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[It's perfectly reasonable to ask, and - layered, to answer. As much as he's honest and open at a certain, surface level, Dick isn't really one to unravel himself for people. Most who start to get close to him find that once they're past the softer surface there's a brick wall to chisel their way through.

And that, in fact, is part of this. Not that Dick leads with it.]

Maybe I just hate leaving things unfinished.

[He sits back, folding his arms behind his head and letting his fingers knit into his hair.]

I wasn't looking for you with expectations. For all I knew, once whatever that was wore off, you might be living as a mild mannered dog walker with a sideline in artisan cheese making and a 'Live Laugh Love' decal on your bedroom wall. But there was a grain of truth to who most of us were, that week. I thought there might be a grain of truth to you. And like I said, I thought about it, here and there. I thought we were both – getting something from it.

[He huffs out a break, embarrassed enough that it shows in the faintest flush, but still not dropping eye contact.]

I don't do a lot that's casual. This place has opened up a lot I'd never have considered before, like sleeping with more than one person on a regular basis, but I still don't end up with people easily. Especially the way we –

[A flurry of movement, as he huddles back down to lean over the table again, dropping his voice.]

I mean, I'd still find it difficult to walk up to a stranger and ask if they want to slap me when I come. But it's really not just about that. And maybe it's dumb to think a couple of hallucinatory encounters and some hazy memories of a history means anything. We weren't friends. But we weren't strangers, either.

[And no matter how much he'd denied it, it had felt like they could have been just a little more. Wash had seen that more clearly than Dick knew.]

I thought we hit a few of each other's buttons. If that's still true for you then maybe it's worth following up on. If it's not, I can compliment your artisan cheese and leave you be.

Edited 2022-02-16 00:14 (UTC)

[ Wash is definitely the quiet type, generally, and a good listener. He lets him talk, nodding now and then -- amused at that picture he paints of the cheesemaking dog walker. He watches him carefully, his mannerisms when he talks, his breathing, the way he shifts in his seat, just to read how genuine he's being, less because he thinks he'd really be lying and more out of habit and instinct. It clearly all rings true, puts him in a certain place of vulnerability to talk about.

It's things that make sense, though in some ways also why Wash had kept away. The other way around, Wash would've had a distinct discomfort with someone who just knew him a lot better than they should -- he would've seen it more as an invasion than something that makes it easier. But Dick clearly was getting something out of their interactions, enough for him to keep thinking about it, to clearly want more. ]

No cheesemaking, no dogwalking. [ He's more of a cat guy, anyway. He takes pauses to take another sip from his coffee. ] ] Who I was during that week might not have been real but -- there was more truth to it than not.

[ He doesn't like thinking about it, just because of what that implies about how well the city has him pegged, just because of what it means that it was so easy for him to slip into some kind of life here. But when it came to some other things, when it came to this. ]

It'd be a little pointless to go back and forth about what a collective hallucination really meant, and things like that. [ He leans forward a little, too, his voice sliding into something just a little lower, his full weight of his gaze, intense as it always is, fixed on Dick's. ] But I can tell you this much.

I was getting something out of it. And there was a lot about you I liked.

[ A lot of his buttons being hit, so to say. He leans back in his seat, but just so he can look at him more fully, his eyes briefly flicking down over his face to what he can see of the curve of his throat, back up again. ]

I don't think that much has changed.

You too, even if I didn't exactly like to tell you that.

[Stoic, withholding and maybe finding a dark coping strategy for something buried deep him his own past happens to be a theme Dick's used to fitting himself around, a man he's used to trying to please, albeit very differently.

He doesn't want to lean into a psych eval here, there isn't any coffee strong enough. But he does pause to take another sip before it cools.]

I'm not into 'scenes' or whatever the formal word is. I have people here who'll go hard on me if they know it's what I want. But - without expectation, here - someone in it for what they want, even if it pushes me to the very edge of what I do is... well. I guess I like rising to a challenge.

Those people not doing it for themselves at all?

[ A quirk of an eyebrow, more teasing than actually calling them out or anything, but he is curious. He can't help but want to know what it is about what he could provide for Dick that had him still in his thoughts months after, that other people apparently can't fill. Both because he wants to be able to keep doing that -- and just because, well. It's nice to know. ]

I'd like to be doing it for you, too. [ That definitely is part of the idea, for him. Overwhelming someone only means so much if isn't... willing, or wanted. There is something he especially enjoys about the idea of not just I could break you but I could break you, and you are letting me. ] But there would be a lot that I want, make no mistake -- I seem to remember you rising to those challenges well enough.

