legionworld | Sitting on the dock of the bay [Open]

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Sitting on the dock of the bay [Open]

Who| Wash and whomever wants to bother him
What| Wash is having one hell of a week and is ~~moping~~ ruminating about it.
Where| The Habitat Deck
When| During the TTHS investigation, after catching Reaper

It's quiet, and right now, that's what Wash wants.

He can usually keep his massive fuckups to one a week, or one every couple of weeks if things are quiet. Here, somehow, he's managed three over the span of several days, and that's-

It's unacceptable. He can't keep doing this. He has to be better.

So he's found a quiet place on the habitat deck - a lake in the mountains, where the beach is more gravel than sand and the treeline comes nearly to the water itself - to sit and think. He knows it belongs to someone else - his own spot on the habitat deck is still a small expanse of nothing, since he still hasn't figured out what to put in there that won't hurt somehow - but hopefully whoever belongs to this spot is out somewhere and won't come back today.

He puts his back to a tree, faces the water, and sinks down to the ground, thinking. If he can go over what's happened these past few days and find his mistakes, he can do better next time, or avoid the situation altogether. He knew he wasn't prepared for the fight on Talok IV - nobody was, really - but he can be prepared next time. He can start carrying live rounds, for one - they'll be highly regulated, but it'll be better than nothing. He can also...he can...how the hell is he supposed to prepare for an ambush?

Well, he'll figure out a way and he'll do it. 'It was a surprise' isn't good enough - not with people's lives on the line. He'll have to do better next time, whenever the inevitable 'next time' rolls around.

As for his conversation with Chief, he...he said some things he shouldn't have. He was on painkillers, but that can't be an excuse. He needs to have more control, full stop. He needs to-

He needs to not ruin any more friendships. He's done more than enough of that in his life, and he doesn't have that many to begin with. He can't afford to lose any more.

He doesn't want to lose any more.

He still wants to be friends with Chief, even if Chief is (rightfully) mad at him.

Fuck. Fuck. Come back to that one later. The situation with Reaper-

He'd wanted a win so badly that he'd failed to follow protocol - protocol he should damn well know by now - and as a result, he'd put everyone on the ship in danger. Including civilians. Including kids. He- he needed to-

God damn it.

He shakes his head roughly. This isn't working. He can't focus on the facts - he keeps getting tied up in guilt and shame, and that's not going to help him. He needs to-

He doesn't know anymore.

He takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly, gazing out over the lake. At least the view is nice. It's the only thing that's any good around here right now.

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"If I wanted people to stay out, you'd know about it."

He cuts straight to that point, ignoring the preliminaries. This is fine. He's fine. It's all fine here. The Chief may not totally get it, but he's definitely picking up on Wash's discomfort. Wash usually talks more than this. Or at least, he usually talks more than this before he gets awkward. It's a pattern.

Edited 2016-09-24 05:53 (UTC)

Well that was abrupt.

"Yeah." Wash had no doubts on that front; still, that didn't make the situation any better. He's not sure there's anything he can do to make things better; if there is, it isn't coming to him anytime soon. He'd just wanted some time to himself to sort things out, never mind that that hadn't exactly been going as planned either, and then Chief had arrived-

And Chief probably came here looking for some alone time too. Wash is probably the last person he wants to see.

Oh.

He gets to his feet. "I'll leave you alone."

"It's fine."

It's always fine. He turns back to face Wash properly again.

"I need to talk to you anyway."

Something's definitely wrong here, some error in communication that's left them off step that started with the incident in medical. Maybe he can't fix this, he's not built for it and he knows that, but he also can't leave it the way it is. It's an unsustainable halfway point, and he has to settle where they stand.

Edited (proofreading lol) 2016-09-25 13:11 (UTC)

On one hand, it's not the reaction Wash is expecting; on the other hand, he's not sure what to expect anymore at this point. Nonetheless, he's pretty sure this will not be good.

So he stays where he is, and he waits. "Okay?"

This would be a lot easier if the Chief were someone else, he supposes. Blunt is the best he can be.

"There are some things I need to clear up with you," he says. "I'm a Spartan. I'm not like most people."

