Agent Washington (completelysane) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2015-12-14 17:02:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, agent washington, gale hawthorne, kyu sugardust |
Who: Wash, Kyu & Gale
What: Wash has some heinous mental dream bleed through
Where: Kyu's apartment
When: Early morning today
Rating: High-ish for mental break-down
Status: Complete
In the world of Wash’s dreams, they hadn’t removed Epsilon. Even after Wash had trashed the operation theater in a state of absolute panic during implantation, the A.I. still remained in his head, in his mind. The neural implants continued to burn with Epsilon’s racing thoughts dumping into and colliding with Wash’s own. He told the Freelancer agent everything in manic bursts.
At first Epsilon was confused to the point of hysteria that Wash was even alive. The A.I.’s desperation and fear overwhelmed Wash as if they were his own emotions. Epsilon insisted Wash was dead. He told him The Director had said he’d died during the last mission.
When Wash said he didn’t understand, Epsilon showed him. He showed him The Alpha, weary and tired yet anxious past the point of breaking. Wash heard him plead - beg - to know who had been lost during the last mission. And The Director told him. Wash heard The Director’s voice - echoed and ethereal, yet calm with feigned sympathy – say that Agents Washington and Texas had perished.
The Alpha wailed and Wash felt as though his own mind was being torn apart by a deep unending grief. He saw and felt The Alpha twist and contort with the pain of loss until he cracked and split off one final piece.
Wash told Epsilon to stop.
Instead Epsilon became angry, a current like electricity shot through the neural implants at the base of Wash’s neck and up through his skull. They lied to me! To US!
Wash tried to calm his A.I. down, tried to assure him that no one was dead. But it wasn’t true and Epsilon, linked into Wash’s thoughts, knew it instantly.
CT – Connie…she was gone now. Defected to the enemy and was now dead. Killed by Agent Texas for her crime. Epsilon latched onto that last part, that Tex was alive, and refused to let go. He called her Allison.
When Wash asked who Allison was, Epsilon showed him. The face of a blonde woman filled his mind, his vision, and all he was allowed to think of was her; Leonard Church’s beloved wife. A brave soldier off to fight in the Great War. She’s beautiful and kind and Leonard Church’s entire world and her death had shattered him. But he could not, would not, let her go. The memory of her was so strong, it literally sprang forth from The Alpha to create a “life” all her own: Agent Texas.
Allison
Wash tried to tell Epsilon that Tex wasn’t Allison, but Epsilon cut him off. Even though all Epsilon was is a voice in his mind, the volume of that voice practically deafened Wash. He couldn’t hear York in front of him making the usual playful, teasing cracks at him. He could see his fellow agent’s lips move, but all he could hear was Epsilon screaming in anger. North was next to York, shaking his head, chuckling in amused patience, assuring Wash that York is only mostly joking. Wash had to squint his eyes and force himself to focus, but Epsilon would not be ignored.
Wash couldn’t control his A.I. Mania, electric and blue, practically palpable at the back of Wash’s mind since Epsilon had been implanted, began to intensify. Wash could feel it mounting from somewhere in the back of his head and he wondered if either York or North had these problems with their A.I. There was a flicker of green light on York’s shoulder – Delta – and a flicker of pinkish purple light near North’s feet - Theta. The two tiny little holograms representing the A.I. fragments assigned to Wash’s fellow agents appeared to be looking at him.
Wash wondered why they were watching him, seemingly ignoring their own Freelancers and Epsilon told him about The Alpha again. Wash’s mind was flooded with more images of torture and more feelings of despair and desperation. The air caught in Wash’s throat audibly.
York and North had stopped their conversation, an apparently serious one considering the unusual furrow of York’s brow. Both he and North were looking at Wash oddly. When asked if he was alright, all Wash could do was stare back. North assured him hearing his A.I.’s voice would be disorienting at first, but that he’d get used to it.
Wash didn’t hear him.
