[Open Log] Kinks and Freaks, Oh My!

[lightofdawn]

Hold on tight, hope you ain't scared...

Comments

Maine & Wash - You know what this is. :P

[themeta]

Maine always seemed to return from missions different than the rest of them. Minor injuries were common among the Freelancers: contusions, scrapes, the occasional bruised rib and sprained limb. But he wasn't built like the others, wasn't nimble and as quick, and he worked with what he had.

Maine came back with bullet holes. Maine came back with knives sticking out of his chest. Maine came back bleeding, but Maine was always standing.

Even after the last one, even after being shot in throat, he still had fought until the mission was completed one way or another. Choking on his blood... Oh, he couldn't wait to fuck them up, the ones that did this, but that'd be later. Later. And while not being able to speak was frustrating, it wasn't detrimental; he wasn't much of a talker to start with.

Besides, the people who he wanted to be with understood what he was trying to get across. Like Washington.

Maine wasn't cleared for missions yet, but the rest were, and sitting back was driving him nuts. He deserved to be out there, too. He deserved something other than waiting for them to return. But they were going to fit him with an AI soon, and then between the two, he'd be out there, fighting, winning.

Instead of this, instead of waiting in Washington's room for him to get back. It was a two-fold thing: hearing about the mission and giving him a thorough once over to make sure he didn't get fucked up along the way. Not being there to keep half-an-eye on him was irritating.

But boredom got the better of him, so he was carving a crude picture of a cat into the top of Wash's nightstand with a knife that had once-upon-a-time been hidden. Wash liked cats. It was a gift, one that only Maine would give.

I have no appropriate icons at all.

[cryptos]

By the time the Pelican had finally landed, Wash was so sore and achy all he wanted to do was climb into bed. But his armor was covered in muddy sewage from the surveillance mission so he'd tiredly hoofed it to the showers with Florida instead. Wyoming had been on the same mission as the rest of them but somehow the bastard had managed to avoid getting so much as a drop of slop on his pristine white armor.

It would have been infuriating if Wash hadn't been so exhausted from nearly 34 hours of no sleep save for the crappy cat nap he'd taken on the extraction Pelican on the way back to the ship. Normally, he didn't mind Florida's endless cheer but tonight he was just interested in scrubbing himself clean and crawling into his bunk for some much needed sleep.

A set of standard issue workout clothes took the place of his armor which had been surrendered for cleaning and re-calibrating thanks to the fact that his motion tracker had started to fritz out mid-mission. He hated wondering the halls of the ship without his armor on for a variety of reasons though the man one being, he was a colony brat and microgravity always made him edgy.

Knowing all that stood between him and oblivion was an foot or so of metal made him long for his suit's environmental systems constantly. He wasted no time heading back to his quarters, opting to forgo eating in favor of grabbing some rack time. He would check on Maine when he was feeling a bit more human.

Or at least that was the plan until he opened the door to his quarters and he caught sight of that familiar hulking form. Even though he was operating on 34 hours of no sleep and was bone tired, Wash still visibly brightened when he saw the other man sitting there.

"Maine! How are you feeling?" A tired looking smile broke out on Washington's face as he closed the door behind him.

Whoops?

[themeta]

Maine wasn't someone that most people would smile over, unless it was by one of the other Freelancers who actually knew him. Before the sarcophagus retrieval, it was his size that intimated most: large, strong, practically built out of stone and weighing about as much. Now, the fresh, ugly pink scars around the front of his throat only added to the visage, the skin shining, new, raw.

The silence didn't help, either.

But Wash wasn't afraid of him. Wash...actually smiled when he saw him, Wash understood him when he said nothing at all, and on the rare occasion that he did. Or, well, used to. He couldn't anymore, but he growled, he hissed, and they were sounds that conveyed some things...when he felt like it. Which was rare. Mostly when he was annoyed.

Setting the knife down, he swept the desk chiseled wooden chips away and glanced up. Wash looked like shit, and Maine made a face that said as much. When was the last time he slept? Recon wasn't his own typical missions; he was too big, too (strangely) loud to be sent out on those. He was more the muscle, which is why he tended to come home bloody rather than sleep-deprived. Muscle jobs were shorter.

Intelligence gathering could take days and were boring as hell.