He almost said soldiers, but he still remembers what Lasky said to him not long before he ended up here. Solders are just people, Chief.

"I have different operating procedures, priorities, and limits. It's how I was trained. It's... not something I can easily change."

He doesn't regret it, not exactly. But he regrets that it's caused this, and on some level it's an attempted apology.

"I need to know if you're going to have a problem working with me after Talok IV."

And how he acted afterward. There it is. They haven't talked to one another since. That's not weird for the Chief, but it's unusual for someone who actually seems to function like a normal, socialized human being. (And who was previously trying to talk to him like he's a normal, socialized human being.)

This would be okay, ordinarily. It's easier to just let people figure him out enough to know he's not worth getting invested in, because he's not. Fewer hurt feelings all around. But they're part of a team, everyone's lives here are going to depend on one another, and if he has to have an awkward discussion to preserve that... well.

They don't have to be friends. It's probably better that way. If the Chief regrets that, it's just another thing he can keep to himself.

Okay, so, they're doing this.

"I won't have a problem," he says, and for a moment he considers leaving it there and letting this whole thing go.

But Chief doesn't get it, and dammit, since when does Wash back down?

"But I don't think you understand the situation," he continues, steeling himself and looking Chief right in the eye. "You're not a soldier here. You're Legion. You're a hero, and you're a public figure, and you're a part of a team that values every one of its members equally.

"You were right when you said I don't know anything about the Spartan program, and you were right that we don't have the same experiences, but I know what it's like to care about a team. I know what it's like to put their lives above your own, and I know what it's like to be willing to die to make sure they live." He'd had a good goodamn reason for collapsing a tunnel on top of himself, after all. "But things are different here, and as far as the rest of your team is concerned, your life is worth just as much as everyone else's. You don't have to understand that, but you need to respect it." It's incredibly hypocritical, given Wash's opinion of himself, but Chief doesn't need to know that.

Your life is worth just as much as everyone else's.

Cortana tried so hard to get him to believe this. Died trying, even. That memory stops him cold, and he feels a swirl of guilt. He breaks eye contact, locking his expression down like he would to mask physical pain as he tries to explain.

"You have a team that, if Grif's anything to judge by, needs you very much. We have children here whose parents might never see them again. The rest of you have lives you've been pulled away from with people who care about you and will miss you if you die. I have my job and I have my Spartans. Yes, I miss them. I want to get back to them. But I've been dead to them for four years. They buried me, they moved on, and they don't need me."

He meets Wash's gaze again.

"When I risk my life it's not because I plan to waste it. It's not because I think I'm invincible. It's not some kind of warrior honor, and it's not because I don't respect what I'm a symbol for here."

Because that's the only reason anyone would get attached to him or miss him. Right?

"It's because I've been ready for a long time. My affairs are in order. If one of us has to die, it's a lot cleaner if it's me."

The Chief is not a very expressive person, but for just a flicker of a moment the look in his eyes is a thousand years old.

"Somebody decided I was worth dying for once, Wash. I never want someone to make her choice again."

Oh. Somewhere in there, Wash has hit a nerve. It doesn't take long for Chief to tell him just which one it is, but...

But honestly, there's a bit of faulty logic in there that Wash just can't get past.

"Wait, so you're ready to die because dying would be easy?" He pauses, long enough for that to sink in but not long enough for Chief to really reply. "Because that is easily the dumbest thing I've heard all week, and I had a conversation with Grif about shitty pizza toppings." Perspective is everything.

"For what it's worth, whatever your friend did was her decision." His tone softens a bit, because you don't speak ill of the dead to someone who's probably still grieving. "You don't get to decide your value in other people's lives. So if someone cares enough about you to make sure you make it out of a mission alive, or cares enough to yell at you to sit down because you have broken ribs and need to rest, that's their decision. They've decided you're worth that much to them, and you don't get to tell them they're wrong."

