revenance_rpg | All Fun and Games Until...

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All Fun and Games Until...

Characters: York, North, Wash
Content: York gets a turn at curling up into a ball of nope. He was due.
Location: The belltower, Second District, Traverse Town because some people don't have the common decency to break down somewhere that doesn't require fighting through waves of nightmares to get to.
Time of Day: Evening (really evening)
Warnings: Sads.

York was pretty sure the eternal night thing was part of how he was feeling. He could use that tropical island paradise that he'd mentioned to Etna just about now; everything just seemed to be dragging. He sat down on a crate and looked up at the sky; in parts of the town, the lights blotted out the stars, but here you could see quite a few.

He'd kept running from it, tried not to think about it, tried to make the best of it. But the fact was...he was dead. Sure, he was alive here for however long it lasted, but he'd died at home and he couldn't even ask Wash if he'd managed to help Tex do what she needed to do, because that could get into things Wash didn't want to talk about, and he wasn't going to do that to the guy, not now. He was dead because nothing had mattered any more, and revenge had sounded like as good a reason as any to do anything. But now he had this break, this time before he went off and finished dying, and his guilt was still eating him alive. He'd tried to be a hero and he hadn't saved anyone; Wash deserved this chance. North did. Carolina did.

"Why am I here?"

Delta skipped the protocols for an official mental health evaluation and instead quietly contacted Wash and North's helmet radios; hopefully they would still have them on at this time of night. He considered but discarded the idea of contacting Church; Church and Wash could clearly not both be present. "I apologize for the interruption, but York is in need of your assistance. We are on the platform in front of the belltower in the Second District."

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For once in his life, Wash figured he'd take it easy for a day. He wasn't usually one for tea, but visiting Namine at the shop and talking about getting Fang a paint job had been a nice change of pace. He made it back to the hotel after running into relatively few Nightmares, and he was looking forward to a hot shower and a night of doing pretty much nothing. He figured he'd earned it.

He was just about to take his helmet off when his radio crackled on, relaying Delta's message. Wash froze, feeling something deep inside him lock down. York was in trouble - it had to be bad if Delta was on the radio instead of him, and the last time something like this had happened, Wash hadn't even known about it until after the fact, he'd been too late to do anything-

He forcibly stopped that train of thought. Not this time. He was done fucking up his second chances. "On my way," he replied, already out of the hotel room and on the street, Fang keeping pace, squeaking uneasily at the sudden change in Wash's attitude. "Delta, is anyone else getting this message? And what the hell happened to York?"

Delta's tone was probably meant to be reassuring when he answered. "I have notified Agent North and Theta as well. York is physically well, but he has neglected his emotional health in recent days. He does not wish to burden you or Agent North with his worries." Delta paused. "He cannot burden Agent North with his worries."

It didn't matter how reassuring Delta's tone was - he was still delivering bad news. "Got it." So it was that kind of assistance, huh. Deep down, Wash couldn't say he was surprised; the time discrepancy had been rough on all of them, but so far York had been the one to hold them together. It was his turn for this sort of thing, and of course he was going to be an asshole and break down somewhere that required a shitton of combat to get to. Of course.

And if it was something North couldn't know...well. He'd just have to get there before North, take care of the heavy stuff as best he could, and then let North work his magic. North had always been better at calming people down - he almost had to be, living with South all his life - but there was no point in breaking him too in the process. His advantage right now was that he was closer than North; his disadvantage was that gunfire would give him away, and if York really wanted to be alone, there was nothing to stop him from bolting if he found out Wash was coming. "Whatever happens, Delta," he continued, skidding into a group of freshly-appeared Nightmares and taking out a pricklemane with his knife before it had a chance to attack him, "don't let him leave."

"I had not intended to do so," Delta replied. Distracting York enough not to notice gunfire at this point in time would be difficult, but doable. Delta didn't intend to sedate York unless it was entirely necessary, because sedation might make it more difficult for him to have a full discussion of his problems with Wash and North. Delta only hoped that once that discussion occurred, things would calm down and they could enjoy this respite as York had wished to do.

York poked at Delta warily; usually if he got into a funk, Delta hovered over him and started listing all the reasons that it was unreasonable to be upset. Or started up a flow of probabilities in the back of his head that was distracting, even if it was annoying sometimes. He caught an edge of exasperation, and then Delta's attention was wholly on him.

