere getting an unexplained stress headache. ]
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["My trust issues just got tweaked" causing him to want to throw down on sight? Yeah, that - that does something. That makes him feel more of that "I don't know why but I trust him with my life" feeling. It's coming full force and that's really want he needed. An affirmation of that from one of the two people that seem to be able to provoke it even if Wash doesn't know why.]
[He is thinking the same things, that North nearly has a whole foot on him, that he's more experienced, and way more jacked. But he figures Tucker knows that.]
[Wash holds it in but the deep well of feeling is there.]
Don't fight him. The fact someone getting mad at me made me nearly cave into a sucking black hole of thinking everyone will ultimately screw me over is a me problem. I think maybe it was just him being just as fucked up as the rest of us.
[Just Freelancer Thing (tm)]
And I think whatever this is isn't even my normal trust issues. It's...
[He closes his eyes. He reaches deep for it, deeper than he's wanted to touch. Finds it. His right hand - the hand that freaked out and wrote a message to Tucker - shakes almost violently.]
I felt alone for a second. Like I did when I first got here.
[His voice grows slightly distant, like he has to go to some far off place to find whatever it is he needs to know, like it's buried that deep.]
Wherever I was, whatever bad thing was happening to me, I expected you and Carolina and the guys to kick down the door and free me. And even though I knew it wasn't your fault, you all never came.
[His voice grows hoarse.]
For a second, when I was freaking out thinking maybe it was all - maybe everything wasn't real, that maybe I really was just alone, I got a rush of that. And that made it worse.
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Not gonna lie. That one hits him hard. It's an unintentionally precision-honed gut punch.
Tucker doesn't actually go around thinking he fucks up every single thing in his life 24/7, is the thing. There's a difference between fully buying into that and fondly understanding, generally, that he and his are all misfit screwup types. All part of the lovable charm.
The latter is a lot chiller. The former is just a thing that he thinks whenever stuff gets really bad.
So, sometimes Tucker fucks up. And when he fucks up, it's usually in a way that does make stuff get really bad really fast. And then it bounces back consequences onto everybody except for him, and the tally of things he's tried and fucked up outweighs all the stuff that he tries and doesn't fuck up.
It's literally not their fault that this happened or that they didn't know about it. Dimensional rift bullshit, time travel, whatever. Wash said it outright, that he knew it wasn't their fault. There's straight up nothing that any of them could have done about it when it was happening.
But Wash was waiting for them to show up and save him, and they didn't. Someone went in and scrambled his brains, and he was alone the whole time. They abandoned him so hard they didn't even know they were abandoning him. When Wash needed them not to.
And that right there, knowing that, feels like Tucker's somehow personally responsible for making one of the worst fuckups. Ever. Of all time. Logic be damned.
(If he hadn't gotten Wash shot in the first place, there wouldn't have been brain damage for a shady medical staff to fix, so.
It's not exactly like he's wrong, he guesses.) ]
We would've showed up. If we knew. All of us. We don't-- we don't ditch each other when it counts. [ Not on purpose. Even if they complain about it the whole way there and back. Even when some of them try to ditch. It doesn't stick.
They'd have all bumblefucked their way through toppling Jorgmund and saving the planet by now, probably, in another timeline. It's weird to believe that outright, but he kinda does.
For once, what Tucker's saying is out-and-out sincere. Not defensive, not couched in some weird attempt to sound like he's not invested in it. Would've been way easier to do in a helmet. ]
As long as me or Carolina are around, I can fucking guarantee you'll always have someone ready to try and kick down a door. [ He doesn't know if that's even the whole point of what Wash is saying, but still. They're here now. They've done worse than a door-busting rescue for him. Easiest guarantee Tucker's ever made.
He shrugs. Twitchy, reflexively. ] For what it's worth.
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[He looks at his knuckles.]
But talking about it wasn't - it wasn't a thing I did.
[Not at this phase. But now this phase is maybe starting to blend into the phase after Tucker knew him. And that Wash did talk sincerely about friendships and things he was going through sometimes. Maybe not to the whole group, when so many were allergic to feelings, but Carolina and Tucker got it the most.]
And I think I needed to hear that.
[He wrings his hands together despite the state of his knuckles.]
Do you think you could do something for me? And ask Carolina if she can come here? I still feel - I feel weird about it.
[God does it feel awkward. But if Tucker does it and it's a weird thing to ask, he doesn't have to see her initial reaction.]
She's not a person I ever thought I'd have "she's your friend and you talk about your raging trust issues with each other, yeeeah" kind of feelings about and they're still weirding me out.
[Because they're there. How the fuck did that happen?]
