Agent Washington (completelysane) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2016-01-25 12:03:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | !complete, agent washington, gale hawthorne |
Who: Brothers-In-Arms (Gale and Wash)
What: They do battle with a monster and then have a serious reflective moment
Where: Somewhere in Orange County's new strange landscape
When: Sometime today
Ratings/Warnings: Medium to high for violence and talk of past abuse
Status: Complete!
Wash had no idea where he was. He’d braved the outside “world” to look for people, people who could not be found. He’d wandered the area aimlessly for hours. The normal landmarks he used to travel by were gone. They’d been replaced by twisted unrecognizable structures covered by what appeared to be rust, but Wash suspected was actually blood long dried up. Human flesh stretched over bombed-out skeletal buildings seemed to reinforce that theory.
Wash also didn’t care. His location was irrelevant. No one was going to find him. There wasn’t anyone around. His cell phone’s battery had died days ago and he didn’t see the point in trying to find a place to recharge it. The only use it served now was as an early warning system for the nightmarish abominations that seemed to literally crawl out of the woodwork. It didn’t seem to need battery power for that.
At that moment it was practically screaming at him, drowned out by the sounds of gunfire from Wash’s own sidearm.
The creature was something that could have been plucked straight out of the nightmares little Davie Barrow had suffered growing up and had been updated with little touches that made the adult shudder and wonder if maybe whatever tentative grip he had on his sanity had finally given up.
It hulked in front of him. A it had a broad impossibly large chest and a grotesque gut that protruded outward that looked as though it would have been a prime target of squish. However, the first few layers of skin stretched over it tore to reveal old battle worn grey armor underneath, screwed into the creature’s flesh.
The only feature on its stretched head was a Cheshire-cat mouth directly in the middle that literally stretched from one ear to the other forever showing misaligned teeth of varying lengths and sharpness. The creature rumbled at him menacingly, uttering his name, his real name, as if it were a joke.
It reached out with a long club-like arm to smack Wash for the third or fourth time. This time it aimed for his face, as if to open-palm slap him across the mouth. Wash had been able to avoid it’s attacks up to this point, ducking and rolling around the slow moving body to take pot shots where he could. But he was still recovering from waking up shot and bleeding to death and had grown tired. His body was telling him he couldn’t go on like this for much longer. The beefy fist connected with it’s target and Wash was sent sprawling face first to the ground.
Being in this hot mess seemed like the textbook definition of a death wish, but Gale just couldn’t sit at home - not for long, anyway. Mostly just to check the status on his loved ones, since only in the confines of his and Leli’s house on the beach did anything resembling a way to communicate actually work. Even sending the ravens to deliver messages was out - they wouldn’t last long in the fog either, it was everywhere, and thick as carpet. Maybe once it was white, but it had picked up particles and debris as it became denser and denser, rendering everything stricken with grey and terror. Pretty nightmarish, and yet he still wasn’t going to cower and hide while people were out there potentially getting hurt.
He and Revy already killed some nasty, brutish monster that looked and sounded and smelled like everything which reminded him of the battlefield - it was horrific all around, for him, but also liberating in the sense that he felt vindicated for taking it out. That was why he was patrolling whenever he could, trying to protect even the most twisted version of Orange County.
When he heard the gunshots though, he headed in that direction quickly to investigate. As he picked up the pace, and caught the name being repeated over and over, he knew he had to hurry. “Wash!” Gale was yelling for him, through the fog which seemed to be a brick wall by this point. “I’m coming!”
An explosive-tipped arrow was nocked, and man, that fucker was ugly. Gale took aim, he released the bowstring, and let that arrow fly. It made contact, right in the beast’s large belly. And detonated.
Wash rolled on to his back with the monster looming over him. It lifted its club-like arm high to strike him again. Wash’s vision blurred, there was a ringing in his ears and blood and roadrash on his face, but he didn’t try to roll away. He took aim with his pistol. He trusted in his skills with a firearm; he was the weakest fighter on the squad, but he was the one who could take out a pinpoint target several yards away while in freefall. The monster could kill him if the next blow connected - and given that Wash wasn’t attempting to move seemed likely. But Wash didn’t much care about that either. This was the best shot he had. It was him, or the monster.
”David.” It rumbled in a manner Wash could feel in his bones.
He braced for the impact, finger tightening on the trigger, looking just for the right opening. He was just about to shoot when an arrow flew from out of nowhere and hit the beast right in the armored gut with a resounding chink. It was followed by a whine indicative of an explosive charge preparing to go off.
