Katou (katoustheshit) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2019-04-21 17:08:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, agent washington, yue katou |
Who: Katou and Wash
What: Katou finds Wash wandering around in the middle of nowhere
When: Recently
Where: The middle of nowhere
Ratings/Warnings: Low/none
Status: Complete
It was dark out. When had it become dark? Wash had no idea. He also had no idea why he was driving around, either. He felt as though he’d left the house for something, but couldn’t remember what. As he looked at unfamiliar looking landmarks and street signs, he came to the realization he didn’t know where he was, or which way home was. He tried looking for the highway, any highway, but the more he drove, the less and less familiar the area felt. He wasn’t even sure if he was in Orange County any longer.
Anxiety bubbled in his stomach and slowly made its way up into his chest. His head was starting to throb in a way he hadn’t experienced since his discharge from the marines. He had Sophie with him at least. She was seated on her blanket in the passenger seat, watching the world through the partially open window. Wash tried to take some of her calm onto himself. He was fine. Everything was fine. He’d driven all over Orange County over the last five years. He knew it. Knew its streets, knew its landmarks. It was his home.
“It’s alright, Soph,” he told the German Shepard next to him. “Everything’s fine. We’ll be home soon.”
They weren’t.
The clock on Wash’s dashboard read 8:30 PM when he pulled to the side of the road. His head was pounding. The pain radiated from the back of his skull near his old injury. It clamped like a claw around the sides of his head and down his neck into his shoulders. Something was wrong, but Wash couldn’t get his mind to work right enough to figure out what.
Sensing his distress, Sophie whined next to him. She leaned over and nuzzled his face with her nose. The touch calmed Wash down enough for him to take a deep breath. He scratched behind her ears. “I’m alright, Soph,” he said. “We passed a gas station back there. I’m going to go and see if I can get some directions to the highway.”
Sophie cocked her head as Wash got out of the van. “Stay,” he told her when it looked as though she was going to follow him. “I’ll be right back.” He locked up the van and started walking in what he believed was the way he’d come.
Wash walked for roughly 30 minutes, but no gas station came into view and it wasn’t long before he couldn’t remember what he was even looking for. The throbbing pain in his head was at a fevered pitch. He couldn’t think. He knew he was lost and that it was night and that he’d left Sophie somewhere. It was suddenly extremely important that he find her.
“Sophie!” He called out into the night. “Sophie! Come here, girl! Come, Sophie!” Panic swelled. He couldn’t breathe. His voice pitched high with desperation, squeaking around the clench in his throat. “Sophie!” He needed to find his dog! “SOPHIE!”
Katou had been a little worried when Wash hadn’t turned up for work, though he tried not to think too much about it. It wasn’t like they had to go in if there wasn’t fucked up OC happenings happening, though Katou liked to just so that he could feel busy, and he was pretty sure that Wash generally felt the same way. Free time generally wasn’t something that an addict wanted to have a lot of.
So, when Katou had finished up work, he’d headed to Wash’s house. No one answered the door when he knocked, not even York, and no dogs barked from within. Katou called Wash, and when no one answered he decided he’d check Wash’s location. He checked his phone, and saw that Wash was driving… somewhere, though Katou couldn’t for the life of him figure out where that might be.
Figuring Wash wouldn’t be back for a while, he drove back home, then checked the phone again. Wash had stopped somewhere, apparently in the middle of nowhere. Katou tried his phone again, but again it went to voicemail. He tried again after another ten minutes had gone by, and then, telling himself he wasn’t worried, not at all, Wash had probably just blown out a tire or something dumb like that, and besides, he was a big boy, Katou got into his car and made his way out to wherever it was that Wash had stopped.
The van sat alone on the side of the road, lights off and with no one around. It didn’t look like any of the tires had blown out, and Katou pulled out behind it. He made his way to the driver’s door and peered inside the dark van, not even flinching as Sophie threw herself at the window. He bit his lip though, and then, ridiculously, looked underneath the van for Wash. He hadn’t known him to go much of anywhere without Sophie, let alone without Sophie or his phone, which, according to GPS, was still inside the van.
He went back to his car to get the spare set of van keys Wash had given him from the glove compartment. From the way Sophie was acting, he was pretty sure that Wash wasn’t in the back of the van, but he still checked anyway.
“Where the fuck is Hyde, Soph?” Katou asked the dog, and then opened the door so she could jump out and the two of them could look for him together. He imagined he’d have more luck with Sophie tagging along than by himself. At the very least, at least he’d have company.
Sophie was out of the van the moment Katou opened the door. She knew the young man well, recognized him as one of her human’s very good friends and she was happy to see him, tail wagging as she circled around him and sniffed at his legs. But her human wasn’t here. He hadn’t come back with the young man. Sophie sniffed around the ground, whining pitifully. She then turned her eyes up at Katou and yipped.
“Guess this isn’t one of those movies where I can just say ‘go find him, girl,’ and you’ll run-off and magically do just that, huh?” Katou asked the dog, and then immediately felt like an idiot for talking to the damn dog.
