Who: Leliana & Wash What: Advice over cookies and coffee When: Before Shattered Sight Where: Baxter's Bakery Rating/Warnings: Relatively harmless Status: Complete!
Leliana didn’t really know what the in the Maker’s name was a ‘sparkling latte’ but she supposed there was a first time for everything; the place was popular enough, and the fame had her stray away from her usual piping hot chai. Sparkly and glittery things were stuff she liked, but having it in her caffeinated was…
Interesting, she supposed.
Settling into the seat across from him, she was dressed in a quarter-sleeved dress with a flared skirt, golden belt strapped around her midsection, and nude wedges grabbed from Cindy’s shop. “You can help yourself to the cookies, by the way!” There were plenty on her plate, all fresh baked and gooey in the center. Chocolate chip, macadamia nut, salted caramel. Leliana liked her sweets but she certainly couldn’t eat all of them, and they definitely needed something to pick at. “Otherwise it will go straight to my tush.”
Wash’s hands were wrapped around a tall cup of black coffee. It had been nearly a week since his last migraine. However, caffeine had become something of a habit, even if he still hadn’t quite acquired the taste for coffee he’d hoped he’d have by now. There was still something comforting about it. At least he’d started to become discerning about where he got his caffeine fix.
He was glad Leliana agreed to have coffee with him. He had a lot on his mind and very few people to talk with about it. Ordinarily his first impulse would have been to text Kyu, but considering a lot of his thoughts centered around her, he didn’t know exactly what he should say or how he should say it.
Leli, as always, was impeccably dressed in contrast to Wash’s jeans, simple plain grey t-shirt and combat boots. Always combat boots.
He glanced down at the plate of cookies between them. They looked good and smelled even better. He didn’t really have much of an appetite, but he selected one of the cookies and took a tentative bite. “Thanks for meeting me, Leli,” he said. Yup, that nickname was apparently sticking.
Better him to call her ‘Leli’ than all the other names she went by. Well, more accurately, the rest were titles to match that shady reputation she had tucked away (and currently was taking a break from), and she’d rather have something cute and endearing spun off her actual name when it came to her group of friends. “Thank you for inviting me, actually,” she smiled, peeling the lid off her latte because she had every intention of dipping her cookies in it, thank you. “I needed to step out of the house, anyway.”
Taking a breath away from her trade of choice had left her restless and a slave to her own thoughts. Dissecting her decisions and motivations left and right, figuring out where she stood by on the scale of morality, unsure whether or not she actually wanted to keep doing this for the rest of her life. Gale had come in and tipped the scales of balance and now uncertainty was the dreadful reality of the situation. Leliana could keep her friends at arm’s length, but not Gale.
Hence the complications.
“Something bothering you?” Call it intuition or simply her keen sense of detail, but it seemed like Wash had a reason to actually invite her out.
Wash looked up from the cookie he was half-heartedly gnawing on and came to the realization that’d he’d barely said two words to Leliana since arriving at the bakery. Conversation used to be something he was good at. When had his people skills become so abysmal? Had it been the military or had it been the accident? The accident had certainly changed his life a lot, there was no reason to think it hadn’t changed how he interacted with people, even people he liked.
She was on the money though, wasn’t she? Like she could see right through him. Or maybe this was just how he acted now by default. At least he could get to the point instead of trying to make small talk. Leli probably didn’t enjoy small talk.
“Kind of.” Liar. “I guess Kyu and I are official, or something? I think?” Kyu had never actually said yes to him the other night, but she hadn’t said no either. Not to mention she had stopped sleeping with other people. Wash understood that was a huge deal for Kyu and not something she’d do simply on a whim. “It's been awhile since I’ve been in a relationship and…” God could he be any more awkward?! He could feel his face flushing and his neck starting to burn. He rubbed the back of his head awkwardly, “yeah, I might be freaking out a little bit about it.”
