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

[agnominal]

"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?

[unrecovered]

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.

[agnominal]

"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."

[unrecovered]

"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."

[agnominal]

"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."

[unrecovered]

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.

[agnominal]

"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.

[unrecovered]

"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.

[agnominal]

"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.

[unrecovered]

"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.

[agnominal]

"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.

[unrecovered]

"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.

[agnominal]

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.

[unrecovered]

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."

[agnominal]

Later, he'll be able to feel shame for letting Washington of all people see him like this. For now, he does as he is bid. It's all he can do. Breathing in then out again, as instructed, focusing on that alone.

Not on Felix, nor his betrayal. Not on Silent Horizon or what will follow. Just the breath.

[unrecovered]

It's working. He thinks. Hopefully. For now, Wash leans against the wall, breathing falling into the same pattern he'd just told Locus to adopt. It's calming, and it's all he can do right now. He's not going to push Locus until Locus can breathe again.

[agnominal]

It comes, slowly. The tunnel vision begins to fade and then? He's acutely aware of the situation, of just how much weakness he's shown. On the other hand, perhaps Washington understands now why he's come to this decision, how much the events at Silent Horizon have shaken him. He cannot go into the field like this.

His gaze drops, mouth tightening.

"That was...unworthy of me." As close to an apology as he gets.

[unrecovered]

"That was a panic attack." Reframe it as facts, because Locus probably won't take any reassurance from him. "It's a PTSD thing, not a character flaw." Which gives away the fact that Wash has had more than one himself, but...well, there's a reason he knows how to deal with them.

[agnominal]

Locus studies him for a good, hard minute at that. It certainly gives away no small level of detail...and as much as Washington likes to pretend they have nothing in common, those similarities do have a way of cropping up.

Alright. If they're speaking in cold, hard facts rather than platitudes, maybe they'll get somewhere. Locus's shoulders straighten stiffly. His head bobs slightly, as though to say 'there, you see?' without so many words.

"I can't go out there likes this."

But there are words he avoids all the same. Implications he skirts. He doesn't want to come to terms to the truth of the matter, the fact that he's been burying in denial all this time. That there is, in fact, something wrong with him. Something broken that refuses to heal, like a bone that never set itself straight.

If he is that broken, to the point he cannot function without something like this occurring, what good is he to anyone?

[unrecovered]

Admittedly, Wash is far less against pointing out parallels when they're not being used in an attempt to justify genocide. He lets Locus stare, only turning his head to meet Locus' gaze towards the end of that minute.

"You want to leave the Legion." It's a dawning realization, and Wash's shoulders slump with the beginnings of relief. "Oh my God why didn't you say that in the first place? I thought you were going to commit suicide." This is leagues better. Not great, but alive is always better than the alternative.

He lets out a short breath, thinking. "Look, I'm not going to give you the song and dance about not quitting after one setback, because that wasn't a setback, that was a safari in hell. Having your mind fucked with isn't something you can just shrug off." He pauses, because wow, that's a little close to home. Then again, there's also no way that wasn't in his file; Locus has to know already. "That said, it doesn't get better if you don't work for it. If you hate being broken, then you put in the effort to fix yourself, because nobody can do it for you."

He takes a moment. Breathes, and lets Locus breathe, because hard truths don't go down easy. "You have a mandatory session with Dr. Ryk'rr at some point. You can start with that."

[agnominal]

"I am not broken."

Of course, that was what he'd taken from all that, and him bristling was instinctive. Even after he'd proven just how unwell he was. Similarly, the idea of going back to Dr. Ryk'rr was even less palatable than returning to the field.

It even overshadows Washington's relief. It shouldn't concern him, what becomes of him after he leaves the field. He remembers clearly enough a time that Wash would have been glad for it.

No, what concerns him instead is Washington's own admission. Such as it is. It's a scrap of something he doesn't often speak of, that he knows. Of course. He's walked this path before.

[unrecovered]

Wash just folds his arms and gives Locus a long, unimpressed look. They are way past this point, and yet here Locus is, trying to argue for his sanity.

"You partnered with someone who spent years lying to you and manipulating you," he starts after a solid fifteen seconds of judgmental silence. "You gave up your humanity to try to absolve your guilt. You committed genocide. More recently, you got roofied by space Cthulu, literally turned into a monster, and when you got the chance to get out of hell, you didn't want to leave. Any one of those would break somebody, and you're trying to tell me that you're fine." The judgmental silence returns for a few seconds, because holy shit, this is just stupid. "I don't believe it, and I'm pretty sure you don't believe it, so can we skip the bullshit denial phase?"

[agnominal]

All he receives in turn is a glare. No, he will not be letting go of that particular delusion, and you can't make him. That tiny little admission means that everything he's built up around him over the years is a lie, and he's not ready to watch all of that come tumbling down just yet.

Who could possibly come back from that?

"I'm not going. There's no point in it," he affirms, after a steady length of silence during which neither of them seem inclined to do much beyond glower at one another.

[unrecovered]

If Locus wants the local expert in having your life completely razed to the ground and still coming out the other side, he happens to be right there, telling Locus to get his act together.

Like Locus will listen.

"There's no point in it," Wash repeats. "There's no point in getting better, so people can't find the giant holes in your psyche and drag you around by them. Is that right? Are you even listening to yourself?"

[agnominal]

"There's no point because there is no getting better."

The Faceless. Felix. He can still hear them, the reminder of what he allowed himself to become when given the option. It's the truth. Washington just refuses to see that fact, despite being the one to initially see through everything else.

Contrary to the last.

"If what I truly am is a monster, then there's no point in trying to pretend otherwise."