[ he means it well. well-intentioned needling. friendly even, he's doing his best.
wash will take a few minutes before heads over to the other side of the hall. he's just holding the pistol, which is a little awkward, but he figures that's better than technically trying to conceal it and it's not like he's going to put it in a gift box or something. he does, however, also bring along a bottle of whiskey, same brand that she sloshed all over his floors actually. hopefully it wasn't just fake-her that liked that. ]
-- Hey. [ just awkwardly, when she answers the door, totally averting his eyes for few moments. he sounds almost sheepish, really, but he gets over it for the most part after a few moments, clearing his throat. ] I've, uh, brought.
[ vaguely brandishing his offerings. in a non-threatening way. ]
[ The contrast to her own arrival at his door with the same items but much less awkwardness is actually kind of hilarious, and she bites back a snicker as she leans against the door frame. ]
You sure did. Uh, thanks, Wash.
[ Okay so it’s a bit of pot calling the kettle black because really she’s no less awkward to start with as she accepts the pistol, first, then the bottle. Holds it so she can see the label and snorts, amused. ]
Did you go buy this, or do these places come with identical stashes?
[ wash is nothing else if happy to accept being made fun of for the sake of smoothing things over a bit, so he's fine with that. he lifts one shoulder in a half-shrug. ]
The latter. I guess this is the house brand or something.
[ but if she inspects the pistol she might notice that it's been cleaned and touched up, and wash did absolutely go out of the way to do that. ]
[ She tucks the bottle between her legs so she can check the pistol’s mag, shaking her head to herself because okay maybe Wash doesn’t think it’s that bad to take a loaded gun to a meeting with a friend, but fake her was also apparently drinking, being obnoxious, and generally a fuckhead, so she’s gonna judge her for it anyway.
In doing so, she does notice—she hadn’t even had chance to run basic maintenance after getting the pistol back from Jorgmund, it had been… well it was showing her time on the run, that’s for sure. So it’s obvious what he’s done. Huh. ]
Guess it must be. Thanks. You really didn’t have to.
[ Which is 100% about the cleaning and touching up of the gun and not the whiskey, she’s counting on that being obvious even if it might not be. ]
You really didn’t arrive with a pistol too? Bummer.
[ yeah, it's fine. just by away of apology. he's naturally inclined to obsess over proper maintenance of everything anyway, it just kind of made sense for him to return the pistol in a nice state, especially when he hadn't exactly taken it -- nicely. he's making effort, in his own way, trying to keep conversation up although it's clearly not the easiest thing in the world, relying on south more than that since she's much more of the talker between the two. they've managed to avoid each other since arriving in the city despite being neighbors, save for the occasional interactions on the network. that they had to be fake versions of themselves to interact at all is maybe not great. so he's trying. ]
Armor, BR, and one of the UNSC standard-issue knives. Armor did come with my enhancement though. [ might come in handy sometime. ] What'd you get?
Armour, M6 [ she holds up the pistol ] and my assault rifle. No unit, though, not that it'd be much use without an AI.
[ Which is kinda weird to her, because her armour absolutely had it when she was back in the last place. She'd even run it once or twice with Delta's help when she had him. But she gets here, and it's gone. Doesn't bother her, but its still weird. ]
Got lucky, really, hadn't touched any of them in months before I was snatched here. Only had 'em on me because we'd just overthrown the corporation that controlled the rig and got our shit back from lockup.
I've been looking at picking something up from around here. Carolina's gonna try and get me some work where she's at, but I think I'll look around some. Maybe find something at a range or something.
[ firing range or something similar. he'd make a pretty good instructor, or maybe something oriented towards self-defense. wash has sure learned to be a good teacher after spending years babysitting a bunch of absolute idiots. it's a pain, but he enjoys it. kind of.
raising an eyebrow. ]
You've not told me that much about where you were before, but it sounds like you had a hell of a time.
[ a little dry, mostly sarcastic, but he guesses they got to overthrow a corporation or something, and that's always fun, right? sure. better than being constantly crushed by a corporation. wash tried really hard to overthrow a corporation and it didn't completely work out. ]
Yeah, she uh, she's offered to put a word in for me too. I've been taking some security shifts at this native-run club but... yeah, no, not sticking with that longer than I fuckin' have to.