I refuse to reason with you when you are not going to listen to sense. Delta's mind voice is more annoyed than concerned, and that just rankled, even with the state York was in.

That isn't fair D, and you know it. York could feel Delta gearing up for an argument; these didn't happen often, but they were never anything like fun. I'm really not up for this.

Delta gave a mental sigh. Then just listen, if you will. He focused on burying his relief that this had worked; if York was listening to him, he could muffle the sounds from outside.

Delta didn't need to worry about muffling gunfire, since Wash didn't intend to use his gun. It wasn't something you did when you were trying to be stealthy - after all, there were only four people in the city that used guns, and he didn't think York hadn't met Ziva yet. He relied on his knife, and Fang, and whatever trick of hand-to-hand combat he knew to finish off Nightmares as fast as he could and move on. He figured out pretty quickly that he could grab a Nightmare pricklemane by the end of its tail and use it as a mace for a good two or three swings before it cottoned on and really got angry, and that trick helped more than he expected.

Still, it took him at least a solid five minutes - maybe more, he wasn't exactly counting - to get into the tower, through the tower, up the stairs (and goddamn he had forgotten how much stair fights sucked), and out onto the platform Delta had given as their location. Yep, there he was, and Wash was between him and the only exit - unless you considered multiple stories straight down an exit, but Wash was pretty sure York wasn't suicidal.

Pretty sure. Ten years changed things.

"You know," he said conversationally, as though there wasn't ash all over his back and arm and helmet and fur caught in the chinks in his armor, as though he hadn't torn his way through several dozen Nightmares with nothing but a knife and a bat and his wits just to get here, as though York wasn't having a minor breakdown all on his own to the point where his AI had to independently call for help, "you could've chosen a much better place to do this."

And suddenly Wash was there and Delta was hiding in the back of his head, feeling vaguely ashamed but nonetheless sure of his decision. York shook himself a bit and all the guilt came flooding back. "Delta told you." It took him a moment to process what Wash had said. "Yeah, sorry about that. I'm really fine, though."

"Bullshit." Yeah no Wash wasn't having any of that. "If you were fine, you wouldn't have holed up here in the middle of Nightmare central and Delta wouldn't have put a request for assistance out on the radio. And you're still a terrible liar." At least that hadn't changed.

Wash crossed the platform, kicking a stray crate over near York's and taking a seat. "Delta said it was something you couldn't tell North." His tone was a bit more gentle, though he still had too many sharp edges now to really be good at this. "So talk to me instead."

York took his helmet off and looked up at the sky. "I joined the UNSC so I could make a difference. People were dying, things were looking bleaker by the day, and I always thought...maybe I could do something. I didn't think I'd ever be a real hero, but I always figured that if something I did saved even a few people, it was a cause worth dying for."

York let out a long sigh. "I couldn't even save my best friends. So why do I get this...break, before I really die?"

Edited 2012-11-01 02:09 (UTC)

Oh, hell. He knew it was bad, but he was not prepared for this. Wash had spent too long in the realm of the practical - complete the mission, means to an end, don't think about sin or karma or whatever just fucking get it done - to be able to tackle a question like that. He focused too much on the hows to ever learn how to deal with the whys, and the silence between them was getting too long while he tried to figure it out.

Well, this was York. Maybe a little honesty was in order.

"I don't know," he said simply, removing his helmet and setting it on the crate next to him. "I don't know why any of us got this break. But, if it helps...think of it as a second chance." He had plenty of experience with those, at least.

"A second chance where I lie to my friend because telling him I'm dead would mean telling him Reggie shot me twice in the chest because I was trying to help Tex kill Omega?" York huffed out a pained laugh. "I've tried to think of it as a second chance, but all that makes me think about are all the chances I wasted."

He tried not to second-guess himself. It helped that Delta wasn't someone who ever second-guessed himself; York had tried to pick up that trait from him, but it was hard after everything that had happened. Delta was (still) the better liar, not that that was something York wanted spread around, and D had managed to master snarky commentary. York...York had learned some caution and consideration.

"You know, the reason I helped Tex was because I finally accepted that Carolina had to be dead. I always tracked their communications when I could - they never talked about you, or I'd have come for you - and they started talking about a lady freelancer's giving them hell. I started thinking about what I'd say when I tracked her down. It was Tex, of course. And that's when I realized I had to let her go."