Epsilon was demanding his attention. He was talking about Allison again. Once more, Wash was confronted by her image, clad in a soldier’s uniform, smiling, laughing, but there was no joy that came with it. Only sadness and grief so deep and so dark Wash was lost within it.
He begged Epsilon to stop.
Instead he was shown The Alpha being systematically broken down again and again. Desperation, fear and grief slammed into Wash at full force.
He couldn’t escape by closing his eyes or bringing his hands up to his ears in a vain effort to block out Epsilon’s voice.
Wash only vaguely heard North and York speaking to him, calling his name with growing concern. He was aware of Delta telling York that Agent Washington’s heart rate had been increasing over the past fifteen minutes and was now becoming erratic.
Epsilon was unraveling, determined to put an end to his short pain filled existence. Wash pleaded with him not to, but Epsilon had stopped – if he had ever started – listening to him. Before the A.I. could be safely removed, Epsilon put an end to himself with crescendo and plunged Wash screaming into a fresh new hell.
Wash was still begging and screaming when he woke up. The dream hung on to him and bled through into reality, chiseling at Wash’s sanity until it cracked.
Kyu woke up when she heard Wash scream. Her green eyes opened wide and she fluttered upward off of the bed, rolling over as she flew to look at the man she loved. “Wash? Wash, baby, are you okay?” She didn’t touch him, not right away, not knowing if he wanted to be touched, if that would make things worse or better. And she sure as shit didn’t want worse. “Talk to me, baby, what’s happening? It’s me, Kyu, you’re at my apartment, we were gonna go skateboarding. Please talk to me.” She bit her lower lip, trying to keep from babbling more.
Wash’s eyes were squeezed shut. He could still see her. Her. Allison. His wife (the director’s wife) - teammate? No, she had never been his teammate and yet he knew her. Everything about her. He knew she was real, but at the same time something was telling him she wasn’t.
He heard a voice. Someone calling Wash again and again (Who is that? Agent Washington? But he’s dead…). Steel grey eyes opened, looking straight ahead for a moment with a thousand yard stare before jerking upward and meeting green eyes under pink hair staring back at him. As he looked pink turned to blond and green to blue.
“Allison…”
No. Not Allison. But it is her! I love her No! Allison is DEAD!
Wash recoiled. Electric fire raced through the implants. Wash groaned, the tail end of if turning upwards towards a scream. He unclenched the fruity pebbles duvet to clutch at his head, his fingers digging into his scalp.
“Okay, okay, so you’re in pain... obvious, Kyu. Do you want painkillers? Fuck fuck fuck.” She hopped out of bed and wiggled into a robe, reaching for her cellphone. She didn’t normally keep a lot of painkillers around, but she did know someone who did. So she texted two people - a dealer friend for some low grade Norcos, and Gale. Gale would know what to do, right? They were friends, maybe he’d told her something about bad bad headaches.
Gale it’s Kyu
something’s wrong with Wash he’s screaming and keeps calling me Allison
didn’t hit his head, we were just sleeping
[address]
Wash had mentioned a few things about his dreams - more than a few, and Gale knew enough to understand that those deranged sugar plums dancing through his head, pumping him full of nightmare fuel, were nothing short of fucking bananas. He’d noticed that his friend and brother-in-arms was acting weird lately too - forgetting things, like he’d short-circuited, calling people by the wrong name (Allison, for one thing, but Gale also wasn’t York, he didn’t even know who York was). All of it cause for concern, but it was like walking on eggshells - or awaiting a ticking time bomb explosion. You just kind of had to see what happened, because the dreams were unpredictable - they were a wild, untamed storm and sometimes certain things didn’t even cross over how you would think.
But this? When Kyu texted him, it sounded like some shit was hitting the fan.
