goddamngrenades | RP Open Post

He doesn't want to know what happened to them. If they burnt out or died or went insane. Probably the first, maybe the second. People didn't start going crazy until Wash was already there.

"You're doing a good job with them. I know Kimball will be grateful."

"Yeah well- they got a reason to fight. They just need someone to give them the right tools." They come up the last bend and he calls a halt, stepping away from Wash to take each soldier aside and give them homework. Things they can work on, things they can help each other with. One at a time till he's gotten through the lot. "Now hit the showers. We start bright and early tomorrow morning."

They stumble, shuffle, or stride off with a wave- Bitters is gonna need more cardio work before they're through but- hey. He's trying.

"...speaking of. Where are the showers? I kinda need one."

He's not sure how York has even done this. The way he talks to them, the way they react... it's impressive, Wash will give him that. Unfortunately, it's exactly what they don't need. It just makes it more and more clear that there's no way that York will come around to their way of thinking. He'd been pissed enough that Wash was being paid in alien tech. The rest of it? Yeah, that's going to go down like a lead balloon.

"Let me show you. I could probably use one myself."

"Are they individual or group showers because- uh." He peers after the group and looks back to Wash. "Telling them that i've survived a lot of shit and having them see it for themselves is kind of. Two different things, there."

"There's individual stalls. A couple anyway out by medical. They're usually free." He has to agree though. He rarely removes even his armour in sight of the rebels. The rest of it he has too many scars he doesn't want to show off and get questioned about, no matter how well meaning.

"To medical, then." For all that he gave wash shit for not getting close- there are some lines that need to be drawn. He doesn't even think about what it might look like for him to go shower with Wash. Doesn't register at all, for once. "Then bed. I am- really fuck'n beat."

"For once not for actual medical treatment." They'd all spent their fair share of time in the med bay. York losing the eye had been one of the worst.

"Got a bunk for you out of the way too. Figured you might want a bit of privacy rather than sharing with a bunch of the kids." It had been one of Wash's conditions when he'd come. There's an old store room that suits him fine now it's emptied out.

"Thanks. I appreciate it." The walk isn't as far as he thought it be. All in all the compound isn't that big and that's- distressing. A handful of kids against what's probably a lot of armed men. He's gonna have to run some quiet recon tomorrow, after he wraps up drills. See what they're working with. It's stupidly easy to slip back into this mentality. Target, objective, mission parameters.

Tweaking needs to happen, though. Make sure things run well.

"Gonna have to run some recon, I think. Check out the enemy, see what we're up against. Right now they need to hole up and work on their skills as a unit."

The medical building isn't huge. Nothing is really. Their numbers keep dwindling no matter how hard they fight. Sometimes Wash thinks they've horribly miscalculated and the Feds will win anyway leaving them with more of a mess than they'd started with.

"We can do that. Check out some of the outposts nearby, see what we can figure out. I can tell you what I know but things change quickly."

"Sounds like a plan." As soon as they're near the showers he starts popping seals and detaching bits of armor, stacking it up off to the side till he's down to the undersuit. Peeling that second skin off is a bit of a bitch- it moves and grows with you but he's not as lean as he was during the project. Lotta heavy lifting and long runs carrying everything he owned bulked out his shoulders.

All down his back, shrapnel scars. Two starbursts near his left shoulder, thick and angry- exit wounds from Reggie's last hello. The rest is a crisscross of burns and bruises, close calls. Situations where he truly had been more lucky than he'd been good. But he's still got an eye and still got his hands. It's all he needs in the long run.

Suit shucked he steps into the spray, sighing under the water. "Sweet baby jesus you have hot water."

Wash removes his armour more slowly, more reluctant than York to reveal himself even to someone who knew him this well. He can't help but look when York has stripped off and he can see the scars. Enough of them new that he knows they're from after the Project. They're the marks of a life hard lived and hard won when he should have had someone there to watch his six, make up for his blind spot.

"Yeah, we do. There's a whole load of geothermal in this place. They tapped into it. Smart of them."

He peels off his own undersuit once York is in the shower and steps into his own, letting the hot water sluice away the aches and grime of the day. He's got his own scars, knives and gunshots. Mercenary work wasn't safe. And the weird pattern of electric lines down from the AI port in his neck, a spidery pattern. Epsilon's attempt to burn itself out.

Fifteen minutes. He'll give himself fifteen minutes to soak and scrub, wash his hair and let himself slough off everything that kept him from feeling human. Little by little his muscles unclench and it's all him. Relaxed and loose and easy. He shuts off his water at the ten minute mark and grabs a towel from his bag, tucking it around his hips while he wanders over to the nearest mirror for a quick shave.

Even with having been here a while, the showers are always a thing that he enjoys. He takes his time over this one. works out the tightness in his muscles, the knots that always kink up his back. There's a sprain in his leg from a bad landing a while back that's still twinging if he stands on it wrong but the water eases that too.

Eventually he emerges, hair plastered to his forehead, and steps out, starting to dry himself off and trying not to feel bothered that York is there to see him in such a state.

He finishes the last of his shaving by the time Wash slips out and- "Jesus fucking christ, David."

It slips out. It shouldn't- surviving everything they've been through? You're gonna be marked up. But Wash is- David is- cut up more than he'd expected. More than he thought possible.

it's concerning. This is him, concerned.

It's the use of his own name that really catches him, as rarely used as it is. It barely feels like it belongs to him at all. He's Wash now. Has been for years. He grabs a towel, starts to dry off, giving York a blank look.

"What? Did I scare you? Thought you'd be more on your guard."

"What the hell." He shouldn't. There's personal space and PTSD and reflexes and habits and reactions but the sheer mess of David's skin has him stepping forward, fingers slipping out to glide along the line of- a graze? A knifewound? What the hell.