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Wash has evened out some and he knows that he's covered. That's what's important. ]
Yeah, I got you. I'll hang out until she gets close. [ He pats down his pockets until he hits the one with his network device in it, and pulls it out to shoot her a message. If she's back from her mission and done dotting all the i's on the paperwork, she's gonna want to touch base anyway.
It's not a great day, all things considered. Still a pretty big relief to get Wash and Carolina back into the contactable zone again. ]
I dunno if that'll get less weird for you. But I guess the cool thing is you can go ahead and talk to her about how weird it is?
[ Extensive, extended, sincerely honest conversations about emotional states on the regular sounds like the kind of concept that makes Tucker want to vibrate through a wall and do something reckless and/or stupid as a palate cleanser, personally. There's only so much he can handle, no matter what the situation is, even if he's gotten better at it with time.
But he fully supports Wash and Carolina's ability to somehow benefit from such a concept. ]
-- oh, and you've got like a hundred messages from me from before I knew you were out here having a whole Thing, dude. Just so you don't check your inbox later and think a fresh emergency popped up. Heads up about that.
[ There's a lot of variations one can achieve on flipping a whole shit not being able to find your friend. Tucker, in peak form, mastered the art. The art of trying to demand to see a patient roster for himself in the Infirmary because they weren't checking fast enough. ]
A BIT LATER...
She wants to ask why this is apparently rating a good meeting place right now, but then her eyes hit Wash's knuckles and that train of thought completely derails. ]
What happened to you?
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[He'll tell her the truth in a minute but it's hard to just open with it, full sincerity salvos firing.]
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[ The joke nudges her concern levels down a little, at least, and she can answer in kind. Her eyebrows are up, expectant. ]
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[He picks at the scabs now forming on his knuckles.]
On the mission, South and I got stuck together - long story - and we struck up a kind of...
"Armistice" sounds more aggressive than "truce," so let's go with that. But part of the agreement was we can still wish the other would drop dead and constantly threaten each other. [Sarcastically.] Playfully.
Just because it's a way to let us vent without actually stabbing each other in the eye.
[He looks at the floor.]
North saw us doing it. She wasn't the one he got into a fight stance at, ready to treat as a threat.
I know she's his sister, I know it's just...family.
But, uh, someone acting like they were trying to forgive me and help me and support me and then - backtracking on a dime, even for an understandable reason...
Well. I almost catastrophized my way into thinking everyone that had ever tried to be my friend - ever - secretly saw me as a threat and would stab me in the back at a moment's notice and always, always, always put me second.
[He shrugs awkwardly.]
But I talked to Tucker. It...helped.
[A pause.]
And now I'm talking to you. About my feelings - and God is it weird how natural this feels.
[Like, bam, just instantly knowing it's okay to unload.]
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As he talks about what went down with North, she draws in a long breath and lets it back out, but she does not interrupt.
She needs to thank Tucker. And tell him a few things she didn't have time to before Whatever The Hell All That Was. ]
Well, I'm glad he got to you.
And it's okay, Wash. I know it's weird. You get used to hiding everything.
[ And she's grateful that he's coming back around, she knows how delicate this has been and god dammit of course North's not as fine underneath as he pretends to be. It only makes sense. None of them ever has been. ]
How are your hands?
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[He holds them up for her to see.]
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[ Carolina examines his hands. She isn't hesitant or awkward about touching them or turning them, she's confident and gentle.
The list of people Carolina has any casual physical contact with is extremely short, but Wash is (usually, barring time travel and shitty mind altering other-world adventures) a large percentage of that list. ]
I think you're right. At least you're not the first one of us Medical's seen with busted knuckles.
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[It...it makes him wonder about a few things they haven't talked about, that she's gotten this gentle with him. He wonders how exactly they got here, how the both of them reached some kind of softness in themselves where this became okay.]
[He wonders what created both the trust she clearly feels in showing her gentle side, and the trust he feels almost on reflex, especially now at a time he's a little on edge.]
[And he wonders if under the circumstances, she and Tucker would've told him if he and Carolina and weren't just friends. Is she holding back on something else, worried about how forgetting it might upset him, worried it was too much of a stretch to believe at this point in his memories?]
[He doesn't ask. He doesn't want to make it weird, especially if it's just a very close friendship.]
[He also doesn't want the gentleness to stop. It somehow soothes the parts of him that are most hurt, that are carrying the most pain, underlying the memory loss. Feeling her be that close soothes him, like Tucker's words had.]
[Your friend, says the voice in his head. Your best friend - though Tucker's right up there with her.]
[The expression he looks at her with melts away from the anxious one, the edgy one. He looks lost and found all at once.]
I told Tucker...
Part of why it freaked me out so much, worrying that all of a sudden I was alone - it wasn't because it was that bad for it to happen me in the present. It touched on on something deeper.
