York's Interdimension Basket of Washes

[notyourrookie]

York is done with this. Every Wash needs a comfy, happy and most of all, not horrifying and trauma-inducing space where they can feel safe. A place where the horrors that inevitably await them in their own universes cannot intrude.

And York will provide. Even if he has to drag them across universes to do so.

Comments

[churbooseanon]

"You... can ask me questions," David says simply. It's him that doesn't want to remember. "If the answers won't stick in your head. Do they ever stop sticking?"

[notyourrookie]

"I got good at compartmentalising," he replies. "Sticking things in places where no-one could find them. Sometimes not even me." And a lot of other things he just... destroyed if he could. It was a slash and burn approach but it had kept him alive.

[churbooseanon]

Well, there is hope. "Only been a few months," David admits.

[notyourrookie]

Oh. That might explain a few things. "It's been a few years for me. A lot has happened."

[churbooseanon]

"Any... tips for getting through this?" David asks, nervous.

[notyourrookie]

He lets out a slow breath. "...memory is the key," he says quietly, a bitter little smile on his lips. "Get Epsilon to the authorities and they can use him to take down the project. Get hold of Alpha too.Also Wyoming's mod is a bitch."

[churbooseanon]

"I meant the memories, not a surefire way to bring Florida down on us like the wrath of whatever god is out there," Davids answers dismissively. Idiot.

[notyourrookie]

"Florida?" He frowns, utterly confused by that. "He's dead where I'm from. I think. Definitely not seen him since Epsilon."

Except for here and he didn't think Wash was talking about here.

"I don't know what I can tell you. I don't remember much. They had me drugged for a long time when they weren't...questioning me. Alpha said my head was a wreck. I just focussed everything I had on bringing down the Project and made sure nothing else mattered."

[churbooseanon]

"In ways, you may be the lucky one," David tells him simply. The week they'd had to hide to make sure Florida and Wyoming didn't find them had been terrible.

[notyourrookie]

He snorts at that, not believing it for a second. "I survived. There was nothing else I could do. And all it got me was locked up again."

[churbooseanon]

"We live our lives hiding," David says. "We're hunted men."

[notyourrookie]

"You and... North and York?" That sounds... weird. "I'm sorry. That can't be good. I just can't imagine it."

[churbooseanon]

"We... I fought FLorida to escape. He wants us dead. Regardless of what hte program wants. I think Wyoming is after us for the price on our heads. At least Tex and Niner are in our corner."

[notyourrookie]

He winces at that news. "Wyoming killed York. Idiot was helping Tex break into Wyoming's base."

But Florida was scary enough. "Tex is on no-one's side but her own."

[churbooseanon]

"Beta owes us," Wash counters, but he doesn't want to think about York dead. He curls even more tightly around himself.

[notyourrookie]

"York left with her while I was comatose," Wash says. "They came back, attacked the MoI just as I woke up. North left to help them. They went after the Alpha. Never came for me. Had time to get South out before the ship crashed though." And he knows there's reasons. He knows there's explanations. But he'll never hear them and part of him wonders if it just amounts to 'you weren't valuable enough'.

He notices the way the other Wash hunches up and sighs, then reaches out to wrap an arm around him.

"You need a memory that's just yours. Something you know can't be Epsilon or Alpha or the Director. Something that's an anchor."

[churbooseanon]

"How do I find one?" David asks. "I have trouble remembering where I was born some mornings. Which childhood was mine? Did I even have one? And now there is your memories too, a little."

[notyourrookie]

It was hard. He'd had anger, and the anger had been a thread back to his past. But this other Wash?

"You said you're uh... in a relationship with York and North right? None of the others were. I wasn't. It's just you. All you. Try something with them."

[churbooseanon]

"Alpha saw all," David reminds Wash. At least up to a point there is a lot of his time with North and York that occurs from two sets of eyes.

[notyourrookie]

Wash grimaces. "Should've known Church would be a fucking voyeur too." Alpha had watched. Of course he had. It was his job to watch them.

"Not gonna have seen it from the same perspective. That's important. He never- never kissed them. Or fucked them. I mean... that would be weird."

[churbooseanon]

David looks away at the 'f' word. He's still young enough to be embarrassed by some of it. "I'll... try. I'll try to remember."

[notyourrookie]

Christ, that makes him feel old. Old and worn out, cynical and bitter. "It's like an anchor. Something you can find your way back to and work outwards from there. And it's not easy. And I still wake up some days and don't know who I am. But it's better than nothing."

[churbooseanon]

"Every morning when I wake up I have to lay there for an hour to try and piece together what is mine and what is theirs and what isn't important. I'm... getting bad at it."

[notyourrookie]

"I don't know what I can say. It passed for me, eventually. Enough to convince them that I was sane, to get put on active duty again. I fooled them."

[churbooseanon]

"Wish I could fool myself," Wash sighs, shaking his head and looking away.