“Alright,” he said. At least no one was around to hear him. He pulled his t-shirt over his head, tucked it into the band of his tight blue jeans, and extended his wings. “Ima go get a bird’s eye view and try to see what I can see. You, stay here.” Why was he explaining himself to a dog? He shook his head, and leapt into the air, hoping he’d be able to see something in this dark.
Once Katou was airborn, Sophie barked at him and did an anxious little dance by the door of the van, but did not make a move to follow. Instead she remained where she was and watched as Katou circled overhead.
A few blocks away, the pain in Wash’s head had gotten so bad he could hardly see – not that there was much to see out in the darkness. He felt disoriented, as though someone had been spinning him around and then just plopped him down in the middle of the road. He knew something was wrong -- very wrong. He didn’t know where his phone was, or where he’d left his van. Panic gripped him by the throat, making it difficult to breathe.
Katou couldn’t be sure it was Wash, but somewhere in the distance he could see what looked like a person walking around. He held his hand above his eyes, as if shielding the moonlight from them would somehow make whatever it was he was looking at more obvious, but it didn’t help too much.
He was tempted, sorely tempted, to just fly over there and get a look. But Sophie was waiting underneath him, and if Katou lost Wash’s dog, Wash would probably be pretty pissed at him. So he descended to the ground, retracted his wings, and slipped his shirt back on.
“Alright,” Katou said. “I think I might’ve seen him. Follow me,” he said, giving her a reassuring scratch behind the ears and made for lot that he’d spotted the person in. Eventually, the man came into view and it became clear that it really was Wash.
A… potentially drunk Wash? Katou frowned, and then broke into a jog. “Hey, Hyde,” Katou called once he was on the edge of the empty lot. “The fuck you doing?”
”Follow me” wasn’t one of the commands Sophie knew, but the scratch behind the ear from the familiar man was enough to get her to walk along with Katou, obediently trotting along at his side. She continued like this the few blocks until they reached the vacant lot where Wash was stumbling aimlessly and in obvious distress. With a yip, she broke into a run, beating Katou to the man.
At the sound, Wash turned. “Sophie!” Christ he was relieved to see her. But she wasn’t alone. Someone else was there and calling out to him. It sounded like Katou. “Kat?” he called out cautiously, stepping back just in case this person jogging up to him wasn’t his friend.
“The one and only,” Katou said, finally coming into the light. He frowned, running a hand through his hair. “What’s going on, Wash? Why are you out here?”
It was a relief to hear Katou’s voice, but Wash didn’t know how to answer his question. “I…” he pressed his fingers against his forehead. “I don’t…I don’t know where I am.” He winced. “I was driving…I think…and my head starting hurting. I must’ve…I must’ve left my van somewhere…I don’t…I can’t remember.”
Katou frowned. “Yeah, I found your car,” he said. “And your dog. Wash, you ain’t been drinking, have you?’ Part of him wondered why he even bothered asking the question. He’d been an addict long enough to know that even if he had been drinking, he’d lie through his teeth about it. It must have been one hell of a bender to leave Wash in this state though, and to his credit, he didn’t smell like he’d just gone on a massive bender.
Wash peered at him, squinting through the pounding in his head and trying very hard to get his eyes to focus properly. Had he been drinking? Wash struggled to remember. He’d been dry for months, he was pretty sure about that. Since moving into York’s house, at least. “I don’t….think so?” He said at last. “I can’t remember.” Panic started creeping up his throat again. “I can’t remember what I’m doing out here. How did I get here?”
Katou bit his lip, frowning to himself. “Listen dude, I can’t answer none of that,” he said. He was just as lost as Wash was in all of this. Well, maybe not just as lost as Wash. Wash was literally wandering around in the middle of nowhere.
“Maybe we oughtta get you checked out by… someone,” he said after a moment. Because getting drunk was one thing, but not remembering if you’d been drinking was an entirely different one.
Between them, Sophie whined. Wash had her by the collar and she strained a little, as if trying to get him to walk with her. Wash didn’t seem to hear or notice. “Checked out…” he repeated as though he wasn’t sure what the words meant. Then he shook his head. “No, not, that’s a bad idea. The implants. They’ll find the implants. I can’t let them do that. They’ll fuck with them or something...I dunno.” He squinted at Katou, his voice taking on a pleading tone. “Don’t take me to a hospital, okay, Kat? I’ll be fine. I just...I just need sleep this off.”
“I meant someone at the Agency,” Katou said, frowning. “But yeah. Maybe all you need to do is sleep it off.” He hoped so at least. The other option was that sleeping would just make it worse, or compound dream things on top of that, and he wasn’t especially keen to think about how that would go.
Wash nodded, relieved Katou wasn’t going to try to talk him into going to a hospital. Someone at The Agency may have a way of figuring out what was wrong, but Wash clung to the idea that all he needed to do was sleep this off. Everything would be fine in the morning. It had to be. “Can you...can you take me back to my van, Kat? Or maybe...maybe it’d be better if you took me home. I can’t exactly drive right now.”
“Yeah,” Katou said, still giving Wash a concerned frown. He didn’t like whatever this was, but it wasn't exactly like he was equipped to figuring things out. Part of him wondered if he should go to Natasha, or if that would make him a narc.
Whatever he decided, he figured it was probably something he could sort out in the morning. “Yeah,” he repeated. “No problem. Come on.”