[Maybe it wasn't the best phrasing. Being called on it makes Dick smile and duck his head in acknowledgement.]

I'm not saying it isn't mutual, just that maybe there are limits to how far they'll want to push. And I haven't hit my limits yet.

[That's one thing they might both remember. Dick's not exactly undemanding, both of himself and others. Sometimes it can seem like he can always take more, but he has a breaking point. He has several. It's just most people would take a step back from reaching it. He looks up, running a hand back through his hair.]

I guess you could say giving orders has never been a problem for me. I spend my whole life calculating what to do, and when, and how - it's hard to turn off. So sometimes I don't need to be asked what I want, I need to be told. Knowing I'll want it anyway.

[ wash waves away the offer, just gently pushing it back in her direction. it is a good drinking time, but he still prefers not to. anything that has a chance of his control slipping is stuff he'd rather avoid, but on a more practical level, you know what's good after a spar? actual hydration. alcohol wouldn't help. ]

-- Can I ask you, though? [ just still staring at the sky overhead. it's well and truly dark out, now, with how long they've been up here since their spar. its nice. quiet. peaceful. ] That rig of yours. How many of us were around?

[ Fair enough. She doesn't immediately take another sip but she rests it in her lap and taps her nails against the glass. Thinking, mentally counting. ]

From home, or just Freelancer? Seven total, five freelancers, six from Freelancer if you count Price.

[ A beat. ]

Actually, nine total if you count the AI. Delta and Theta came along.

[ it takes him a moment to even realize who she's talking about when she mentions price, and. ugh. ugh. he would say something about it, except the revelation that the AI came along is immediately more concerning to him. ]

So -- York and North? Showed up there with their AI?

Yup. [ she pops her lips on the p, but then— stalls ] Okay, well, actually... uh. I showed up with Delta, since y'know. You gave him to me before I bolted. York came after. Alone.

[ The way she holds herself shifts a little, gets tenser, and she takes another swig from the bottle again. She's always been a bit of an open book, unless she's very specifically trying not to be. ]

[ very easy to see, especially for someone like wash. he doesn't really want to press her on anything uncomfortable, here, but -- given her history with everyone, its probably difficult to not at least tread close while asking questions like this. he just looks back at her for a moment, and nods. ]

How'd that turn out?

[ prompting but intentionally a very vague, open question. she can skip over as much as she wants, and even everything if it suits her. ]

[ She takes a half minute of silence to consider, but, really, it's not the worst shit she's ever done, and it worked out eventually. Hell, she was on better terms with York than her brother, at the end. ]

Being, y'know, still a total bitch when I first got there I uh. Kinda refused to give him back to York even though York felt like he had a hole in his brain 'cause of it.

Didn't even like him. Delta, I mean. He pissed me off all the time. Always had him pulled. I didn't like sharing my head. But I was stubborn and 'cause York wanted him, 'cause I did everything I did to get a damn AI...

Yeah. Dumb choices.

But I gave him back, eventually. And York always bugged me into letting them talk, anyway. I mean, there was more to it than that, but...

[ It took her months to figure out why she was clinging to him despite all the reasons not to, but it worked out. She gave him back and she apologised and she spilled even more to York about her complicated feelings about North than she has Wash, today. She trusted him at the end, and he didn't forgive her but he did give her another chance. ]

[ Wash can relate to that. Or at least, some of it -- whole life calculating what to do, thinking too much, planning ahead. He can't turn it off. But it's something he really, really doesn't want to turn off, too aware of what might happen if he doesn't hold on as tight as he can. What helps him relax isn't taking that control away, but being able to exert it -- and being able to let loose some impulses and darker parts of himself that he has to keep carefully controlled otherwise.

He nods. Watching him closely, as always, watching the way his fingers run through his hair. ]

I can understand that.

[ He does take consent and control very, very seriously -- he has to. But sometimes, a lot of the time, what people want -- what he wants -- is for the lines to blur. Fade away until they aren't even there anymore. The amount of trust that's required to genuinely do that safely is difficult, how well you have to know someone, how well they have to know you. And what they have is a little bit of a shortcut to that point. ]

It's still a leap of faith. [ Mostly for Dick, but it's mutual. They really don't know that much about each other. He tips his head to the side slightly, his voice sliding just ever so slightly lower. ] But I can do that for you.

[ Whether it's starting something new or continuing something unfinished is a matter of interpretation and semantics. ]

It is, but - leaping's what I'm good at.