Wash’s eyes went wide. New plan! Now he rolled away just as the arrow detonated. He came up in a low crouch and looked with wild eyes in the direction the arrow had come from. “Gale?!” What the actual fuck was he doing out here?!
The monster was staggering backwards in the explosions resulting impact and cloud of dust, skin and gore. It waved its arms about attempting to regain its balance and roared. Wash glanced at it before slowly standing again. Then he looked towards his best friend, coming out of the fog as if he were some kind of hallucination.
“Sorry I’m late, got held up in traffic,” Gale quipped, loading another arrow. He also had his sidearm, and extra ammo stashed in the confines of his rebel army uniform; dressed to kill, pant legs tucked into combat boots, he was a serious business soldier out here in the middle of a slasher film crisis. Where else would a soldier even be? “Aim for the head’s always a good tactic, right?”
Now that the monster was flailing, it gave them an opportunity to put a little bit of distance between the longer ranged shots, with bullets and arrows, and the target - besides, those explosive arrows packed a punch.
Case in point: The next arrow zinged through the air, slicing through that fog, and he was aiming for the big ol’ Cheshire Cat grin on the face of the offending creature, its mouth a wide half-moon shape. Gale wanted nothing more than to wipe it off, forever.
Wash wasn’t sure he understood what was going on. A moment ago he’d been ready to die and take the misshapen beast along with him. Now here was Gale out of nowhere quipping and firing on that beast. Wash fought the urge to call him York again, but he really was almost just like him, if one were to trade archery for a rifle. And just like York, he was bailing Wash out of yet another ridiculous scenario he had somehow fucked up his way into. Wash wondered when, like York, Gale would stop coming for him.
The beast swung its beefy, powerful arms, lumbering at a speed that wasn’t exactly quick, but faster than a thing its size should have been able to move. It was going after Gale now, looking to knock the soldier off his feet and thus stop the volley of arrows. It was a fucking tank, seemingly unstoppable even with an onslaught of firepower going off in it’s non-existent face, shredding it to pieces. It kept </i>coming</i>, just as it had come after little Davie. Just as the man who had spawned the creature would come after him with belt, extension cord or simply bare fisted, that horrible toothy grin on his face, twisted by hours of drink.
Well, little Davie was all grown-up now and now he fought back. As if jolted out of his trance, Wash sprang back into action. .45 caliber bullets from his pistol (honestly, why hadn’t he taken the battle rifle out with him?!) joined Gale’s arrows, aiming for that disgusting grin that made Wash want to scream.
With Wash back in the fight, the monster returned its focus on him. ”David” God, Wash hated the sound of its voice as it oozed around his name. Taunting and condescending, somehow reminding him of exactly who and what he was: unfit, unqualified, useless, worthless. Was it any wonder the people he had trusted most in the world had left him behind. He was broken, tossed aside, abandoned.
”David”
”What?!” Wash screamed back at it, each word punctuated by the bark of his gun. “What do you want from me?! Is this it?” He stopped firing to throw his arms wide in a come-get-me stance, “Is this what you want, you ugly piece of shit?”
The creature was resilient too - even with a bomb in its face, it kept coming. A slow-moving energizer bunny, took a licking and kept on ticking. The swinging of its long, thick arms - like each was a mighty tree trunk - took Gale off his feet, sending him sprawling, the bow knocked from his hand. It went sliding across the ground, and he fumbled blindly for it - but it was too far away at the moment.
And he didn’t have time to go crawling and looking for it now. Not when he noticed that Wash had seemingly hit a wall. There were bruises beginning to blossom on Gale’s body, road rash of his own and face scraped up from eating pavement, but he rolled over and removed his sidearm from its holster. He would shoot that fucker, and shoot, and shoot, until he was out of bullets and had to reload. Then if he somehow ran out of ammo and it kept coming? He’d beat it to death with his arrows and sheer force of will.
“His name’s Wash,” And maybe it wasn’t for real, but this thing didn’t get to call him David. Gale grit his teeth, and pulled the trigger - again and again and again. A round of bullets pumped into the monster’s back, to sever his spine, to bring him down. “Leave him alone!”
It was coming at him. ”David” Its face shredded to bits of flesh and skin hanging off it’s oval shaped head. Bullet holes riddled its body. Any other creature would have fallen by now, but not this thing. ”David” But it was showing signs that the injuries were having an effect. Wash didn’t move as it came after him, staggering, jerking and jolting each time one of Gale’s bullets slammed into its mark.
Fucking hurts, doesn’t it? Wash thought bitterly as he watched the creature come to loom over him again. The wounds in his own back screamed in protest when he moved again. He ducked under a swing of its arm and came up on the other side. A one-two punch in the side of that fucking beer gut. Another duck as it swung back and a roundhouse kick aimed right at that shit eating fucking grin. And finally, their combined efforts paid off. The monster toppled over and hit the ground with a sick sounding fwump.