Gale didn’t have much time. If he did, he’d have stopped to grab a few things - the skateboard he was learning with, maybe, because Wash needed reminders of who he was, especially when he was caught in the grips of whatever this episode was. But screaming indicated pain and suffering - so there wasn’t a chance to grab much, just what Gale himself had been prescribed for his PTSD. It was an anti-anxiety medication that helped him sleep, and while drugging Wash wasn’t overall the answer, he might need something to help calm him down in the moment. He still worried though - worried about how this could be something severe, something snapping, and it wasn’t like their lives were easy before everything either. That was why he felt such a kinship with Wash anyway; those who had seen war would never stop seeing it. Because of that he wanted to be able to help, however, and after he texted Kyu back and said he was coming, to unlock the door for him, he planned to do just that.
Once he arrived at the address she texted him, he went in. “Wash?” No problem, he’d just follow the sound of the screaming.
“We’re in the bedroom,” Kyu called out. In the meantime she’d gotten dressed in case they needed to go anywhere, and she was trying to be soothing. She’d reached out to hold Wash’s hand, gently rubbing the pressure point between his thumb and index finger. Her face was streaked with tears she didn’t realize she was crying. Kyu wasn’t stupid, but she’d been pretty shallow most of her life. Wash had helped expand her horizons a bit - being in love did that - but at the same time, she wasn’t really equipped to help too much. She’d called to get him painkillers, and she’d thought enough to text Gale, but she was plain out of ideas.
Wash’s world was fading in and out. He wasn’t sure where he was or how he’d gotten there. The bright cheery colors of Kyu’s bedroom were muted under the transparent image of the Mother of Invention’s recovery bay. Half his mind was telling him that wasn’t possible, that the ship didn’t exist here, while the other was screaming at him that he was trapped on board the ship. All the while he could still hear Epsilon screaming - at him or just in general it was impossible to tell.
He didn’t remember scrambling out of bed, but the part of him that was ordering him to move had won for the moment. The next thing Wash was aware of was the hard metal floor (no, its carpet, isn’t it?) hitting his knees. The hands splayed on the floor in front of him were at once bare and at the same time clad in the gloves of his battle armor, shifting between blue and grey in color.
Epsilon was still wailing, just as The Alpha had and Wash wailed along with him, the end of which cut off when he ran out of air. Hands once again to his head. His fingers crawling back towards the implants that burned under his skin, deep within his head.
He jerked when he heard voices calling again. (Are they calling for me? Who am I?) He knew the voices, although names came and went before he could grasp a hold of any of them. He looked up, gasping for air.
Gale was in the bedroom a moment later - the tears on Kyu were what he noticed, and his heart twisted a little at the sight. She was helping just by being there - it was honestly more than a lot of people would have done, because seeing someone wake up in your bed, panicking, not knowing who they were or what was going on was fucking terrifying. And not easy to handle. The fact that she hadn’t gone anywhere said a lot.
He knelt to help the fallen soldier up, carefully, getting him off the floor. “Wash, it’s me, it’s Gale,” he said, hoping to ground him at least a little. “Kyu’s here too, she’s your girlfriend - I’m your best friend. You had a shitty dream but you’re going to be alright.” Then he glanced at the lady in question, eyes as grave and grey as a tombstone. “It’s those implants. They’re fucking with him, something must have happened to them in the dreams and it’s carrying over. Maybe we should take him to the ER.”
“The ER might fuck with him more, though - medical implements and shit.” Kyu bit her lower lip, meeting Gale’s eyes. His calm demeanor did a lot to calm Kyu down a bit too, and she could feel her pulse stop thumping in her ears quite so loudly. “I called a friend, he’s bringing over some Norcos so that’ll help with the pain. If he wants them.”
She moved to stand by Gale, looking up at him. “Wash. I know you’re in there. Whoever’s keeping you away from me better back the fuck up because I’m going to find you and hurt them if they’re hurting you. Okay?” The tiny fairy’s wings flapped angrily, sending a spray of glitter dusting lazily toward a window. “Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.” She wished she knew a doctor, or how to get those implants out, but just thinking of stuff in her boyfriend made her angry and kind of queasy.
