Piper 90: Mods (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
goneawaymod) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
goneawayworld2021-04-10 09:37 pm
goneawaymod) wrote in goneawayworld2021-04-10 09:37 pm
3..2...1...CONTACT!
Who: The New Hires
What: Sudden Memory Share
Where: Their Memory Palaces
When: After "Don't Touch That Dial"
Warnings/Notes: Possible in every memory, warn in subject lines.
Contact.
It's during a pause in their day. A nap. An idle moment looking across the Top Deck. Taking a slow breath between reps in the training room.
The New Hires are connected. Mental pathways locking together, they're forced into one another's innermost beings. Thrust into one another's memory palaces where the mind collects and stores everything that makes them who they are. The core of their beings are only a few steps away and no one can help the violation.
To make matters worse, it comes with no explanation or no ability to pull out and stop. Once they're through the first memory, perhaps they can find a way out, but they're already witnessing some event from their host's past. And, if they left, who knows whether or not they'd end up accidentally invading another memory palace?
And if they were there, who was in theirs?
[[So, how this works: the memories can either be viewed in spectator mode or the guest can be experiencing everything themselves. The person whose memories are being shown, the host, can watch as their current self or take the form they had of their past self. They can talk about the memory with the "guest" that's visiting.
They cannot control the first memory shown, the player decides that, but they can control any other memories they'd like to show people after. Of course, there's also always the option of an extreme emotional reaction bringing up other memories unbidden.]]
What: Sudden Memory Share
Where: Their Memory Palaces
When: After "Don't Touch That Dial"
Warnings/Notes: Possible in every memory, warn in subject lines.
Contact.
It's during a pause in their day. A nap. An idle moment looking across the Top Deck. Taking a slow breath between reps in the training room.
The New Hires are connected. Mental pathways locking together, they're forced into one another's innermost beings. Thrust into one another's memory palaces where the mind collects and stores everything that makes them who they are. The core of their beings are only a few steps away and no one can help the violation.
To make matters worse, it comes with no explanation or no ability to pull out and stop. Once they're through the first memory, perhaps they can find a way out, but they're already witnessing some event from their host's past. And, if they left, who knows whether or not they'd end up accidentally invading another memory palace?
And if they were there, who was in theirs?
[[So, how this works: the memories can either be viewed in spectator mode or the guest can be experiencing everything themselves. The person whose memories are being shown, the host, can watch as their current self or take the form they had of their past self. They can talk about the memory with the "guest" that's visiting.
They cannot control the first memory shown, the player decides that, but they can control any other memories they'd like to show people after. Of course, there's also always the option of an extreme emotional reaction bringing up other memories unbidden.]]
no subject
He doesn't look upset, necessarily, just slightly embarrassed, and confused, and like he feels slightly in trouble, like he just got caught sleeping with the boss except the person who caught him was himself.
He gestures with a circular motion with his hands like he's figuring something out (even though he hasn't figured out shit).
"You were willing to help me become better, and you've been really, really nice to me when you used to not even be willing to eat at the same lunch table. Or answer my questions. Or...sometimes just answer me when I said something to you. And it sounds like we, uh, we've been through some stuff together - and I've never really seen you be that, uh, gentle with anyone ever, not even York. I mean I'm sure you have - you have a side maybe that I haven't seen, but I also...haven't seen it until now? But now I have seen it and I'm wondering how...often I've seen it - and also how much of it I've -"
He is babbling. There is a runaway train of dawning comprehension going on that is on the entirely wrong track and screeching as it comes close to just derailing.
no subject
Carolina puts a hand on each of his shoulders and looks him square in the eye while trying not to die inside any more than she already has.
It's not that she's disgusted or scandalized by the very thought it's just... not what they are to one another.
"Someone was hunting down and killing former freelancers. You wanted to use my armor's recovery beacon to set a trap for them."
Serious business. Calm down, Wash. She's not unkind, but she's firm to cut through how dangerously fast those wheels are starting to spin.
"We weren't-" Oh goddammit there goes a degree or two of composure again. "Nothing happened."
On some level, it's not just that this is a fundamentally awkward conversation. It's also that this misinterpretation of her friendship with Wash bothers her. She loves him very much, they've been to the far side of a kind of hell and back together. It makes sense for someone who hasn't seen it to try to explain this bond that way, but it's wrong.
Wash with memories isn't here to defend his honor, so Carolina has to do it for him.
To him.
no subject
Something she probably hasn't seen that often because of them living most of their lives in armor? His ears turn bright red when he's especially embarrassed. And he looks very embarrassed over his extreme misinterpretation.
"I thought maybe you and Tucker were holding off on a few details to not freak me out. Not that it - not that it would've been bad. Or anything. I believe you guys that future me was less of a disaster, and let's be real, it would've meant I was punching waaay outside my weight class -"
Still babbling.
no subject
It makes her miss him.
"We weren't that kind of close, but you are my best friend. I don't have a lot of friends, Wash, and... you're important to all of us. Okay?"
Forget weight classes. Wash is a fantastic human being these days, he's a better one than she is. She almost wants to defend him in some weird way, but that isn't going to help dispel the idea that she and Tucker might just be lying to try not to make it worse.
"If we'd been... together, I would've told you. And tried to keep my distance, because... well. That would've been weird. But I respect you enough that I would've told you."
no subject
But he catches on to the part that matters most.
"And it means a lot that you see me that way. I know we were never close, but I always respected you. The more I talk to you, the more I can tell you've... you've changed. In some good ways. While still being the person who always pulled our asses out of the fire."
If they were best friends, it does mean something.
no subject
"You're still you. Just with more time to recover," is what she says. "I recognize you. We both changed for the better, but we're still us."
no subject
The memory flashes again, to them standing by the waterside. But this place is different. It's not a tropical beach, it's the jewel-tinted waters of a distant moon. Two buildings are visible in the distance. The sky is awash with soft colors.
