home sweet home? (closed)

[bloodbathing]

Who: Leonard Church and Agents Washington, Texas, and Maine
What: Meetings, reunions, and definitely no awkwardness.
When: shortly after the April intro log
Where: Islet #4, Cottage #3
Warnings: canon typical language


[ What's better than a group of space marines with lots of interpersonal baggage? Plucking them all from different points in time, then shoving them in the same house and seeing what happens.

MINGLE POST. Make your own top-levels, tag around, go nuts. ]

Comments

[motherfucking_ghost]

But she wasn't a bit of personality or compartmentalized emotion--you said she, she was someone the Director loved.

[counterblows]

Yeah. She was.

She was...powerful enough to be her own person. To split from the Alpha and be who she was, separate from him, but - she was a part of him at first.

[He doesn't know how it happened with Epsilon; if it was forceful or willed into being or intentional or simply a byproduct of him being who he was, and reclaiming the memories that Alpha discarded.]

[But it was just as cataclysmic.]

[motherfucking_ghost]

I don't understand. I don't understand all this stupid metaphysical bullshit.

[Wash keeps pulling this on him like it's some kind of trap he keeps falling into. Dangling something and then Church stumbles into it, claims he doesn't want to know, and Wash calls him out on it. Because of course he wants to know. That's the whole problem. It'll haunt him the rest of his life if he doesn't.]

...She knows, right? She's known all along. Did she know about the Director?

[counterblows]

I don't think she did at first. We just thought she was another agent like the rest of us. But at some point when most of the Project's agents went rogue, when she went rogue...I think that's when she figured it out.

[When she tried to break him out - and failed.]

[motherfucking_ghost]

And it was way too late by then. Everything had already happened, right? But why--why did the Director do what he did? I know what you told me, I remember, not enough AI for the experiments. [It fractures itself to protect itself.] But, what, so he--he stuck someone he loved in some armor to be a badass Freelancer? But she had Omega. He gave a fragment a fragment, that doesn't make sense, what did he think would happen?

[He's trying to keep it together, turn this into 20 questions so he doesn't run off on Wash again. He doesn't know that he's succeeding. He knows where this is going, more exploding and yelling and arguing, because that's what happens when Wash decides to treat him like this, and he can barely stop it because of course he wants to know.]

[counterblows]

She was different from the start. Remember how I told you - it's like she was getting special treatment. None of us could understand why.

[Until now.]

He wanted her to be the best. I think he was just trying...trying to get her right. Trying to remake her or recreate her or - [He almost chokes on the words, revulsion coiling up in his throat.]

Trying to turn her into the person he remembered.

[motherfucking_ghost]

[He hadn't...done any of that, had he? Didn't have the technology or the knowhow--but then again. If she knew and didn't say, if she just...went along with whatever he said or implied about their relationship, isn't that something of the same thing? Does claiming ignorance, no matter how true, negate the harm done?

You're bound to have some residual memories. They're just not yours.]

I hate this, and I hate you. [And he hates himself the most.]

[counterblows]

Thanks.

[What the hell else does he say to that? Isn't it deserved?]

Look, Tex might be able to tell you better. She probably can. You'd just...have to ask her.

[motherfucking_ghost]

I foresee that conversation going really, really well, can't wait to have it. [He's not really looking at Wash, though it's...harder to tell with him.] I'm gonna leave now.

With your cat.

[counterblows]

Fine.

[Oh, fuck. He almost forgot the entire reason they were having this conversation in the first place - ]

Wait, wait. Just - if you see Maine, don't freak out on him, all right? He doesn't know any of what's going to happen. He doesn't know what the Meta even is.

[motherfucking_ghost]

Well then MAYBE you should TELL HIM because you seem REALLY GOOD at TELLING PEOPLE some REAL FUCKED UP SHIT ABOUT THEMSELVES!

[There it is. There it is, building for a while. He was hoping to beat it out the door and avoid another screaming match, but it there's, it's out of his mouth instead of rotting in his gut, and now they both have to deal with it.]

[counterblows]

[For a minute, he misses his helmet, because there's no hiding the startled flinch, the way his mouth opens, and then the slow, defeated closing of his eyes. He doesn't school his expression into stillness quickly enough.]

[There's no right answer to that, he knows.]

I know.

[That's about the only thing he's good for, right now.]

[motherfucking_ghost]

[It's a dual response and he hates that, too. Part of him finds satisfaction in seeing Wash flinch, to agree, to recognize what an ass he's being, has been from the word go.

But it also twists something, like an ache, like he wants to stuff the words back in or apologize and soothe it. And he hates that bite of regret nibbling at him. Why the fuck should he regret causing Wash any pain? Why the fuck should he ever listen to this guy ever again?

Before was deliberate. This was an accident. He thinks. He thinks it was, but who's he to say anymore? He takes a breath, points a finger, like he's going to AND ANOTHER THING him--

Doesn't. Just. Lets it drop. And makes his way out. It's just short of a run. It's definitely not a run. He's not running. That would be cowardly. It's just a little bit short of that.]