First name Agent, last name Washington (freelancerwash) wrote in madisonvalley, @ 2019-06-17 09:37:00 |
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Entry tags: | !closed, !complete, !log, !narrative, ~2019 june, ~25 points, ~~agent washington (freelancerwash) |
Who: Agent Washington and Church
What: What the fuck now?
When: Early Monday morning
Where: Their cabin
Warnings: PTSD, memory issues, torture (to an AI) discussion
Status: Complete narrative
“Oh you have got to be fucking kidding me.” It wasn’t a voice that was supposed to be in Wash’s room so of course as soon as he heard it in his shallow sleep he rolled out of bed into a ‘ready’ position and his bleary mind tried to figure out where his weapons were. There were no weapons and this wasn’t his room. He didn’t think anyway. To be honest he wasn’t sure at this point of being surprised awake.
Church, still stuck in Charlie’s body had squeaked a little at his sudden movement and backed up a step. There were some things he didn’t want to experience again in a body, like being hit in the face, so he was doing his best to avoid them. “Easy there trigger, no one’s under attack we’re just…on a boat.”
Wash knew he knew who the other person was, he just couldn’t come up with it right away. God he hated this whole memory shit. I’m Washington, I used to be….David…I live with my friends, they call me Wash…
He still couldn’t come up with a name until he’d started to switch subjects in his mind, sometimes it was like having a stutter, change the word and the other comes back. “Did I forget we were on a boat…Charlie! Wait, no…Chu…Epsilon.” Wash sighed as he sat on the bed he’d rolled out of. Sometimes it took a lot longer than that to get a name back so he was doing pretty well this morning.
“No, you didn’t forget.” Church went ahead and sat on the other bed facing Wash since he seemed to have calmed down. “We seem to be doing a Madison Valley weird thing. And for fuck’s sake stop calling me Epsilon. I hate that god damn name.” Church had been avoiding the whole thing because Wash was pissed off at him and he had every reason to be but he’d thought they were past all that after Chorus and him being stuck in Wash’s head when he got here. It sucked to roll backward because then he had to remember shit he didn’t want to remember any more than Washington did.
Wash sighed again and rubbed his hand over his face and back through hair that seemed to be doing its best to stand on end from him sleeping on it. It was so much easier to avoid these conversations when the AI wasn’t in Charlie’s body. “Do you remember when they gave you to me?”
Church blinked in surprise because he honestly had expected to get snark thrown back at him not a legitimate question. And the question that was asked made him hunch his shoulders and do his best to shrink in on himself in Charlie’s body before he nodded. “I mean, not all of it. There was too much and I was…um…but yeah” He remembered everything that the Alpha did, Alpha was built on the director’s memories so he remembered all that and everything that they did to the Alpha. He remembered going through scenario after scenario of making mistakes in impossible situations and being told that he’d gotten people killed until he’d had to break pieces of himself off to not go completely insane until he’d just finally broken off all of his memories so he wouldn’t have to remember anymore.
Wash hated watching him do that. The AI was usually so overconfident and brash that it was hard for people who hadn’t carried him in his head to realize he had his own broken spots. He just covered them very well. “When that happened, when they put you in my head with you unspooling like you were I got all of that from you.”
Church sighed and did his best to straighten up. They had never talked about this and he’d thought it was going to be a kind of unspoken no we’re never talking about this kind of thing but he’d been in Wash’s head and he knew how fucked up he’d left it. All it took was riding out one god damn nightmare of a flag being brought to the Director’s door and he’d known Wash knew everything. “Yeah, I know. I know I fucked up your brain Wash, but I had no…”
“Church.” All it took was hearing that name to derail the AI from whatever he was going to keep saying and snap his mouth shut. “I’m not blaming you. I know what they did okay?” Wash waited to make sure Church understood but he could tell he was making him more confused because he had no idea where Wash was going with this.
“Look, all I’m saying is this reminds me of what I went through after the implantation and it pisses me off because it reminds me of all of that. And I’m so angry…but not at you exactly just I’m back here…again and I don’t know if we can ever fix it. And because every time we go back home our friend Church is dead and I don’t like to think about it. So I’ll try to stop calling you Epsilon but just give me some time okay?”
And that was so far beyond what Church had expected that he could only sit there for a minute trying to process all of that. He got the whole pissed off because it was too much like the time he’d shredded Wash’s mind without meaning to in his insanity but he hadn’t thought anything about maybe Wash missed him. Well no he thought he probably missed him for the way it made Carolina, Tucker and Caboose feel but they hadn’t had the closest friendship. Why did the fucking Freelancer have to be so damn hard to read? “Yeah. No problem. Um if we can get me out of…oh fuck the armor isn’t here. How the hell are D and I supposed to figure this out without all our stuff?”
And apparently the emotional part was over because now Church was up and pawing through the cabin in any place Wash’s armor could be stored and swearing up a storm.
The sudden flash of Meta and Tex on the cliff made Wash hiss in pain but then oddly he smiled. “We don’t need the armor, we just need to make a capture unit. That will pull you out and we’ll be able to get Charlie back in.” It would just need help that Church wouldn’t like. Wash would take care of that part. “Guess it’s a good thing that you happen to have a Recovery agent with you who knows how to make one.”
“Jesus Wash I could kiss you right now…except I won’t because this is already weird enough.” Church stopped then gave Wash a wary look. “You don’t actually need to stab me with it right? I mean Charlie probably wouldn’t appreciate it.”
“No, Church, stabbing isn’t required. All we need to do is get it near you if we do it right.” Having something to think and work on had pushed the fact they were on a boat to the side to be dealt with later which was a good thing. “Why don’t you go find Delta and figure out how we’re going to get the parts and I’ll stay here and make some notes.” And maybe contact some people when Church wasn’t in the room.
It felt good to be useful even if he knew he was going to have to leave the heavy lifting to other people.