goneawaycomms | AGENT WASHINGTON

He's usually fine with people taking extra food, especially since the cafeteria doesn't give us enough calories.

Also we're on surprisingly good terms.

[He's as shocked about that as anyone.]

I'm still getting fed better here than I was back home.

Meet you there?

Sure.

Look for the blackberry bushes.

[When he eventually finds Wash, he's filling a little basket, woven from grasses (maybe by Bunny?) with blackberries from a row of bushes. He keeps pulling faces when he deals with the thorns, like he's not someone used to regularly being shot].

[It's very unguarded, but it's partly because of what he's doing.]

[When he sees York, he actually smiles a little.]

You know, when I was kid, my sisters and I used to sneak back our neighbor's property and raid this huge blackberry thicket he had back there. He was always chasing us off his property, even though he usually just left them to rot.

Until he put up a high wooden fence. He put the smooth side out, no cross-posts to use as steps. Probably thought that would keep us away for good. But we kept doing it all the way up until I graduated high school and went off to Basic.

We would just grab my dad's step ladder from the garage and carry it with us there and back. There were enough of us we could get away with each of us using one hand to carry it and the other hand to carry backpacks full of blackberries. He never caught on.

[ York finds the blackberry bushes, and Wash. He smiles back, first at how easily Wash smiles at him but then it broadens as he listens to the story. Little mischief makers. He can see it, bitty Wash and a trio of tiny blond girls sneaking around in the neighbor's yard mission impossible style, their hands stained with blackberries. ]

Good for you guys, he was wasting them. I didn't know you had sisters. How many?

Three. One older, two younger.

We either fought like cats in a bag or lined up in lock step to pull one over on any adults - or other kids that tried to mess with one of us. There was no in between.

[He feels a little regretful, wonders if things have changed in the time he forgot. The last he heard from his family...]

[Well. "Convicted traitor" was the kind of thing that threw a spanner into a relationship. They'd made it clear they didn't want any communication. There'd been a bit of "I don't know who you are anymore." It'd been bad.]

[He wonders if the "Hero of Chorus" thing that he can't remember changed that. He hasn't bothered to ask Carolina and Tucker because he's not sure "I'm talking to my family again" is even something future him would've told them. He's not sure if future him had even tried.]

[In any case, he's trying to just think about the good times in this moment. At this point he's told both York and Carolina he'd try to be better, do better. And that means not living in that space of coldness, viciousness, and bitterness.]

I always wanted siblings, as a kid. Even with the infamous sibling fights.

[ He can tell that Wash is reminiscing about something not great, though, and so comes up to the bushes to pick some berries with him. Bumps their shoulders together gently. ]

Want to be my big brother? Since you’re older than me now.

[ And that’s a good opening for what he actually intended to do originally, though he does feel a little bad about pulling one over on Wash... he grins, reaching over to give Wash a noogie and get a feel of his head. ]

You going grey, old man?

I'm not that much older. And only a little gray.

[He is going gray. It's just hard to see unless you're up close because of how light his hair is.]

[He squirms when York noogies him.]

Hey, c'mon, knock it off.

[He squirms even harder when it feels like York's hand is touching his head a little too much.]

Let go!

[He manages to duck away but doesn't look like he's suspicious of York's motives. As far as Wash knows he's just being a little extra careful to make sure no one notices the scar - he doesn't realize York was actually feeling his head on purpose to find it.]

[So he just pelts a few blackberries at him and goes back to picking more.]

We're not in high school.

[He doesn't realize what York was just able to feel: a curved scar on the side of his head, like someone might have from brain surgery.]

Sorry, sorry. I’m young at heart.

[ He’s still smiling, but he is genuinely apologetic... he doesn’t like sneaking around Wash like this when the other man seems to have warmed to him. It’ll be okay, he tells himself, he’s trying to help.

The scar is right where Stacia said it would be, and feels new.

He shakes it off, files the information away to tell her later and focuses instead on just spending time with his friend. A blackberry hits him on the cheek and leaves a stain of juice right beneath his own scar. He doesn’t think to reach up to wipe it away, just picks a few more and pops them in his mouth. ]

So how’d you get to be friends with the Easter Bunny? He seemed a little skittish of me when I was in here with him.

AGENT WASHINGTON

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