The Sad Blanket Tour [Open]

[unrecovered]

Who| Wash and whoever else wants to join in
What| Those last two missions were terrible, and Wash is checking in on his friends to make sure they're okay and nudge them in that direction if they're not
Where| All over the ship
When| After Silent Horizon and No Sanity Clause; the rest of the afternoon/evening after Kid Q's briefing
Warnings/Notes| This is mostly for Wash's extant CR, but I'm absolutely down for him meeting new people. He's not going to turn anyone away right now, after all. Also, behold the mighty planning spreadsheet.

It has been, to put it lightly, a shitty day.

They'd beaten the Joker but lost one of their own. Half the team had been through what sounded like literal hell. Clown in a fridge victory aside, things hadn't gone well for anyone.

So, once Wash had gotten himself out of medical with a promise not to do anything strenuous until he'd healed completely, he'd hunted down as many blankets as he could find and gone looking for his teammates. He couldn't fix what had happened, but at least he could try to help.

Comments

Chief | In medical, right after the mission

[unrecovered]

[unrecovered]

Wash is lying facedown on a bed, stripped to the waist, with his back and shoulders bandaged. The surgery to remove the smaller pieces of glass from his back wasn't long or invasive; that said, given that some of them had started to heal over thanks to his healing factor, it was a little more complicated than just pulling them out with tweezers and calling it a day. His one insistence this time around was minimal painkillers. The last thing he needs to do is lose his self-control again, and painkillers wipe that out pretty thoroughly.

That means that, by the time the surgery is over and he's recovering, they're starting to wear off, and that is anything but fun. His options are being in pain and being lucid or being out of pain and out of it; given what happened last time he was out of it in a hospital bed, he opts for the pain. It's nothing new. He'll live with it.

All told, he's in a great mood. Just wonderful.

[prettycoolguy]

The Master Chief is, at least theoretically, a smart person who learns from experience. This is why he hesitates on the threshold before approaching Wash. The last time he did this, they almost stopped being friends.

...But they talked. It's fine now. The Chief's suit may have been fucked up on Cargg, but he himself is much better off than he was after the ambush. There's no reason for Wash to get upset at him for being up and about, right?

The Spartan sinks down into a chair next to Wash's bed. He's not tired, not really. If anything, he's still wired for a fight. It's just that sitting down makes it a bit easier for Wash to look at him.

"Hey."

He's probably never going to be good at starting conversations.

Casey | Just outside of medical, after Chief

[unrecovered]

[jonesiseverywhere]

How long has it been since he went in? A few hours? You'd think getting some glass out of a guy's back would be pretty easy for future space doctors. Like pulling splinters out or something.

But here's Casey, leaning up against the wall with his arms crossed, waiting for Wash to come out so that he can apologize. Wash saved his life back there, whether the way the bomb went off was his fault or not.

[unrecovered]

It's been maybe half an hour since they'd returned from Cargg and Wash had beelined to medical, and they're finally letting him out. He's still in pain, but he'd probably be stuck in there for another day or so were it not for spacefuture technology and his healing factor; for now, he's just happy to be out. His undersuit is bloody and in need of repair, so for now he's essentially in generic hospital wear and a robe until he can get back to his room and change into something that belongs to him. That's priority one.

It almost immediately takes a back seat when he sees Casey waiting outside of medical. "Hey. Are you okay?"

Sombra | Not long after Kid Q's briefing, before everyone else

[unrecovered]

[vata]

She's coping.

Not well, and not beautifully, but considering the scale of everything, it's not exactly out of bounds. That said, there are worse ways to shrug off a detrimental loss of control, and for Sombra? It amounts to a vacation. A long, miserable vacation. Her biome, her beach— and a lot of alcohol.

Only it has to be hauled all the way to her biome from the mess hall, that's the catch.

Dressed down into a loose-fitting cutoff shirt (the words NEW VEGAS printed cheerfully across the front) and a pair of throwaway jean shorts, shamelessly barefoot, she cuts an evasive path through the halls to reach her final destination. Circuitry still burned out, it means she's harder to spot than usual, preoccupied with stacking a couple of crates full of tequila, beer, and a few tall bottles of...what looks like space vodka. Hard to tell. Either way, it's an exorbitant amount.