Wash's brow furrowed slightly - those were details he wasn't expecting. He knew the shots had been Wyoming's, but Tex trying to kill Omega...yeah, that was new. He couldn't blame her, though.

York's next words changed things. "Then don't," he snapped, those jagged edges coming to the surface in his tone again. "Don't think about the times you've fucked up, because if you do that, then you'll just fuck this one up too." It was a lesson he'd learned over and over again - his recent life had been a litany of fucked-up second chances (Recovery One trusting South finding the Meta finding Epsilon trusting Caboose getting convicted shooting Donut nearly shooting Doc trusting the Meta failing to kill the Meta failing to capture Epsilon almost failing to survive) and he'd finally, finally learned to look forward, and York was better at this sort of thing than him - York had always been better, and if Wash could learn that lesson then York damn well could too.

He took a deep breath, trying to rein it in. He had to be the stable one here. "Just- trust me on this," he continued, a bit calmer. "I've had a few opportunities to learn it."

He had just about nothing to say to York's admission. He knew just what Carolina had meant to York - hell, anyone with eyes could have seen that. "It's tough, isn't it," he finally managed, a bit more lamely than he would have liked.

"I thought I was past this point," York admitted. "But maybe I was just running from it. There was really nothing but the day to day survival; couldn't stay in one place for long, couldn't make friends because even if I wasn't the project's first priority, they'd have hunted me down in a second if they thought they could pull D out of my head. And they'd have used everything against me."

Which was, at least, how he'd known that they hadn't recovered Carolina. Or not alive, if they had. Delta had kept him sane through all of it. Maybe he'd gone with Tex because he hoped what came of that would be something that mattered. Maybe it was just to hurt someone who'd hurt him. He didn't even know at this point.

"I just wish I could know that I helped someone."

There wasn't much Wash could say to that. York was right, of course - knowing everything he knew about the Project and having worked as a Recovery agent, Wash knew at least that much. Somehow, though, he hadn't realized how hard being on the run must have been. York had always been the social one, always talking and joking and bothering everyone so much that they'd all acutely felt just how much they missed being bothered when he'd been in the hospital and how relieved they were when he'd returned.

And then, for as long as Wash had been fighting off Epsilon and struggling to remember who he was, York had been alone. Or mostly alone, at least - he did have Delta. He might not have gotten through that if he hadn't.

"For what it's worth," he said, still quiet, "you're helping me now just by being here." He couldn't vouch for anything else, but at least it was something, right?

"Thanks." York felt like that should have been enough but somehow, it just wasn't at the moment. It was good to feel needed...and now he felt ungrateful; here was Wash, who had suffered more than York could probably ever imagine, and who'd had to fight his way through tons of nightmares just to get to him. And just nothing seemed to help.

It wasn't working.

Wash knew he'd never been very good at this sort of thing, but he'd been hoping he wouldn't fail this badly - not now, when it really mattered, and yet here he was doing just that. Fucked up second chances, indeed. He reached over, laying a hand gingerly on York's shoulder and wishing with everything he had that North would just show the hell up already, because York still needed help and this was way beyond Wash's capabilities.

The moment North had gotten Delta's message, he headed towards the location. Of course, it was all the way across town and there were nightmares everywhere, and escape was not an option it seemed. And so he's pretty much fought his way through every district in Traverse Town to get to the second district and then up the stairs of the Bell Tower for good measure.

"Alright," he said, trying not to sound too out of breath and staring at York and Wash. "What's going on?"

At the moment, Wash couldn't decide between speak of the devil and thank God. North was here, and hopefully he could handle the situation a little better than Wash had been doing.

"It's York," he started. "He..." Wash trailed off, completely at a loss as to how to finish that sentence. What could he say? He's letting guilt eat him alive? He's dead and can't figure out why he has a second chance here? None of that would ever work - there was too much North didn't know, couldn't know, for Wash to even be able to begin. Instead, Wash glanced helplessly at York, then back at North, his expression one of quiet desperation. It was the look he got when he was in way over his head and, despite his best efforts, couldn't figure out how to get out again. It was a plea for help.

York fought the urge to laugh hysterically. It would not help, and it would...really, really tell North that something was very much off. He rubbed the side of his face. "What Wash is being too nice to say is that telling you about what went down brought all of those memories back up, and I decided to come up here to break down over it." That was true, as far as it went. "I'm sorry."

For some reason, saying it to North made him feel obscurely better. Slightly anyway, since it was clear that North had also had to fight his way up here.