Oh. Leliana’s brows both poked up. “Matters of the heart, I see,” she hummed, taking a minute to stir a decadent macadamia nut cookie into her latte before taking a small chomp from it. All she knew from his relationship with Kyu was the date they’d all gone on together, and they were cute. Kyu was personable, sassy, with a taste in fashion she respected (though Leliana would never be able to pull that off, herself). It all seemed to click in place in her eyes.
But people were complicated by nature, and it was natural for Wash to have reservations. Uncertainty. Concerns, even. He seemed very guarded, and she could relate. “It’s been awhile for you, when it comes to relationships?” A sip of her latte, tongue cleaning that layer of foam that stuck to her upper lip. “What are you freaking out about, exactly? Commitment? Change?”
“My life’s changed a lot in the past year,” Wash said. His fingers at the back of his head tightened, pulling hard on strands of hair and feeling that scar. “Most of it not for the better, with a few exceptions. Meeting Gale was one. Meeting Kyu was the other.” He lifted his eyes up from the half eaten cookie in his other hand. “I really like her. Really like her. I haven’t dated since high school, and those weren’t serious relationships, you know?” His eyes wandered back down towards Lelina’s latte, watching the liquid swirl around in the cup. “But this is different. For me.” He assumed it was different for Kyu too, but he wasn’t about to speak for her. “I keep asking myself what if. What if I ...I don’t...screw up? I mean, look at me, I’m a fu-” His eyes moved up again as he caught the word in his mouth. “I’m not all that great with people. Anymore. And even if she’s ok with that-” which she seemed to be “-what if something else happens? To me...to her...?”
What if what happened to Allison happened to Kyu? God, he couldn’t go through that. Not here. Not in the real world. Allison’s death had screwed up Leonard Church and if he was supposed to be Leonard Church if something happened to Kyu would he go down that same path? What was to keep him from doing so?!
And if he wasn’t supposed to be Leonard Church, if he was actually only supposed to be Agent Washington then what did that mean exactly? Was there something actually wrong with his brain the doctors had missed? How could he possibly be two different men in his Dreams?
His nails were digging into his scalp around the scar. Reflexive habit perhaps, but their was something about the pain that kept him grounded, kept the feeling of having two different minds in his head at bay. He realized he’d trailed off in the middle of his sentence and that he wasn’t actually looking at Leliana or her latte anymore. He forced his grey eyes back up towards her face. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be dumping all of this on you. We don’t know each other that well. Its just...I don’t have a lot of friends and I kind of just needed someone to talk to.”
“You’ve got nothing to apologize for,” was Leliana’s vehement insistence, the sureness of her words odd for that soft voice, that foreign accent. She didn’t mind being an ear. Especially since he seemed to so very much need someone to talk to, and his insecurities about it had mirrored hers once upon a time.
Now, another dip of the cookie into the latte, another swirl, and then another nibble, soaking his words in. “It’s easy to sometimes overthink things and unnecessarily overcomplicate it all in your head. And I’ve done that to myself, multiple times, when Gale first started coming around.” Their relationship had first been based on sex. Companionship without the strings of commitment, but it certainly didn’t stay that way. Powder blue eyes stared down at her latte for a second before raising them to meet Wash’s, shoulders rolling into a small shrug. “I’ve come to terms that being with someone is a risk. One that is worth taking, no matter how the outside forces could affect it. Sometimes being with someone is all you need to commit to, and everything else falls into place. You figure it out as you go, not before you open yourself to it.”
Leliana blew some of the steam from the surface to prepare herself for a larger sip of caffeinated ambrosia. “You want to be with her, no?”
Her instance that he need not apologize admittedly took him a little by surprise. It wasn’t a casual brush off people used when they wanted to remain polite. Leliana was more than sympathetic, she actually understood. What she said next proved the point.
Was he overthinking and overcomplicating things? Probably. He could probably blame the military for that too. When one found themselves on the front lines, clearly thinking out your moves three steps in advance was vital to avoid getting picked off by a potential sniper or blown up by an IED. Not so necessary when dealing with day to day life in beautiful southern California.
