goddamngrenades | RP Open Post

"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.

Wash hums softly in agreement. "Shame you couldn't use that excuse back on the project," he says, and it's almost a joke, or maybe there's a sharper edge to it. Wash couldn't possibly comment. "Don't worry. I doubt we'll be coming up against any holo-locks. It's a backwater planet of no real consequence."

Except the masses of alien technology that's practically lying there on the ground unattended. That more than makes up for being stuck here.

"You'd better get your stuff York. We've been stood around too long. I don't get to hemmed in by the Feds."

And he needed to check in badly. She'd want to know.

Joke? Five years ago it would be. Now York doesn't glare, doesn't flinch, just pulls his helmet back on and clicks the seal in place. Wash as he'd known him isn't the man he's talking to now and contrary to popular believe, the York Wash knew before? Isn't the same York that's here either. But that'll come up later, probably mid firefight knowing their luck. "Lemme load up the car. I think it's still running, at least."

He might have to whack it with a hammer a few times but- if he's helping with a civil war? May as well bring all the gear in that he can. ingratiate himself with the populace.

No laughter? No witty retort? That is new. But then, it's been years. He can't expect even York to be dependable and stay the same. He wonders how much it eats York up inside, what had happened. If the nights are as bad as Wash has them sometimes or if he manages to pretend that he's fine. He'd always been good at that, being fine.

Wash nods and slides his helmet back on, feeling immediately better when it does. It's easy to deceive the warring parties here. They never knew him. But York is different. He knew Wash better than probably anyone back in Freelancer. It's worrying.

"Sounds good," Wash says. I'll scout the area, check we're clean then call in. Let them know we're coming."

Let Carolina know what a fucking mess this was becoming.

"Area's clear except you." Not that he expects Wash to take him at his word, but he wasn't a complete novice. He'd checked and primed and set up a perimeter. If Wash peeked over the ledge he'd see, maybe, the strut hidden in one of the bushes marking one of his trackers. A direct alarm that would ping to his helmet. Sue him, he hadn't thought anyone could make it up the ledge Wash had climbed. Then again he hadn't anticipated a former freelancer.

"What're you low on? I got plenty."

Wash gives him a sceptical look that should be obvious in the tilt of his helmet. He'd given up trusting other people a long time ago. Why should this be any different? "I got the drop on you," he points out. It's more that he needs a moment to breathe, slip back into a professional mindset. Do the job, get paid, get off this pit of a planet and then... He'll think about that afterwards.

"Honestly? Everything. Ammo and weapons. Food is... Not terrible but way things are going the fight could take a lot longer than they thought it would. We could rig the place. I'll send someone back for the rest."

"For two seconds. Then I had you on the ground. Like usual." Worst Freelancer ever. Of All time. Things have changed but Wash still didn't seem like he could check his own six if the objective was right there. Then again situational awareness wasn't exactly rewarded. Survival shit and stealth, all that came from his run in the military before the project.

They didn't get much more than toys and missions and vague, arbitrary training with either. Not exactly conductive to creating solid soldiers.

"You wanna take a lap around, go for it. Just keep it about..." He peers across the clearing, retracing his steps. "...ten yards further out than you normally would. Or you'll get blown up."

"Yeah, like usual," Wash replies, that hard, bitter knot back in his voice. "Guess there really wasn't much reason to come back for me."

He's turning away before York can reply, and part of him wishes he'd gone for a killshot straight off, orders be damned. She'd the last memories of that life, make it easier for everyone involved. Still, worst Freelancer and he was the one stood here now after the rest of them had gone. That counted for something.

"I'll be careful. I'm not a rookie anymore."

"Leave no man behind. Dunno how much time you spent in the military before the project- but that's a thing." It stuck with some of them more than others. North- well. North got out with Theta and South. That's all he cared about. York looked until he found the KIA. Couldn't find anything after that and he'd assumed it to be on the money.

Wash dead and he'd fucked up enough to not have to see it happen.

Then Tex. Then Wyoming. Then Maine and all that. Delta and everyone else. "No. No you're not."

He's something else entirely. York's not sure what to make of it but- whoever Wash reports to? That's who he needs to meet. It doesn't take long for him to swing down and start sorting through what's still good after getting shot up. Pack it up, load it up. Cover the crates that he couldn't fit on the jeep with camo netting.

"Not much," Wash says, shrugging. "I don't even know why I got picked up for the project honestly. Beat being cannon fodder." Out on the front lines. Serve your people, make them proud. His younger self had been an idiot who believed in that stuff. "It's just pretty words and a nice sentiment."

He sort of wishes he could think more of it, believe it a little. But they've got a population to kill. It just doesn't fit with the ethos.

He waves a hand in response and leaves York to pack up. Goes to check the perimeter and, well, report in.

"It's him. It's York."

The silence tells him enough. Carolina isn't happy. About as happy as him.

"Keep him occupied. I'll figure this out." That's the response. She's better at the stone cold thing than she had been back then.

Wash signs off, heads back to York. "You ready?"

"Watch your step." Doesn't bother looking up from where he's lashing down the last crate. It'll hold. It kinda hasta and he probably should just let Wash walk on through the EMP tripwire but that'd knock out his HUD too and that? That's a bitch and a half to get up and running.

"Feel like riding shotgun or do you wanna drive?"

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