North sighed. It seemed like ever since he got here, it had been one thing after another.

"So, in other words it was your turn to be an idiot," he said finally. He trusted York, but given the way things had been, he didn't want to be out of the loop again.

"You're sure it was just that? Not anything else?"

He'd just admitted it to Wash, but it's different admitting it to North. Wash had the experience to understand exactly what it meant, but York was pretty sure that whatever happened between the siblings, North and South would be right there with each other until they died. "I've been alone with Delta for...a while now. It hadn't hit me how lonely I'd been until I met up with you guys again."

"And that made you want to isolate yourself? Seems kind of counter-intuitive," North replied with a shrug. After all, if York missed them, wouldn't he want to be around them more?

"If I'd been thinking, I wouldn't have fought my way up a staircase to be alone either." That was not one of his smarter life decisions. Not that it was bad to keep in practice; you never knew when certain skills would come in handy, and fighting up staircases was just a huge pain, every time.

"I feel like I should make it up to you somehow; you guys want a beer?" York got up and headed over to fish the bottles out of where he'd hidden them. He'd stashed them here the first time he'd decided to scout up here, since it seemed like a pretty isolated place. He'd have to keep an eye on the stuff he cached, see if anyone else was doing the same thing.

"Well maybe, and I'm thinking this applies to all of us, we should all start thinking a little bit more," North replied, "A beer would be good right about now."

He wasn't surprised York had a cache around. He could only wonder how many York had had on the Mother of Invention.

York offered a bottle each to North and Wash. Hopefully no one would ask about fighting up the stairs twice, now that he thought of it. Wash in particular had been rightly calling him on his stupid behavior since he'd got here; he really had to start watching that. No virtue in being self-destructive, after all.

"There's a funny story behind the beer."

Leave it to York to have beer. Hell, leave it to York to have beer in a completely moronic location. Wash just sighed. "You do realize we're going to have to fight our way back down out of here, right?" Not the best thing to do while drunk. That didn't stop him from accepting the proffered bottle, however.

There was a part of him that wasn't sure they were really done here - York was still carrying some pretty heavy stuff, and the beer just smacked of distraction. The rest of him knew better than to pry right now, what with North being there. One, there were things North still didn't know, and two, North was still a hell of a lot better at this than he was. "Okay, I'll bite. What's the story."

York grinned at Wash. Admitting his loneliness to North had settled something inside him; it seemed like just getting it out to both of them had been what he needed to start coming down off of his freakout. At least, he could think things through now without being weighted down. The guilt wasn't gone - might not ever be gone - but having shared it out loud, he could carry it.

"So D here had a burning need to know what was going on with that illusion that Ienzo pulled up. I ended up being treated to two hours of magic theory, and I'm not even going to count how long someone had to sulk because it only made internal sense rather than real physics sense. Afterwards Ienzo just sort of shoved it at me; I guess he thought I deserved it."

"Well that was anticlimactic," North shrugged, taking off his helmet and opening the bottle.

"Here I was expecting a long caper about how you snuck in and stole it. Although, I'm sure Theta'd be interested in hearing about it. He's been talking with Ienzo about making illusions. Seems his holograms have made quite the impression."

Wash had a completely different take on it. "Two hours of theory and he only gave you beer? Guy's kind of a cheapass, isn't he." He opened the bottle and took a swig. "You know, I didn't think you could explain that magic. I kind of figured that was the point of the whole thing."

"You'd have to ask Delta," York said, shrugging. "After they got into an argument over whether thermodynamics applied to magic and conversion of energy or something, I stopped listening. What I got from it is that I don't care how magic works as long as it does. Oh, and that the illusions are things you see, not things he puts in your head, but your mind makes it real anyway. Or something."

It wasn't the most tedious two hours of his life, if only because Delta had been so annoyed by the end of it. It was still pretty close though. "You should have seen it, North; he changed the look of a whole room like it was nothing." York opened up his beer, sighing a bit. "Pretty freaky, actually."

"I'll have to check it out, if only for Theta's benefit. He likes that kind of stuff, and he's getting really good at making images. You should have seen the fish he made for Cactus."

North smiled. It was kind of like a parent bragging about his kid, but he could feel Theta glowing inside his head.

"Sounds like Ienzo's got some useful skills though."

