"It was undone and I just chose it again. Didn't even hesitate." Didn't try to still angle for some outcome for himself where they saved time and he kept his brain intact. "I just...can't see myself as this guy sometimes. I didn't try to find some save-the-universe outcome where I didn't have to walk back the brain fix or...anything?"
It's challenging to see the lack of hesitation.
"I can see making that call but it's that he didn't - I didn't - even pause. Didn't have that moment of trying to figure out how I could gnaw off my own leg to get out of it somehow - even while still doing the right thing."
He gestures with a flippant hand movement in the air, about to express his frustration over the distance between who he is now, and a man who doesn't even try to wiggle into the self-preservation angle -
- and then freezes, as a hand that is not his and not Carolina's catches his wrist and doesn't let go. Because who else could be in here? These things always seem to connect one mind to one mind so who....
He turns to throw a fist at the person that is now suddenly there, and the person also catches that, twisting the fist down with exactly equal strength. Their hands are identical.
"Tell her why you're so shocked I would," says Wash - another Wash. The Wash that remembers. His eyes are wild and desperate and his voice is hoarse and choked like he's been forced into silence for an abnormal amount of time. It is a genuinely frightening impression that it gives, because it's worse than when he was briefly talking to Carolina. Now it is unfiltered by a physical body, now it is the wild emotionality that was behind it before. "Tell her what you won't tell her!"
"What is this?" asks Washington-the-present, obviously terrified, because who wouldn't be? If attacked by their own doppleganger, in their own brain? He tries to recoil away. "What are you?!"
He knew there was a voice - his subconscious maybe? But this is the horror of someone finding out there's another actual mind in their body, something trying to claw to the surface. It's the horror of someone finding out the little voice that's been arguing with them is something else.
"I've tried to tell you what you need to do, tried to get you to do what's best for us, and I know you can hear me because you started talking back," says Wash. "But you don't listen, and I don't know what anyone can even do from the outside, so now you've forced my hand!"
It's the only reason he's not just waiting passively for Carolina to do what he asked. He is suddenly in a tangible space where he can be tangible and so can the other him. How often will that be the case? What if there's nothing she can do in the end?
"Carolina, something's wrong! I don't - I don't know what this is!" gasps Washington, trying to fight him but finding him almost impossible to overpower. "Get him off me!"
"Stop trying to keep everyone else out and let people help you! I can't tell her because you won't let me, so tell her. Tell her everything!"
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It's challenging to see the lack of hesitation.
"I can see making that call but it's that he didn't - I didn't - even pause. Didn't have that moment of trying to figure out how I could gnaw off my own leg to get out of it somehow - even while still doing the right thing."
He gestures with a flippant hand movement in the air, about to express his frustration over the distance between who he is now, and a man who doesn't even try to wiggle into the self-preservation angle -
- and then freezes, as a hand that is not his and not Carolina's catches his wrist and doesn't let go. Because who else could be in here? These things always seem to connect one mind to one mind so who....
He turns to throw a fist at the person that is now suddenly there, and the person also catches that, twisting the fist down with exactly equal strength. Their hands are identical.
"Tell her why you're so shocked I would," says Wash - another Wash. The Wash that remembers. His eyes are wild and desperate and his voice is hoarse and choked like he's been forced into silence for an abnormal amount of time. It is a genuinely frightening impression that it gives, because it's worse than when he was briefly talking to Carolina. Now it is unfiltered by a physical body, now it is the wild emotionality that was behind it before. "Tell her what you won't tell her!"
"What is this?" asks Washington-the-present, obviously terrified, because who wouldn't be? If attacked by their own doppleganger, in their own brain? He tries to recoil away. "What are you?!"
He knew there was a voice - his subconscious maybe? But this is the horror of someone finding out there's another actual mind in their body, something trying to claw to the surface. It's the horror of someone finding out the little voice that's been arguing with them is something else.
"I've tried to tell you what you need to do, tried to get you to do what's best for us, and I know you can hear me because you started talking back," says Wash. "But you don't listen, and I don't know what anyone can even do from the outside, so now you've forced my hand!"
It's the only reason he's not just waiting passively for Carolina to do what he asked. He is suddenly in a tangible space where he can be tangible and so can the other him. How often will that be the case? What if there's nothing she can do in the end?
"Carolina, something's wrong! I don't - I don't know what this is!" gasps Washington, trying to fight him but finding him almost impossible to overpower. "Get him off me!"
"Stop trying to keep everyone else out and let people help you! I can't tell her because you won't let me, so tell her. Tell her everything!"