A lot of his quirks could be blamed on his time in the service and yet still there was no place he’d rather be.
Well, that wasn’t entirely true anymore. There was one place…
Nails digging in further he nodded his head. “Of course I do,” he said without even having to think. “I want to be with her. I want to make her happy. I know I should stop worrying about it and just let it happen and I’ll only end up sabotaging myself if I think on it too much, but I can’t help it. My Dreams…” here he trailed off.
He knew Leliana wasn’t a stranger to the Dreams. Being on the Network she couldn’t be. Everyone there had them. They were normal. Kind of. He could trust her. “I shouldn’t let them get to me,” he said at last. “But they worry me.”
Little details were something that caught her eye often - like the odd way he’d been scratching at his head. Digging. Playing with something. Her stare tightened, and her head cocked to the side. “I’d say to not be a slave to your dreams, but everyone knows that is much easier said than done.” Leliana would be lying to herself if they didn’t have a certain degree of control over her here. The taunting possibility of who she could become, if she didn’t change her ways. A harbinger of death for the sake of good. Change didn’t come with passive protests. “It is important to understand them. And to understand who you are in them - they’re part of you.”
Leaning back, she picked up her biodegradable cup so the warmth could spread in her hands. “Do you want to talk about it? About what concerns you so much?”
He did, but sharing what was personal had never been something that had come easy to Wash. Even in high school when back hands across the face from his stepfather were part of the evening routine he’d never said anything to his friends. But he couldn’t keep this inside. If he was really going crazy, he had to know now before he dragged anyone down with him.
He took a slow breath and nodded slowly. His hand relaxed, but remained at the back of his head. He had to be careful how he phrased this. Even if he was crazy, he didn’t want to sound crazy. “In my Dreams, I’m two different people. Sometimes I’m a scientist experimenting with A.I., my intentions were...good...once, but my methods are, not entirely ethical. The other man, the other me, is marine blindly following him. It’s like I’m living two lives. I don’t understand it. I wonder if, maybe, somethings wrong with me.”
None of it sounded crazy. Their home was a place that brought them dreams of alternate worlds, in which problems from these respective places often bled over in different manifestations. County-wide catastrophes, wounds, items, animals, skills and powers - that itself had been crazy to her, and now it simply was part of the norm. None of what he could say would sound insane to her. Maybe odd, but not insane.
“That’s a bit peculiar, I’ll admit,” she hummed quietly. It wasn’t unusual for people to dream another set of dreams, a different timeline. It was the first she had heard of someone dreaming of being two different people. How curious. “But I don’t think something is wrong with you. Not here. And if something is, who are you to say she does not want to be there for you through it?”
Leliana couldn’t offer him a definite ‘yes’ or ‘no.’ This place was uncertain, gave them surprises left and right. Challenged them on a constant basis. Brought them all both happiness and pain. Sometimes it was practically impossible to keep feelings from leaking over, and all they could do was try to find ways to deal with it and not compromise their potential happiness here.
Leliana was cool and she was calm. She seemed smart and capable and hearing her say that she didn’t think anything was wrong with him made Wash feel considerably better. Not perfect and certainly not okay with what was happening to him, but better. His hand fell away from the back of his head.
She was right too. Who was he to say that Kyu wouldn’t want to be there for him? She had come out and risked being swept away in the storm to be with him. He felt a little selfish and pig headed for assuming that she wouldn’t. At the same time he felt terrible for dragging her through what he himself had no hope of understanding. At the end of the day, though, he couldn’t deny that knowing Kyu was there was very comforting. And not just Kyu.
He smiled faintly despite himself. “You’re right,” he said. He leaned back a little in his seat. “Thanks, Leli.” The half-eaten cookie in his hand was starting to look good again. “I’m sorry I dumped a lot of this on you, but it’s...nice to have someone to talk to. I don’t have a lot of that these days.”