[They have a shortcut, but that kind of trust isn't immediate. Dick would have been more reticent before if it weren't set up as the way they lived their lives in a city even more hung up on the etiquette of its social structure than the real thing. It'll take time to get there, even with their head start, but why keep cards off the table now. It's a place he'd like to get.

And something about the way Wash looks at him makes it feel like there's no point not being honest with something he'd manage to draw out of him anyway. He smiles, slow, as Wash's voice drops lower.]

And, if it's okay, I think I'd like to get to know the real you, too. [Inside or outside of the power dynamics - though there's something undeniably appealing about going out with them still in play, for the most part Dick would like to take his time learning who Wash really is, behind the codename and the veneer of command. He has a feeling that might be the real challenge.]

[ It would be a definite challenge. It's hard enough, but not impossible, to get Wash to talk about himself at all beyond generalizations and vague half-answers. Getting at anything past that is very difficult, even for people who know him from back home. He looks back at Dick, at that slow smile, and smiles a little in turn, quirking an eyebrow slightly. ]

I don't think it'd matter if I said it wasn't okay.

[ Sounds like Dick would probably try anyway. And Wash is, apparently, fine with that. His way of answering yes, more or less, just that -- he's still not exactly going to be very forthcoming. That's just who he is, by personality. ]

I wouldn't mind getting to know you past the mass hallucination, either.

[Well, he is a detective. Among other things.]

I can start. I've been a police officer, but I was born an acrobat.

[Because if there's fresh information to give someone, why not start with the part where you can get your ankles behind your head? He'd ached for days after that strange simulation after spending a week moving as if he couldn't fly. He even sits more lightly now, holding himself in a way that suggests a keen natural awareness of every movement, of his place in every space.

Speaking of places, Wash had asked him a question before they met today, which Dick recognised as the test it was. Though he'd suggested a buffer - this coffee shop, a place to feel each other out before feeling anything else - it still warrants an answer.

He finishes his coffee, first.]

And your place is fine by me.

[ Huh. There's a flicker of not surprise but recognition in Wash's eyes -- that makes sense. He knew how Dick moved in his memory, in their other-lives, but here he'd noticed a distinct difference, more fluidity to his movements, a certain sense of grace. That makes sense. ]

Interesting career trajectory. [ And he does, in fact, consider for a moment how flexible he probably is. His coffee's mostly done, and he finishes it off. ] I was military.

[ Which is the most non-informative but yet completely true thing he could say, because anyone who knew military would recognize him as one immediately. If he tried hard enough, he could hide being a soldier, but he just -- doesn't. It's a little too innate. ]

We can get out of here.

[ Talking here is fine, too, if Dick prefers, but there are certainly other places and other ways to get to know each other. ]

And here I thought you were a travel agent. [Agent Washington. He's right about being easy to peg, on that front at least. A touch of amusement still tucked into the corners of his mouth, Dick signals his agreement to moving somewhere else by reaching to untuck his scarf from a pocket and wrapping it loosely round his neck.]

I've also been a docker. Bartender. Croupier. Museum Curator. Gym teacher in a British girls' boarding school.

[Which was a front for the international espionage he - Agent 37 - was actually working for. He stands up, reaching for his coat.]

It's less a trajectory than a pin-ball machine. But I'm always an acrobat.

[ Wash has already gathered, just from knowing just how many scars are littered across his body, that Dick has to be a lot more than a police officer. Or acrobat. When he starts listing off different careers, it doesn't surprise him at first, but -- it's still a longer list than he's expecting. He takes a moment to make sure the bill is taken care of, shrugging on his coat as he stands. ]

You older than you look?

[ Mostly teasing, but also, you know. Even if those are all fronts, which he assumes they are, it's a lot to have already cycled through for someone who looks as young as he does. He'll lead the way outside, holding the door open. Thankfully, while Wash had considered it, he hadn't actually been paranoid enough to choose a cafe on the other side of town instead of one actually nearby. ]

Edited 2022-02-17 13:48 (UTC)

Sometimes it feels like it.

[But he's not at the point of finding out five years of his life got stolen just yet. It all, somehow, just fits.]

Especially after working with teenage girls. I've met tigers that were easier to handle. [That much is entirely true, it's impressive he never sprouted grays. But, leaving out all his real work, he's aware it sounds like a lot. He follows Wash into the street still tugging an arm through his sleeve - hat caught between two fingers.] A few of those didn't last out a month. But there are days I need to remind myself I'm just coming up on twenty-four.

[Next month, in fact.]

