Agent Washington (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
unrecovered) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
legionworld2017-09-01 06:25 pm
unrecovered) wrote in legionworld2017-09-01 06:25 pm
Entry tags:
Will you feel better? [Open]
Who| Wash and whoever comes across him
What| The robot zombie apocalypse did not treat Wash well, and he's due for a breakdown.
Where| All over Legion World
When| A few days after Resistance Is Futile/An Eye for An Eye
Warnings/Notes| Expect mentions of violence and also a full-on emotional breakdown, because Wash.
Before
To say it's been a rough few days would be one hell of an understatement. At least things are getting better - Legion World is starting to return to normal, everyone who got infected by the zombie plague has been cured, and things are starting to settle.
Wash feels like that return to normality has left him behind - when he bothers to think about his feelings, that is.
Nobody slept much during the crisis, but now, days later, he still hasn't really slept. Or eaten much. Or come out of crisis mode at all. He's done this before - gone from crisis to crisis, functioned for days on end through disaster or (more often) war - and he knows that coming down will eventually involve taking a good look at his own actions and coming to terms with them, and that means probing the edges of the fresh pair of (small, bullet-shaped) holes in his soul and-
He can't. He can't do it. The last bit of stubbornness that's been keeping him going wavers every time he gets close, and he's not prepared to deal with that collapse yet.
So he distracts himself as best he can, whether that means getting a snack from the mess hall, helping clean up some of the mess left over from the crisis, or wandering through the biomes on the habitat deck. Anything that keeps him busy. Anything that keeps him out of armor and off of active duty, because he knows he can't trust himself right now. Anything that keeps him from having to think about the past few days.
Breakdown (Closed to Chief)
There comes a point where he just can't do it anymore. He's gone for too long, pushed himself too far, stopped caring about just how close he's gotten to his own limits and whether he's overstepped them or not. He's heading for a breakdown, but he's still running from it for as long as he can.
When he looks at the Legion staffer next to him in the mess hall and sees a bullet hole in her head, he knows it's caught up to him. He blinks, and the hole is gone. Blinks again, and it's back. She frowns, concerned, and asks if he's okay; he makes some paper-thin excuse and leaves.
It's been a long time since he's hallucinated, even one as small as that one. This is bad. He can't run anymore.
So he makes his way down to the habitat deck, to the biome he's just about adopted as his own even though it isn't, only stopping when he hits the tree line before the lakeshore. He sits down, back against a tree, and burrows into his hoodie, pulling his hood up and over his face as far as it will go. If he knows he's going to break, he can at least do it in private.
After
He feels better. That's what's most surprising about all this - that going to pieces was a step forward instead of being a loss of self. Amazing what consistent therapy will do.
He's not completely back to himself yet - he still feels fragile, like the wrong word or look will rattle him back down to base components again, but in spite of that he doesn't feel vulnerable. It's an odd state of being, and it's not nearly enough to get him to hide himself away and rest yet. There's still work to be done. He can still be helping.
But now he's standing a little straighter, and making eye contact, and keeping up his half of a conversation instead of trying to end it - the exact opposite of everything he was doing just an hour or so ago.
What| The robot zombie apocalypse did not treat Wash well, and he's due for a breakdown.
Where| All over Legion World
When| A few days after Resistance Is Futile/An Eye for An Eye
Warnings/Notes| Expect mentions of violence and also a full-on emotional breakdown, because Wash.
Before
To say it's been a rough few days would be one hell of an understatement. At least things are getting better - Legion World is starting to return to normal, everyone who got infected by the zombie plague has been cured, and things are starting to settle.
Wash feels like that return to normality has left him behind - when he bothers to think about his feelings, that is.
Nobody slept much during the crisis, but now, days later, he still hasn't really slept. Or eaten much. Or come out of crisis mode at all. He's done this before - gone from crisis to crisis, functioned for days on end through disaster or (more often) war - and he knows that coming down will eventually involve taking a good look at his own actions and coming to terms with them, and that means probing the edges of the fresh pair of (small, bullet-shaped) holes in his soul and-
He can't. He can't do it. The last bit of stubbornness that's been keeping him going wavers every time he gets close, and he's not prepared to deal with that collapse yet.
So he distracts himself as best he can, whether that means getting a snack from the mess hall, helping clean up some of the mess left over from the crisis, or wandering through the biomes on the habitat deck. Anything that keeps him busy. Anything that keeps him out of armor and off of active duty, because he knows he can't trust himself right now. Anything that keeps him from having to think about the past few days.
Breakdown (Closed to Chief)
There comes a point where he just can't do it anymore. He's gone for too long, pushed himself too far, stopped caring about just how close he's gotten to his own limits and whether he's overstepped them or not. He's heading for a breakdown, but he's still running from it for as long as he can.
When he looks at the Legion staffer next to him in the mess hall and sees a bullet hole in her head, he knows it's caught up to him. He blinks, and the hole is gone. Blinks again, and it's back. She frowns, concerned, and asks if he's okay; he makes some paper-thin excuse and leaves.
It's been a long time since he's hallucinated, even one as small as that one. This is bad. He can't run anymore.
