goddamngrenades | RP Open Post

"Just till you have to go." He'll take what scraps of comfort he can get. It also serves to remind Wash of what they'd had- to make him think about what he's doing. To make him reconsider his position.

Honestly? Carolina is gonna be the hard sell. He'll work on that.

After he dozes.

"Alright." He is exhausted. Didn't sleep last night. He never sleeps well anyway. He lies down slowly, stretching out on York's bed, facing the door. "You know that this is a bad idea, right? For both of us."

"I thought you had nothing to lose." All he's got left to lose are Delta and Wash. Carolina isn't someone he has- not yet.

Maybe not ever.

For now he stretches out behind Wash and tucks himself close, lips brushing the nape of his neck. Right over the implant scar.

"Can still be sure something is a bad idea," Wash replies, a lame answer really. He's lost, he knows it. He has York to lose now, and whatever parts of himself he hasn't already killed.

There's a flinch when York touches that scar, a stutter in his breathing. Wonders how Delta feels, knowing that Wash remembers him being created. But he doesn't stop him.

"All the fun ideas are bad." Casbah. The club. Dinner with Wash. Sex afterward. Repeated, sweaty, wonderful sex. If he weren't so damn tired and so sure that Wash needed rest as much as he did? There'd be a repeat.

For now it's his lips, chaste and dry against the crackling mass around the implant site.

D's strangely quiet. He never mentioned what he remembered of his first few moments of life aside from being certain he was alpha to being told it was his birthday and he was Delta.

"So speaks someone with a history of bad ideas," Wash says, amusement in his voice. Just about the first positive emotion he's displayed since yesterday.

It's easy to relax when York doesn't do anything more. There's no examining the port, no poking at it or wondering aloud if he'd survive being implanted with another AI. Just lips and warmth and comfort.

"Came out alright in the end." This isn't the end. It's- phase one. HE's not sure how long it'll take to get to the next step or what the next step even is but-

No. Rest now. Rest and smoothing down the stress and hurt that comes with doing his job for Wash. "...D says he's sorry. That his brother hurt you."

It's not supposed to be like that. He and Delta, North and Theta- they had the healthiest relationships.

"You're in a prison cell, fucking the enemy, and still pretty gone over the other enemy." It sounded less than alright.

There's a sharp intake of breath at that, and curling in on himself. "It's not Delta's fault. It's not- not even Epsilon's. He never had a chance. Everything he knew was pain and betrayal and then he woke up in the mind of someone he'd been told was dead and... I understand what it's like to not want to live anymore."

"I'm in a rather heavily monitored apartment, fucking a friend, trying to figure out how to reconnect with an estranged one." A beat. "We're just getting started, babe. We'll be alright."

Somehow.

The alternative isn't something he's willing to entertain. Even if Delta is. "I think...the thing that broke them- they'd all been told it was her and one of us. And whoever it was is who got them."

"I am alright." He doesn't sound convincing at all. He'd like for things to be alright though. He just doesn't see how they can be.

The sound he makes his something close to a sob, stifled against the mattress. What would that do to an AI? He supposes it makes sense. Make them want to do everything to protect their Freelancers. And he's sorry, so sorry, that Epsilon had remembered too much.

There's no saying that it'll be okay- what happened to Epsilon? Is burned into Wash's skin and into his memory. There's no undoing it. There's no moving past it, not when they're here. But York can and does tug the covers up over them. Tangle his legs with Wash's and catch his chin with his hand to lean in and press their lips together. Soft and brief and chaste. Nothing but comfort intended.

He's not crying. He's really not. He's just tired, aching, exhausted from the day. He wouldn't be doing this if he was in the right frame of mind. He kisses back gently. There's no expectation in it, no demand. It's nice. He settles down a little after that, drags one of York's arms around him.

Excellent work, York.

Not helping D.

Was this not the desired outcome?

Empathy and connection, yes, exhausted crying? No.

York takes the invitation as it's given and curls protectively around Wash. Here if nowhere else he has his back. "I got you."

"Liar," Wash says quietly, but he can't muster any venom or bite for it. Right now, here, he wants to believe that. And it's so easy to drift off to sleep with York there.

They get a few hours rest- no one's supposed to come in or even knock aside from Wash or Carolina. Which, of course, means that whenever someone DOES come by?

It's....

Carolina.

When Wash hadn't reported back after feeding York, she'd had her suspicions. Enough so that she's not entirely surprised to find them tangled together, quietly desperate and utterly exhausted.

A small part of her twinges with envy before she shoves it down. Soldiers do not feel envy. Soldiers do not feel, period.

"Wash." Soft. Curt. A command that has York twitching awake and glaring past her- not at her. Odd. "What are you doing?"