[His voice gets hoarse.]
They did something. Even though I can't remember it, I can tell that they did. And there was a time I was waiting for you guys to kick down a door and come get me, and you never came.
[Unlike with Tucker, this time he gets teary-eyed.]
And I knew you would if you could, that something must've happened. I remember enough to know that's what I thought, that you and the guys would be there in a heartbeat if you could. But for some reason you couldn't. That either I'd been taken that far away - or even worse, that something might have happened to you all...
The thing with North hit on that. Somehow. Even though I can't remember what they did.
[Despair. Hopelessness. Worry that something had happened to them too. Especially since he'd believed the whole other dimension story was far-fetched, even for the kind of lives they led. That it was more likely it was some weird head game in their own universe being done for some unknown reason by an unknown enemy.]
["Your friends are impossibly far away. They're a whole world away." He'd thought it was a lie to break him and remembers now, that that's what he'd thought.]
[And he knows now that it worked. That it had broken him. Because at some point he realized the only thing that would've held them back this long was if they were a world away.]
[Or dead.]
["I really am alone, aren't I" had kicked up the deeper (same) sentiment, digging into a moment where he really was, where he realized it was just him and what was being done to him, with no end in sight, with his friends probably agonizing over his disappearance a whole universe away. Or gone.]
[He holds onto her hands more tightly, not wanting the touch to end.]
[He almost tells her. Almost tells her what he does know they did. About what they put in his head.]
[All just at a touch.]
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They're going to pay for this.
[ They've been through hell together, even if Wash can't remember, and she never wants him to have to face another one alone. It's injustice. He doesn't deserve this. She hasn't been able to protect him, Tucker, or even the former members of the team she already failed in the past.
She cannot protect them from this place, and she hates it.
For just a moment Carolina holds him tight, as if this can. ]
Wash, we are getting out of here and they're going to pay for this.
[ She doesn't know when, or how, but this is a promise. ]
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[Then he throws his arms around her and it grasps at the fabric of her jumpsuit as best as it can and then...it goes still.]
[And then he is somewhere safe, hugging her tightly like this. Warm and safe and...he's home. Because home is her and the guys. He's not as used to hugging her outside their armor, but it still feels the same in most of the important ways - the ferocity has been there before in the occasional hug.]
[They aren't the most touchy feely but when she does...]
[They -]
[They aren't the most -]
[Oh.]
[This is not happening to him from where he's been buried deep under cold trauma and a broken connection to the outside world. He's present, he can feel this much more strongly, he can -]
[He can move. He can move his body.]
[The Other, he's gone quiet - pacified enough to relax and that means -]
[Wash slowly backs away slightly, without letting go - he can't let go when that physical comfort did this. Tears stream down his face, when until now Wash hasn't let himself outright cry despite any of the times he's been upset. Gotten a little glassy-eyed maybe, but in years past he'd had much more of a poker face - after all those debriefings and counseling sessions at the project.]
[In recent years, especially during that whole thing where he walked back into the bullet with his name on it? Oh boy does he he cry more than he's let on. Thank fucking God for helmets for preventing things from getting real awkward real fast with your more emotionally constipated friends. Even if they would've understand due to that whole accepting-his-fate thing.]
Carolina?
[Her name is choked out like he hasn't been allowed to talk in ages and almost forgot how.]
Oh God, I can talk, too. I can talk. I can talk!
[His eyes are wide and wild.]
This isn't going to last long! He relaxed just enough for me to push him down but that is going to last all of two fucking seconds because of how wound up I always was back then.
[Back then. As in he's speaking from a perspective of the future.]
[His voice is ragged, almost tormented. He starts shaking uncontrollably, the way you'd expect a POW to act after being locked for days in some hole in the dark. His nose starts bleeding as his blood pressure spikes through the roof.]
I don't have much time, so I need you to listen to me very carefully, or he's going to get the two of us killed.
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[ Something extremely weird is happening, but he keeps talking and Carolina zeros in on it with a firm nod. She's backed up a little but still holding him, feeling him shake, and her eyes are on his with deadly seriousness. ]
You got me. Talk to me.
[ This is vitally important. She doesn't know exactly what's going on, but she can feel the difference here. This is him, this is her Wash, and they trust one another. She will listen now and analyze in a minute. ]
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[The words. He can't say it directly, so he tries indirectly.]
I knew a soldier once who took a blamite needle to to the head that went right through the other side without detonating. C...callosal. Syndrome. Look it up.
But not a broken connection. The opposite.
[An artificial barrier blocking both halves and the half with the memories is still conscious, not a disconnection between parts of his mind.]
