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
He passes by the door to Pidge's lab and pauses. He hadn't been in the best frame of mind the last time they'd talked, to put it lightly, but that's no reason not to at least check on her. He pushes the door open and enters slowly, sees her slumped over her desk-
-And shuts down the goddamn red alert blaring in his head when he sees her back rise and fall. She's breathing. She's fine. Calm down.
It's going to be a while before he can ease that panic reflex, isn't it.
He manages to even out his breathing right about when she starts flailing - goddammit she's having a nightmare - and goes into immediate overdrive again, darting towards her. He catches the mug of tea before it hits the ground and shatters (it's stone cold; she must've been here for hours) with one hand and grabs her shoulder with the other. "Pidge! Wake up!"
no subject
She starts. It's instinctive and unconscious but she jerks to the side to get out from under his hand.
...Oh no. She shouldn't have done that. Even if it was out of her control, she still shouldn't have done that. Somehow.
She looks up at him for just a moment before she breaks eye-contact to stare at the keyboard. "I'm sorry," she mutters, feeling shame that she knows is totally irrational. Which just makes it feel even worse.
no subject
It's not like he didn't expect something like this - you can't heal trauma just by saying it's okay - but something in him twinges when she startles away from him.
"It's fine," he says, because it has to be - he doesn't get to hold this against her when he's the one who shot her in the first place, and he doesn't particularly want to. Instead, he puts her mug back in its place on her desk. It's fine. Everything's fine.
no subject
The one and only thing Pidge is sure of right in this moment is that she doesn't want to keep dancing around him. She's having nightmares. What's happening with him, she can't imagine.
"I don't want to have nightmares about you! I don't want to think about it every time I see you!" She sounds childish, she knows, but it needs to be said. "I want to move past this but...I don't know how and I need your help."
no subject
It strikes him just how few people here know how completely fucked up he truly is and how badly he tends to handle it.
But this isn't about him - not really.
"What you need is time," he says, not looking up. "Trauma is an injury, and you can't just wave your hand and make it better. You need to process. Dr. Ry'kerr can help you with that."
no subject
"What about your processing? Have you gone to Dr. Ry'kerr?"
no subject
He could lie, but that sort of lie is easily found out around here, which makes it essentially pointless. Plus - and more importantly - he doesn't want to lie to her if he doesn't have to. Their relationship is damaged enough as it is right now.
"Not yet," is what he settles on. "I'm waiting for everyone who got turned to have their session. I can hold the fort until then." The first part of that is true, at least.
no subject
She's never been good at dealing with people, but he's also not the best at keeping secrets. Not when he pretty much just admitted that he's trying to take care of everyone else before himself.
"Then maybe," she says, hoping this isn't going to make him run away, "we could go together?"
no subject
"Look," he says, and finally looks at her. "I'm pretty sure you're going to have things you won't want to say in front of me, and I know I have things I don't want to say in front of you. Going together to the first session after trauma is probably not a good plan." There's a reason he'd had his breakdown all over Chief instead of anyone else; there were things you just didn't say to people who had healing of their own to do.
"...second one might work better, though."