goddamngrenades | RP Open Post

"What. No hi, York, how you doing? No 'sorry about almost shooting you', no 'what the hell you asshole we thought you were dead'? Nothing?" That didn't make any kind of sense. At all. What in the hell happened to Wash when they'd left?

Should've gone back.

Could've. Would've. Didn't. Too scared.

Too busy remembering Carolina dropping.

"One, You're obviously doing better than last time I saw you, since you're breathing. Two, I'm not sorry. And-"

The words get bitten off because if he cracks now, he's never putting himself back together.

"I have places to be," is a recalcitrant middle-ground between ignoring him and screaming everything he wants to say, and he's already wasted enough time here. Should never have stopped by in the first place but even now he just can't help himself.

"Look I know we didn't grab you when we could have and then we couldn't find you afterward but really? Not even a little sorry for taking a pot shot at me?" for trying to herd him into a killshot? He knew that tactic, they all trained in it- and the fact that Wash pulled that knowing he'd remembered it either meant habit overruled new training or fuck all happened between now and then.

Honestly? York knows it's the former. Some shit never goes away, no matter how you want it to.

"That's cold, kid."

How darehe.

Wash's eyes narrow behind the visor, fists clenching before he forces himself to relax. "I'm just doing my job. That's all. Nothing personal." He spits the word because it had become absolutely personal.

"There's a reason you couldn't find me afterwards. Ever think of that?" He shouldn't be doing this. He should turn away and go back to base, but it's the first time he's seen any of them in so long.

"And what job is that now? Last I checked the project got shut down- and yet." He flicks his fingers at Wash's armor, because it is pretty damn close to if not an exact replica of what he wore during the project. "And if it was nothing personal I'd still have my crate of MRE's. I mean, shit, they're MRE's so yeah I hate them too, but what did Salsbury steak and chicken a la king ever do to you, man?"

And that. Well. That's a whole other kettle of fish right fucking there.

"IT didn't take and they ghosted you. No files, no marker, no trail. For a year solid I thought you died in the crash and it was my fault." And then some kind of word got out about a kid named david and he'd chased it down to find fuck and all.

"You got downed in the middle of a civil war, York," he says bluntly. "The rebel forces are paying me to do their dirty work. Thought this might be government forces." It's not even a lie. Just not the entire truth. "You're obviously not so I have no reason to be here."

Always joking, that was York, and despite everything, Wash laughs, a strained huff of a thing that's barely amusement. "You know I've always had it in for those things."

The rest makes him since. He hadn't exactly been in the right state of mind to pay attention to much of what happened during that year. "They were.... Protecting their investment."

"...Seriously? I find the one hunk of rock STILL at war after the big one's over? Jesus fucking christ." That's just his luck. He rolls back through his options. Try to repair the ship (ha) and bail, try to hitch a ride off (not likely) pick a side and fight the good fight (no never again you couldn't FUCKING pay him enough he's done he's been done the job with tex was the last fucking one) or...

Well shit he doesn't have options now, does he?

"So I stay here I risk getting shot by your guys or the other guys." Can't catch a break. "Right. Always about the bottom line with the Director. Always about the results." And there, that's a scrape of bitterness he never got to voice to anyone but Delta.

Look at his fucking results now.

"What? You thought humanity would start holding hands and singing Kumbyyah? That's optimistic even for you." He sighs. "It's all this oppressive government, freedom, whatever crap. I don't care that much. But they're willing to pay decently enough which is the only reason I'm here."

Seriously, he hadn't even had to try hard to get them to trust him. It was... Pathetic.

"Yeah and he got left with South and me. And on my worst days I'm still saner than South. Mostly. So you can guess how well he took that."

"Told North to ditch her." Flipping so easily on your own family? A sign of bad shit coming. He'd been to shot up and caught up in trying not to die when all that went down but-

Shouldn't have taken the job. Should've checked in with North instead. And gotten killed by Maine but not and given them a little more time to fuck each other over. No happy endings for any of them, even if Wash is lucky enough to have, somewhat, been able to walk away. "If he'd decided to do the sane thing himself and not inject all of us with bits of his crazy-"

He'd loved D like a brother, the AI had kept him safe and sane for years- but issues man. He'd had so many issues. "Maybe shit would've gone down differently."

"He always was loyal. Some of us at least learnt what loyalty is worth." Nothing. Maybe if he'd learnt that lesson sooner it wouldn't have done such a number on him when he'd figured out what had happened, when they'd told him they'd abandoned him. If he'd just been better, been worth more to them...