He climbed to his feet, shrugging a little under his dark tanktop. How was he feeling? He felt like someone shot him in the throat. It burned. Sometimes he still coughed shit up, phlegm and blood and it looked disgusting and tasted worse. It had wrecked three of his teeth, and he had gotten implants, perfect, seamless, and chewing didn't pain him as much anymore. He hurt, but mostly he was mad at himself for getting fucking caught like that. He was better than that.

Raising a hand, he curled his fingers, calling him over, before turning them in a circle. Force of habit, but he wanted to look at Wash, make sure he wasn't hurt, contusions or cuts or anything either of them might not know about.

[cryptos]

Wash seemed to like most everyone in the Project but he and Maine had developed a report during their time on Mother of Invention. Part of it stemmed from them bunking together and part of it was the fact that Wash had never appeared to be intimidated by Maine and his large size or disinclination to not string together more than a few words at a time.

At least, he'd been capable of uttering one or two words on the rare occasion he opted to speak up but now even that was denied him. Wash had ridden with him in the Pelican that had extracted Maine after he'd been shot. He'd been forced to watch in agony when his friend and sometimes hookup had undergone zero-g surgery because regular surgery would have ended in him drowning in his own blood.

Wash knew he would never forget the sight of that dark red blood seeping across kevlar and down the front of Maine's armor and helmet for as long as he lived. He should have died on that highway. Anyone else and he probably would be dead but the brutish Freelancer was made of sterner stuff and even taking clip in the throat and face wasn't enough to take him out.

Wash's eyes briefly flickered to the nightstand and the chips as they were scattered away by one huge hand. Grayish-blue eyes traced the crude drawing of a cat that had been carved into the furniture. He looked both surprised and a little charmed by Maine's attempts at carving and he even opened his mouth to say something when the taller man motioned at him to turn all the way around so he could inspect him for injures.

"I'm fine, didn't even take a hit." Wash assured him but considering Maine had felt the need to give him something 'nice' in the shape and form of a permanent cat being carved into his bedside table, he figured the least he could do was humor him.

Besides, if he didn't, he knew Maine was perfectly capable of manhandling him into shape and while normally Wash wouldn't mind a little manhandling, he was still concerned about Maine's pain levels. So all physical activities had been put on hold until the other Freelancer recovered. "Worst part of the mission was spending a day in a half having to listen to Wyoming make terrible knock-knock jokes while up to my chest in sewage. Damned Insurrectionists can't pick a nice tropical place for their hideouts apparently."

[themeta]

No, they couldn't. It had always been like that, hadn't it? Getting sent to shitholes to get intelligence when all someone wanted was a beach. A little sand. A little sun. It was times like that where Maine didn't mind being the wall, passed over for those missions in place of more exciting ones.

There was a hard roll of his eyes, grunting under his breath. Those fucking jokes. Yeah, he had heard them, they all had heard them, and none of them were ever any good. And while he hated being grounded, it sounded like he hadn't missed much on this one. Small favors.

However, it was still better than being here.

He caught the line of Wash's eye, saw him catch the carving, and he felt the corner of his lips quirk up in a small smirk as he shrugged. No big deal. Not very good, though. Snorting, he looked over Wash, eyes on him as he turned around, one hand going for the other's shirt and lifting it up so he could make sure. He hadn't been lying, which was good; sitting here was doing nothing for anyone, other than giving him way too much time to think about what got him in this position to start with.

If I had just been stronger...

Dropping the shirt, he squeezed the other's shoulder - Glad you're back - before sitting on the edge of the bed. It sank a little under his weight, squeaking, but he was used to it. Fuck his pain levels; it was all manageable. Everything was manageable other than being left behind.

There was a low hiss, beckoning.

[cryptos]

"Tell me about it, you would think he'd run out of new material by now." Wash picked up on Maine's patent disgust when it came to Wyoming's ridiculous penchant for ridiculousness knock-knock jokes.

How Florida stood being partnered and bunked with the man without strangling him was beyond Wash's comprehension. Yet Florida suffered his partner's antics with an almost uncanny cheerfulness. Those two were practically made for each other.

But then, Wash could understand that because he sometimes felt that despite his 'float' status in the squad, he and Maine had always been good partners. He knew he wasn't the best fighter like Carolina or a skilled Locksmith like York. He didn't have the patience demonstrated by North or Wyoming so all in all he was just kind of an every-man in the Project. But his lack of specialty also meant that Washington could be assigned to a wider range of missions than your average Freelancer.

