It's Not Really Hiding [Open]

[unrecovered]

Who: Wash, anyone who wants to bother him
What: Wash's paranoia is a little worse than usual right about now, so he's making himself scarce.
Where: All over the ship, namely the habitat deck
When: Less than a week after Locus' and York's Legionnaire Legacies; not long after The Spies Who Sprocked Us
Warnings/Notes: Not right now; further bulletins as events warrant

Wash has been pretty quiet this week. It's nothing to worry people about - he's dealt with his paranoia before, and he's dealing with it now. The fact that it's slow and sneaking instead of outright terrifying right now is different, but that doesn't change the fact that he's dealing with it. Never mind the small breakdown he staved off after trying to help York and Locus through the ramifications of having their pasts smeared all over the airwaves. Never mind that being out in public might very well make him next and nowhere the press has access to is truly safe. He's fine. He's dealing with it.

It's subtle, at first. He starts trading in his on-call shifts for monitor duty. It's never a trade with the same person, and there's always some excuse. He's doing someone a favor; he wants to spend some time with DC; he needs a quieter day today; and on one particular occasion, yesterday's mission was rough and he just needs a little quiet time. It looks like a string of one-off swaps, but anyone looking at the overall pattern can see that he's avoiding active duty, or at least anything that might put him in a public place.

He still goes to meals regularly; he can still be seen walking the halls, sometimes with DC perched on his shoulder, sometimes carrying a bag; he can still occasionally be found in his usual haunts on the habitat deck. After a few days, however, anyone checking his room will find it emptier than usual: the Reaper traps are still enabled, but he and DC obviously haven't been there for a few days. They've got to be staying somewhere, but the only person who knows where that is is out on an extended mission and may not be back for a while.

Turns out Wash's definition of "dealing with his paranoia" is holing up until it goes away.

Comments

Action

[i_got_this]

South is always more than happy to swap shifts for something more exciting than monitor duty, and while she's not exactly familiar with 'paranoid Wash', after a while even she's able to notice the odd pattern going on.

So, during one of her off days when he's running monitor duty again, she tracks him down and leans over the back of his seat.

"I miss the old Wash. This one's too moody."

Is she supposed to be there? No? Oh well. Here she is.

[unrecovered]

This...is not something Wash ever wanted, especially not now, when his nerves are shot to hell. He takes a deep breath and gives a very long-suffering sigh. "Sure. Let me just rewind ten years of my life for you. I'll get right on that."

[i_got_this]

"No no, don't change on my account." She grabs a nearby chair and plops down in it, idly twisting back and forth. "Not like I don't enjoy being the babynow that you guys are like all fucking grandpas."

Connie the exception, of course.

Locus

[unrecovered]

True to his word, ten minutes after their conversation, Wash knocks on the door of Locus' safehouse. DC isn't with him; he'd been napping, and Wash hadn't had the heart to move him, especially given that he doesn't know why Locus wants to talk with him.

[agnominal]

Locus knows. Mostly. There are steps to be taken in the hopes of making progress, and some of those steps involve reaching out to other people. Even when you really don't have the faintest idea of what to do about any of it, but still realize that there are Things that need to be addressed.

In lieu of answers? He has a cat. A cat courtesy of Wash, in fact, and apparently cats are the cure to many ills. Said cat is sitting on the table when Locus opens the door, daintily licking between her pink toe beans.

Locus, meanwhile, has clearly made a return to heavier, restrictive clothing for comfort, but he's out of his armor at least. He moves to make room for Wash to make his entrance to the room almost immediately.

[unrecovered]

He notices the change of clothes but says nothing - if Locus wants to talk about it, that's his prerogative, but he's not about to pick at a coping mechanism that's not harmful and might actually be working. Instead, he heads inside and stops, sparing a glance at Luna - damn but that kitten is cute - before looking at Locus. "What did you want to talk about?"

[agnominal]

Locus just studies him a moment, with that same intense stare that at one point -- and to some extent, probably still -- unnerved Washington so. Then, he takes a quiet little breath, his shoulders sinking.

The door closes as he turns, moving to pick up Luna from where she's lounging. He's obviously still working out what exactly to say.

"Where were you?" is the first thing that comes to mind. Maybe a little indirect from him, but Wash usually asks far more questions in the first five minutes of any conversation they have.