The laugh he gives next is harsh and bitter and not entirely sane. "You don't know the half of it." But Wash knew too much, remembered too much. "It pushed him over th edge what happened. His precious project went down in literal flames and he was left with the tattered remains."

"He was blind. Too busy trying to keep Theta calm to see what it was doing to her." What it'd done to her. Carry someone long enough they forget how to walk on their own.

That, though. That has his head snapping up, his eyes narrowing. he'd heard- things about how Epsilon affected Wash. Couldn't ever find anything on either of them. "That's what happens when you fuck up so bad a fragment of your own ambition cannibalizes the brain of one of your soldiers and kills your daughter."

North hadn't deserved that fate. He'd been too kind, always looking out for them, even the AIs, treating Theta like his kid, not a piece of military tech. Wash misses him. He misses all of them. He hates that this conversation is making him think about this.

Wash turns away, reaching for his rifle, slowly enough that York could stop him if he wanted. He's not planning to shoot again. Not today.

"Carolina..." He remembers that, remembers her, too vividly sometimes. A little girl trying to make her dad proud after her mother had- He reaches up, rubs the front of his helmet like that will dispel the images or at least ease the headache he gets from thinking about this for too long.

"It wasn't even Maine at the end. The Meta. I don't think there was anything left. Sometimes I think that might have been a better outcome."

York sorted out a long time ago that it was easier to be angry than to wallow in guilt. Easier to be frustrated with North for caring about South too much to focus on how he was jealous he had someone LEFT to care about. War over, war criminal record- and he'd had no one. The last group he'd cared about tore itself to shreds because of a shitty CO. Carolina-

He'd watched her drop. Watched what had been Maine drop her. Someone that had admired her, someone that had respected her, loved her. Most of them did in their own way. His was a desperate, unhealthy, unrequited thing. North's an almost paternal thing, South's a jealous sibling that Carolina never seemed to know what to do with having grown up without.

Even Reggie had a thing for her, the way soldiers in arms did for however long they served. York missed him- how he'd been before shit got bad.

Missed all of them.

Standing right in front of the kid and still missed him because this? Wasn't wash.

And that'll always be on him. Wash goes for his rifle and York? Cracks his helmet again. Scrubs at his bad eye. "Delta ran the numbers. The liklihood of them remaining separate entities at that point in time was- really fucking slim. They had been something and became...something else."

They'd been family, or the closest thing that Wash had had. Even with all of the crap they'd been put through, those months before things had gone to shit had been some of the best of his life. They'd built something between them and then it had been gone and they'd left him behind and even if he logically understands why, well, his AI had never been logic and he can't make himself understand it otherwise, not really.

He stares for a moment when he turns back and York has taken his helmet off. Part of him wants to do the same, put them on the level. He doesn't.

"They ate him. Rewrote his brain. And he wasn't Maine anymore." There's a note of pathetic, painful understanding in his voice.

"It." He corrects, quick, hard. "He. Sigma."

It all started with sigma- which all coiled back to Alpha. To the Director. Maine hadn't deserved anything that happened to him and if he'd just made the jump sooner, turned the fucking car faster, shot better, hadn't gone on that fucking job with a bum eye so he could watch Maine's six he'd have been able to talk.

Carolina would've been able to handle Sigma. The ones they paired- the intended pairs. They did well. Even if the fragments were fucked up.

"D called it a gestalt. An amalgalm. Neither AI nor Human. Something unique." Something horrifying. Lips pressed thin he stares off just past Wash's shoulder for a long moment. "...on the bad nights we thought of it too."

He aches, each breath seizing in his lungs. He needs air. He reaches up to unfasten the catches of his helmet and reaches up to pull it off. He ruffles a hand through his hair, overgrown and shaggy because he just hasn't cared enough to bother recently. There's a couple of new scars on his face; bullet graze, a lucky knife wound. Mostly though, he just looks pale and exhausted and hard-eyed.

"Can't imagine you and Delta would've come out like that," Wash admits. They balanced each other too well he thinks. His mouth is dry, his voice quiet when he makes his admission. "They tried to implant Epsilon in me a second time. I was the only one left. So was Epsilon. They thought they could get it to stick, like time would heal what they'd already done." He shrugs dismissively, like he doesn't care. In the past, all of it. "It didn't. Just meant I couldn't hide what I already knew."

He closes his eyes, busies himself with fastening the rifle to the back of his armour just so that he can avoid seeing York's reaction.