Wash made no move to stop Maine as the taller Freelancer hiked up his shirt to inspect him carefully though he did roll his eyes heavenward in exasperation. "Anyone tell you that you're a bit of a Mother Hen, Maine? Better watch out, North might think you're trying to take away his Team Dad position."

There was no venom in his voice as he teased Maine and even reached out to touch his arm in silent thanks with a subtle nod towards the nightstand. "I see you've been occupying yourself but you're supposed to be resting." Now who was being the Mother Hen?

He heard the entreating quality in that low hiss and to anyone else, it might have simply sounded like another wordless growl. But Wash had learned to pick up the differences in Maine's grunts and other non-verbal communication long before the damned Innie bastard had shot him in the throat and permanently robbed him of his ability to speak. And he'd be lying if he didn't admit a part of him wasn't tempted to let himself be pulled into bed with one of those massive hands pulling him down into that burly and muscular chest.

A pinched look of anxiety touched the younger man's face as he approached. "You should be resting, it's almost zero two hundred. Not that I don't appreciate you defacing my bedside table with pictures of cats, mind you." He knew Maine worried in his own way and that he was unhappy being grounded but the man had very nearly died a few weeks ago.

[themeta]

This time, the click he made with his tongue carried a chastising air. Mother Hen. Him? Fuck that, he wasn't North. He just wanted to make sure that Wash was in one piece without him to be there, helping to watch his ass. He wanted to make sure he came back whole and not... not like he had. Shot. Hurt. An emergency.

Resting. The clicking tongue had turned to an exasperated huff, a growl that was directed at the situation rather than the person speaking. Resting. Who could do that around here when the leaderboard loomed and colored dark rooms in its pale blue light? Who could rest when the halls were far too quiet?

They had given him pills to help with the pain, and while Maine had taken them the first three days, he had ignored the rest of them. It hurt. It still hurt, and judging from the scaring, it would hurt for the rest of his life. He should get used to dealing with it now, rather than retreating into a synthetic drug every time it got to be too much. He felt the same way about resting.

He could do this.

Maine growled. Been resting all day. Which wasn't exactly true, but he hadn't gone on a mission, so it was like resting. And while it was late, it wasn't as well; time was a number that had zero meaning when one was stuck in an endless loop of monotony. What did time even mean anymore?

Too deep. Stop.

One hand grabbed at Wash's arm, and he tugged him closer, down towards the bed. He hissed this time, a rattling sound, and something flickered over his face in that moment: pain. Fleeting, flickering, but there. He pushed it aside, and tried to lay back with him.

He'd rest if he had to, but he was doing it here.

[cryptos]

Wash just smiled because he knew he'd gotten to Maine with that Mother Hen comment. And while he put up with the other man's fussing, he didn't quite understand his almost obsessive need to double check and make sure he returned missions without him in one piece.

The blond Freelancer just gifted Maine with a thoroughly unimpressed look despite that growl and while he couldn't understand exactly what the man was saying, he got the gist of it and picked up on Maine's impatience and irritation at this forced inactivity all the same.

"Need I remind you that you just took a clip of bullets right to the neck? You almost died, Maine." Wash considered fighting against that tug and standing his ground. He knew if he let Maine drag him down into the bed then they would inevitably start messing around.

And the look of brief pain that flickered across Maine's face told him what a terrible idea it was to let himself be pulled down into Maine's bed. The indecision on the younger man's face was plain to see. "I shouldn't. You need your rest and me jostling you around is just going to make things worse."

Locus/Wash, Pre-Reveal

[agnominal]

It's been two days since Washington awoke here at the Fed base, and something needles at the mercenary every time he crosses Locus's mind. It's starting to become irksome, a distraction. Dangerous. And yet he's unable to purge him from his mind.

Felix can't know. He'll never hear the end of it.

Proximity is an issue, but that was given. The Sim Troopers are to be kept watch over, something he's tolerated thus despite his growing disdain for them. Orders are orders, to be followed in spite of whatever a soldier might think or desire. That's simply how it is.

Washington is another thing entirely from their ilk, but he would be. A Freelancer agent, or formerly, considering the dissolution of the project. He is not without skill, nor without a sordid past not unlike his own. There are similarities if they are viewed side-by-side, certain echoes of a similar path trod. But the files he pursues give him little in the way of satisfying answers as to why he's deviated from that path.