This place is one he connects with more. It's more familiar than the other beach.
There are two buildings. For two teams, of course. And a large planet filling up most of the sky.
"Iris. This is Iris, isn't it." He almost asks 'the moon we live on?' but a different word sleeps out, as his voice sounds sure, not questioning. "Home."
He hasn't had a home in a long time, but he can tell this is it. This is home.
"I had no idea our lives were so -" says the other Wash.
"Don’t say it," says the other Carolina.
"Come on, fun! Admit it. And much needed friend time."
"I see you more as a brother at this point."
"Cause you can’t get rid of me?" he says impishly.
She laughs.
"Knowing your siblings were a bunch of mad-cap AI, I prefer friends," he continues.
She laughs, but then eventually sighs. "I know we worked this out, but I’m really sorry, Wash."
"Hey, you gave me some time without a brain injury. I’m thankful for that. I’m at peace with what’s next."
The realization hits her the same time it hits the present Wash. "What do you mean?"
He sighs and says slowly, "Our last mission."
"This is our last mission." A pause and then her voice chokes up. "Wait, there’s no mission here, is there. You didn’t bring me here for that."
"No."
"You’re going to fix the last paradox, the original. You’re saying goodbye."
"Goodbye? I was still me wasn’t I? Cerebral Hypoxia, it’s manageable. It’s a small price to pay for saving the universe. Right? Carolina?"
Her voice is choked enough that it's obvious she's crying. "Yeah."
"You know I love you right?"
The present Wash breathe in an abrupt little breath at that, at the ease of it.
Carolina sighs and chokes out, "I love you too."
Wash turns to the present Carolina, confused.
"What did I mean about saving the universe?"
no subject
"...The time stream was broken."
This will never, ever not sound stupid to say out loud, no matter how many times she has to. There's nothing she can do about it. Just go with it.
"Because we went back to stop you from getting hurt. To fix it... well."
no subject
He sounds equal parts incredulous and moved.
Then mystified.
"And I was willing to just walk back into it again, to undo the paradox."
no subject
"You were."
Before, Wash was never someone Carolina respected. She changed, that much is obvious.
But so did he. Profoundly.
no subject
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!"
no subject
It's in Carolina's biggest boss voice, and it's for both of them. She knows this is delicate but she can't just watch Wash fight himself.
Her eyes focus on the Wash with the memories, her Wash.
"We have a plan."
She wishes they'd been able to mobilize before all this happened. But here they are.
no subject
But the second he loosens his grip, Washington wrenches his arms again and kicks him in the chest to get some distance between them.
"What plan, Carolina?" he asks, backing away, repulsed from his doppleganger. "What is that? And when did you talk to it? How did you talk to it?"
Washington starts to looked panicked, trying to think back to anytime he might have had lost time.
"I'm not an it. I'm you. We're not supposed to be separate like this. They broke something and we need to fix it. You're not whole and I want my life back."
no subject
She doesn't advance on him. If her own Wash does, she'll put a hand on his shoulder to hold him back.
"Don't you want to know?" she asks. That's not without gentleness. She's not sure what is scaring him the most about it here.
no subject
All that time of her building trust with him - and the others, were they part of this plan? Are they already roped into it? Is he going to have them all trying to wipe him out to replace him with the "better" version of himself.
"We don't know that it's going to work like that," says Wash, straining slightly against the hand on his shoulder, but not pushing enough to break contact. "It doesn't feel like it is. What if it just merges us together?"
"But you don't know!" The words erupt out Washington and he looks genuinely scared. "We don't know. I'm you but not you. I'm different because I'm the one that lived through the last few months. I'm the one that chose to change! Here on the rig. The way I chose to do it!"
no subject
Carolina's calm.
"You're not another person. They took your memories from you. You're not a different person when you remember. You just... you know more."
"We don't want to replace you, Wash. We want to give you back what's yours."
no subject
"But you don't know. You don't know for sure it won't just erase this me. I know he was here first but I'm still me! I'm still alive," he says. His expression drops. "Tucker's going to want the same thing, isn't he? And I bet you'll try to rope North and York into your 'plan' too." His expression twists up into something tormented. "I never should've trusted you. Any of you. All you ever wanted to get him back. And North kept wanting the old me back, from before Epsilon."
York was happy to just have this him. Present him. But he still might get swayed by Carolina.
He starts to move away, to run.
"Please don't," says Wash, starting towards him. "We're both here, because of whatever this is. I can talk to you, maybe we can fix it right here, right now -"
"Stay away from me! Both of you!" And then he starts to run, afraid that being too close to the other him will change something, shift something. Cause him to be absorbed or wiped out.
no subject
She's been trying so hard not to push him, not to put her desire to have her friend back over the importance of being a good friend in the first place. And now it's all broken.
Is he right? He might be right.
She has never been good at figuring out how much she's overstepped, not in the moment, and it speaks to her deeper fears as a person who's come to care about that.
Carolina lets him go.
no subject
He turns to Carolina because he doesn't want her to get the wrong idea.
"I didn't mean to do this. I just wanted to see if I could fix us. We need to catch him and at least calm him down so he'll let you help us." He shakes his head. "It's not going to kill him. We're not whole. It's time for us both to come out of the cold."
no subject
"Alright. I wish you could just tell me," she says. She knows he can't, but she wishes.
She takes off with Wash after his present, memory-less self. This is... she sure hopes they can fix this. He's paranoid for a reason, and it will hurt if they can't.
Wash seems sure that he can be fixed, but... if he can't, Carolina is keenly aware that she might lose this friendship for good beyond just those memories.