He takes a moment and sighs. Eventually, Chief is going to turn his words back on him, and the whole hypocritical house of cards is going to collapse. Might as well back away before that happens. "I don't think I've told you this, but everyone else from Project Freelancer is dead. They were all killed one way or another. At least, that's what I thought." For the most part, it still holds. He's not expecting any more miracles. "A couple of years ago, my CO showed up out of the blue. She was broken and angry, because that's what Freelancer did to all of us, but she was alive. I...don't have words for how happy I was to see her." Namely because he was also worried and a little scared as well at the time, which had soured the overwhelming happiness a bit, but that's not important to the story right now. "You may not think your team needs you, but I'd be surprised if they're not thrilled to have you back."

The Chief can tell Wash how things are with him, but he can't explain why. It's becoming pretty clear to him that without the latter, though, the former is an exercise in futility.

Maybe Wash is willing to tell him how his project got most of its agents killed, but that's hindsight on an acknowledged failure. The Spartan program is still regarded as a success, and has to stay that way. It was monstrous. He knows on an objective level that it was inexcusable. But he also knows that it made him into what he had to be, and he won't be the one to open the casket at the funeral.

Like any tactician who knows he's been beaten on one flank, the Chief circles to the other.

"You told me some pretty damning things about Freelancer," he says. "How did they lose so many agents? Was it all like what happened with your security specialist?"

Because the Chief remembers that conversation. He was pretty sober at the time.

Maybe it's a cheap out, and he'd admit to it. But if it will get Wash off a trail the Chief can't let him follow, he'll take it.

There's a funny little thing Caboose does when he knows he's done something Probably Wrong and doesn't want to admit it: if Tucker isn't around to blame, then he'll start talking about something completely unrelated, as though the distraction will make Wash forget that the kitchen is on fire because someone tried to bake cookies at one thousand degrees Fahrenheit. Again.

Wash is fairly certain he's witnessing the My IQ Is Above 60 version of that particular conversational tactic, because that was a terrible subject change.

Holy shit, he might actually be better than Chief at something.

"It was corrupt from the top down," he says conversationally, like he's discussing his day at the office - which, in a way, he is. "Misplaced priorities, uninformed agents, and so much illegal and immoral AI experimentation that they rewrote laws because of the shit the Director pulled. But that's not what we're talking about."

He folds his arms, a bit more serious. "You don't get to stop me with we need to talk and then change the subject when you don't like how the conversation's going. That's not how this works." And Wash is fairly certain that, unlike Caboose, Chief actually fully understands what he's saying. "So are you going to acknowledge what I said, or are you going to sidestep again?"

"I got the answer I needed."

He's not aggressive about it, it's just... there. Even if it's not exactly true. He concedes.

"I heard you. I understand what you're trying to do. I understand that you don't like my position either. But we're at an impasse here. I won't take undue risks, but I need you to trust my judgment about what I can do."

He exhales. He's just making it worse again. He's pretty sure. Shit.

"I can tell you some of the reasons for what I do, but not all of them. It's not because I don't respect you. It's because I can't. If you want to talk about something else, then shoot. But this is the furthest I can go on this."

Definitely, definitely making it worse.

"Uh-huh."

It's automatic sarcasm - sure he did - but at least Wash shuts up and listens to the rest of what Chief has to say.

"Because everything's classified." It makes sense - when you spend your life in a military program, you learn to recognize that word as an absolute barrier - but that doesn't make it any less frustrating. They're in a conversational cul-de-sac, and it's not helping either of them.

For a moment, Wash considers backing down and leaving things where they are, awkward and still at odds. The problem is, that's not actually going to fix anything.

He takes a deep breath, steadies himself, and lets it out slowly. He doesn't want to do this, but...well, they each need to understand where the other is coming from if they're going to work together, and this is the best way to do it. There's a good number of people who can function with a certain amount of secrecy between them, but as far as Wash can tell, he and Chief are past that point.

"I'll make you a deal," he says, looking up at Chief. "Tell me about the Spartan program, and I'll tell you everything I know about Project Freelancer - what happened to the program, what happened to me, all of it." Chief can't know how painful and terrifying and rare this offer is coming from Wash - he never talks about the specifics of what happened to him, and for damn good reason. "We both put all of our cards on the table, and everything we say stays here. No one else finds out."

He's silent. It's a very long silence, for how little time actually passes. The Chief doesn't want to get into this, it's a goddamn mess. He can only guess how someone will react to this, but he's sure the answer is "badly". Because it's bad.

"This is treason."

They both know it, but it has to be said. Even disregarding the difference between worlds here, there's enough similarity for this to be dangerous information.

"This is also personal as hell. I don't want to talk about it. But we're not going to get anywhere if I don't. So."

Wash doesn't know how deep the hole goes, or how big the creature is lairing there. He can't even guess what he's skeptical of here, he's acting accordingly, and that feeds into a frustration that makes this dangerously satisfying.

He won't talk, and he's bringing collateral. Wash wants to do this? Then fine.

Let's fucking go.

"The Spartan-II program produced surgically augmented elite soldiers to protect Earth and her colonies from insurrectionist attack."

That's the first indication that something doesn't add up here. The Covenant was the wolf at humanity's door for almost three decades. The bombings of the years prior were practically forgotten when the first planet was glassed. Veterans from those days are grey old men, now.

How old is the Chief?

"We're fast, we're strong, we have reinforced bones and eyes that can see in the dark. We wear kit that puts enough force on the body to kill an unaltered operator. Spartan-II was a success story."

That's already more than most people know. That busts the popular Spartans-are-probably-cyborgs explanation.

"Spartan-I, Orion, wasn't. The augmentations didn't take. They figured out there was one key problem."

He hesitates for a split second at the point of no return, teeters on the brink, and then just tears the whole thing off.

"Orion used adult volunteers. So. Spartan-II didn't."

Wash wanted to know. Now he knows. There's a little bit of defiance there, an I fucking told you so that's clear enough unsaid.

"Questions?"

He'll hold his end. He decided to do this, and he's doing it.

This is treason gets a very casual "Yep" in response. He's gone to jail for about that much before, so he's not terribly bothered.

("Treason" and "betrayal" are two separate things in his mind now. That's worth exploring, but not at the moment.)

As for the rest of it-

...well, he'd asked.

The second Chief mentions Insurrectionists, Wash's expression shuts down completely. He'd perfected a poker face after the Mother of Invention had crashed - it had been the only thing keeping him from getting killed - and he puts it to good use here. For the most part, it holds up - the only thing that betrays him is his throat working once and a slow exhale that's shakier than he'd like.

Does he have any questions. Christ.

Well, they're already halfway to hell. Might as well keep digging. He'll deal with the implications later.

"How old were you?"

"I was conscripted when I was six years old."

He can't remember it. Not really.

"Augmented? Fourteen. Deployed? Same year. The Covenant had just glassed Harvest."

The words come out flat, no emotion. He's held these things to his chest and rationalized them for so long that he's numb to them now. There's nothing anyone can say or feel about those facts that will change what happened, least of all the Chief. That war was his entire life, and everything that shaped him into what he had to be to end it was worth its price in his blood.

That.

...that.

...holy shit.

That takes longer than Wash would like to process. It's like wrangling a wet bar of soap - no matter what he tries, he just cannot get a good grip on it.

So he files it away for a future mental breakdown and drags himself back to the present. "That...actually explains a lot."

The poker face, which had survived up until that point, slip a bit, and Wash gets animated. "Why is war crimes something we have in common? What the fuck!"

"Thought it might."

There's a flicker of the grim satisfaction of a man who has just burned a building down to prove a point. He got through, but at what cost?

Still, he shifts a little. He loosens up in the set of his shoulders, the face, the jaw. Like he was preparing to defy a challenge that didn't come.

War crimes. A failed project that got most of its agents killed.

"What did they do to you?" he asks.

It's Wash's turn to put down a card in this awful game they're playing.

They are playing a very ugly game, and Wash started it. Great. Add that to his ever growing pile of mistakes.

He tries to find his composure again and doesn't quite manage it. Close enough will have to do for now. He takes a breath, steels himself, and meets Chief's gaze.

"The full story is pretty complicated, but as for what happened to me..." What's the best way to sum up this personal little corner of hell? "The program literally tortured a smart AI to pieces, took the least stable fragment of that AI, and put it in my brain, and it drove me crazy. Literally. Straitjacket, padded room, couldn't remember my own name, kept trying to tear out the AI chip they'd removed several weeks prior insane." The words are sharp, more than he'd intended. As it turns out, talking about your own descent into mind-shattering insanity sucks. Good to know.

He takes another breath and reels his temper in. This was his stupid idea, and he needed to get through it, so he damn well will. When he speaks again, his words are forcibly calmer. "It took me a year to put myself back together, and the better part of another one to convince the Director that I didn't have the entirety of Freelancer's records in my brain courtesy of that AI." He shakes his head slowly. "I knew everything the project had done - all of its illegal activities. They started questioning me while I was still unstable and didn't let up through the entire recovery process. If they'd had any idea what I knew, they would have killed me. But here I am. So if you're wondering if I'm capable of keeping your secrets..." He lets that one trail off. There's no way Chief won't pick up on his meaning.

The Chief shakes his head. "That is one hell of a resume." He wouldn't have told Wash if he didn't trust him, but damn.

He doesn't try to offer condolences for what happened, though. It's a mix of not being sure how and an instinct that they're sort of worthless. The Chief doesn't want anyone's pity, and doesn't expect Wash to want his. The past can't be changed by sentiment.

Instead, he keeps moving the same way Wash did: by asking the question raised.

"What were they trying to accomplish?" Because, unless things are worse than he thought, what happened to Wash doesn't seem like anyone's ideal endgame.

"Thanks. I worked hard for it." It's amazing just how brittle off-the-cuff sarcasm can sound when you've just finished laying out some of your deepest secrets like they're a goddamn straight flush.

"Well initially the project was supposed to pair human soldiers with AI to make them more effective in combat. Budgetary constraints meant that the project could only get one smart AI, made from a flashclone of the Director's brain: the Alpha. The problems started happening when the Director found out that his obsession with his dead wife - who was a soldier who died in combat - had manifested in Alpha as a complimentary program, Beta. She was meant to support Alpha, but she was still part of him. So he isolated Alpha, broke Beta off, put her in essentially a robot suit in armor, and renamed her Agent Texas.

"So on one side of the program - a program that sent agents out in teams for missions but emphasized individual performance over team success and visibly ranked every agent in the program - you have a brand new agent with a codename that was previously reserved going immediately to the top of the leaderboard and wrecking everyone who'd pinned their self-worth to their rank." Namely Carolina. Mostly Carolina. Just...Carolina. "That's actually how York fucked up his eye - they put Tex against him and two other agents in an exhibition match, gave them live ammo when there wasn't supposed to be any on the training room floor, and he wound up too close to a grenade. Tex was actually the only reason he didn't die." It was less odd now than it had been then, but nonetheless.

"On the other side of the program, you have an isolated smart AI being tortured to the point of developing a multiple personality disorder to try to protect itself, only to have those personalities siphoned out, treated as their own entities, and assigned to high-performing agents who had no idea where these AI were coming from. And the thing is, it worked - for three people and a couple months, and then it all went to shit.

"Those three people were technically successes - people who were better in the field with the help of their AI partners." Wash pauses. "Of course, the Director only had to commit a few atrocities to get them to that point, and they're all dead now. But the failure that caused the shutdown of the AI implementation program survived." One guess who that is, Chief. Your only hint is that he's standing right in front of you.

Edited 2016-10-03 05:23 (UTC)

"Christ."

The Chief was abducted from his family, effectively brainwashed, and was training under live fire before he should've been old enough to enlist, but something about this is different to him. Twisted as it was, the Spartans knew what was being done to them. Or at least he believes they did. He still prefers not to think about how little he knew and how young he was when he decided it was the right thing to do. He still doesn't know the full extent to which he was lied to.

The Chief's been leading the Spartans since year two. There's a sacred obligation those who lead in war have to those following orders: to protect them when possible, and spend their lives dearly and well when it's not. You don't play games with that sacrifice, you don't experiment and leave your people to die in the dark just to see what happens. He's watched an AI spin off fragments to buy time before, he's seen how unstable they are. He refuses to believe that the project's Director didn't know this would end in disaster, didn't know he was destroying the people who trusted him on such a narrow chance that it would work while he tortured a living machine into its death throes.