They were talking to him; calling him Wash. Somewhere in the confusion he thought that was his name The notion conflicted with a few errant memories that crashed through his mind (Someone had called him David once, right? Someone had also called him Leonard).
His eyes, dulled and far away looking, moved between the man who was calling himself Gale - his best friend (did he have one of those?). The name York kept creeping into his mouth trying to escape through ragged breathing that seemed more appropriate for a caged animal than a human being.
(York isn’t here. He’s in the Middle East - no aboard the Mother of Invention)
Stormy grey eyes of the man in front of him he wanted very much to be York did not belong to him.
Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!
The high girlish voice wasn’t quite right to be Allison ether. (Kyu, her name is -). “Kyu…”
Phantom pain, like electricity pulsed through the neural implants connected directly into his brain. There was too much confusion. Too many racing thoughts tumbling around in his head. He couldn’t think. Wash’s hands were back up to his head, his fingernails digging into his scalp as though he could tear the memories that weren’t his directly out of his head. His screams had turned into whimpers. “I can’t think,” he managed some kind of coherency. “I can’t make him stop.”
"Damnit, I wish the OC had a hotline for weird medical shit," Gale rumbled in annoyance - because really, why hadn't that happened yet? She had a point, and he didn't want anything fucked more on a larger scale for Wash, but they needed to do something - and he'd have dealt with awkward medical questions if need be. "I brought what was prescribed to me for my PTSD, it calms me down and helps me sleep," he went on. "I didn't know what else to bring, but just in case."
Wash was also clearly out of it - and Gale could practically smell the smoke coming from his ears, his brain frying itself as too many memories crammed into a space meant where there was only supposed to be one psyche caught up to him. "It's okay, you're gonna be fine," he tried to soothe. "Just stay with us. I really hope those implants are finally removed, in his dreams,” he added. “Okay, let’s just get him calmed down and hopefully back to sleep. Safely.”
Without knocking him over the head with a frying pan or something.
Kyu heard a knock at the door and she all but ran to answer it. Thank god she remembered to glamour her wings so that her dealer colleague wouldn’t suspect anything hinky. She smiled at the guy, handed him a couple of bills, and came back into the room with a can of soda and a baggie. Looking up at Wash, she shrugged and felt her hands shake slightly. “It’s Norco. He looks like he’s in pain, you know?”
Popping the top of the soda sounded so loud in her bedroom, and she made herself take longer, slower breaths in an attempt to calm herself down. Freaking out wouldn’t help anybody, and probably just make Wash feel worse when he came around.
“Wash, baby, I have some painkillers for you. Nothing crazy, but between this and Gale’s stuff to calm you down, you’ll probably be sleepy, okay?” Kyu moved to sit by him, looking up at him. “I know your head hurts, I do.” If Kyu could have taken on some of the mental or physical pain for Wash, she’d have done so in half a heartbeat. Watching him suffer was almost worse.
The sudden pop of the soda can jarred Wash from the spiraling chaos in his mind with a sharp intake of breath and a full body jolt. He wanted to turn the innocuous noise into something more threatening, even as his dulled eyes settled on the can of soda in Kyu!Allison’s hands. He could hear her talking, her voice echoed in his ears. Something about painkillers. They’d make him sleepy. Put him to sleep.
Sleep.
That was what Epsilon had wanted to do - no, Epsilon had wanted to die. For a few frightening moments Wash felt the desire to just die himself, and end all of this. No sooner had he entertained the thought he recoiled from it.
Wash looked up at the girl seated next to him, her loving green-but-blue eyes filled with worry. He let out the breath he was holding onto tightly with a woosh and nodded slowly. He could trust Kyu. Allison would never hurt him.
Gale had the worst feeling - he didn’t want Wash to fall asleep any more than the guy himself did, really, because who knew if he would wake up? What if he went into a coma or something? But there was no magical fix - all he could think of was Peeta, in the dreams, who played Real or Not Real with the rest of their rebel squad to help him differentiate between the implanted Capital memories and what had actually happened.
