lifeaftr | CLOTHING ADVENTURES

CLOTHING ADVENTURES

Who: Anyone! Everyone!
What: Clothes were requested. Clothes are now granted.
When: morning of the 22nd initially
Where: meet me at the room that's literally filled to the brim with clothing in 15 minutes
Warnings: It's just clothes, what could possibly go wrong!
Notes: Everyone gets free clothes whether they participated in the actual request or not. CLOTHES FOR THE ENTIRE ISLAND.

There's a room in the Storyteller's temple; it was once empty, and now it's...not. It is, in fact, full of clothing of all sorts, to the point that it might be slightly difficult to find exactly what you're looking for.

Oh well. It's there now, no takebacks.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

You know, you are allowed to wear other colors besides yellow and grey now.

[ CT appears at his elbow, still in armor, mostly just happy to see Wash wearing something else even if he's enough of a dork to have gravitated to what amounts to a casual version of his uniform. She surveys the pile, picking up the cryptid shorts and peering at them thoughtfully. ]

Sasquatch is supposed to be from Washington, right?

They're the least awful things I could find in this mess, okay?

[Not a cop. Yeah, good thing Kaikana isn't here to call that one out. He does not need more of this in his life, and he is going to regard the shorts with the kind of skeptical eye that one might use when watching for a loaded gun in the room.]

If you're suggesting what I think you're suggesting, I'm not wearing shorts with the word cryptid on them. Or any kind of shorts.

[ Honestly, after examining a few of the offerings on display, she can believe that. It's still a little suspicious that he went for the hoodie in exactly his armor colors, though.

CT grins hugely, and doesn't toss the shorts aside. ]

Why not? It's hot out, right? [ Not everything is as temperature-regulating as their armor is. ] You could use them for swimming.

[C.T. is smiling, and he'd forgotten - just how much more open she seems, when she's not drawn up tight in a knot of tension and brittle unrest and uncertainty. He bites the wall of his cheek to keep his expression stiff, fishing another pair of shorts from the pile.]

[These ones say "SELKIE".]

Oh, that's better. Much more fitting.

[ Yes, she's smiling. She's still here, still far away from Kirkwall, and she may have completely fucked over one of her only friendships here - but she's alive, they're all alive, and no one has flowers growing out of their skin.

And Wash is pulling another pair of shorts out of the pile, playing along. Maybe that's best of all. She beams, pretending not to hear the sarcasm in his voice. ]

Those look like your size.

[It took years with the Blues to realize that good enough was better than he could ever remember having in recent memory, borrowed or otherwise, and good enough is what carries him through now. They're not in immediate danger. No one is dying. People are sorting through stupid clothes and laughing, and if they can muzzle their loneliness in whipcrack slogans pasted on top of dollar-store t-shirts, then who's he to call that a bad thing?]

We get Carolina in on this, and we could even have a matching set.

I guess I'm the cryptid, then.

[ Who else would be thought dead for years, only to unexpectedly reappear again in the place where she's least expected? See, she can even joke about it. CT scans the pile with renewed interest. ]

But what would Carolina be?

[Joking about it is a good sign. He's pretty sure that's how the Reds and Blues have managed to remain sane after all these years, for a nebulous definition of "sane." A very nebulous definition.]

[But, wow! There's a whole fucking set and he hates it!!]

"Harpy" just seems...mean.

[ CT can't help giggling, even as she shakes her head firmly, eyes roving over their options. ]

I am not suggesting that to her.

[ She's died enough, thanks. ]

I'm not suggesting any of those to her.

[She's laughing, which makes it worth it.]

Wonder if her camo unit still works. How detailed do you think it could get? [Church - he'd have tested the limits on that kind of thing once upon a time, wouldn't he? Tried to figure out if he could holo-project a giant dick, or something appropriately childish, because what the hell else would a conglomeration of a genius A.I.'s memories do with his time?]

[ CT considers that for a moment, then grins hugely. ]

There's one way to find out, right?

[ She glances up at Wash, wanting to confirm that they're on the same page here. ]

Custom booty shorts?

[Remember when.]

[He almost lets an anecdote slip out, something dumb and tangential like, remember when York called Maine an abominable snow-Maine and got shoved in a locker, but the dissonance between his memories of Freelancer and what it turned everyone into arrests him. That, and the fact that he no longer knows for certain if those memories actually happened.]