[prettycoolguy]

Wash is missing. Not missing completely, but missing enough that the Chief has noticed. The final piece was Wash trading off an active duty shift that coincided with his. Wash has been careful, but the pattern falls into place all too quickly as the Chief starts to look. The Legionnaire Legacies were too soon for it to be a coincidence, too. He has some idea of what's going on, here.

If it were anyone else, the Chief would pass the buck. He could quietly drop a note to someone good at this... other-people's-emotional-states thing, and he'd be done with it.

But it's Wash. Wash is a special case.

So, the Chief falls into step beside him in the hall one evening as he's leaving dinner.

"Wash?"

[unrecovered]

Wash shakes off the urge to speed up as Chief falls into step with him. There's no sense in assuming Chief hasn't figured out that something is going on - it'd be an insult to his intelligence at the least. He can't avoid this conversation, or conversations like it, forever (and it's not like he can outpace Chief anyway).

So he acts like nothing's different. "Yeah?" Everything is completely normal with him, thanks for asking.

[prettycoolguy]

"I wanted to talk to you," he says. Which is simple and innocuous and normal, even though the situation isn't anymore.

"You've been different."

And he's concerned, and thinks he knows why, and isn't sure how to approach it or if this is going to get him shut out of the attempt already. But he has to try.

[unrecovered]

In Wash's experience, I want to talk to you never leads to anything good, and Chief just confirms it with his followup. Wash was correct from the get-go - there's no use in pretending Chief hasn't noticed what's going on.

So he sighs and tries for a compromise. "Can we at least not do this in public?"

[the_real_sir_prize]

Victor is completely oblivious to any changes in Wash's schedule and behavior. He monitors his own schedule and Yuuri's and that's quite enough for him. It's sheer coincidence that he happens across the other man in the hallway.

Of course, as Wash has performed with distinction the action of "kept Yuuri alive when he may have otherwise died", Victor greets him with all the enthusiasm of a dear friend.

"Wash!" Victor breaks into a jog to catch up with him, waving a skewer of some sort of probably-food. "Try this!"

[unrecovered]

Wash had thought that years with the Reds and Blues had prepared him for everything, but no - Victor is something different every single time Wash runs into him. This is no exception. He gives Victor a blank look. "What is it and why?"

[the_real_sir_prize]

"I have no idea," Victor answers cheerfully, presenting the skewer with all the joy of a dog with a soggy tennis ball. "I asked the alien with the food cart to surprise me. It's like a fried banana-carrot with cumin and yogurt."

Which clearly meant that he should share it with everyone he came across.

[unrecovered]

Yeah, Wash still isn't touching that. He continues to stare at Victor, like the answer as to why Victor is doing this might appear on Victor's forehead if he stares long and hard enough. "And do you usually run around giving people food?"

[turntex]

Dave isn't great at people, shockingly enough. He's a good kid, and a smart one, but not necessarily the sort to pick up on cues like Wash's sudden reluctance to appear publicly. It's not that he hasn't noticed the man being scarce lately, but it's more a general sense than specifically noting all the altered shifts or the empty room.

So it's without any special care or tact that he just drops into a seat beside Wash at dinner one night, unceremoniously leading off with, "Where've you been, dude? Pretty sure I've seen Reaper around more than you lately, and that guy treats being a cagey ghostlike asshole like its his goddamn job and he's already on notice, can't miss even one more day of work or he's fuckin' fired and he can't have that, he's got kids to feed."

[unrecovered]

Wash had been trying to be subtle with his avoidance of the general public, but Dave's entry into the picture pretty much makes that moot.

So he pauses, taking a break from chewing on his dinner to chew on Dave's most recent turn of phrase. "I am nowhere near drunk enough to start thinking about Reaper having children," is what he comes up with, "but now I'm picturing them as the Pac-Man ghosts, so thank you for that." It's mild, sarcastic, and absolutely Blood Gulch tactics: get someone on a good enough tangent and they'll forget about the topic at hand, at least for a while.

[turntex]

"Pac-Man ghosts," he agrees, hands busying themselves with poking a straw through a juice box. "But all black, with cutesy little versions of his mask. Popped straight outta poor mom like that, probably tore her up something awful on the way out with all those hard edges."

It's a fair attempt, but not pursued deeply enough. Dave takes a swing and adds, "So what's going on? Usually you're all over the place meddling in everyone's business like a concerned dad."