Talk about planning a party for one.

[unrecovered]

Honestly, it's the clothes that catch his attention. There's casual wear and then there's fuck off wear, and that is absolutely a fuck off outfit. It takes Wash a second glance to realize it's Azucar, looking almost nothing like herself. Devoid of all of her flash and shine, she just looks...small.

Then again, she'd been on the hellship, hadn't she. From what Wash understands, that would wreck anyone.

So he approaches, gives the leaning tower of alcohol a very obvious once-over, and looks at her. "Need some help?" It's light and unassuming. He's just offering to carry a ridiculous amount of alcohol for someone who's likely just gone through a traumatic experience. No big deal, right?

Locus

[agnominal]

He's been turning the Legionnaire ring over in his hands for the past hour, by this point. There's something vaguely soothing in the gesture, but it's little comfort in the larger scheme of things.

By this point, it seems his mind is already made up on the matter. He cannot make the correct decisions when required. He is a liability, a threat to those he fights alongside. The correct decision, in that case, is to remove himself from the equation. For now, this will suffice.

No one's come knocking just yet, but thanks to York's Valor's Day gift, he's able to register when someone comes too close. Washington's approach is therefore anticipated, even if Locus does not so much as look up to greet him.

Here to gloat over how right he was, he imagines. Locus, meanwhile, is noticeably out of armor, shoulders hunched, and not in the mood for discussion.

[unrecovered]

This is risky, and Wash knows it. It's been a while since his conversation with Azucar, and in the spare moments between conversations he can't help but turn it over in his mind. According to her, Locus got fucked up six ways to Sunday in there. Talking to him is a risk, to put it lightly.

But Wash has had to put himself back together on his own before. It's a difficult process, made even more so without any help. He can't just leave Locus to the wolves, even if they're all internal - not when he can help.

So he heads into the UNSC base that comprises Locus' section of the hab deck. The door's not locked, he notes with surprise, and Locus-

Doesn't look at him. Doesn't look good at all. Yikes.

Moving slowly, with clear, telegraphed movements, Wash sets down his stack of blankets, grabbing one off the top (dark green, go figure). He approaches Locus as he unfolds it, and after a moment's thought, drapes it gingerly around Locus' shoulders. It's a gentle gesture, almost intimate, and is probably crossing some boundaries somewhere, but...well, fuck it. As long as it helps.

(Hopefully it helps.)

He moves a few feet away, giving Locus his personal space back, and leans against the wall. The ball is in Locus' court now.

[agnominal]

Locus goes still. A for a moment or two it's as though he's simply trying to process what just happened, before his gaze shifts upwards. No longer resting on the ring in his hands, it shifts towards Washington, who has no expression of triumph. No self-righteous pride. No look of 'I told you so'.

Just one simple, kind act.

It is perhaps the last thing he expected of him.

He thought he knew Washington, to an extent. He's read his psych profile enough times to have it memorized, he's fought against him for an almost interminable amount of time. He knows he can be vicious when provoked, that he has a long memory and bears grudges like badges of honor. He knows that he is fiercely loyal and protective of those he considers his.

Yet for all that he knows, he still manages to surprise him, even now.

Several half-formed thoughts flit through his head -- should he thank him? should he explain? Question? Why would he -- but none of them seem to find room on his tongue. His hand, instead, begins to shake, and he stills it by reaching for the blanket now settled around his shoulders and wordlessly pulling it tighter.

Pidge

[isthisapidge]

Pidge hasn't been out of her lab since she got back, though she knows distantly she'll have to eventually for her counseling session. She's pouring over what she knows and what she can find out, and accordingly her desk is starting to pile over with papers, files, data discs, and energy drinks.

At some point all this information just becomes noise, an even steady static that passes over her and drowns out most other thoughts. Which is good because she can keep herself from feeling helpless or stuck or unable to help her friends who were changed in the trenches, the Legionnaire who died (even if she didn't know her), or even her family still trapped with the Galra back home while she dealt with things here.

She needs SOME answer for SOMEthing, and she isn't willing to stop until she gets it...

