revenance_rpg | Dum vita est, spes est

Who: York and Wash
Content: York reacts to Wyoming's arrival. It isn't great for his mental health.
Location: York and Wash's room, the Hotel, Second District, Traverse Town
Time of Day: Night! A few hours after Wyoming's arrival.
Warnings: More Freelancer Drama

Talking Delta out of a frankly terrifying mood had not been on York's list of things to do on this particular night. He hadn't really planned on having to deal with Wyoming's arriving. At least from what he could tell, Wyoming didn't seem to come from too late in the timeline, but there was no way to be sure. Wyoming wouldn't have seen what happened as personal, even if he'd had some sort of rivalry going on in his head where York was concerned.

So here he was, sitting on his bed while Sparky and Max curled up against him. They could tell that he and Delta were out of sorts...well, the arguing probably would account for that. He wasn't sure what he wanted to do. It would be better - for him and for Wash - to leave it alone. Wyoming hadn't tried to kill him yet. Succeeded in killing him. Yet.

Hell.

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Wash had spent the past twenty minutes ago intermittently cursing out Epsilon, namely on the Speak of the Devil principle. Of course, cursing out a troublesome AI that wasn't there was a hell of a lot easier than dealing with the consequences of Wyoming's arrival, though he supposed it could have been worse. From what Wash could figure, Wyoming was from around the same point on the timeline as North, or at least from before Epsilon's creation, which made keeping information from him and therefore keeping things relatively peaceful that much easier.

Of course, Wyoming was only half the equation. York hadn't said anything to Wyoming, and Wash couldn't blame him; God knew he'd have been avoiding any network post South made if she ever showed up (God forbid). That was probably only half of it; he knew Delta likely would have survivor's guilt, and he wouldn't be surprised if the AI had a good amount of survivor's rage as well. Wash had plenty of experience in both.

He headed for their hotel room, walking in and closing the door behind him. "Hey," he greeted York, figuring he'd cut straight to the chase. "How's Delta?"

Of course Wash would know what had been going on with D. York opened his mouth to answer, but Delta appeared next to him before he could.

"York and I have spoken extensively about Agent Wyoming. I...accept that his argument has merit. And I would not wish to cause distress to Gamma." Delta looked to York, and the tilt of his head managed to be clearly grudging somehow.

York shrugged. "He's calmer now. I'm not going to say it wasn't a huge shock to see Reggie, but if Gamma didn't know Epsilon, he's not far enough along the timeline to know about..." York waved a hand to encompass all the things Wyoming wouldn't know yet. "I can't hold him responsible for something he didn't do yet." York rubbed a hand over his chest anyway. He remembered how it had felt.

At least they had that much figured out. Wash wasn't sure he wanted to walk in on an argument between them. "Glad you got that much figured out." He wouldn't have put it past Wyoming and Gamma to lie about how much they knew, but given that nobody had out-and-out asked them about it, he couldn't think of a reason that they would lie in this situation.

"So," and this was the tough part, "what are you going to do? It's a small town, and he knows you're here. You can't avoid him forever." And York was absolutely terrible at lying - he could never think of a solid story, and even if he could, the truth was still written all over his face. Wyoming would know something was up within five minutes. Wash just sighed. "Am I going to need to teach you how to lie?"

"Hopefully he won't try to do anything more than mess with me. Think North will fill him in on what he knows?" York thought that that was likely; North didn't have any reason not to with what he knew. How Wyoming would deal with that knowledge was something that worried York. A lot.

"It is unlikely that, given that York has not learned to lie at this point in his life, he would be able to learn from you, Agent Washington," Delta said. "I, on the other hand, can offer Gamma...misleading premises."

York made a face. "I'd rather not even talk about it. It's not like you were so chatty with Gamma before."

"I don't know." Wash frowned behind his visor. "I haven't seen any conversation like that on the network, but that doesn't mean it's not screened. I haven't managed to break the encryption on the communicators yet, so that's not something I can check." He hadn't been able to dig too deeply on that one; the technology was utterly foreign and the last thing he needed was irate Moogles breathing down his neck. "The problem is, if North hasn't already shared that information, how do we warn North not to tell him without giving everything away?"

He shrugged at Delta's assessment - he did have a point there. York might have been a lost cause on the lying front, but Wash was starting to get desperate to keep things from getting any worse and he was no stranger to desperate measures. "Just make sure York's helmet is on when you do," he commented. "He has no poker face." Nobody expected Delta to be able to lie; that might make this their best course of action.

"There's no long term solution for any of this. Other than Wyoming's going home." York wasn't holding out hope for that, either. "I'm not really worried about what he'll do, so much as what he'd say to North." Wyoming doesn't have any particular beef with him, other than a healthy rivalry. Well, he didn't, as far as York knew.

"Don't hold your breath on that one," Wash replied flatly. It was wishful thinking, but Wash had long since learned not to put too much stock - if any - into that. "Right now, given what you've told him, North probably knows more than Wyoming about what's going to happen. We probably don't need to worry about him giving anything away." Unless there was something Wyoming knew that neither of them did; given what Wash knew, there was very little chance of that. "What are you worried about him saying?"

"Saying? Nothing. I'm worried he'll try to figure out what's up." York glanced at Wash. "I know that's something you can understand." It wasn't worth worrying about what he didn't know, because it wasn't like he'd be able to live to do anything about any of it. Man, that was a depressing thought.

Dum vita est, spes est

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