Wash stood over it and stared down at that grin. His expression was cold, unfeeling. If it had tried to tap into the rage Wash kept buried deep inside, it had been successful. Wash shot it in the face. Once. Twice. Three times. And continued firing until his gun was empty. After two clicks of an empty chamber, Wash threw the gun away and curb stomped the son of a bitch as hard as he could and kept stomping, even after the thing had stopped twitching.
It was an earthquake when that thing went down - Gale was sure he felt the ground shake a little, and he scrambled out of the way to make sure it didn’t crush him as it fell, dead, not going to get up again. He managed to find his bow, the tips of his fingers touching the weapon through the fog, and he slid it back toward him - grateful that he had it now, along with the quiver of arrows on his back. The gun went back into its holster for the time being, and he joined Wash as he was curbstomping the expired monster.
Gale, with his scraped and bruised face, just let him get it all out too. Didn’t tell him to stop, didn’t protest. Obviously it represented something terrible - just like that one did before, that monster that looked to be a mutt straight from the Capitol’s labs. Some sick creation meant just for him.
He stood nearby, a tall pillar of strength, as the fog swirled around him. It was cold, and clammy, but he didn’t even really notice.
Wash’s boot and pant leg up to the knee was practically saturated with gore before the burst of energy given to him by cold rage finally subsided leaving him mentally and physically drained. His back was throbbing and refused to continue to allow him to stay upright. Not after what he’d just put it through and no matter how much he wanted to continue his assault on the monster’s corpse until there was nothing left to remind him of the nightmares and horrors of his youth, or the absolute joke he believed his use to the military to have been.
One final stomp before he staggered back a step and hit the ground hard with an involuntary grunt. He stayed there a moment, knees up with his elbows braced against them and hands to his face as he regained his composure. With each ragged breath into his palms, he buried that rage again, this time as deep as he could. The air around them was still, and thick and cold. Finally Wash looked up at Gale. He wanted to say several things at once: thank him for coming to his rescue, ask him what the hell he was doing out there, make some kind of quip about traffic and fog, make sure he was alright. Call him York. Everything tried to escape his mouth at once resulting in one huge jam. He was quiet for a moment, grey eyes surrounded by dark circles just looked at his friend before finally a few words managed to escape the clusterfuck. “Thanks for coming.”
Gale sank to his knees to be beside Wash, putting a hand on his shoulder. He hated to admit it to himself, but he was afraid - not of his friend, but for him. Afraid of what could become of him, if he kept all that rage bottled up inside. Everyone heard those tragic stories - the ones about soldiers who couldn’t cope with their PTSD, and they ended up snapping, they ended up pulling a gun on someone else. Or turning it on themselves. Yeah, that was pretty fucking terrifying, to picture that happening to a best friend of his.
“We’re brothers,” he said. “Maybe not by blood, but who cares.” That wasn’t what mattered - they had both been through a lot, separately and together, and they were there for each other when it counted. They would face more too, Gale knew that.
He took a few breaths, as the fog seemed to seep in through his clothes, creeping down his spine. Your fears were a tough thing to face - Gale believed he had it all figured out, when there’d been time to think about everything while holed up in that cabin faking his death. But there was still so much he didn’t know, so much that he realized he was holding back and in, and it couldn’t be like that anymore. The dreams were a cautionary tale, and he saw what happened to that Gale who let the anger eat through him from the inside out - he lost everything.
“Mine was pretty ugly too. Not ugly like this, a lot different. But its ugliness was like...I saw that I’m only just hurting myself here. I stopped going to therapy, I thought I was fine. I’m not though, neither are you.”
There was no sense in trying to say otherwise. Wash wasn’t that good of a liar and he really didn’t want to try either. What was the point? Gale would have seen right through him. Wash let out a breath, a hand going to the back of his neck. “No,” he admitted. “I’m not and I don’t think I ever really have been.” He turned his eyes back towards what remained of the monster. His brows furrowed and his hand tightened over the jack in his neck. “This fog, whatever it is, it got in our heads. That,” he made a vague gesture in front of him to indicate the monster, “was something I had nightmares about as a kid after my stepfather started hitting me. It didn’t have the armor back then. It must have pulled that from my Dreams. Kind of appropriate, considering.”
He was quiet for a moment, thinking how he’d run from the family he’d been born into to the arms of the military. How he’d been dropped by them when he’d outlived his usefulness. And now...a new family. He looked back at Gale. “Did you kill yours too?”