[unrecovered]

There's a very short list of places Pidge could be; as luck would have it, she's in the first place Wash checks. She also looks like hell. She's cleaned up, sure, but she already looks like she does those mornings when Wash comes in and finds she's spent the entire night in her lab working, and it's not even evening yet.

He walks in and sits down next to her. "Have you been here since the mission ended?"

[isthisapidge]

Pidge is so absorbed in her work she didn't even hear him come up behind her. She sucks in air through her teeth and swings her head around...but it's just Wash, so she goes back to work, staring at the screen without really reading it anymore.

"Yeah...I needed some time to myself. You know, to think. That's all."

Kubo

[bachido]

Kubo wasn't hard to find, because he wasn't in any mood to be far from his mother. But he went looking for Wash anyway.

Well, virtually, anyway. A short message on the communicator summoned Wash to the quarters Kubo shared with his mother, the day after they returned from the Silent Horizon.

"I'd like to talk to you, when you have time," it read. "Can you come to my quarters at 0600?"

There was technically no morning in space, but even so, Kubo was a morning person, whereas Sariatu was not. He was awake in the living space of their shared quarters at that time, idly plucking out notes on his shamisen.

[unrecovered]

"Of course."

It's a rough night for Wash, mostly sleepless with what little rest he does get fraught with nightmares. It's a little worse than par for the course, given that he needs his wits about him and sleep deprivation doesn't exactly help with that. Nonetheless, he's up at the normal time for a workout and a jog, and he's cleaned up and at Kubo's quarters by six, knocking quietly on the door.

Grif

[whyarewehere]

Grif's been quiet. Too quiet.

His comm status has been set to fuck off since his blowup during the briefing, and he hasn't been replying to messages. Nobody's even seen him come out of his quarters in search of food. Something is definitely wrong here.

The door to his quarters is locked, with the Do Not Disturb indicator on.

[unrecovered]

It's been a very long time since a locked door has been a deterrent for Wash, but he can at least respect Grif's privacy. So he makes a special trip to the mess hall, comes back with a flat square box in hand, and knocks on the door.

"Grif. We need to talk." A beat. "I brought pizza."

Connie

[short_changed]

Connie's a little hard to pin down at first. She doesn't stay in one place too long, not with York and Delta so at odds, and then there's been so much damage to their armour and that means repairs need to be made since there's no more PFL to conveniently resupply them, and after that she's either training until she's too sore to think or setting up her own habdeck to create into her own little safe haven, safe house and all. It's a little relaxing actually, after being helpless in the Silent Horizon and having no idea where you were going or where you would end up, to instead mold your own bit of world into something much more wholesome. Which means there are so many notes to take on what she'll need and she'll be up late to go over the details to make it perfect.

It's easy to fall into her old habits of keeping to herself while she's miserable.

[unrecovered]

Connie is hard to track down. Always has been, from what Wash can remember, but that's not going to stop him.

He finds her late in the evening in her section of the hab deck. It really should be worrying how much of the deck is military bases and safe houses; he files that thought away for later. There are more important things to deal with right now, like helping a friend who went through hell earlier in the day.

He knocks on the door, blanket tucked under his arm. "Connie? It's Wash."

Dipper's Room

[captainbuzzkill]

He was officially put on leave, something that many of the others managed to avoid. It isn't because he avoided his psych eval -- it's because he went. Between the shrapnel in his back and the artery that needed to be repaired, and the mental strain, Dr Ry'kerr and Dr Gym'll decided he needed to take some time off. Involuntary medical leave.

Mabel's gone and that makes it worse. Even though logically he knows she's better off, safer back home than here, he also knows she would rather be here with him. She'd rather face all the apocalypses ever than leave him to face them alone. And as usual whenever she's not there, he's having trouble coping after a lifetime of never having to deal with his problems alone.

The first thing he does after his session with Dr. Ry'kerr is utterly trash their -- his suite. Mabel's stuffed animals and crafts and sticker books are left alone. Even the glitter piled next to the craft project she was working on isn't disturbed. It's all his own stuff that he trashes.

Wash is one of the people that the room lock recognizes as allowed to just walk in. Ever since he started checking on Dipper and Mabel, they'd put him in the system.