“And what did I tell you about apologizing?” It came as a tease, really, and she smiled back at him before nursing that supposed glittery latte. Not so scalding hot anymore, easier to drink with the addition of plentiful cookies too. “Talking about it is the best thing to do. A different perspective is always refreshing. Going back and forth in your own mind can be a little…” A click of her tongue. “Self-destructive.”
Relationships weren’t easy. Sometimes it was a smooth ride, other times there were potholes in the road and bumps after bumps. She and Gale were far from perfect; he was fire, she was ice, they either clashed or complimented each other fairly well. Regardless, they’d agree to handle whatever came their way together.
In hindsight the thought really was terrifying, but Leliana wouldn’t have had it any other way.
“May I ask you…?” A hand went to mimic Wash’s - where he’d been digging into his own scalp. “Are you alright? Were you injured?”
Wash had been aware he’d been worrying the back of his head. It was something he did now when he was faced with something he had trouble thinking about or expressing. It was kind of an odd defense mechanism he wasn’t sure when he’d developed.
His brows furrowed and he nodded an affirmative to both of her questions. “I was in an accident almost a year ago,” he told her. Wow, had it really been almost a year? There were times it when it felt as though it had all happened last week and yet there were times in which it felt like a lifetime had passed. Usually, though, it was as if it was both at once. He should have felt more settled into his life as a civilian. He wondered if it was like this for other soldiers who also had been recently relieved of duty. He wondered if the feeling would ever go away.
He finished off the cookie and wrapped his fingers around his coffee again. It had gone mostly untouched during their conversation. By now it was cold and no longer offering any kind of warmth. Cold coffee was worse than warm coffee, but Wash drank it anyway.
“I got a pretty nasty head injury,” he admitted next, “and the marines discharged me. I get migraines every so often. Not as much now,” he raised his coffee cup as if to say that was the reason he drank coffee several times a day even though he didn’t particularly enjoy it.
A year ago and the sight of the injury still continued to haunt him - must have been a fairly bad accident, she assumed, but Leliana didn’t want to pry. Wash seemed private. If he wanted to tell her something, he’d tell her, and she’d listen. Military life was difficult. She was involved with a soldier, many on her payroll were ex-military (well trained, their skills are fantastic), she heard several horror stories.
“Well, I don’t have much experience being a soldier, but I’m well acquainted with those who are. Or have been.” Picking off another cookie from their selection, she pushed the little plate towards him. “I may not be able to offer proper insight, but I do listen. Sometimes I am told my advice is fairly decent.” Leliana smirked, taking a nibble. Perhaps it had something to do with her voice; sweet venom, often times silky and comforting, other times cold and deadly. “I am sorry about your accident, though.”
Wash had no doubt that Leliana was quite acquainted with what it could be like to be a soldier. She was with a man still currently serving good ol’ Uncle Sam, but there was more than that. She wasn’t a soldier herself, but Wash had a feeling Leliana was well acquainted with the life of a fighter, just...a different kind of fighter. It was the way she moved: graceful, deceivingly delicate, each movement with intent and purpose. It was also in the way she spoke: soft and smooth, each word also with intent. Leliana may not have been a soldier in the traditional sense of the word, but she was a kind of fighter herself. Perhaps that was why Wash felt comfortable around her. Like he could trust her.
He gave a half-hearted shrug. “I appreciate your sympathy,” he said before selecting another cookie. He turned it over a couple of times as if to figure out what it was before eating it. He really did appreciate her sentiment, even if he didn’t think he really deserved it. “I had a purpose when I was with the marines. A home. A family. Now all of that’s gone and I really don’t know what I’m doing anymore. Just kind of moving from one day to the next.”
He blinked and looked up at Leliana again, realizing he’d turned the conversation serious again. Enough of that, Wash. He gave her a smile. “I really need to get a job,” he told her half-jokingly.
