goddamngrenades | RP Open Post

"They're adults but I'm teaching them how to be soldiers. They're kids, wash. none of them signed up for this- to fight? Sure. What that actually means? No. No one ever does." He pushes away from the counter and starts back the way they came. It's gonna be a long week, he can already feel it. "you mind helping me demo the hand to hand stuff later today?"

"Yeah, the military would be pretty understaffed if they were honest about the nightmares and PTSD and watching your friends die." That it would turn you into someone who couldn't function in normal society.

"I can do that. It'll be like old times."

"Dunno what the recruiter told you, but I actually got that memo. Didn't believe him. I really, really should have." He doesn't regret all of it. Just. Most of it.

"It was all... serve your planet! Honour humanity! Be a hero stuff. And I was a stupid enough kid to believe them." Starry eyed and desperate to be someone important. To do something worthwhile with his life.

"My parents were already in the military. That wasn't really gonna fly with me." Out of the compound and back down to the caves. it's a quick enough path.

Under other circumstances, Wash thinks that he could like Chorus. It's kind of beautiful. Crystal cities and forests. Great for hiking.

"It was a way for me to get away from home, I guess," Wash says nonchalantly. "Set out on my own."

"Well. You sure managed that much. We all did. I haven't been back to earth since..." Since he shipped out the first time. "...I actually fought on the rings. Up till the project. Kinda trippy."

Never met a Spartan but they seemed solid. just as fucked up as the rest of them.

"Yeah? Heard about that. Difficult not to. I haven't been back to Earth in... since before the Project. Honestly for a while it was weird just to spend so much time on one planet."

When he gets paid for this job, when Charon lets go of his chain, he's going to go back to Earth. He is going to buy a house near the beach and not leave it for a year.

"This place, though. It ain't half bad. I don't think I'll mind sticking around to make sure the win sticks." Like they've actually got a chance. Like it's not a death sentence. "They got beaches here? Been forever since I've gone surfing."

"Yeah, they have beaches," Wash says quietly. "It's really pretty. Seen a decent bit of it recently. They've got auroras, you know that? Big floaty blue and green swirls in the sky. It's a shame they're at war."

"Not for much longer. We'll get this knocked out. Broker some kind of treaty because honestly the 'kill 'em all' mode of winning a war is historically bullshit." He actually did pay attention in school. Sometimes. "Give them back their home. Then you can fuck off with your alien whatever and I'll do the heavy lifting of getting society set back up. I wonder if I'll get a statue out of it."

Wash pauses when he says that, let York get a few steps ahead of him and stares at back of his head. "You're really serious about this aren't you?" he says and he can't quite believe it. "You'll stay here until the bitter end. After it even. To help some people you don't even know rebuild their homes."

He doesn't know if York had always been like this. He thinks perhaps he had been. Was wonders if he'd been like that back then too. That optimistic.

"You're making me feel like a real asshole."

"I got a lot to make up for." He couldn't save his team. He couldn't stop what happened to the Alpha. Couldn't keep Delta safe. But this? This he can do. This he WILL do. "This is what I signed on for back at the beginning. What I was TOLD I was joining the project to do. I got these skills...I got them to help people."

Not a crazy bastard. He can't imagine how many of the mooks he shot down back then had no idea what they were doing or why it was happening. Not a one.

"So that's what I'm gonna do. And you? You'll do what you do." Before he'd claim a no judgement zone. Pat Wash on the back and say it was okay, they all get to be assholes. But now? Now he's judging. A lot. "Maybe because you kind of are being an asshole."

He is speared, caught like a rabbit in the lights of an oncoming car. It hurts more than he'd imagined to hear that. To hear it from York. One thing to tell himself that he doesn't care, that none of it matters to him, and another to have York slap him in the face with it.

And he doesn't even know half of it. If he knew, Wash thinks now that York might very well just shoot him. Treacherous ground.

"Fine,"he grinds out after a moment, everything in his posture defensive. "I'm an asshole. I'm a- a monster. If not giving a fuck is how I survive, that's how I'm going to do it. It's better than the alternative." Which was seeing everyone you cared about die over and over again. "I'm not David anymore. I'm not the rookie. I'm- I can't be him anymore."

"If you're that apathetic, David- " And it's not fair to use the name after he just disavowed it but York has never really been one for playing fair. Not in shit like this. "Then what's the point of surviving? You think I didn't try that? You think that it actually works worth a damn? Wake up kid! Shit happened. People we cared about died. Not giving a fuck doesn't change anything- all it does is leave you hollow. I've had more than my share of that. You grieve. You move on. You make connections."

Says the man that's been avoiding everyone on the way home- just so he COULD get home. Then again pretty much everyone around him had been trying to kill him.

So.

He feels justified in this.

"And sometimes those people are gonna die too. And then you push on, you do it again, because that's what humans do."

"Maybe I'm surviving just because I'm too much of a coward to put a bullet in my head," Wash snaps back. He's shifted into a fighting stance without even thinking. It's been a while since an argument like this didn't come to blows. Why would this one be any different? "There is nothing left. I hollowed myself out a long time ago Taylor. All that's going to happen here is you're going to watch them die. And it will kill another part of you. And then you'll run. Like you ran away from the Project, and from Carolina."