He jerks awake when he hears that voice Fuck. Oh god, he has screwed up so badly this time. Stares at Carolina in abject horror for a moment before the rest of him catches up and he scrambles out of bed, out of the warm circle of York's arms. It's hard to look properly respectful when you're dressed in what amounts to pyjamas, but he does his best, spine straight, hands clasped behind him.

"Carolina, I-" He doesn't have an excuse. He doesn't have anything. Not this time.

"Save it." She'll deal with him later. Right now she's glaring across the room at York, jaw working tight under her helmet. It's easier to remember her place while she's in uniform.

Some people forget too easily. And others never learn.

"What are you doing?" Wash is wash. He wants approval which she gives. What she can't offer is affection. York's always been good at that.

"Trying to sleep. Wash is a great pillow." He shrugs, loose and languid and the suit does nothing to hide the slope of his shoulders.

"Sleeping with the enemy isn't a sound tactic-"

"He's not." York cuts in, sharp, startling her into silence. "You're not either."

"Yes sir," Wash says, lowering his head. "Are... you're going to tell Control, aren't you?"

A lapse like this, she has to. And the thought terrifies him.

"I said that too," he adds quietly. They're York's enemies, in the end. They have him prisoner, they could threaten to EMP him to destroy Delta. And he's still acting like they mean something.

"I used my wiles for hot cuddling action. He's innocent. Relatively speaking." There's that crooked grin, that easy angling of his shoulders and there's a distance there that had'nt been in his eyes before. Something calm. Gauging- no.

Calculating. She shouldn't have let him grab Delta. She should yank him out of his neck and walk away but-

"If we aren't your enemies then-"

"Hargrove. Come on, Carolina, ask me something hard." He snorts and she growls, stepping forward.

"What did you do before you came to the radio tower?"

York goes still at that. He hadn't expected it. "Huh?"

"It won't happen again," Wash says, looking between them. "I'm sorry. It was a lapse and I'll take whatever punishment you give me." He'd make it better. He had to make it better.

And then she asks that and Wash stares at her, eyes wide with shock. "What are you talking about?"

"The situation on Chorus has changed. And he has something to do with it. So tell me, York. What did you do before you went to the Radio Tower?" She crosses her arms and leans back against the doorframe.

"...Had a cup of coffee?"

"What do you mean, changed?" Wash asks, and there's a horrible suspicion in his gut. No, he knows. Or he thinks he knows, and if York had pulled it off, that was... incredible.

He glances over his shoulder at York. "He came after me. That's all. He wanted to shoot me. You saw that."

"I don't really remember? I was kind of in shock what with having been betrayed. Again. Guess I got one of those faces?" Something in how he says the word takes some of the sting out of it, makes it a joke instead of a barb.

Carolina glowers, eyes snapping over to Wash. "The Feds and the New Republic have decided to set aside their differences and work together."

York's stillness comes from Delta locking down any possible reaction rather than genuine skill. "Why do I get the feeling you had something to do with that, York?"

"They have?" He'd thought that was impossible, even before they'd arrived to fuck things up worse. But York had managed it. He'd somehow managed to make it work, and for all that it's bad, so bad for them, he can't help but feel relief, and a little bit of pride for what York had managed.

"So they managed to talk to each other. That's not an insurmountable obstacle," he continues, wanting to deflect Carolina from York.

"It's a complication. The remaining New Republic forces have fallen back to Armonia." An aerial assault would be next to impossible without risking the reactor and the stockpile of alien weaponry hoarded in the capital. They'll need a new angle to work now that the cleanest sweep is no longer an option.

York blinks once, twice, and looks at Wash. "Am I a particularly compelling person or am I an asshole? Because I"m pretty sure I can't do shit like make people set aside their differences long enough to work together. If that was the case I'd have been a diplomat, not a soldier."

York gets Captured thread split (point of divergance)

Re: York gets Captured thread split (point of divergance)

York gets Captured thread split (point of divergance)

York gets Captured thread split (point of divergance)

York gets Captured thread split (point of divergance)

York gets Captured thread split (point of divergance)

York gets Captured thread split (point of divergance)

Re: York gets Captured thread split (point of divergance)

York gets Captured thread split (point of divergance)

Re: York gets Captured thread split (point of divergance)

York gets Captured thread split (point of divergance)

Re: York gets Captured thread split (point of divergance)

York gets Captured thread split (point of divergance)

Re: York gets Captured thread split (point of divergance)

York gets Captured thread split (point of divergance)

Re: York gets Captured thread split (point of divergance)

York gets Captured thread split (point of divergance)

Re: York gets Captured thread split (point of divergance)

York gets Captured thread split (point of divergance)

Re: York gets Captured thread split (point of divergance)

York gets Captured thread split (point of divergance)

York gets Captured thread split (point of divergance)

York gets Captured thread split (point of divergance)

Re: York gets Captured thread split (point of divergance)

York gets Captured thread split (point of divergance)