It was worth a try now. He didn’t know what else to do.
“Talk to us, Wash,” he said, sitting beside his friend while Kyu went to answer the knock - wanting to soothe that frightened look in his eye more than anything. “Stay with us, keep talking. We can help you figure things out. Help you figure out what’s real. Peeta did the same thing, he asked us Real or Not Real.” The bottle of pills in his pocket felt so heavy, and fuck, he hated pills - he hardly ever took them, which was why there were so many. But sometimes they were necessary. “Real or Not Real - I had to fake my death, and you brought me ravioli in a can and a hot plate, to my safehouse, because you couldn’t stand the sight of it being cold.”
Kyu was glad when she was able to return to Wash; leaving his side felt wrong to do. When she heard Gale talking about things that were real versus things that weren’t, Kyu smiled. “We had our first kiss during that big storm, you took me to the bakery. It was the first time you saw my wings, and you said you were jealous that I could fly.” There was no harm in trying this. Besides, if Wash had gotten messed up as he slept, maybe sleeping would make it worse?
“Gale, does Leli know any doctor people that could look at his head on the DL? If Wash even wants to. Fucking doctors in the future.” If she met anyone who even so much as said the word implant around her, even for boobs, she was probably going to punch them in the face.
Wash stared at them both blankly and unblinking for what felt as though was a long time. He didn’t understand the rules to the game the two of them were trying to play with him. But it felt as though it was important that he try to play anyway.
Gale had faked his death and had gone into hiding in the mountains. Wash remembered watching him eat cold Chef Boyardee out of the can and how he – Wash – had insisted on bringing Gale a hot plate so he wouldn’t have to watch him eat like that. Yeah, Wash remembered that. He remembered doing that.
“Real…?” He answered Gale carefully, still unclear of the rules of this little game.
He turned his attention to Kyu on his other side. He nodded slowly, as the memory surfaced from the chaos allowing him to focus his attention on it, if for the time being. He remembered that storm, he remembered seeing the flutter of her glittery wings around the edges of the tunnel vision he’d had at the time.
“Also, real,” he told her with a little more confidence than when he’d answered Gale. “I had a migraine, I think. I couldn’t see well, or something.”
“I teased you about your crush on your fairy,” Gale added, with nod and a grin tossed in Kyu’s general direction. “When we were at the bakery before, herding civilians to safety during that same storm. The double date,” he added, nudging Wash gently. “It was at a burger place. All those skate and surf stickers on the decor. You were there with the two of us and my girlfriend too.”
Speaking of Leliana, he sighed, rubbing the back of his neck as he considered who she knew - and Leli did have a lot of connections, so it was possible she did have the hookup when it came to discrete medical professionals. But then again, her whole network had kind of disbanded. “I’ll make a post on the net,” he offered, pulling out his phone. “Privately...see if there are any doctors on there, yeah? And I’ll leave Leli a message too. She was awake when I left.”
Kyu nodded. “You helped get eyeball goop out of my shoe. You like my bedspread because it’s your favorite cereal. We met online and you were really shy at the bar but you still let me kiss you.” Her green eyes were going to be damp forever at this rate. She chuckled as she curled closer to Wash, her arms around him to keep herself grounded and to do the same for him. “We like nacho cheese Doritos and we play strip Call of Duty.” Man, Gale was probably going to tease Wash forever for that one, but Kyu didn’t care. “I was gonna go skateboarding with you. I brought my longboard. You’re teaching Gale, too.”
“I am?” Wash repeated glancing at the man seated next to him, the man his mind wanted so badly to make York, but at the same time knew wasn’t York. He looked back at Kyu curled up to his side. He remembered everything they had told him. It wasn’t remembering that was the problem. The problem was too much remembering and trying to distinguish what were his memories - what had happened here and what had happened in the dreams. All of them crashing and unraveling in his head, pulsing with that same electric heat at the back of his head. At least Epsilon’s screams had quieted while Kyu and Gale had talked.