He takes a breath. "So don't act like you're so much better than I am. At least I'm honest with myself."

"Third time's the fucking charm, kid. The project wasn't the first time I lost everyone. And even if they all die and I somehow live, again, I'm gonna keep trying. Because I refuse to become the fucking hollowed out mess of a man that the director was." He snarls, stepping forward. Not swinging. Why lash out with a fist? What's the point of that?

"The project was broken and she was DEAD. I WATCHED HER FALL!" Last thing he fucking saw before he had to get North out of there. Before they had to leave. The engines were going up and the whole damn thing was going to blow if they didn't get the fuck out and he tried. He tried to get to her. To talk to her. To save her.

"Hell, maybe this time I'll finally fucking die with them like I was supposed to. Instead of this fucking bullshit."

York is right up against him, doesn't leave him much space to move if he needs it. Doesn't leave York much room either and Wash can reach one of his knives quickly enough to buy himself some breathing room.

But York doesn't attack him, not physically. It's a surprise actually and shows on his face. "Yeah You sure about that? Thought that about Maine too and look what happened." What had come back hadn't exactly been him, but it had been his body. He's not sure the person he's working with is really Carolina either, but she's alive.

"Maybe you will. And I'll be the one left to fucking remember you."

"But it wouldn't bother you at all. Because you don't care." Carolina's dead. There's no other explanation. He'd looked everywhere and sure, he looked for wash too but he'd been buried deep. Carolina? The director would've flaunted. Shoved into the front lines to prove that his way work best. The woman was never all that subtle.

But she's dead. Dead and gone and never, ever fucking coming back and it's just them. Him and this man with Wash's face and voice and it's all wrong.

he'll stay. He'll stay, he'll fight, and he'll die.

But he'll do it without bothering this merc.

"So quit pretending to give a damn." He shoulders past Wash and heads deeper into the caves, shoulders tight and jaw set. Brave new world, times change people and-

Fuck everything.

He thinks about grabbing York, stopping him however he can. Doesn't. Lets him walk away. Should have let him walk away yesterday in the canyon. Should have ignored him, pretended to himself that it was just some asshole in a stolen suit. It might be York, but York is someone he knew in a different life. He has to remember that.

He doesn't head back to the base. There's a Fed outpost a few miles away. Small, insignificant really. They're trying to spy and failing but that's still a liability. What if they notice something out of the ordinary?

That won't be a problem anymore.

When he heads back to the base it's with a pack full of ammo and whatever he could salvage from the outpost while still destroying most of their tech and records. The rebels are so excited when he dumps it off at the armoury. They really are kids and not a one of them has ever considered that they're being played. Oh no, Agent Washington always comes through for them in the direst moments. It's pathetic.

It's easier to be aloof now he isn't interacting with York, even down to taking his rations out back to his bunk, picking at them between practising knife tricks that Connie had taught him once upon a time.

Five days and two more rounds of solo recon later and it's almost like he's got a routine. Sleep till he can't. Avoid Wash. Run around the perimeter, check supplies, check in with Kimball. Avoid Wash. Run drills till the kids need a break, send them on said break. Avoid Wash. Do hand to hand drills with kimball who's not a fighter and suddenly Avoiding Wash is a lot harder.

But they need a proper demo and Kimball is more of a distance fighter than a hand to hand fighter and she could use the lesson too. That more than anything else has him knocking on Wash's door in the middle of the day, stripped down to a tank and drawstring slacks, sweaty for the earlier workout.

It's easier to slip back into his old routine when York is so determined to avoid him. Wash interacts with Kimball and the rebels only as much as strictly necessary (the betting pool about him and York has died down - he thinks they're disappointed). They're better off with York anyway. He relates to them better. Actually wants what is best for them. Wash brings back trinkets, enough to get his job done. Reports in to Carolina.

They still don't know what to do. He doesn't think she's told their boss. He wishes he could talk to her and not just the her that she is right now.

He misses Connie. She'd smack him upside the head. And then stab him. And then fix this.

The knock on his door is a surprise and there's only one person who would dare.

He's been working out, sweaty and stripped down to the waist when he answers the door.

He just looks at York, dead-eyed, tamping down any flicker of affection he might have felt. They're not friends. He's a monster, York is part of a job.

"Mission?"

"Drill. Hand to hand. Kimball's more of a ranged fighter though she is picking up on Connie's tricks really well. You might wanna go over the rest of them with you, I only ever learned the first...five?" he shrugs and jerks his thumb back over his shoulder. "Need someone that actually knows what they're doing so I can teach them not to die."

He nods sharply and goes to pull on a t-shirt. He slips a knife into a sheathe that sits at the small of his back, just in case. He really hates going unarmed these days. "Alright. Let's show them how it's done."

"Just show 'em how to fall without hurting themselves. You'll be doing a lot of it." And there's no malice to it. No gloating. Just a flat statement of a fact like Carolina used to toss at them before practice. Make friends with the mat, you'll spend plenty of time there.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject