legionworld | The Sad Blanket Tour [Open]

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The Sad Blanket Tour [Open]

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Locus doesn't sound threatening, or hostile, or angry - he just sounds confused. Sadly enough, that counts as a step forward.

Wash takes a breath and lets it out slowly, feeling the ache of the freshly closed wounds in his back and shoulders. This is a delicate balance, and he needs to consider his words carefully; he risks making things worse than they already are if he doesn't.

"Because you're part of my team," is what he finally settles on, "and my team got pretty fucked up today. I wasn't there, and I don't know if I could have helped if I was, but I'm here now, and this is what I can do." It's the bare-bones truth, laid out as gently as Wash can manage. He has no illusions about his own mental fortitude; he still has ugly cracks in his psyche, shoved together and barely holding, and an extradimensional creature with the power to influence minds would have easily wrecked him.

It would be a tricky field to navigate on the best of days. There was perhaps something admire in that dogged determination, even if Locus lacked to ability to do so at the moment.

Instead he let his gaze drift, fixing on some distant point. What was done was done. Things had become clearer, and he...simply needed to accept some things as truths. It hardly required Washington's attention to do so, and to let him remain hovering sounded less than appealing.

Someone truly hurt, someone who could be helped, would surely appreciate his presence more.

"There's nothing for you to do here. Go see to the rest of your team." There isn't even enough in him to be venomous about it. He just sounds tired, about as worn down as he looks, in that moment.

There's nothing for you to do here is about the biggest lie Wash has heard today, and he'd spent part of his day listening to the Joker spout bullshit from an old refrigerator. The problem is, Locus probably doesn't see it as a lie.

Well. Things have just gotten harder.

"I talked with Azucar," he says, as though Locus hadn't just dismissed him. "She told me about your fight, and about some undead asshole in gray armor literally yanking your chain." He lets that settle for a moment, then continues, voice quieter. "She also told me that, even after everything was over, you didn't want to leave."

There's upsetting the balance and then there's flipping the table; hopefully he's doing the former, not the latter.

Azucar. She had more right than any of them to leave him where he'd stood. Instead, she'd told Washington? It doesn't make sense. What was she hoping to achieve in doing so?

Quietly, he continues to turn the ring over in his hand, again and again, at that same slow pace as before.

"...I saw no point in it." Still doesn't, in point of fact, but here it was, and he'd survived once again. For all that was worth. "She believed otherwise."

Funny. Washington doesn't sound as disappointed as he would have imagined. Is it even worth it to assume he knows what the man will do, anymore?

"You saw no point in getting out of hell." His tone is this side of incredulous, and that's just to disguise the creeping familiarity. It sounds like those days when Wash wakes up bleak and exhausted and has to struggle to find a reason to get out of bed at all, only writ large and unsuccessful. Locus hadn't found his reason, or he'd lost it, and it had taken someone who was maybe a hundred pounds soaking wet to haul him away from certain death.

(There's a question as to how that was even physically possible, but that can wait.)

"Why?"

Because I can't trust that I won't make the same mistakes again.

Silence creeps over them again, save for the ambient hum of an air processor somewhere in the background. There's a question of how to articulate this, because it wasn't as though he wanted to die. That wasn't it at all.

Because I'm a danger to those around me.

It would just be easier. For him. For everyone involved. The Faceless hadn't been wrong.

Because you were right about me.

The Legion would be better off without him, and it had seemed logical at the time. Let the resources go to those they could help. Which implied he was beyond help. Which opened a whole other can of worms he did not want to delve into now. Or ever.

Instead, avoid the discussion entirely, eyes still resting elsewhere. Anywhere but Washington himself. "I don't know."

"Bullshit." It's flat and unmoving and immediate, like running into a brick wall. It's a non-starter, a conversational cul-de-sac, and Wash isn't about to allow it. Not from someone who'd been willing to let himself die after the battle had already been won. "You don't do anything without a reason, even if you have to jump through hoops to find one. Now what was it."

Locus's jaw works, a spark of anger flickering to life under the oppressive numbness that had taken the place of damn near everything else. But that was unlikely to bode well for Washington, in this conversation.

Still. He wasn't wrong. Locus had his reasons, certainly. When it seemed clear that he would wait until one was provided, Locus let out a quiet breath.

"It was a realm for monsters. It seemed fitting."

Wash doesn't usually have to consider the consequences of his words - not what he says to his enemies, at least. At the end of the day, they'll be dead or he will, and it won't be an issue. In the meantime, if what he says hurts, great; any advantage is one he can use. He'd learned Locus' weak spots and hammered at them, doing everything he could to gain the upper hand against someone who was an unholy terror in combat, and at the end of the day it wouldn't matter because one of them would be dead-

But the war's over and here they are, on the same side, dealing with the consequences of Wash's words.

Shit.

He swallows and closes his eyes and oh God he cannot fuck this up. "What happened to setting things right?" It's a start, but it's not enough. "You made your choice. Why did you change your mind?"

"My choices put Azucar and the others at risk."

There's something tense in his voice, something to match the faint tremor in his hand, but he seems to take hold of it, strangle it and shove it down, closing his eyes briefly before reaching to set the ring aside on a nearby desk.

"It will not happen again."

That should be that. He's assessed the problem and removed it from the board. A satisfactory result, surely.

He's not sure if he's hearing guilt or surrender in Locus' voice; either way, it's not good.

"And how do you plan on guaranteeing that?"

A thought strikes him and he struggles not to let it show on his face. Dear God Locus had better not be thinking of killing himself. That is beyond what Wash can handle right now, and he's not sure he's strong enough to stop Locus if he tries. Locus doesn't seem the type, but if space Cthulu messed with his mind then there's no telling what he'll do.

"By removing myself from the equation."

To his mind, that means leaving the line of duty. Leaving the Legion. He is stuck here, for however long it takes to return home, but even then...even if he does return home, can he just pick up arms again? What is true here would be true there.

If he had stayed in the In-Between, things would be simpler. He survives, now, but without any of the sense of purpose he once had. How long does a man endure without that?

"If I cannot trust my own choices, I cannot ask it of anyone else. It will be better, this way." And his gaze finally fixes on Washington once again, waiting for something. Anything. A sign that he understands, that he was right after all, and that Locus is finally accepting the truth that he'd denied for so long.

Shouldn't...he be happier about this?

That's...not comforting. At all. He maintains his poker face and meets Locus' gaze. He has to make sure before jumping to conclusions. "Removing yourself from the equation how."

It's going to tip his hand that he suspects something, but at this point Wash doesn't care. They've already lost someone today; they don't need to increase that number, especially since the immediate danger has passed.

"Why does it matter to you?"

Maybe he knows, or suspects, and maybe that raises tensions just a hair. But it's like trying to breathe through too-tight bindings, and the effort just leaves him feeling cornered, confined, and wanting to skirt around him and disappear.

He does not. Not yet.

"It will no longer be the Legion's concern. Or yours. It will not interfere with you in any way. I will deal with the matter, alone."

"What part of you're part of my team did you not get?" He's pushing now, because he needs an answer to this question and he's not leaving Locus alone until he has one. "You're not operating in a vacuum, Locus. What you do affects everyone. You don't get to just deal with it alone. It doesn't work that way. What are you planning."

"I hardly count as one of your comrades if I no longer fight for the Legion," he replies, in a tone that suggests the limits of his patience on this matter are beginning to be tested. And Wash can remember what happened the last time that happened, surely.

"No more will come to harm because of me. I left Felix to die with the intent of leaving that life behind me. If I cannot, if I am capable of nothing but death and ruin, then there is but one last choice to make. I can make this much right."

One last choice sounds final, and Wash can't let it pass by unanswered. Cards on the table, then. "You are not going to kill yourself." It's not a command, but a flat statement of fact.

"What do you want of me?"

He isn't, because even that seems a choice to heavy for him to make. There is some tenacious part of him that wants to survive, selfishly, and perhaps he's too cowardly to take that way out.

But he still doesn't understand why Wash is so concerned. 'His team', he said. Well he has no intention of fighting, so that point is rendered moot.

"Confirmation that you're not going to put a bullet in your brain, for one!" The volume's gone up, and Wash doesn't particularly care - getting this set in stone is more important. The rest of the conversation can happen once Wash is sure that Locus is going to fucking stick around after he leaves the room.

"Should I leave that to you? Or York? Azucar? The next person who suffers for my mistakes?"

He's risen up by now, the blanket falling away, rage running tense through his frame. "Should I have let Felix, and saved you all the trouble? Because even he wouldn't have turned on me as I did him! I--"

And that feels like something coming loose, severed from that tangle inside his head, and he sinks back a step, trying to regain his composure. But it's for naught. He's actively shaking now, breathing harder. No. No, not now, not in front of him.

"No, because I don't want you dead! Not anymore!" Ah, the good old unproductive screaming match. Wash likes these a whole lot better when they're over shit that doesn't matter in the long run. "You convinced me you want a second chance, and I don't want you to throw it away!"

But then the yelling stops, and- oh, he's seen this before, usually in the mirror. It doesn't look any better on someone else. "In for five, out for ten," he says after a few moments. It's the best he can offer right now.

"Leave."

It's all he can manage at the moment. It will pass, it always does, but this cannot happen in front of Washington. He cannot maintain--

What? What is he hoping to convince him of? He's floundering, coming undone. Traitor, he's a traitor, if his partner couldn't trust him how can anyone else? A monster even among his own kind, second chances mean nothing if you are incapable of being anything else.

A second later, and he fades from sight.

"No."

No, because he's still not sure that he won't come back to a fucking corpse and he is not taking that risk-

He sighs deeply. "Not this again," he says under his breath. A moment later, he activates his power nullification and his eyes flash.

Instantly he melts back into view, back pressed to a nearby wall.

Later, he'll be angry. Right now he's remembering how to breathe, because it feels like something's coiled tight around his lungs. Like chains, pulling...

Getting close isn't advisable, Wash. Just a head's up.

He looks like a cornered animal. Getting close is the first step to getting killed, so Wash stays where he is. Struggling to keep yourself together when you're falling apart on the inside is an ugly sort of familiar. The best Wash can do is hope it's the same (and hope it isn't somehow, because it's fucking awful) and talk.

"Breathe in slow for a count of five and out slower for a count of ten. It helps, I promise."

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suicide mention, because this thread, man

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