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]

"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.

[notyourrookie]

"Probably did that too. But even I can't argue that my methods were in any way healthy."

[churbooseanon]

"Is there a way to be healthy about this?" David asks, because he doubts it.

[notyourrookie]

"No idea, but I'm sure psychologists could base entire careers off us," he says with a small smile.

[churbooseanon]

"Pretty sure Price wanted to," David groans, finally settling down a bit. Finally someone he won't worry too much by talking about the whole fucked up time on the med ship. "I wasn't even given a fork at meals. I had to use a SPOON to spread butter. What the fuck?"

[notyourrookie]

"Oh I don't doubt that," Wash replies, grimacing. Part of him loathes the Counsellor more than the Director. The same part that is more scared of him. Not that he's admitting that.

"And the staff talking like you're a really stupid child. No I don't want to take my fucking meds because I know they're just going to fuck with my head."

[churbooseanon]

"The two way mirror," David says, shaking. "Their insistence that they take the armor, that you wear civilized clothes. The insistent that you are going to hurt yourself..."

Not that it hadn't occurred to him to do.

[notyourrookie]

"Pyjamas and scrubs are not civilised clothes," he says derisively. But they'd been made to ensure he couldn't hide anything, couldn't cause any damage to himself with them.

"The restraints when you try," he says more quietly. All the times he'd tries to claw his neck open to make it stop. All the times he'd thought about ending it, even started, because it hurt too much.

[churbooseanon]

David shakes his head, looking away. "If I didn't have them... I might have tried a lot more. I tried to break the mirror once, when I was angry."

[notyourrookie]

"Would've smashed everything if I'd had chance," he replies. "Wanted to. Wanted to tear them all apart with my bare hands if I couldn't find anything else."

[churbooseanon]

"I know," David says quietly. "They... gave me this shrink who was so scared of me. But I knew Price was listening. It... I was going crazier there."