Doctor Doctor Give Me the News [Open]

[unrecovered]

Who| Anyone
What| That ambush didn't go well for anyone. Fortunately, MedBay allows visitors.
Where| MedBay
When| After the ambush part of Tinker Tailor Hero Spy
Notes| Open mingle thread!

MedBay is a lot busier than usual. At least they're prepared, to an extent; the last thing anyone wants is for half the Legion to return from what should have been a diplomatic mission with a variety of injuries ranging from minor to debilitating, but they'll handle it. That's what they're here for.

And, after they've managed to get everyone stabilized, they'll even allow visitors. Come see how your friends are doing.

Comments

A

[prettycoolguy]

The Chief backed off after he got Wash back to medical. Hanging around doesn't help, and he had problems of his own.

He can be a frustrating patient. It doesn't matter what just happened to him, the Chief wants to be up and doing. He's been worse off. He's been worse off often, running on burns and breaks and contusions with minimal sleep no time to stop. This is so small to him by comparison, and frustrating. Once they peeled him out of the Mjolnir suit and stopped him from worsening, there wasn't much they could do to keep him down. While he's mostly been polite, if cool, he still has one hell of a stare and an iron will. He understands they're motivated by concern. He understands his safety and wellbeing are important to them.

But they're not important to him. Certainly not as important as figuring out why the hell all this happened and what he's going to do about it.

Unfortunately for him, though, the Chief has no intel to work with. The Legion hasn't found its lead yet, and no amount of hating it will change the fact he's been left to spin his wheels.

Spartans don't idle well. He can do worse things with his time than check on Wash.

"Starting to catch up with it yet?" he asks. He's talking about Wash's healing factor, though he doubts Wash remembers the sparse conversation they had while the Chief hauled him back. For his part, he's up but he really looks like he shouldn't be. He's bruised and battered, with the outline of a dressing on his ribs (probably to keep something from moving) pokes up against his shirt.

He'll stand. His right knee doesn't like him bending it right now, and he could if he wanted to, but it's not mission-critical.

[unrecovered]

Wash definitely remembers that conversation - there are upsides and downsides to having an eidetic memory, and remembering that conversation is somehow both at once. He processes the memories, and Chief's question, and the fact that Chief is injured but somehow still up and about, and whatever answer he would have had to Chief's question gets lost in the fog that has settled over his brain.

So he finds something else to take its place.

"Okay, if I'm not allowed to wander around after getting my ass kicked by Moby Dick and his brain lightning, then neither are you," he says, almost petulant. "Go back to bed."

[prettycoolguy]

The Chief eyes Wash speculatively.

"Are you going to make me?"

Really, that's what it's come down to. Is anybody going to make him?

[unrecovered]

"Yes."

The degree to which that statement is impossible to enforce borders on the absurd, but dammit, that's not going to stop Wash from trying.

"If it makes you feel better, I'll have a nurse wheel a cot in and we'll have a sleepover." He is absolutely being sarcastic, which is not going to stop him from putting his money where his mouth is if Chief tries to call his bluff.

[prettycoolguy]

"I'm fine."

This isn't supposed to be about him and he's not really sure what to do with that. It takes him back to Halsey confronting him after Reach, and his response is just as firm now.

It doesn't matter if he's fine. He can move, so he will.

[unrecovered]

"Bullshit." It's flat and unamused. He knows he's right, dammit, quit arguing with him. "Just because I'm concussed doesn't mean I don't remember that fight. Tall, White, and Ugly hit like a fucking freight train, and I have the near-death experience to prove it." The fact that that sentence applies to at least four different fights over the course of his life is not lost on him, but it's also not important right now. "Look, just because I'm hurt worse than you doesn't mean you're not hurt, and you've got broken ribs at least." Guess who noticed the dressing under Chief's shirt. "You have recovery time right now. Use it."

[prettycoolguy]

"I know my limits better than you do, Freelancer."

The Chief uses his Legion code name, not Washington. This is professional to professional on Legion business. The Chief's not kidding around.

He's been a lot calmer here than he's had the luxury to be a long time, and been able to loosen up just a little. But things are serious again. Members of the team could have died. They'd have to knock him out to keep him down now.

[unrecovered]

For a moment, Wash's eyes widen in surprise. It's almost like knowing just how much trouble you're in when a parent calls you by your full name. He hears the Director, chastising him for expressing doubts about having live ammunition on the training floor; he hears Carolina snapping at him, not Wash but Washington, impatience and disapproval in her tone, and now Chief is doing the same thing-

And instead of backing down, he gets angry.