“Yeah,” Gale nodded, remembering the encounter with that grotesque creature. “It looked like something from the Capitol’s labs. They were fond of cross-breeding animals to create weapons of war. Just another way to subdue the Districts, you know? Well, mine was one of those - it was reptilian, with huge teeth, tufts of fur, I don’t even know. But it’s dead. Kinda like facing down the inner demons, I guess.”
He paused, sitting on the cold ground with his elbows resting on his knees, huge form more compact - and he felt insignificant in this fog, like just another particle of dust. Damn straight this shit got into their heads - and he really didn’t like it. “I’ve been thinking of going back to West Virginia, to see family. Just for a visit. It might be good to get away to a place where there are no dreams. You could come with me,” he added to Wash. “Then when we come back we can...face this. Like what all this means.”
Human experiments. Crossbreeding weapons of war. Those in positions of power in both their dreams were real fucking sadists. Wash hated them both. He couldn’t do much about The Director in his dreams. But if he ever got his hands on some Capital lab motherfucker - President Snow...well, he’d already shown just what he was capable of if given half the chance.
Jesus Christ, he could use a drink.
He moved his hand from the back of his neck to rub his face. He needed a shave, a shower, a couple of painkillers and about a week’s worth of sleep. His body was demanding it, telling him it needed the rest in order to finish healing. But, there was no rest for the weary, as the saying goes. Many more miles to go before I sleep, etc. etc.
Gale’s invitation to go with him to visit his family caught Wash utterly by surprise. He gave Gale a bit of a befuddled look. “West Virginia?” He repeated. He’d only been to the east coast once - stationed in Florida just after he’d finished basic training and was considered human again by marine standards. Florida was a far cry from the Appalachian Mountains, but there was a lot of the country Wash hadn’t seen. Funny, that. He’d seen more of other countries than he’d seen of his own. The invitation sounded nice. Get away from all this shit for a bit, get his head screwed back on right, meet those sisters and mother Gale had talked about. See a real family.
“Yeah, alright,” he said with a small smile. “West Virginia. Someone’s told me a bit about the place. I’d like to see it.”
It had been awhile since Gale saw his family - he talked to them every holiday, and usually Skyped them. But getting on a plane and flying over, visiting childhood haunts, and just having his mother fuss over him for a bit - that was probably what he needed. Then when he returned, he’d be ready to deal with Orange County again. Get back into regular therapy, treat the PTSD properly. Things that would make all the difference for him.
“You’ll like it, I think. There are lots of prime places to skateboard,” he grinned a bit. Plus, scenic mountain views, a gorge or two, parks, caverns. It wasn’t very urban, not where coal mining still happened, but it was refreshing in a sense. His mother and brother and sister lived in a house in the middle of nowhere, a stream running through, long gravel road access - it was where you lived if you wanted privacy. Good hunting around there too.
They had to make it through all this shit first though. “Come on, let’s get out of here,” Gale helped Wash up. “And...try not to get separated.” Easier said than done, unfortunately.
“Yeah, let’s,” Wash agreed. He let Gale help him up. His back and torso objected which made him groan, but he had to keep moving otherwise he’d run the risk of his muscles tightening up, especially with how cold and damp the air was. And there were people still out there. If Gale had managed to find him in all of this, they could potentially find others. Maybe herd a bunch of them back to Baxter’s like they had during Lina’s apocalyptic storm of chaos. That is...if they could find Baxter’s and it didn’t look as fucked up as everything else. Wishful thinking.
Wash didn’t think it was possible, but the fog seemed even denser. Wash could barely make out what was three feet in front of him and he kept a sharp ear out for any warning static from his phone. So far it remained silent.
Wash wasn’t sure how long they’d been walking when he realized he couldn’t actually see Gale anymore. It was as if the fog had just swallowed him up. Or swallowed Wash up. Or maybe both.
“Not again…” Wash muttered. “This shit’s getting old,” he shouted out as if to the fog itself. He had half-hoped to hear Gale in front of him respond with some kind of remark, but got nothing. He would have honestly been surprised if he had.
Nope, nothing from Gale. He thought Wash was still with him - and he was keeping his eyes peeled for a clinic or hospital or something to break into, to raid for medical supplies for them both - but there was nothing. When he thought he saw something in the distance resembling a place with fucking bandages, at the very least, he turned to tell his friend.
“Hey, Wash, just up -”
What the fuck.
That trip to West Virginia couldn’t come fast enough. Hopefully Wash wouldn’t mind getting fussed over a little by Gale’s mother too, because they were a pair of soldiers in need of a fucking break, that was for damn sure.