goneawaycomms | AGENT WASHINGTON

[ Wash blushes and York smiles at that -- if the moment wasn't so fraught he'd reach up and tickle one of his red ears but as it is he keeps his hand where it is and waits for Wash to come up with an answer for him.

He has no idea what Wash is thinking, but the first request is simple. ]

That's easy enough.

[ The last thing he wants to do is kill his friends, which Wash is one of as far as he's concerned. He does wonder if Wash is thinking of him the same way yet, or is still struggling with the distance that had been there even before he found York dead.

Wash keeps talking, then, pulling York back from the edge of another morbid spiral. He nods his understanding, not wanting to interrupt. Waiting until his friend is done saying what he has to say.

It should be easy enough. York's not the lying type, or a manipulating one.

As Wash continues, York thinks he's getting a better picture of what the other man has become. What he was made into. He seems guilty about it, though, and remorse is pretty much York's only requirement for a second chance. Wash says he doesn't want to be that way anymore. Explained how it happened. That's all it takes. York can hold up his end. ]

I understand. And if it helps, anybody who tries to screw you like that will wind up at the top of my shit list.

[ A beat, and he doesn't want to ruin the moment but he just has to ask: ]

...do you actually know somebody named 'Donut'?

Apparently.

[He can't really remember his friends that well, but...yes.]

There's also one named Caboose.

I'm pretty sure they're not nicknames.

They must've had nightmare adolescences.

[ Caboose? Come on now. If it were a nickname it'd be fun but as an actual name it's pretty ridiculous. ]

But I get what you're saying.

I don't remember much of Donut but the others definitely were people with nightmare adolescences.

[He doesn't need to ask Tucker. He just knows. Simmons alone...]

[Sim troopers, right?]

[He finally looks up from where he's looking out at the desert.]

You're asking what I need but someone can want to help without really...you know.

[He's searching for an intangible made solid.]

Are we...okay? Like actually okay.

[He thinks of North.]

It doesn't feel like it'd happen twice. And with North, North is...North.

[ It's just smalltalk at this point, or so York thinks, so he grins and lets it trail off into companionable silence. Both of them just looking out at the approaching storm. He's about to say maybe they should head back in when Wash speaks again. ]

...without really meaning it? I don't say things I don't mean, Wash. That gets me into trouble sometimes.

[ His lips quirk, but he knows this is serious. He breathes out. ]

I think we'll be actually okay. I just need to get to know this you a little more. It feels like you're telling me the truth, anyway. Do you get that feeling from me?

[He looks at him a long time and the mask actually falls for real, the warring emotions visible on his face. Just like back when he was the rookie, his feelings are on his sleeve. Back then, he was so expressive he could emote in the armor; sometimes he'd full body slump and show exactly what he was feeling.]

[He blinks and all of a sudden, for a brief second, he sees them again. Sim troopers in multi-colored armor. The same flash when he was trying to decide if he'd trust North.]

[They're trying to tell him something. Or really...he's trying to tell himself something.]

A little bit. Not entirely.[Dryly.] I think the part of me that could is almost entirely sheared off by extreme force.

[A furrow of his eyebrows, as he looks just slightly past York.]

But I think they would want me to.

[Cryptic. "Christ, man! Always with the cryptic one liners!" says a hateful voice from the past.]

[He blinks and the Reds and Blues are gone, as if satisfied. As if the other part of himself is satisfied.]

[He's actually honest. Actually open and honest. Because York is doing everything right and because of them. Because a part of him wants to do what they'd want him to do - accept support.]

I get flashes of the Reds and Blues sometimes. Like...like a part of my brain is trying to tell me something. Tucker...I trust him without knowing why. When it's hard to trust anyone right now.

[He shakes his head.]

And I know I trust the rest of them without even remembering them.

I think whatever part of me remembers being...whoever I was, with the people I was with, in the present, is trying to tell me to trust you even if I can't feel it yet.

So I'll try.