"And you're ignoring them anyway," he snarls back, eyes narrowed. "Is that what they taught you in the Spartan program? Be the best, because nothing else matters? Because that's what we got in Freelancer. They ranked us - they had us compete against each other - and if you got injured, too bad. Slowing down to recover could get you kicked off the leaderboard, so you just kept going, because you had to be at your best, regardless of whether you were actually functional." The part of him that measures his words and keeps his past locked away is currently buried beneath the painkiller fog in his brain; while he gets the feeling he's saying too much, getting too personal, there's no real impetus to stop. "It's that kind of thinking that got our security specialist back in the field after losing an eye - he was nowhere near recovered enough to function, but he had to be at his best. It was that kind of bullshit that broke half of Freelancer and killed most of us, and it's the last thing you need. For once, we actually have the space and the time to recover after a fight, so you can sit your ass back down instead of running it needlessly into the ground, because you don't have anything better to do right now and I am sick of losing friends."

He winces and sits back. Yeah, the painkillers are good, but they're not really a match for a pissed-off lecture with multiple broken ribs and a recently reinflated lung.

[prettycoolguy]

This sort of thing is why the Chief doesn't like it when others start to get attached to him. He's not made to get attached to. He's a very expensive and (as much as he can be) effective addition to the UNSC's toolbox for saving the world. Ultimately, if the need arises, he is expendable in the line of duty.

The mission is the only thing that matters, and from the way the Chief sees it this isn't endangering it at all. He's alert and able to suit up and fight, and for a Spartan that means all lights are green. Relying on the armor to compensate for injuries is standard procedure for him.

He didn't expect Wash to tell him anything about his mismanaged project, but it's apparent the abuses committed were many and gross. Normally this would sidetrack him, but Wash brought up the Spartan program.

Dead friends and the Spartan program.

Wash may be raising his voice, but the Chief's lowers in answer and his eyes narrow just a little.

"You," he says, "know nothing about the Spartan program."

He doesn't have many nerves left to touch, after so many years of the war burning through them. But Wash has found one.

[unrecovered]

Oh, hey. Round two.

"No shit! It's almost like it's classified!" He's getting loud and shrill, which means he's bordering on genuine upset. It's hard not to be, with his self-control shot to hell thanks to painkillers and his new friend making the exact same mistakes that so many of his old friends made. "What I do know, and something you don't seem to understand, is that you're not there right now! This isn't a losing war, and nobody is expecting you to die for it!" He takes a breath, ignoring the stab of pain in his side that tells him he's pushing past the boundaries of what the painkillers can handle.

It occurs to him, vaguely, that maybe he shouldn't be picking a fight with a Spartan.

It then occurs to him, far less vaguely, that the Spartan in question is being a goddamn idiot and that the fight is therefore entirely justified.

[prettycoolguy]

"We just took a surprise attack by a force armed specifically to take us out based on weaknesses that they should not have been aware of."

Not everything the Fatal Five exploited was as obvious as his reliance on his suit, and that's very worrying.

"I'm functional, I'm going to find out how they knew, and and I'm going to stop it from happening again."

Not alone, and he probably will not be the first to know, but he is sure as hell going to help that effort now that he's seen that Wash is okay. (...Not that he's improving that situation.)

At the very least, he's going to get on with hounding people he thinks know more than he does until something solid appears.

"I'm not going to die. But I'm going to leave before you hurt yourself any worse."

He really stepped in it this time. Shit. He'd almost thought that Wash might get it. He supposes he should know better by now than to hope for that.

He's not gone yet, but he's going.

[unrecovered]

His head is starting to clear up, which is good for the purposes of the argument; unfortunately, that means that the painkillers starting to wear off, and holy shit his ribs are on fire. Figuring out how to breathe around the pain distracts Wash too much to get a word in edgewise, but he definitely hears what Chief says.

"Oh, you don't need to worry about me," he snaps back. "I know my limits better than you do, Chief. I'm fine."

It's vicious and barbed and probably going too far, but fuck it - maybe Chief will finally hear how stupid his words sound when they're coming from someone else.

[prettycoolguy]

The Chief hesitates on his way out, as if he's going to say something else.

He can't fix this, though. He knows he can't.

He doesn't look back as he walks.

[unrecovered]

...or that could happen.

Wash falls silent as Chief walks out. His anger doesn't last much longer, burning out a minute later and leaving several kinds of pain in its wake. When the nurse comes to administer another dose of painkillers, he acts like his expression is solely from the pain in his side, which isn't too much of a stretch.

And here he thought he could get through this without wrecking a friendship. So much for that.