“You say that, and then you will want a vacation,” she mused, his smile mirrored. Another trusted agent had taken the reins temporarily, Gale had been involved but it wasn’t anything he couldn’t handle. Nothing extreme, not a situation that would cause her to handle things personally. “But I can see wanting something routinely to give you something to take your mind off things. Something that makes you feel almost normal, I suppose, and not that you’re losing your mind from actions you cannot control.”
Leliana sought Pinterest for things like that. Sounded silly, sure, but indulging herself in cute homey DIY projects (which she failed at) was her dose of normal. Didn’t make the blood on her hands seem so bright or plentiful.
“I think I’ve had enough ‘vacation’ for a while,” Wash answered with a half-shrug. “I’m getting kind of tired not doing anything, you know?” Having something to occupy his time was something he needed and needed badly. Running first thing in the morning, while a routine in itself, usually left him stuck in his own thoughts. Katou joined him now and then, and that was a good distraction, but he couldn’t exactly run all day. And he certainly couldn’t expect Katou to join him if he did.
Video games had always been his choice of escape, ever since he’d been a young kid. But, he wasn’t able to spend the hours on them that he’d been able to once. He grew restless, fidgety, his concentration waning until he had to turn off whatever game he was playing and pace about a bit or actually leave his apartment.
“All that said, I’m not really sure what I’d be good at, or who would hire me.” He went on before stuffing the remainder of the cookie in his mouth. He chased it with a generous gulp of coffee. “I’ve never actually had to look for work before.”
“I suppose you’d have to start with what you’d like to do.” Made sense, no? Though not many people had the pleasure of doing work in fields they loved, unfortunately. It was typically whatever pays the bills and offers the best insurance package even if it brewed discontent on a daily basis. So perhaps it wasn’t the most realistic angle? “Though I guess I am wearing rose-tinted lenses suggesting that, since not many have that luxury, do they?”
If there was an opportunity to blend in with civilians and take up a mundane, legal job, it’d be shoes. Work for Cindy. She could handle all the manager-type things while Leliana rolled around in footwear and advised what pumps went with what outfit. The part-time little thing she had going on was a bit fun, but sigh. To do it full-time.
“I know Gale was doing some warehouse shipping thing? Maybe he could point you to a specific direction.”
Oh, Wash knew what he’d like to do, the problem was the military was through with him. He’d had a part time job once in high school, but he’d kind of fallen into that. A friend’s family had owned a restaurant and said friend had gotten him a job bussing tables and washing dishes after school and during the summer. It had been her way of providing Wash with a reason to not go home. Once he’d graduated it had been straight to the military. He hadn’t had to actually think about looking for work ever in his life. He supposed he could still wash dishes if he had to.
At this point Wash had removed the top to his coffee cup and was giving his third cookie something of a coffee bath as well. “I have no idea what I’d like to do,” he admitted to her as the cookie soaked. “Something outside, probably. The idea of sitting at a desk makes my legs itch. Gale had mentioned the warehouse job once,” he went on thoughtfully, “I can probably ask him about it again, see what he has to say about it.”
He took his cookie out of the cup and frowned slightly as half of it broke off and went for another swim.
Leliana propped her elbow on the table, chin resting on her hand as she leaned forward. “It’ll come to you. And you can always try put in an inquiry on the network - perhaps being employed by someone entirely conscious of what really goes on here is beneficial. Would certainly understand if you spontaneously wake up, for example, wounded and need to call out?” Extreme scenario, surely, but it was valid. These dreams interrupted their lives with little regards to how it would affect their everyday responsibilities.
So a regular employer would probably not understand.
“If you liked shoes I’d ask a dear friend of mine,” Leliana smirked. “She’s actually Cinderella. But I cannot see shoe retail as your calling, unfortunately.”