He's a soldier, ruthless and efficient to judge from his record. Why is he here, with them? It flies in the face of reason.

There are no orders as of yet to make a move, only to observe and continue fanning the flames, carefully cultivating the Chairman's plans. But there's plenty of opportunity in the day to watch, if not completely overtly. Perhaps, given time, he'll see something that gives Washington's game away.

[cryptos]

Things had changed in a confusing and rapid manner when Wash and the Reds woke up to find themselves in Fed control.

They had been assured that they were safe, that they had been lied to from the start by Kimball and the others. That the New Republic was waging a guerrilla war on the Federal Army.

Wash didn't know who to believe.

He wasn't a trusting man to begin with and hearing these conflicting stories just made him all the more suspicious and mistrustful about his current circumstances.

Admittedly from what he had seen of the Federal Army thus far, they were almost all universally young which was depressing in it's own right but genuinely earnest and they believed in what they preached.

But it just...didn't sit right with Wash.

Or perhaps the crux of his issue was with one particular man. The merc whom Felix had warned him about, the infamous and scary Locus. Wash didn't trust that man as far as he could throw him with one pinkie. There was something...off about Locus, an intensity about the man that put Wash's hackles up. And for the life of him, every time they were in the same room, the former Freelancer could swear he could feel the man's stare on him almost constantly.

Donut had made cooing noises about how Locus probably just had a 'crush' or something but Wash had shut that shit down QUICKLY because there was no way he was going to suffer through another Donut Matchmaker Hour, thank you very much!

Still, the gray-armored soldier was beginning to feel like he was being monitored 24/7 and it was making him edgy so he decided to seek out the source of that unease and tell him to quit it.

Of course, finding Locus wasn't exactly an easy job. He'd been told by a corporal that the mercenary had last been seen near the shooting range so that was where the ex-Freelancer headed in his quest to find the creepy bastard.

[agnominal]

It's easy enough for him to disappear in a very real sense, should he wish it. Knowing Washington is on the look-out for him doesn't mean he was going to simply step out of hiding.

The shooting range would appear empty, at a glance. Provided Wash stuck around to investigate, he'd find what he was after.

Moments after a shot was fired directly over his shoulder to hit one of the targets, seemingly out of nowhere. Still. It got the message across. If he was looking for Locus, he was in the right place.

[cryptos]

Wash had thought he'd put his spastic days behind him but apparently that wasn't the case. The ugly bark of the sniper rifle being fired and the distinct whizzing sound of a bullet fired close enough to his god damned head that he heard the fucking bullet fly by had the former Freelancer nearly jumping out of his armor even as he dropped into a defensive crouch.

The knowledge that he was being toyed with struck Wash almost immediately and he felt his temper flare in answer. "Locus! You fucking dick! You should have shot me!" Tucker was all too familiar with that half shout/half shriek Wash only trotted out when he was especially stressed and 1,000% done with everything and everyone.

[agnominal]

The shadows melted away, leaving Locus standing at the top of a walkway and peering down at Wash while he sputtered. His only reaction to the outburst appeared to be a slight cocking of his head.

"I didn't."

That should stand in his favor, shouldn't it? Being able to cause harm and refraining. No. It would take far more than that for Washington to ever come close to offering trust. It's not a thing given lightly. He knows that.

He's wiser for not extending it, in truth. Given their plans for this planet, for the Reds and Blues. For him.

[cryptos]

"You COULD have, you damned psycho! I don't know what the hell kind of training you went through but you're not supposed to aim and fire when someone is downrange!" The gray-armored soldier snapped while doing his best go glare a hole through Locus with his visor.

Technically, he wasn't even downrange but the crazy mercenary had apparently decided to practice his long-range accuracy by skulking about atop a nearby walkway.

"Seriously, what the hell is wrong with you!?"

[agnominal]

That comment was neatly avoided entirely, as he moved toward the edge of the walkway, surprisingly quiet for heavy armor moving against metal grating. His gun was lowered at least, though his gaze remained steady on the former Freelancer.

"You were looking for me. Why?"

Because last he saw, Washington wasn't interested in talking. He'd all but ordered him to keep his distance, and after what happened at Bravo, that was more or less understandable.

Tuckington - Post 13. Now I need icons of that suit.