"I'll bet Cactus loved it." Wash wasn't sure he wanted to let North know that Theta had figured out how to use the communicator without him - just another secret to add to the pile, he guessed. Plus, that smile was too good to ruin.

His expression soured a bit at the next comment. "Yeah, they're great. Especially when he doesn't warn you." Wash had already had enough issues with seeing things that weren't there; he didn't need any help on that front. He realized that his hand had gone up to his temple - had probably been there for a bit, actually - and dropped it into his lap. Dammit, when had that become a tell?

"I think he'll have figured out that a warning is a good idea from here on," York offered. Hopefully, anyway. The guy had said his power wasn't much use against nightmares, but they knew from experience that illusions could be useful in battle; he was someone to watch.

Delta appeared next to York; he looked over the three of them and seemed to radiate a sigh without voicing it. "If I may, please recall that you will all have to make your way back down the stairs after you are done here."

"It's okay Delta, I don't think any of us is planning to get drunk," North replied, trying to be reassuring. He'd missed being about to do this, just sit around and hang out with his friends like this.

It seemed like things were moving too fast back home and they rarely had a chance to sit and talk.

"I won't let anything happen to North," Theta added, appearing in his spray of fireworks.

"That's what I said," Wash pointed out, gesturing with his bottle towards Delta. It was nice to have the voice of logic agree with you, even if nobody actually listened to you the first time around. Wash was used to not winning anything - he took his victories where he could. "Plus, it's pretty hard to get drunk on one beer."

Delta inclined his head conceding that point. "I was merely uncertain as to how much of the case York intended to consume before heading back down the stairs."

"Man, you just don't trust me at all tonight," York grumbled. Really, man, he wasn't dumb, he'd just been depressed. Though being depressed on a rooftop surrounded by monsters wasn't the best idea, so he could give Delta that, at least.

"Friends don't let friends drink and fight their way down stairs," North said with a laugh. "But who knows? Maybe we'll get lucky and they'll keep their distance for once."

"The case?" Wash looked from Delta to York. "You have a case," he said flatly. "You fought your way all the way up here, past the Nightmares, up the stairs, holding a case of beer." He paused, letting that one just hang in the air, before taking another swig of beer. "Alright." It was York, and York pulled off shit like this, and the sky was blue. There really wasn't much to add to that.

"Friends don't let friends drink and pull off half the shit we do," he muttered, smirking over the rim of his bottle. Yeah, he'd missed being able to do this - just hang out and talk with the two of them, even if it had come on the heels of multiple breakdowns. Progress, right? He blinked and looked over at North. "Since when do we get lucky?"

York grinned. Friends; it was sounding better and better as the evening went on. "I should just haul it to the hotel, where it'll be more useful. If I got up the stairs with Sparky, getting down with you two should be easier."

"You never know? Now that we've mostly managed to patch things up, maybe karma will reward us with something. I mean, one of us must have brownie points, right?"

A guy could dream, after all. This was a dream world, so that had to count for something.

"I could just use the sheild all the way home, save on fighting?"

Wash snorted into his beer at that one. "North, if anyone has brownie points left, it's gonna be you." Wash was fairly certain he'd used all of his up surviving everything he had up to this point. "Shield's a pretty good idea, though, especially for the stairs."

"I'm gonna third the shield idea." York was pretty sure he'd used up all of his chances plus one, so he wasn't too keen on being too risky, beer and staircases aside.

"Alright. I guess we'll head off in a bit. Just make sure you stay close, since it looks like we'll have to play with it a bit," North said, thinking of the stairwell. It would be a tight fit, between the three of them and their spirits.

"This you got this one, Theta?"

"Leave it to me!"

"Got it." Wash put his nearly-empty beer bottle on the crate next to him. "York's carrying." Because if he'd been so determined to carry the case up here in the first place, he could damn well carry it back down again.

That was when Fang, tired of being left to his own devices and curious, swooped down and snatched up the beer bottle. "Hey!" Wash made a swipe for him and missed entirely as the bat flew up and out of his reach, the bottle hanging out of its mouth. "You know," he said flatly, looking up at the bat, "I'm not even sure I want that back now. Just...don't drink it. I don't want to have to carry you out of here."

York laughed. "You know, doesn't it just figure?" He set his bottle down and stood, looking up at Fang. "You don't think it can actually get drunk, do you?" Then again, they were technicolor dream monsters. Maybe they could get drunk; snails could, right?

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All Fun and Games Until...

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