[unrecovered]

"Nah, babies come out head first," Wash replies, letting the imagery slide right on by him. He's witnessed worse and talked about weirder. "The pointy parts of the mask are all on the bottom, so mom would be fine." He pauses for consideration. "Or mom would be a ghost too, and the babies would just mist out. Congratulations, it's a healthy baby cloud."

Well shit, he tried. "You ever think that maybe dad needs a vacation too?"

Coming Home

[short_changed]

It's fair to say Connie's been gone a while. Single person missions aren't usually too dangerous but when they have to deal with stealth and reconnaissance, it keeps you busy; keeps you paranoid, and therefore tired as fuck. It hasn't been all too long since she was last doing this back home, she's familiar with the fatigue even if it feels a little more bitter as it coils in the tense set of her shoulders as she makes her way out of the ship to the hab deck. Keeping her head ducked under the hood of her sweater she teleports past the busier sections of Legion World, not wanting to deal with anyone she doesn't have to before she has a proper rest at her safe house.

One of the other naggingly frustrating things about being undercover? It's difficult to check on your shit when you're busy watching for other things...like the notifications flagged on her omnicom buried somewhere at the bottom of her shoulder bag as she makes her way up to her cabin door. The familiar locks release as she pushes open the door- and stares at the surprise inside.

If it were anyone else there'd be that defensive, indignant rise of anger that someone's taken over her safe house.

But it's Wash.

Her shoulders slump as she kicks the door closed behind her, arms crossing as she arches a brow at him and simply asks, "The fuck?"

[unrecovered]

As it turns out, paranoia is exhausting. Wash is stretched out flat on his face on the couch, under a blanket, dead asleep, with DC curled up in a furry little ball between his shoulder blades. It's a testament to just how tired he is that he doesn't wake up when the locks click and the door swings open; no, it's the slamming of the door that quite literally jolts him into wakefulness, and he jerks and half rolls over to see what's going on. It's...Connie, and she doesn't look happy to see him - not that he can blame her. "You're home."

DC, who woke up within half a second of Wash and dived off Wash's back and onto the floor, because sudden sharp movements on your sleeping surface are not fun, scolds the both of them from his safe spot underneath the couch. Hey! Warn him next time!

[short_changed]

By the way he jumps and the subsequent cat glare from under the couch, Connie feels a little bad about shutting the door so hard. She lets the bag slide from her shoulder onto the floor as she steps into the room, past Wash, towards the kitchen to get a glass of water. As she goes she notes the slight change in the place; not that Wash was untidy but there are things out of place, enough to appear that this isn't a one-night hunker down deal. What did she miss that would have him spooked enough to hide out in her safe house?

When she returns to the couch she sets a second glass of water on the coffee table by him and takes a seat on the floor.

"You know- if you were going to make yourself at home you really should've taken the bed."

Tilting her head to glance under the couch she extends a hand out to DC. He must have been here a while to need to bring the cat.

[unrecovered]

Wash spends the small amount of time Connie's away to debate the merits of trying to go back to sleep after the conversation is over. He's just come to the conclusion that further sleep will probably not happen regardless of how the conversation goes and is just starting to debate the merits of sitting up when Connie returns with water and sits on the floor. Well. That answers that one. He braces his elbows under him and pushes his chest off the couch, leaning up a bit. He always thinks better upright, and this is a compromise. "I didn't know how long you'd be gone, and I didn't want to cross any lines." He hadn't exactly asked her if he could crash at her place, after all. "And for what it's worth, you have a really comfy couch."

He shifts his weight to one arm and reaches out with the other, fishing around in a bag on the end table and pulling a small foil pouch out. "Here." He offers it to Connie - inside are a few cat treats. "He'll come out for these, but he can only have two."

Mess Hall

[goddamngrenades]

Cleaned up (Save a few flecks of paint behind his left ear) York wanders into the mess hall, hands slung in his pockets, head turning this way and that in an attempt to find Wash. Definitely a very different sort of feel than the last time he'd wandered in with the former rookie on his brain. No grapefruit, no avoiding him, no weird tension-

Okay yeah maybe some weird tension that he's gonna have to figure out how to talk about publicly without shit getting...weird. But he can try. Gently.

[unrecovered]

Wash has already gotten his lunch and found a seat. He didn't really pay attention to what he got - the daily special, some kind of sandwich, something that's edible for humans - but there's one thing he made very certain to place on the table in front of him.

When York spots him, he'll also see a small carton of grapefruit juice, because someone has a sense of humor, or is at least trying to fake it right now.