[lovernotafighter]

It had been two days, two days of nothing, no sound, no visuals, no nothing. It was a limbo of questionable existence for everyone left behind; the Sim Troops had gone up, teleported and gone to their final battle (at least for now; there always seemed to be a new “final battle” every year or so, perfectly timed), while they left everything else to the people below. Then… nothing.

So much nothing.

At least for a bit. Twenty-four hours gave way to thirty-six, to forty-eight, and finally, finally, there was a tired voice that radioed in – Grif – who said they were on their way back. A new wait began, but one with less pressure: they were alive.

How alive remained to be seen.

Like Tucker, for example, who had a sweet new armor upgrade, but lost one of his asshole best friends in the process. He had been strangely quiet, an odd change for him, but there was a level of melancholy that had sat with most of them since that battle. Church wasn’t coming back with them. Someone was going to have to tell Wash and Carolina. Ultimately, it was going to fall on his shoulders, he knew, because Caboose was still having a hard time comprehending it and what other Blue was there?

Even though colors and lines meant nothing, there was still Blue Responsibilities. Fuck responsibilities. Tucker hated them because too many found their way to him.

They pulled up to the motorpool and people were already waiting, happy, cheering. Some of them took it to be a positive thing, Donut waving, but for the moment, they were quiet. Tucker knew they were going to be debriefed, but he just wanted some time to himself before that happened. Or, rather, not himself, but he wanted to make sure Wash and Carolina were okay; the way they had left hadn’t been the most promising. He slid out of the vehicle and started to slink off before anyone could catch him. Kinda hard to miss him now, though.

This armor was going to take some time to get used to, though; it was heavier, larger and taller than he was accustomed to, and he still tensed up when he passed by any reflective surface. Fuck, he looked like a badass. No wonder the Meta had worn it.

Stop staring in the mirrors and go find Wash. Fuck. Yeah.

[cryptos]

Things on Chorus had been such a huge clusterfuck that Wash and Carolina had been making heavy weather just keeping the battle from spilling over onto their side and decimating their ranks. But then all communication with the Staff of Charon had ceased and so had its attack.

Washington was worried for the Sim Troopers but he also had faith in them and that faith had apparently paid off. He wasn't so happy about the lack of communication afterwards and he'd been about to steal a Pelican if he had to in order to track down his wayward teammates when news came over the comms that everyone was okay.

The combined armies of Chorus had even managed a weak cheer but most of them were so damned exhausted from the protracted fight that they just wanted to sack out. Unfortunately, there was a lot of work to be done. Weaponry needed to be secured as did prisoners. The wounded needed medical attention not to mention scouts had to be sent out to track down any pirates who might have tried to get away when the battle turned against them.

Wash had volunteered to hunt down strays though by the time he'd killed or captured his last pirate, he got a ping on the comms from Carolina telling him that Tucker and the others were on their way inbound. Seeing as how all he'd managed was to hogtie and gag two pirates in the back of his warthog, the Freelancer radio'd that he was coming back to base.

He dropped off his prisoners at the make-shift brig and returned the warthog to the motorpool. Or he was until he spotted the eerily familiar shape of the Meta's armor. Although, to be fair, it wasn't the familiar white but rather a cyan colored that probably should have clicked in Washington's brain.

And maybe it would have it he wasn't going on like 30 hours awake but as it stood, seeing that familiar fish bowl shaped helmet had his heart leaping into his throat and a complex wash of anger, resentment and dread kindling to life in the pit of his stomach.

The Meta was here!

The wheels of the warthog squealed in protest as Wash yanked the wheel to the right and Wash brought his Magnum up to bear on the armored soldier.

"Meta! Stop right there!" He should have fired, should have just shot the man in the back when he had the chance because there was nothing of the man that Wash had once known. Not the same man he'd shared a companionable meal in silence with or...other things once upon a time.

I am hooooping my replies will be half-way decent today. I'm kinda exhausted and sick today.

[lovernotafighter]

Wash wasn't the only one who was tired.

Tucker wanted nothing more than to just fall on his bed and sleep for fucking weeks. Fuck soldiering. Fuck laps. Fuck wars. Fuck Chorus. Just sleep. It'd be nice, with dreams containing lots of sex and sleep inside sleep and it'd be the best fucking nap in the world. He longed for it. He could taste it.

