goddamngrenades | RP Open Post

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."

"He would've encouraged Sigma and Maine." And that. Those names. That makes it neccisary to pull away. More guilt- more pain and he'd been hanging on to Wash for too damn long anyway. They aren't that.

They weren't ever that. They were friends once and god only knows what now.

Besides he's half naked and getting cold from being out of the suit for so long. "So. Uh."

Right.

"Bunk?"

Wash lets out a hiss at that. The thought gives him a chill. "Yeah. He would've. His own personal monster." He hopes that Maine had been dead before he became that thing completely. That the AIs had burnt him out. It would have been kinder that way.

York lets go of him and that makes everything suddenly awkward. And cold now he's out of the shower. He turns back round and clears his throat, looking anywhere but at York. "Yeah. Got them to put a bunk into one of the extra storage rooms that've been cleared out. Not spacious but private and we're used to not spacious."

"Never really needed a big bed anyway with North crawling in like he did." Just on the bad nights. The worst nights when they couldn't stand to sleep but were too exhausted to be awake. When everything cracked like glass. York didn't bother with modesty- Wash ahd seen everything back then anyway, and slid into some soft drawstring pants and an old grifball tee. It feels wrong, not being in the armor- but he's exhausted.

He needs real sleep. And he needs to be out of the armor to do that.

"You guys were that close huh?" He'd known they were friends but... Chalk it up to Wash being unobservant. No one was surprised by that. Dumb rookie not paying attention.

Wash pulls the undershot back on in lieu of clothing and grabs his armour. "This way. You sleep. I'm gonna do another sweep of the perimeter."

"Easier to sleep with another body in the bed. My squad and I used to all pile in for warmth and North was used to South. South kinda hated it." He shrugs. "Kinda had to get used to the quiet, past few years."

No real option- no safe place or safe person to share a bed with anymore.

"South hated everything," Wash replies. "Or she did by the end of it."

He shakes his head and stretches to settle the suit, make sure it fits okay. "It sounds nice to have someone like that though."

"It was pretty nice. Now it's just me and my sidearm. D used to keep watch but..." No Delta AI anymore. When he failed to die, D got deleted. Suit protocols being what they are.

One more grave he needs to dig.

"How's the lock on the door?"

"I envied you that, you know. Delta. You and North. I was so excited for Epsilon. A partner." And look how that had turned out. If it had worked the Meta would probably have come after him though.

"Should be solid. Mine is."

"If they were what they thought they were? It would've worked out. You'd have gotten one." It's not Wash's fault- it's not anyone's but the Director's.

"Good. Kinda- I'll double check it." He hasn't lived this long by just taking those details at face value.

"I remember what they did to the Alpha. The Director. Sigma and Gamma. They worked together to rip it apart." And there were nights when he couldn't remember who exactly he was. Another good reason to have a bunk out of the way of the rest of the soldiers here.

"Alright. I wouldn't expect anything less."

"...D didn't remember but he had..." Can a fragment of a mind have PTSD? Yeah, yeah it could. "Echos. Nightmares."

Project Freelancer. The best and the supposed brightest. At the end all of them to the one was as broken as the AI the Director had been selling. Now it's him and Wash and it's all very...sad. Bittersweet. They lived.

No.

They survived. Very different. "Where is this bunk of yours?"

If a fragment can try to kill itself over and over, then yeah, a fragment can have PTSD. "I'm not surprised."

What he remembered was awful and it was burnt into his memory. No wonder the Alpha had shed logic first.

"Just over here," Wash says, gesturing a little way ahead to a cluster of smaller buildings. His bunk, York's, a secure building that houses Kimball's, another that keeps their records and computers for surveillance.

York slings his gear over his shoulder and follows along, waving at the kids that wander by. After one or two murmurs of 'i thought he'd be taller' he rolls his eyes.

"One John Spartan rolls up seven feet tall outside the armor and now we all gotta be huge. Jesus christ."

They seem a little more surprised to see Wash out of armour. He ignores them mostly, but snorts at what York says. "Yeah, damn those guys. Connie always said that a taller opponent just gave more leverage to bring them down."

"Watching her take down Maine repeatedly on the mats is proof enough of that." It had been a thing of beauty. She really had been the best of them. Carolina had just been the most loyal. He'd been...

The most foolish, really. Trying so hard to be what he wasn't. To have what he couldn't. Like it'd make up for everything else.

"I think he enjoyed it," Wash replies, a hint of a smile on his face. "He always just got up and let her do it again and again until she got a move perfect."

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