[He wishes he could just do it on command but he can't. His old friends died before he had a chance to rebuild up the kind of trust he apparently built with his newer friends. But maybe if he tries, they can catch up.]

[Maybe.]

Flashes?

[ York sounds equal parts curious and concerned -- it should be good that Wash's memory is trying to come back, but they still don't know why he lost it. ]

I mean, I'll take it. You trying for them, even if you don't remember. They must've done something good for you, right? If you're living and working with a team again.

When I was talking to Tucker, I had a flashback at one point. Of them taking care of me while I was...confused.

For once, I can't twist that into anything else other than what it was.

[For once, his paranoia can't make that into an evil.]

[What he says next is the verbal equivalent of words stumbling out like a baby deer. They're confused and unsure. He's not used to saying them anymore.]

...Thank you?

[For trying so hard.]

And I'm sorry.

[And he actually is. For what he did, for what he still will do - even if now maybe...]

[Now maybe even if there are lies, the end goal might be to help others.]

That qualifies as something good for you, yeah. So I appreciate them, wherever they are. I'm just sorry you can't remember.

[ The way the 'thank you' and then 'I'm sorry' stumbles out is kind of sad, both that Wash has to say it in the first place and that it's so hard for him. York nods a little, then shifts back from the railing. ]

If I warn you I want to hug you this time are you still going to punch me?

[Dead serious face, dead serious tone.]

Yes.

[And then it relaxes to something a little more impish, a little more like young Wash - and not that he remembers it - current Wash.]

Kidding.

[And he opens his arms hesitantly, super awkwardly, like a zombie trying to remember the warm embrace of other humans that it just barely remembers from times long before.]

[He doesn't look for the glint of a knife.]

[ York is about to take that at face value when Wash's expression changes and he realizes (before his friend says it) that the other man is screwing with him. He smiles, because it does remind him of young Wash, the rookie that he didn't realize just how much he missed. ]

That was far too convincing.

[ He reaches up and draws Wash into a hug, warm and strong. Like last time it'll only last as long as Wash allows, but the fact that he's hugging back is endlessly encouraging.

There are no knives involved. ]

[There are no knives involved.]

[Not a single knife.]

[Wash's eyes get glassy where York can't see.]

[His right hand, the one that has the tremors, the one that grabbed a notebook and wrote a frantic message to Tucker, the one that seems to have a mind of it its own - it grabs on tight, hand wending into the fabric of York's shirt, making it harder for Wash to ditch on the hug early.]

[This time he doesn't end it quickly, like he did in Hell Disney. This time he holds on tight, and he trembles a little.]

[No, a lot. He's shaking a lot, like a bombed out wall about to crumble. There's spillover from the man he became - is. That man holds on tight to his brief re-connection to the world. He holds onto his friend. One he thought he'd never see again, who's alive and warm in his arms. He wants to just hold on for a while, to try to make sure it's real.]

[But that Wash, the warm Wash, the wise Wash - the drowning Wash, pushed into the dark and only clinging to the outside world by a thread...]

[Well, he's not the one at the wheel.]

[The other one is a little colder. He separates and pulls the other way, and lets go of the hug. But at least it lasted longer this time. At least he wasn't ready to squirm out of it.]

[When he draws back there are tears on his face. He doesn't remember crying, because they are - and aren't - his own. They belong to present Wash, who's warm enough to thaw out the icy facade, but who's now subsumed again.]

[Wash wipes at his face, embarrassed.]

[Coughs.]

Dusty up here.

[His voice is hoarse.]

Very dry air.

[ York can feel Wash gripping his shirt and trembling but doesn't draw attention to it. Just holds on comfortingly until the other man pulls away, then politely pretends he doesn't notice that Wash was crying. It's okay -- he's emotional right now, too, that Wash accepted the hug so much more so than the last time he tried. He hugged back. It lasted.

Wash coughs and York just smiles fondly, agreeing with him for appearances' sake. ]

Yeah, the storm's blowing up the dust. We should go in and grab a drink.

AGENT WASHINGTON

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