It disgusts the Chief on a visceral level. It could have happened to him, it could have happened to his Spartans, and it could have happened to Cortana. They all would have followed their orders, trusted the command structure, and been powerless to stop it.

"Please tell me they burned for it." The Chief is not an expressive person, but there is an absolute venom in the words.

It wouldn't have bothered him when he was young. The sacrifice of a few people for the potential good of the many is the creed that raised him, and he just happened to be a success story while Freelancer was a failure. But now, after a life spent fighting, his perspective is different. He's protected people as a whole for too long for that feel acceptable anymore.

...Unless it's him, of course, but no one has accused the Chief of not having problems.

Edited 2016-10-03 13:34 (UTC)

Turns out that a story of horrifying abuse of a military structure is an effective way to get through to a military guy. Good to know.

Wash leans back against the tree behind him and folds his arms. "There was nothing left to burn. By the time the oversight subcommittee finished its investigation, almost all of Project Freelancer's data had been wiped, the Director had gone into hiding, and most of its agents had been killed, either in the initial crash or by each other. There was no justice, no closure - you either died believing in the project or died later, knowing you'd been hung out to dry and help wasn't coming."

He's gotten bitter and angry without realizing it, and he closes his eyes and sucks in a breath, trying to gather himself. He can be bitter all he wants at Freelancer, but that doesn't mean he gets to take it out on Chief. Neither of them need that.

After a few moments, he lets that breath out and looks back up at Chief. He's fine. He has to be. "Like I said, my CO is the only other survivor I know of. Everyone else is either dead or so deep in hiding that trying to dig them up would get them killed." It's easier to see the blank spaces on the roster as graves than to believe anyone else would be coming back. Carolina's return, difficult though it had been, had been enough of a miracle; he isn't about to ask for more.

"Damn."

The Chief's quiet for a moment, considering.

"I don't know how all of this is going to end, or what exactly Brainiac 5 is going to figure out," he says finally, reaching a decision. "So this is a bit longer range than I'd like. But if this gets cleaned up and there's a way for me to get over there for a while, I'd go."

Wash didn't ask for help. But he's being offered it anyway.

Because that's what friends do.

"I don't need an answer right now. But it's your call if it comes."

They have a lot of work to do first, and it's still only a possibility, but the Chief doesn't say he'll do something if he doesn't mean it.

It may be because he's got one foot in the past right now, but something in that offer just doesn't click for Wash. The logic is off.

"Why?" It's point-blank and a little lost. "Freelancer burned down, the whole thing's gone- there wouldn't be anything left for you to do." There's one last fight, yeah, but Wash figures he and Carolina will have that pretty well in hand - he won't allow himself to consider any other possibilities.

The Chief tilts his head to one side just a little.

"You said nobody ever turned up your project's director."

He'd left that out. Huh.

He laughs, and it's short and sharp and a little surprised. "Oh, no, he's dead. He found a little corner to die in instead of facing justice, but he's dead."

"Well that's disappointing. I would've held him down for you."

The Chief is not good at having friends.

But when he does, he's serious about it.

Wash laughs.

It's short and quiet, but it's there. That was one of the last things he'd ever expect to hear from Chief; therefore, it's fucking hysterical.

The moment passes, and a thought sneaks in in its wake: where do they go from here?

He honestly doesn't know.

"Where do we stand right now?" The question is out of his mouth before he has a chance to really think about it, but it's not like it didn't need to be asked.

Wash laughs. Good. Maybe the Chief can't fix anything about it, but he can do that.

"I understand some things better than I did before," he says. Understatement.

"I'm not upset about anything."

This conversation has been a rollercoaster, though.

"You?"

"Same," Wash replies after a moment. It's an astute summary, if nothing else.

"Just-"

He risks starting the fight again, but he can't let this go. "I've lost a lot of people for a lot of bullshit reasons. I don't want you to be one of them."

The Chief's been told not to take risks before because he is useful, important, and expensive to replace.

He's not used to it being because of that.

"I'll do my best," he says. It's the most reassurance he can give.

"Besides. You need me around if you're going to explain to me who Ghostface is."

Still friends, Wash.

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Sitting on the dock of the bay [Open]

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