When he comes to check on Dipper, the suite looks like it was hit with a tornado. Some of the weirdness was already there, like the wall displays, "painted" in warring colors because he and Mabel had constantly competed with each other over what color the suite would be. The creepy mannequin Mabel brought back as a souvenir from Murderworld and painted a smiley face on is still there too. (Right now it's modeling a half-knitted sweater).

Other stuff is new. Walls are dented that weren't dented before. One of his books got launched with teke into a wall so hard that it broke through the wall display and got lodged there. The display flickers, occasionally looking like a painted wall and occasionally glitching to static. The flatscreen TV is cracked down the middle, albeit still playing. There's broken glass and ripped book pages everywhere, although a cleaning drone is going to town on the floor and cleaning it up, bit by bit.

A small foot dangles over the side of the couch, a band aid on visible on the sole. Instead of cleaning the glass, Dipper's been trying to pick his way around it, and he stepped on a piece and had to pick it out.

Snacks and wrappers are piled next to the couch and Dipper lays there, still in his Medbay scrubs, stuffing his face with crunchy stuff and watching TV without really watching.

[unrecovered]

It's barely been a day since the missions had ended, and Wash still hasn't managed to talk to Dipper - evidently he's been in medical for a good chunk of time, which is worrying, to say the least. He's also not answering his omnicomm, which makes it that much worse.

That doesn't stop Wash from going by the twins' quarters every few hours and checking, just to be sure. Mabel's absence when he does doesn't strike him as too terribly odd - he figures she's just weaseled her way into medbay and is refusing to leave. He can't blame her, really.

It's only when he opens the door and finds the suite looking like a localized hurricane hit it does he realize what that absence means. Mabel's not in medbay; she's gone completely, and right after two of the most traumatizing missions any of them have experienced.

Well, shit.

He enters the room, notes the broken glass and the bandaged foot, and turns to the cleaning drone. "Focus on the glass first," he says, and the drone turns, intent on its new top priority. He then heads to the couch and leans against its back, looking down at Dipper and then up at the cracked and blaring TV. This is bad, and he's not sure how to approach it.

"Hey."

...it's a start.

Chief - After everything else

[prettycoolguy]

It has been a long day for everyone, even someone with a service record like the Master Chief's, and he's finally managed to work off his nervous energy. He didn't relax after coming back from Cargg, he's used to a fight like that being the prelude to days of the same. It's hard to turn it off, especially with how worried he is about the rest of the team. Cortana in particular.

It took a lot of running to wear himself down, a lot, but he's finally returned to his quarters and showered and eaten. He's managed to reach a place where he can sit down and sort out his comm without itching to move.

It's not an ideal solution, but it's what the Chief has. Maybe tomorrow will be a better day.

[unrecovered]

It's been a long day, and Wash is exhausted. He was already spent after the fight with the Joker and the exhaustion that always follows a spent adrenaline rush, and healing the wounds from that battle took even more out of him.

And then he couldn't leave well enough alone - he can never leave well enough alone - and spent most of the afternoon and evening finding his friends and teammates and trying to get them back on an even keel. He's not Dr. Ryk'rr - he's not trained for this, and he's not made for this - but that didn't stop him from trying. Connie and Azucar weren't bad; Dipper was still in medical; Grif, Pidge, and Casey were hurt but could still be talked to; York and Locus were wrecked; and trying to get them all somewhere close to normal has wrecked Wash in turn. He's physically tired and emotionally exhausted, and everyone he'd normally turn to in this sort of situation is someone he's tried to comfort earlier in the day. Even DC is tired after his impromptu stint as a therapy animal, and Wash doesn't have the heart to wake him.

So he finds the only person he can think of who might be awake and stable enough to help. He knows, deep down, that Chief isn't emotionally equipped for this; he also knows that, if he tries to sleep now, in the mindset he's in, it'll be nightmares all night, and he doesn't want to face that. Not yet.

So he makes his way to Chief's quarters (only after finding nobody in Chief's part of the hab deck and doing a little sleuthing) and knocks on the door, trying not to sound as tired as he feels and not quite succeeding. "Chief? It's Wash."