His head still hurt, a dull ache punctuated by painful jolts when he found himself thinking too hard. Now Wash was confused. Tired and hopelessly confused. He pressed the heels of his palms to his eyes.
Gotta love Wash - best skateboarding instructor ever. “Yeah...I wiped out pretty bad during my first lesson. But you didn’t laugh too much.” Then a smirk overcame Gale’s face, appearing there briefly as he stuffed his phone back into his pocket. “Strip Call of Duty, huh? That’s hot.” Oh, he’d definitely be teasing Wash pretty badly about that - later on. When he was more himself, and he wasn’t burning a hole into his brain trying to differentiate between real memories and the memories of some other entity entirely.
“Do you think...maybe you should take something for your head?” he asked his friend, glancing between him and Kyu. Now that Wash seemed calmer, he could make that decision rather than having it made for him, which Gale felt better about. “It’ll help with the pain. Then you can think more clearly, things will make more sense.”
“I have something to help with the pain, if you want,” Kyu offered. She had the feeling she wasn’t going to be leaving Wash’s side for a while. “I have a few options. I might be worried about you, just a little. Migraines are the worst.” She knew this was more than that, but if she gave those fears a voice, if she talked about how much it hurt to see the man she loved in pain, it seemed like it would just make things worse. “But yeah, I’ve got some Norcos - the weak ones, don’t want to dope you up, just help. Or those brownies you like.” Yes, brownies were medicinal in Kyu’s house. Most stuff was. “Want me to rub your temples? That helped last time.”
The heels of Wash’s hands pressed against his eyes so hard it hurt. The pain in his eyes took his focus off the pain in his head, allowed him to escape the swirl going on behind his eyes. It was a temporary fix and within a few seconds purple spots and bright lights exploded in his vision. Epsilon continued to whisper.
He tried to ignore the phantom voice. Gale and Kyu were talking. Wash lowered his hands from his face. Red-rimmed hollow eyes looked up at them. Wash squinted slightly as he attempted to make sense of what they were saying now. Kyu was offering painkillers. Gale was saying he should take something for the pain, that he’d be able to think clearly once the pain was gone. Wash didn’t want to think anymore. He just wanted Epsilon to shut up.
“Yeah,” he said finally, his voice hoarse and scratchy. “I’ll try the Norcos. Anything to get my head to stop pounding.”
“Temple massage sounds pretty good too. You’re a lucky man, Washington.” Gale patted him on the shoulder, then reached for the soda that Kyu brought into the room, handing the drink over. “I don’t know how strong these are...maybe like just one will work? I default to your expertise, Kyu.”
He had his own pills, but he tried to avoid taking them - there was something about it, he just didn’t like relying on prescriptions to help him sleep, so he only popped one when it was necessary. Now that he’d stopped dreaming of Panem, of that war, he only had to worry about the typical nightmares which haunted him. The ones from this life, and the occasional repeat from the last.
“I’ll stay as long as you need,” he added. Until Wash fell asleep again. Into something dreamless, they could hope.
Kyu looked at the pills, turning them over and reading the numbers on the back. “These are the weak ones, so start with one, and if it doesn’t work, you can take another one. They should kick in in about twenty minutes. These are five millis, and I’ve taken up to thirty for a big bad headache, but I’ve got some tolerance.” She rifled around in her bedstand, pulling out some massage oil that smelled like lavender. “Get Leli to do your temples, Gale, you know she knows how.” Kyu couldn’t help a cheeky wink as she settled behind Wash to rub gently at his forehead and temples.