It's... it's -
[He gestures to his head but can't say the words or even point to the scars, he feels his movements jerk away.]
York! My idiot younger self didn't catch it, but I noticed it. Talk to York.
[He'd felt the scars, would know there was some kind of surgery.]
And Tucker. Medbay. The Note.
[He shakes his head.]
You can break it. I'll be okay. He and I both will.
[So they know they won't be destroying the Wash who's tentatively come to trust them over the last few months. Young and old, past and present. Remove the block and he's not two halves with one locked away, both get to reconcile. And if the implant needs to be gone to make that happen, he's made his peace with that several times over.]
He still thinks there are parts he has to do alone and he's not going to change his mind in time before getting in over his head. He needs all of you. He needs me. He's changing for the better but he won't grow fast enough here.
Do what you need to and if it does what I think it'll do...it's okay.
[He can't tell her to get the implant busted because he can't say he has it, can't tell her directly "I can live with the brain damage as long we get to be me."]
[So he looks at her the way he did on Iris, and this time she can see his eyes.]
Small price to pay for saving the universe.
[She'll understand that. The permission granted to do what she needs to, even if it brings the brain damage back.]
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I'll tell them.
[ I'll be okay is the most reassurance she's had about their decisions since she reached out to Stacia. That's what they want, most of all. ]
We'll get moving. I think we know what to do now. Thank you, Wash. We're coming for you, I promise.
[ It's kind of absurd, but it's not absurd. She knows this isn't easy, and having some kind of awareness of how he feels about the deeply violatory work they're going to have to do helps.
She might not fully understand in this exact moment, not without the details, but when the time comes she will.
He echoes what he told her on Iris, and Carolina gives him one last quick squeeze and blinks back her tears before the Wash that didn't know her can reassert himself.
There are no words Carolina can say to tell him how many Piper 90s and Jorgmund Corporations she'd burn to the ground if that was what it took to save him.
Carolina and the others broke time itself for him.
He already knows. ]
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There was a point where I lost hope but only because I realized how far away you and the guys had to be, but now that you're here...
[The faith is there, it's always there. Even after suffering alone, it was still there. If he lost hope, it wasn't losing hope that they'd try, it was losing hope that they were even in the same dimension.]
[But they're here now.]
Now that you're here, I know it'll be okay.
I'll just be - I'll be here -
I'll...
[He finally stops, looks around in confusion.]
I must've zoned out for a second. What was I saying?
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[ Add North to the list of people she should probably lay an eye on sometime soon here. Carolina gives Wash's back a reassuring little thump before letting go of him. ]
Besides busting your knuckles up... you okay for now?
[ She's doing her best to play this easygoing, but making real contact with her Wash has given her a very definite and immediate to-do list.
She'll go after York first: Tucker's come a long way, but York's more subtle in a tense situation and Tucker needs more catchup. ]
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Lucky him, he finds his friend in the first place he looks. (Why can't that ever happen with keys? Or the remote?) Beaming, York pokes his head into the room and raps on the doorframe in a cheery little pattern. ]
Wash! Wash, do you wan-- hey, what happened to your hands?
[ Even with one eye, the bandages are hard to miss. York's smile falters and his brow furrows worriedly, because what could he have done to both of them? Something on the mission? His mind drifts to the last time he saw a hand wrapped up that way and it was South punching the bulkhead, but Wash has more sense than that, right?
...possibly not. ]
Can I come in?
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[His voice is quiet, maybe even a little bashful, like he's embarrassed to have done something as stupid as punching a wall.]
[Of course he had a meltdown. Of course he'd started having his brain hurtle to paranoid places.]
[He feels better and simultaneously worse. He's been comforted and reassured that some of his friends care, but also feels, heavily, deeply, like the basket case he knows he is.]
[Whoever he became in the future - it probably would be nice to be that guy right now. Anytime Tucker and Carolina describe him he sounds...settled.]
[Wash sits back in his bunk, drawing his legs up from where they'd been dangling over the edge of his cot.]
There was a whole thing. On the mission. And then I had a whole thing. With a wall.
Tucker and Carolina talked me down but...
[A hapless shrug, as if to say, "here I am, still a mess."]
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But you're still feeling off? Must've been one hell of a thing.
[ There's no judgment in his tone, just gentle curiosity. ]
Are you okay to talk about it, or would a distraction be better?
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[He gives York a flat look because it's very easy to imagine how that went down without Wash explaining it.]
But we...we actually eventually talked. Called a truce. I don't know if she'll backslide but I think she at least wants to try being better in this place. Like I do.
Thing is, we agreed that we wouldn't hold our punches verbally. Just...as a way to vent without actually murdering each other.
[As one does with a mortal enemy.]
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Did something she said really hit a nerve or something..?