Well, that and the rubber from the squealing tires of a warthog coming at him. Tucker looked up, smiling a little under his helmet; shit, less work for him as the search for Wash had suddenly ended so quickly. He opened his mouth to say somethin--

There was a Magnum pointed at him. Wash...was pointing his gun at him. At. Him.

"Whoa, whoa, back the fuck up!" he yelled, holding his hands up, dispelling any idea that the Meta could be the one hiding in this all-too-familiar suit. "What the hell are you talking about?! I'm not the fucking Met--"

Then he looked at himself in the visor of Wash's helmet, remembered what he was wearing, and laughed a little under his breath. Okay. Fair. He had earned that one, hadn't he?

"It's me, Tucker. It's a long fucking story and I'm tired and can you just walk me back to my room before I pass out right here and then you'll have to carry me back? I've...got a lot to tell you."

Me too ._.

[cryptos]

He instantly recognized Tucker's voiced and realized his mistake almost immediately. Though in his defense, it was certainly a completely understandable mistake to make.

"Tucker? What the hell are you doing in Meta's armor!?" Though now the teal color scheme instead of Maine's predominantly white color choices made a lot more sense. Wash's breathing was elevated and he could feel his heart beating like a drum inside his ribcage but finally the sidearm was lowered and the safety clicked back into place.

"I can't just leave--Bitters! Take this Warthog back to the motor pool." Of course Mr. Anal Retentive Freelancer wouldn't just abandon a warthog in the middle of the road. Thankfully, he'd caught sight of Bitters walking by and unlike the Sim Troopers, the New Republic soldier actually seemed a little afraid of Washington. There was only a little bit of bitching from Bitters as he took possession of the vehicle.

Wash valiantly ignored it as he approached Tucker with wariness in every line of his body. "Fine, but it better be a damned good explanation, Tucker."

[lovernotafighter]

"It was up in the asshole's trophy room." Yes, the Meta's armor, Maine's armor, sitting there like a reward, like a souvenir of a grand vacation. Along with other stuff, too, stuff where some of it hit waaay too close to home for some of the people he ...had...been with. "Modified it. It's pretty sweet now. Just cost me a best friend to be able to use it."

Yeah, so maybe he could have found a nicer way to say that, especially considering the connection that Epsilon and Wash had. Shit. He wasn't good at this sorta thing when he wasn't tired and fucking over everything; doing it now was like letting a toddler drive a monster truck through a china shop.

He didn't think about what he was doing, not really; he just leaned into Wash a little as he walked because shit was heavy. Not just the suit, not just the armor and everything else, but weight of the story, the weight of the memory, the weight of the recording the little motherfucker made right before he--

Shit. This fucking sucked.

"I'll play you what he left for us when we're in the barracks, okay? Don't get your hopes up, either; it's not as good as porn." He was quiet for a minute as he walked, steps heavy, echoing over the noise in the motorpool. "You okay?"

[cryptos]

"Hardgrove had it? How the hell did he get his hands on the Meta's suit?" It should have been destroyed along with Maine when he fell off that icy cliff to the frozen ocean below on Sidewinder.

If the Chairman had found the Meta's armor...had he found Maine's body? Or was he still out there roaming space like the storytime monster he was? Surely if the Meta were still alive he would have come after Epsilon by now.

"Your..." Wash cut off before he could finish because he suddenly knew something was seriously wrong. Church had been outfitted in Tucker's memory slot. He would have seen his whole freak out and right about now should have been laughing his virtual ass off at Wash being a spazz.

But there was a noticeable lack of digital laughter and generalize lack of Church dickishness. Behind the opaque visor, Wash's expression had grown guarded and there was the faintest uptick in his pulse rate.

"Alright, let's get you back to your quarters." The former Freelancer bore Tucker's tired weight without protest though he had to fight down the urge to wrap a supporting arm around the tired Sim trooper's waist. Tucker would have probably freaked out on him if he tried that and Wash wasn't the most comfortable person when it came to physical contact these days anyway. "I feel like I should be asking you that instead."

[lovernotafighter]

Yeah, it was quiet. Too quiet. And fucking hell, he hated those lines right now because he remembered being so annoyed when Church had forced him into reciting those very words in some clichéd joke bit that wasn't very funny. And now they actually meant something. Now they were fucking true, and Church wasn't even here to fucking cut him off and laugh about it.