Wash paused trying to fish the rogue half of cookie from the bottom of his coffee to give Leliana an amused kind of look. “Yeah, unfortunately I don’t know anything about shoes.” He stuck a booted foot out from under the table, “I own these and a pair of sandals for the beach and that’s about it.” He pulled his foot back under the table. “Having a boss that understands the Dreams might not be a bad idea, though,” he mused thoughtfully. “Putting a feeler out on the Network can’t hurt.”
Forgetting the cookie at the bottom of his cup for the time being, Wash set his chin in his hand thoughtfully. “Really?” He asked, “Cinderella? Like as in the fairytale?” Because seriously who would name their kid ‘Cinderella’? Then again, he went around calling himself a state so...
“As in the fairytale,” she affirmed with a nod, mischief in her eye. “She goes by Cindy here, runs a shoe boutique called Shoegasm.” The name would forevermore tickle Leliana pink. And the entire concept of Cindy actually being one of the most renown fairytale princesses of all time had her internally giggling, but her dreams had an unconventional twist to them - no fairytale dreamer around here dreamed too much of a cliche happily ever after, or so she heard. “Though you’ll have to let me know how the job hunt goes. If I think of something you might be interested in, I could put a good word in for you.”
Neal did have a ranch to run, in some location in Orange County that was right in the middle of no where. Perhaps she’d give him a call and see.
Wash was staring at Leliana. The drowned cookie that he’d managed to rescue from the coffee plunked right back in and sank to the bottom. He understood that the Dreams were glimpses into other lives lived in other worlds or dimensions, but this was the first he’d heard about one of those worlds literally being a fairytale world.
“Wait, you’re telling me that your friend Cindy is the actual Cinderella?” Wash asked. “And she owns a shoe store?”
Wash looked surprised. How adorable. “Yes?” An eyebrow quirked, she finished the last of her latte - though next time she’ll stick with a signature chai, she was just being adventurous today. “Her story’s a bit different than what you’ve heard, but she’s Cinderella. Glass slippers, Pumpkin Carriage, though her fiance’s essentially converted that into a weapon of war.”
Equipped with machine guns and radiating royalty, it was amazing. Leliana wanted one for herself. “But you’ll have to see it at some point; she and the fiance are very proud of it, and Gale’s witnessed its glory.” With a dropped draw, but that was the typical reaction to see a fairytale vessel with the fixings of a military tank. “Anyway, you’re welcome to take the rest of the cookies with you! I’ve got plenty at home. More than I need, honestly.” Wash was still staring at her, a little agape now. All he could picture was the white pumpkin-style carriage from that old Disney movie, but with spikes on the wheels, machine guns mounted to the sides, fortified pumpkin walls and an anti-tank rifle afixed to the top. The goofy looking driver and footman each outfitted in camo matching the white of the carriage, helmeted and armed to the teeth.
Holy. Crap.
He nodded his head slowly. Yes. Yes he’d like to see that very much.
He glanced down at the cookies still on the plate between them. Then back up at Leli. How was she so calm about this? Wash felt as though his world had been rocked. Did this mean that other people’s Dream worlds were somehow represented in this world? How was that even possible?
It wasn’t, Wash decided. A coincidence maybe, but that was it. There was no way that his dreams of being two different people in space was a story someone had thought up. He shook his head.
“Yeah,” he said finally, “I’ll take the cookies. And I’d like to see that carriage someday.”
“Wait until the next county-wide disaster that requires our involvement,” she smiled, cheekily. Nothing phased her at this point. Leliana was severely jaded, but the quirky sweetness is what had her clinging to the last shred of the kind of person she used to be. Before she had met Marjolaine in both worlds, before war and this world’s way of life had ripped her from the inside and left only a hollow shell. “Cindy typically takes it out for a ride if there are things to actually shoot.”
Standing for goodbyes, Leliana reached over to press a kiss against his cheek. A typical gesture of goodbyes and greetings from where she came from; the French had little shame. “Good luck with Kyu. And remember: do not overthink it. You will give yourself much unneeded stress.”
She and Gale spoke from experience. They’d smack him lovingly if he got off track, no worries.