He'd spent the least amount of time in Medical during the project and yeah, he'd thought the kid was dead. But this?

"What the hell happened to you?"

He flinches when York approaches him, hand outstretched, that wariness back in his eyes although he doesn't step back or try to stop York. The touch of fingers against his skin makes him shiver.

He shrugs, forces a smile. "What? It's not that surprising is it? We've both been through the wringer." He turns away so that he can stop seeing that look on York's face. Taylor's face, but his back is no better than his front even without Epsilon's scar.

"No- I was. You got- you were never in medical all that long. There was Epsilon and then they got you off the ship." THis wasn't from the Crash. Wasn't from the project. This was more recent than that.

"The war's over. It's been over-" Seeing his back just gives him more scars to stare at, more skin to compare to his last memory of David, awkward and trying to hide it, back in the showers on the MOI. Handful of knicks that anyone gets in their lives but not- not this.

Nothing like this.

"What happened? Where did you- how did you-" He cuts himself off, teeth clikcing together. "...I should've kept looking."

Part of him really wants to punch him for overreacting this badly. It's been years. Did he really think that things would stay the same? That Wash would blithely go through life not getting hurt? At the same time... it's nice having someone worry about him like this. Someone who can be shocked at what he's become and not just accept that he's a monster.

He reaches back to the scar at his neck, the weird lines that might be pretty if they weren't seared into his flesh. "Epsilon. The second time. It burnt itself out and took me along for the ride. Left me with this as a memento. The rest are... brawls some of them, because at least it felt like something. And Mercenary work isn't safe. And The Director he- they wanted to know what I knew, what Epsilon had told me. They got creative and even with medical it didn't all heal up right." They'd been trying to break him down, see if there was something they could salvage of their precious project, and make sure Wash couldn't bring them down.

He should have kept looking. Claire fell, claire died but he never had word til that goddamn certificate popped up. He had Delta. He could've broken in, found him, fixed this. And he'd run. He'd saved his own skin and every fucking scar he's going to burn into his brain.

Because he did this. When he took Tex's side, when he let them fall, when he crashed the ship- he did this. He might not have set off Maine. He might not have made Epsilon crazy.

But them, all of them, got hurt, got killed, and it's on. Him.

Hands that are usually rock-steady tremble as they reach out to trace the lines from the implation site. Follow them to the line of Wash's shoulder and nevermind the fact that they're both half naked- he tugs the kid into a hug. Squeezes him tight. "...I'm sorry. I'm so- fucking sorry."

He doesn't want to look, to see what York thinks of him now. He's not sure if disgust or pity would be worse. He's a mess, he knows that. Can't forget it either, is the problem. It would be easier if he couldn't remember how every scar came to be.

There's a hitch of breath when York traces the back of his neck, his fingers warm and solid like he doesn't remember feeling in... far too long. And even if they aren't the last, if Carolina is out there, the two of them are too broken now to talk about shit like this. He wonders if she's as cut up as he is these days, or if she's just that much better.

The hug leaves him tense and taut for a moment, but then he relaxes inch by inch into it, lets York pull him back against his chest. "You- it's not your fault. It's theirs. It's mine for never being good enough and for never thinking there was more going on."

"I crashed that damn ship so we could get out. So we could be done." God it feels- stupidly good to feel skin again. Even if it's rough. Even if it's bruised and it's his fucking fault. "So it would be over. And it wasn't enough."

Should've just quit the noble act and put a bullet in the director. Wiped the databanks. Should've tried to pretend he was good at all and just save who he could on the way out.

Shouldn't have let North take south.

Should've driven the damn jeep better so Maine didn't get shot in the throat.

Should've died next to his squad in the mud and never fucking signed on.

"You were good enough. You are good enough. They were playing with our heads as much as they were doing anything else- or Connie would've been number three on the board every goddamn time and you know it. None of us thought they were lying to us. None of us knew."

He doesn't pull away even though he knows they've been standing like this, York's front pressed against his back that it's gone a bit beyond a friendly but. It just feels too good to stop right now. Grounding. He can almost believe that he is like he was back then, like he's who York remembers him being.

"Con is was the only one of us with half a brain between us," he says, his voice hoarse. "She knew before any of us. Should've dug deeper when she wasn't up there, when she stopped being Connie and told me to call her CT instead." And he'd just let it slide. Let her pull away because he was too blindly loyal for her to consider trustworthy.

He raises a hand to brush against York's where it's wrapped around him, tracing over his fingers lightly.

"She tried to tell me. In Medical. Something about how it happened." HIs eyes. Something more than just that but it was as good a starting point as any. He was too doped up to make any sense of it and if he'd listened. If he'd double checked with her in the first place maybe-

He can't live in maybe. He let this go. He let all of it go. He moved on. And yet here he is, hanging onto Wash, like holding him will make up for years gone by without so much as a word.

For everything he's been put through because York fucked up.

"Didn't realize till Tex gave me that data. If Connie hadn't left some kind of message attached I would've called bullshit." And who had it saved? No one. Not him. Not wash.

"Christ that whole thing was a mess," Wash said. "Should've known something was wrong when the Director just applauded Maine and Wyoming for using like rounds." For a woman he was supposed to love or at least someone based on her, he sure had been trying to destroy Tex. That was what happened when you loved too much he supposed. Easier to avoid it altogether. He remembers how very much he had loved Allison.

"She was the best of us. She deserved better than us hunting her. He made us turn on each other and it worked. Although part of me wonders what would have happened if you hadn't brought the ship down. We might have ended up destroying each other anyway. Or as lab rats."

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