Edited 2015-04-20 12:32 (UTC)

"No way of knowing now." He shrugs, smoothing his hair out of his eyes. eye. To give Wash a good look. He seems- a little older, a little paler. More scars, some grey- not much. He looks good for something that's been through everythign they've survived. At least till he gets to the eyes. Then it's all a little broken, a little sharp, a little manic.

It's worrying.

But knowing they put Epsilon back in-

"Jesus christ, it damn near killed you the first time." Or at least it sounded like it from the outside.

"He is gone then? Delta. I'm- sorry." The word feels strange to say. It's been a long time since he let himself apologise for anything and mean even a fraction of it. But this? He knows how close York and Delta had been. As close to healthy as any relationship like that could ever be.

"He- it- nearly killed itself more like. In my head. It was memory. It realised what the DIrector had done when they put it in the head of someone they'd told the Alpha was dead." He tries to keep his voice calm, but it's hard when it brings up that flood of images and searing raw pain that he can't forget, no matter what he does, and humans were never meant to have perfect recall. The bad things are supposed to become blunted by time.

"The Director didn't have much left by then but- he was too stubborn and insane to give up. And it was too dangerous to stop when they realised I knew... everything. Every dirty little secret the Alpha had ever seen."

And they'd left him there, left him to that. Been told over and over again that is was because he hadn't been good enough.

Edited 2015-04-21 12:31 (UTC)

Nevermind that they were more or less shooting at each other earlier- that voice? That twists in his gut like a knife and has him stepping forward when he should be watching his back- but it's Wash. it's the kid, the Rookie, the one they shouldn't have left behind. He reaches out, slow and wary of a negative reaction, to rest his hand on the kid's shoulder. "If we knew where to find you we would've- I would've gotten you out of there."

He watches the movement with a deep wariness as York moves towards him, reaches out. Everything about him, rigid spine, the clasp of his hands at his sides near the knife, it screams danger, like an angry stray cat as likely to claw him up as submit to the touch. He doesn't attack when the hand lands on his shoulder, but he doesn't relax either.

"Nice words York." Because that's it, they're just words and he doesn't trust good intentions. Hasn't for a long time.

He looks around, down at the canyon below where York's things are still scattered around. He really needs to check in soon. This is going to get complicated, he can tell that already. "You can't stay here York. Sooner or later someone else will find you. The Feds have a pretty vicious merc on their side."

"I tried to find you." Not that it's worth- anything now. But it needs saying. He tried. "...I'm sorry I never did."

Maybe it would've made shit easier on him. On everyone. Maybe it would've changed everything. Maybe it would've just gotten him killed. God only knows how that'd go. For now there's the ruin of his camp, am ess of MRE's to clean up, and mercenaries in the middle of a civil war.

Fun times.

"Is there anywhere on this rock where I won't be noticed?"

Yeah, me too, is on the tip of Wash's tongue, because how different would his life have been if York, if any of them, had got him out when they'd had the chance instead of leaving him there to take whatever the Director threw at him. But they hadn't, and he doesn't have the luxury of the time to reminisce and ponder what else could have been. So there's silence and a gaze flat with accusation.

"I don't know. You could try running and hiding in the caves, but they're unstable at the best of times. If I found you, other people can too."

"That's an option." Or- well. Feds and a merc versus whoever Wash is with. Being on his own is asking to get shot. It's work he'd rather not do- a whole mindset he ran as hard as he could to get away from but the options here are limited. He sighs and scrubs at the back of his head, dropping his hand from Wash's shoulder. "...Need a locksmith?"

He offers. He actually makes the decision himself without being forced into it. For a moment Wash can hardly believe it. He'd thought they'd have to force York's hand. This is better than they'd hoped. And yet at the same time... at the same time there's a bright anger that comes with it. A part of him that wants to take York's shoulders and shake him until he sees what this is, until he grows up and stops trusting so easily, like Wash had been forced to. How can he still be like this? Just trusting because it's him when everything has changed? When Wash is like this?

He smiles instead, a faint shadow of what it had been but more than York's had from him since things had gone to hell. "I think we can use all the help that we can get."

"No holographic locks, though. I mean I could but it takes about sixty seconds and that's with all my attention. Without D this-" He waves at his scarred eye. "Makes focusing on the floaty bits difficult. Unless you wanna pair me up with a spotter for future infiltrations which I'd be fine with if I run 'em through the ringer first."

if he can take down whoever is supposed to be watching him- well. How can he trust them to have his back? He can't, it's that simple. This isn't the option he wanted but it's better to fall in with the devil you know than to face a fresh new hell without a goddamn clue as to what's going on.

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