Had Wash been more sound of mind, he would have suggested the prescription strength migraine pills in his backpack by the bed. He hadn’t really needed to take any over the past month, and like Gale, he was loathed to take pills unless absolutely necessary (necessity usually meant pain so bad he'd go nearly blind – or in this case, absolutely losing his goddamn mind). He still carried them with him, however. Migraines were sneaky sons of bitches, sometimes creeping up out of the blue without any form of warning. But the idea of his prescription, if it had even fully formed, was buried so deep under all the other shit in his head, it never even saw the light of day.
Wash’s hands were shaking so horribly as he reached for the can of soda that the tremors ran up his arms causing his shoulders and even his torso to quiver. He took the pill Kyu gave him, closing his fist around it so it wouldn’t shake loose and roll across the floor. He was thankful Kyu had only handed him one. If it had been left up to Wash, he’d have taken the entire bag with a cola chaser and settled into a never ending sleep the same way Epsilon had without so much as a pause. The urge to do so gave him a full body shudder.
He swallowed the pill easily and let Gale take the can of soda back. His body was rigid and shaking. For a moment the shaking intensified as Kyu disappeared behind him. Even though he knew who (or who he thought) was behind him, the idea of any one behind him was unsettling. Bad things happened when you let someone get behind you. A clock on the back of the head, a knife between the shoulder blades, a bullet in the back. Another shudder and a soft involuntary whimper. Epsilon was still whispering, faintly in the back of his mind, words Wash couldn’t quite make out now that he was awake. The pill hadn’t silenced him.
He turned his eyes towards Gale. “He won’t stop,” he said in a shaky voice. “He won’t shut up.”
It was the ultimate show of trust for a soldier, to give someone their back - Gale knew that well. He didn’t head that way though, he left it to Kyu, and instead stayed beside Wash in his line of vision. “Then we’ll keep trying, until he does shut up. And we’ll be here the whole time,” he said, reaching into his pocket for the bottled relief he’d brought.
“This shouldn’t mix badly with what he just took, should it?” he asked Kyu, reading the label just in case, checking and double-checking. Because if his best friend suffered complications from a drug overdose or something, Gale was sort of never going to forgive himself.
Wash had been there for him, when Gale needed him. He hadn’t hesitated, or judged him - and really, Gale couldn’t say the same for some of his other compatriots. So he wanted to return that favor, because it was what friends - true friends - did for each other, no matter what.
Kyu looked at the bottle, then shook her head. “Nah. I have a friend who takes both.” She scooted a little so she was at Wash’s side; she could see the flinch even without being as on guard as she was. She just hoped some of the physical pain had stopped.
The Norcos were starting to kick in. The pain at the back of his head was starting to subside little by little leaving Wash physically exhausted. His eyes flickered between the two of them, back and forth nervously, as though if he didn’t keep an eye on the both of them they might disappear on him, or he might realize they had never been there in the first place. Or as though Kyu’s cheery brightly colored bed room would actually fade away and he had no idea where he would actually wake up. Either on board the Mother of Invention with its steril futuristic walls containing deceit, lies and pain, or if he’d wake up in some medical facility out in the desert to the sound machine gun fire and exploding IED’s.
Wash took a shuttering breath and focused on the two people he had grown to care about more than anyone else, using them to anchor his reality, at least until he could sleep again. Wash repeated their names over and over. Kyu and Gale, as if somehow he’d forget and they’d disappear.
Sleep sounded better and better and he did his best to ignore Epsilon’s urges for more. If the pills in Gale’s hands could silence the phantom in his head, Wash was willing to risk whatever complication may or may not come with them. Tired unfocused grey eyes flicked down to the bottle for just a moment before returning to Gale and Kyu.
“Good news, then. Here you go, one should do it.” Gale gave Wash one of the shiny pills, so he could chase it with another gulp of soda. “I take them sometimes too. It helps. Keeps things quiet in your head, so you can rest.” And rest was probably what they all needed right then, right?
He got more comfortable settling on the other side of Wash so when the battered soldier drifted off, he’d be sandwiched in between both Gale and Kyu. And Gale didn’t plan on going anywhere either, not until the sun rose - and things were somewhat normal again.