What a dick.

And judging from Wash's silence, he was starting to figure it out for himself.

"You know, I've been waiting weeks for someone to say that to me. Didn't think it'd be you." His laugh was tired, half-hearted, sex jokes even failing him at the moment. And really, he wouldn't have minded the arm around his waist; he was too fucking tired to care what anyone said. "Dude, I don't even know anymore."

His quarters weren't far and blissfully empty, quiet, dark. Once inside, he waited for Wash to come in and locked the door, not in the mood to fucking deal anymore. Fingers worked the latches of his helmet open, and he took it off, dropping it unceremoniously on a chair in the corner. Fuck. Where to start?

"We were trapped in the trophy room..." And so Tucker told him, told him about the last few minutes, about finding the armor, about putting it on, told him how it wouldn't work to the capacity they needed, though. Told him how they all got ready, all of them knowing they were pretty well fucked. Told him about the quiet.

He told him about...he told him about Epsilon. The message. About the suit suddenly working. About fucking dumbass Church and his dumbass sacrifices and how he just fucking had to go and do this, leaving them behind a-fucking-gain.

"Caboose still doesn't understand, I think. It's nothing new, though, he doesn't ever understand anything. But...I think he thinks Church is on vacation? I dunno."

[cryptos]

"Sorry to disappoint you, Tucker. Guess you will just have to make due with me." Wash snarked at him equally halfheartedly because he just wasn't feeling it either. He was only silently grateful Tucker didn't try and trot out his ridiculous bow-chicka-wow-wow's or something of the sort.

Once they reached Tucker's quarters, Wash did in fact lock the door behind them because he was still a paranoid bastard who slept with his sidearm next to the bed and a backup piece within reach as well.

He ended up copying Tucker's movement and took off his helmet which he sat down on the desk before leaning up against it while the other man gave him a rundown on current events.

Wash had always been kind of gunshy about going around unmasked even back on Valhalla. Whether it was because he had some Locus complex or he was simply too damned paranoid to be comfortable out of his armor for even a second was uncertain.

He wasn't that much older than Tucker and the rest of the Sim Troopers but he was aged prematurely by the strains and traumas of his lifetime. Gray was as liberally shot through his hair and there were wrinkles and frown lines edging the corners of his eyes. Wash just looked tired but that was pretty par for course with him.

But hearing about Epsilon's fate had something akin to grief briefly touching his eyes. He'd had a complicated relationship with AI though things had gotten better during their time in Chorus.

"He probably thinks he went off somewhere like when he disappeared with Carolina. That...might not be a bad thing for now. You remember how he got after the crash." Wash said before rubbing a hand tiredly over his face.

[unflaggingly]

She honestly should be used to it by now, given how many times it's happened in her lifetime already but somehow this one hurts more than the rest. Epsilon had been her family, the last link she had to anything remotely tied to her past and they'd been a team.

And now he was gone.

Just like everyone else. Carolina had taken the news well enough, her helmet hiding any change in expression even if her shoulders had stiffened and then she'd excused herself.

And it was closer to a month before anyone saw her again, even in passing. She'd just disappeared.

And when she came back?

She didn't talk much, didn't try to engage beyond the basic necessities.

[Post 13, Wash can engage at any point, pre her disappearing, finding her while she's gone to bring her back, or after she's back.]

[cryptos]

Wash had known Carolina was going to take the loss of Epsilon hard but before he could track down his wayward teammate, she'd up and disappeared. Kimball had been beside herself, the Reds and Blues hadn't known what to do or say as they all struggled with their new onboard passengers.

But life had to go on.

And this wasn't the first time Carolina had disappeared into thin air so Wash had simply carried on with the day to day, back-breaking work that was trying to help an entire planet right itself and economy after years of civil war.

If he worked himself down to the bone every day then he didn't have time to linger over unhappy thoughts about the final loss of Epsilon or the lack of all communication from Carolina.

Eventually, she just appeared out of nowhere and when Wash heard through the rumormill that she'd put in an appearance after over a month's absence, he debated giving Carolina some more space before finally deciding that a month was probably enough damned space.

It took him some time but he finally managed to track her down to the mess hall where she was seated alone at a table just sort of picking at her food in a dispirited manner.

"Heard you got back." It was hard to gauge his mood with that carefully bland tone of voice filtering through the helmets speaker system.