Edited 2022-02-17 14:08 (UTC)

[ Wash makes some amused sound, in response -- one that distinctly sounds like he understands and relates. He's never been a gym teacher in a boarding school, but he might as well have been for a while for the recruits he was saddled with to train, and for the squad that he more or less adopted. He has a long-standing role as a long-suffering babysitter. ]

I'm thirty-seven. [ He stays close as they walk, enough that their shoulders brush. He still lives in public housing, and the apartments are recognizable, very nearby. ] No pinball machine here, been military most of my life.

[ And now he isn't. ]

[Dick knows the public housing well, although the Up not so much as the Down. He still has a place in the down apartments he uses to monitor new arrivals. It's not so easy to do with the security the higher levels have in place, but there are ways and means.]

I like thirty-seven on you.

[He offers it simply, with an upward sideways glance. Most of the people Dick gets involved with are older - call it a natural inclination for someone who never really got to be a kid. Most people his age feel impossibly young and unformed, or all too breakable. He looks for people who've withstood a few storms. In simple terms, he'd find Wash attractive across a crowded bar. Knowing something of him only helps.

He doesn't ask about the military, not just yet. It's being out of it that catches him - like Wash, he's more out of service right now than he's ever been and it makes him feel slightly crazy.]

And got pulled out to somewhere like this? I think the lack of purpose might have me crawling out of my skin.

[ Wash on the other hand tends to avoid most younger people for those exact reasons. Even people a little closer to his age sometimes feel a bit too far away from what he knows, like they're from a whole other world. In that same crowded bar, Dick would have caught his eye, but he might not have done anything about it. Now they're here, and while Wash still doesn't know him he knows enough to sense that they might have more in common than not. ]

That sounds about right, yeah.

[ And he assumes that Dick might know the feeling pretty well, himself. He gestures with a tip of his head when they get to the buildings, into the lobby, calling for an elevator. He's on the 8th floor, with a neighbor he knows well. ]

I don't know if I'll ever fully get used to it. [ At this point he's technically been out of the military for some time, but. They say it never leaves you. ] What about you? Feeling idle at all?

I'm pretty good at making work for idle hands.

[Whatever that might say about him. He hasn't stopped working here - he spends nights staking out the gangs in the down or watching those in the up who have let power go a little too much to their heads. But all of it is chump change to what he's used to. Even the villains trapped here seem to have had their teeth removed.

The one thing he'd like to fight - the city itself - hasn't given him an in yet. It feels all too much like he's banging his head against a brick wall.]

But yes.

[The elevator arrives with a jingle and the doors open empty. Dick steps in first - a liberty perhaps - leaning back against one mirrored corner, so the walls reflect him in three different angles.]

Bored as hell, all the time.

[ Wash could make work for himself if he wanted to -- likely in similar things. But for as bored as he is, he's too stubborn in other regards. This city isn't his own, and he's been pulled here against his will, and while he's too practical to not put on a show of integrating for the sake of blending in, past that he's steadfastly refusing to integrate at all. He'd still found ways to keep himself busy, with enough people from back home showing up with him to keep him busy. Friends and enemies both, back from the dead and otherwise.

But recently, most of them had disappeared, the city spitting them back out with the same casual ease that it'd pulled them in with. Dick stepping back in is better timed than he might realize.

He steps inside, hits the button for his floor, and -- there's really no hesitation. He doesn't wait for the doors, just starts to close the distance between them, blocking Dick into the corner he's very conveniently (and maybe purposefully, as far as Wash's concerned) put himself into, lifting a hand to brush his fingertips against his chin, following up the line of his jaw. There's that intensity of his gaze again, fixed on him fully, a surety to his movements like he already knows the shape of him and how his cheek fits against his palm. ]

We can fix that.

[ The doors slide shut behind him, the elevator hums as it starts to move, and Wash leans down to pull him in for a kiss. ]

[ he listens, but attentively as always. it takes a bit for him to understand that that would've been -- a different south, the south he remembers more, almost, that first arrived in that world with delta in tow. of course she wouldn't have wanted to surrender an ai, after everything she'd done and been through. and of course york would want delta back, as closely as they were bonded, and -- york might not have trusted her with him.

he offers a nod. not really going to comfort her about the bad decisions she made, because those were still pretty terrible, but. ]

Least you did give him back eventually.

[ which counts for plenty. he can imagine how insistent york probably was about it. a pause, and he just sighs, sinking back a little more against the wall. ]

I just guess -- this kind of thing might be familiar to you, too, huh? People coming back. People going away. Disappearing overnight.

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