So he makes his way down to the habitat deck, to the biome he's just about adopted as his own even though it isn't, only stopping when he hits the tree line before the lakeshore. He sits down, back against a tree, and burrows into his hoodie, pulling his hood up and over his face as far as it will go. If he knows he's going to break, he can at least do it in private.
After
He feels better. That's what's most surprising about all this - that going to pieces was a step forward instead of being a loss of self. Amazing what consistent therapy will do.
He's not completely back to himself yet - he still feels fragile, like the wrong word or look will rattle him back down to base components again, but in spite of that he doesn't feel vulnerable. It's an odd state of being, and it's not nearly enough to get him to hide himself away and rest yet. There's still work to be done. He can still be helping.
But now he's standing a little straighter, and making eye contact, and keeping up his half of a conversation instead of trying to end it - the exact opposite of everything he was doing just an hour or so ago.
no subject
And Wash isn't, because Legion World is still a mess and members of the team are still recovering and the final proof: he's here.
The Chief wishes they met here less often, really. He likes that his space helps, there's a protective satisfaction in that, but all he really wants is for things to stop making Wash need it.
He approaches with steady steps, then sinks down to sit beside Wash. He doesn't touch him, John is still cautious about initiating touch (especially when things are bad like this), but he's close enough for it to be an open invitation.
"Are you alright?" he asks.
Since they formalized the change in their relationship, his tone has been a little less guarded. There's a gentleness in his voice now, and concern he isn't working to hide completely. The question is only a social ritual, and he has to ask it even though he knows something's wrong.
no subject
He should feel better. Later, when he can sort through his emotions, he'll probably be grateful that it's Chief who's found him here and now and not someone else. But right now, he's drowning, holding on to what remains of his stability with his fingertips, trying not to fall and slipping anyway. He knows Chief can't magically fix this, fix him - the only way out is through, and through just so happens to be hell.
But...Chief's here. At least he doesn't have to do this alone this time.
But that doesn't make it any easier to talk about this. His only movement is to curl in on himself more tightly. "No."
no subject
Otherwise he wouldn't have needed to come looking.
"Wanted to know if there's anything I can do." He can't fix it, he knows he can't, but just being there and letting Wash vent has helped. And now, even more than before, he's especially invested in wanting to help.
no subject
Can he do anything? Can anyone do anything to help Wash right now? He doesn't know - if Chief can help; if he can help himself; if he even deserves help, or if he should just go to pieces and stay there- and maybe he'll have to stay there- who even knows if he can come back from another mental break-
But he has to. He's needed.
Right?
He needs to keep himself together- but he needs a pressure release or he's going to fucking crack- or maybe he needs to crack- maybe he already has and he's just in denial-
He doesn't know. He doesn't fucking know-
He grips his head in his hands, white-knuckled and shaking, as though he can hold himself together by sheer physical force. It doesn't work that way - he knows it doesn't - but the impending breakdown is terrifying and he doesn't know what else to do.
no subject
The last mission might have torn the holes in Wash's facade of okayness too wide to ignore, but the Chief doesn't care about that. He doesn't need Wash to look like he's okay. The Chief has never been one of the people who needs that reassurance from him. Seeing Wash like this hurts, but it hurts in a completely different way. But maybe this, holding him and being steady and warm and here, maybe this will help.
Maybe only a little, maybe not forever, but anything he can do here is worth it.
no subject
Breakdowns, he's done before. Breakdowns are something he's intimately familiar with. They happen while he's alone, or distantly watched over by people who don't really care about him, and then he puts himself back together as best he can and tries to move on with whatever's left of his life at the time. But being supported - being with someone who cares about him while it happens-
Well, of course Chief would be here. He's not going to leave. He's Chief.
His breath hitches, catches in his throat, and he tries to regain control for a few seconds before giving up and letting it devolve into short, nearly silent sobs. He clings to Chief's shirt, bunching fabric in his fists, and buries his face in Chief's ribs.
He hasn't let go completely - there's a part of him that's still inherently terrified of breaking down and never coming back, that each blow his sanity takes will be the one that breaks him for good - but he's close.
no subject
This hurt him. It hurt him bad.
"Easy," John says. "It's alright." Not everything is, but this? What they're doing right now? This is alright with him, there is no shame in needing the support. He's happy to give it.
no subject
That stops him short. It couldn't be further from the truth. Nothing is alright - there's a reason he's coming apart at the seams-
"No it's not," he manages, voice rough. "I shot Connie. I-" He doesn't know why he's telling Chief. He doesn't know how to stop. "I shot Pidge-"
His voice breaks and takes the last of his restraint with it. Saying it out loud makes it real, just as real as the moment he'd pulled the trigger, and reality is too much right now. He tries, in the space of one breath and then another, to regain some form of control.
He fails completely.
The sobs begin anew, tearing their way out of his throat loud and rough and nearly screaming, because the grief has to come out somehow and this is the only way he knows.
no subject
But he can't drag Wash to the bottom of that right now. Not while he's like this. A dam has broken and the only thing for it is to ride out the flood.
John holds him through it, one thumb tracing a gentle circle between Wash's shoulder blades. It's all that can be done from the outside.