[Was it York? Did he imagine it? Did he picture that right, at all?]

[He diverts. Focus, Washington. You're allowing a nice fucking thing to happen, so...let it.]

I have no idea what we'd have to do to make that happen, for the record.

[ She remembers. It had happened. But Wash doesn't mention it, and so CT doesn't think of it. She scrunches up her face in thought instead, studying the shorts still in Wash's hand. ]

Maybe if we model these ones for her, she'll be so jealous she'll decide to try it all by herself.

[ ...Probably not, though. ]

I am so glad that no one here has a camera. [...well.]

No one here has a camera. Right?

[He sure doesn't have a helmet cam. Thank fucking god for that.]

Someone probably does.

[ She doesn't seem nearly as bothered by that possibility, though, picking up the CRYPTID shorts and holding them up to estimate their fit. ]

I'm supposed to be a hardened military badass over here, and there you are, blatantly plotting to ruin my street cred.

[His lips pinch at the corners in mock disapproval. There's an unspooling of tension gathered up behind his spine that he didn't realize was there until it eases, softens the hard line of his shoulders.]

[How long has that been there?]

Wash.

[ Is he kidding? She turns to give him a disbelieving Look, the corners of her mouth threatening to pull up into a smile. ]

You were never a hardened military badass.

The way the sim soldiers acted, you'd never have believed otherwise.

[That keeps him from undercutting the moment with the obvious: that he put a bullet in South's brain and then slapped the nitro-cored slab of C4 against her armor to finish what he started. That he put a bullet in Donut's sternum and didn't expect him to get up from it again. That he was fully prepared to turn in his old A.I. to save his skin, and hunt down hapless sim troopers with the emptied husk of his best friend to do it.]

[Maybe badass was never on the table. But hardened certainly came to be a word for it.]

[But he smiles, as though none of it scratches the back of his head.]

[ She knows. Not all of it, but she knows he'd changed. That he'd killed South. That he'd convinced Church to sacrifice himself. Things that her Wash never, ever would have done.

But she hadn't seen it, and even if he's different now - colder, harder, more paranoid - knowing is different than believing. On some level, to her, he'll always be the same naive, earnest, slightly goofy Wash.

At least, she wants him to be.

She snorts, dropping the shorts to start searching aimlessly through the pile again. ]

I'm not sure they're the best judges of that.

Oh, no. They're not good judges of anything.

[The alacrity with which he says it is almost comical. None of them had much of a moral leg to stand on, considering that the way they first met was predicated on the fact that Caboose has team-killed his own leader a truly staggering number of times.]

But maybe that's why they manage to grow on you. They...don't really have any standards.

[ CT laughs, surprising herself. She'd only met the Blues - apart from Church - briefly, but honestly, it had been enough to know Wash is right. ]

That doesn't sound so bad, really. No standards.

[ No expectations. No judgement. No risk of letting anyone else down. ]

Sounds relaxing.

Relaxing? I dunno about relaxing.

[It's never really a dull moment with them, that's for sure. But sometimes it takes getting caught up in someone else's incredibly stupid and significantly less traumatic bullshit to start getting over your own.]

But it was a change. [And that had been, at the time, exactly what he needed.]

That sounds nice, too.

[ Any change had to be an improvement over Freelancer, right? She thinks of the Temerity, and frowns. Well. Maybe not any change. ]

...were you happy there?

With the Blues?

[How does he answer that? He hadn't been sure how to handle it, that forcible adoption into their ranks. It hadn't been an easy integration, either.]

[In between waking up with the taste of his own blood flooding his gums because he bit through his tongue, dealing with Tucker's grousing that he didn't get any fucking sleep because you motherfucking Freelancers are so goddamned loud, and ensuring Caboose didn't burn the entire damn base down in an effort to use the oven, there are moments that he feels...]

I think I might've been. [It's a difficult thing to recognize, and an adjustment, to say in the least; dialing yourself down from full-tilt survival to adjust to the fact that you're now just one part of a six-man team of idiots in a box canyon.]

Were you? In Thedas?

Yeah.

[ There's not even an instant of hesitation when she says it, but it's quiet, almost a sigh. CT looks back at the clothes again, not really seeing them as she thumbs at a shirt. ]

I didn't know I could be that happy.

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