[ She's not really suited to much else. Not the teaching kind, that's for sure, which leaves her skillset... well, limited in application. She sucked at school, all her skills are tailored to war or at least fighting. ]
Fuck, man, it was a fucking hell of a place. Literally, hell. Dystopian nightmare world. They'd had some war a few years back using bombs that like... turned shit into this thing called Stuff? It could become anything, powered by human thought or... something. Give people powers, form monsters, whole locations...
[ It was a hell of a place. The missions they ran were... sure something. She came out of it with powers herself, actually, which is... extra weird, still. ]
Corporation dragged any of us that arrived there in to 'help them' [ she air quotes it and everything ] aka, implant us with a shock collar and enslave us to work for them. Hence, overthrowing the assholes. Finally.
[ thankfully wash is a pretty good listener, paying close enough attention to parse what she's saying, more or less, even though incredible sentences like turned shit into this thing called Stuff. bombs that something into something else that apparently gave people powers sounds like comic book radiation, and so he'll just. choose to understand it that way.
when she mentions the shock collar, when she mentions being implanted with it, there's a moment when he noticeably tenses -- it's only self control that prevents him from completely cringing. god, he hates the thought of that. so so much. the scarring on the back of his neck is old but still feels fresh, sometimes. ]
Hope you gave them all the hell they sound like they deserved. [ good job on kicking their asses, south, wash approves. maybe even like, burn their corpses and blow them up a few times or . . . okay maybe not. ] Glad you got out of it, at least.
Powers, though? [ another raise of an eyebrow. ] Like what? Bombs, radiation, become Superman?
Oh, yeah, we tore that shit apart. So fucking satisfying.
[ It was a hell of a chaotic day, but they pulled it off. Once the array was down and the people who'd come in with powers from their own worlds were back at full strength... the rig didn't stand a chance. ]
Ugh, it'd have been cooler if it was shit like that. I mean, the York I knew there could fuckin'... phase through stuff, which was pretty cool, but like...
[ Dramatic sigh, then she briefly, perfectly mimics her brother's voice for four words: ] I got this shit, [ back to her normal voice ] and this thing where... okay, it's actually easier to demonstrate. This.
[ It won't work quite right with Wash looking at her when she activates it, but it still has a partial effect—Wash will find that his eyes can't quite settle on her, like something in him is telling him to simply not perceive her presence. If she hadn't been in front of him when she used it, he'd never notice the skipping effect at all and she'd be functionally invisible to the human eye. ]
[ wash is going to kind of ignore the part that she said about the york i knew -- he gets that she apparently knew different versions of them, that this included wash himself, but he just. really doesn't want to think about it too much yet. maybe some other time. but right now whenever its come up he's just kind of steadfastly refused to engage with it. he hears it, and he remembers it, but he's just not going to talk about it.
there's a bit of amusement when she mimics north's voice, but then -- huh. his brows knit in confusion. its like nothing happened at all but something did happen, too, he can still see her, he's literally right in front of her, but he also can't quite -- focus on her.
he shakes his head, looking away for a moment and looking back in an attempt to "reset" himself, but that almost makes it harder. it's bewildering and disorienting when she's right there, and he blinks, looks away again. ]
That's -- Okay. You can turn that off now. [ another shake of his head, god that's strange. ] I can see how that'd be useful, though, if you weren't already right here in front of me.
Weird as fuck, right? I hate it. A lot. [ frank and simple ] But yeah, it's come in useful sometimes. Got the jump on some folks during the big fight. Used it to break into some of their offices once, walked right through the room without anyone seeing me.
[ Which was pretty cool, to be fair. It is useful, she can hate it and realise it's not a bad power to actually have. ]
Problem is I have to be next to someone to turn it on, and stay within ten feet of 'em to keep it up perpetually.
[ She essentially has to be in someone's shadow to turn it on. It's like a psychological callout via weird Stuff-induced powers and she hates it. Especially as she never even liked running stealth jobs in the Project, they just kinda... shoved here there with North. She can do them, but ugh. ]
[ he notices the part about her hating it, but he won't linger on it because she doesn't. he won't quite able to put together the pieces about why she hates it, anyway, right now his assumption is that it isn't as straightforwardly cool as like, phasing through solid matter. which is fair. he'd also ask about what his alternate self got, but. maybe in the future. maybe when he's a little more adjusted to the idea.
wash can tell she isn't thrilled about this ability of hers in general, and so he'll move on. ]
So you all ended up with weird little superpowers from the... Stuff? [ just kind of pausing around the word because seriously. stuff. ] And you can still do them here.
Honestly, from what I've seen of the people around here, being completely human and without any powers or abilities might be less common.
[ less so for the natives, but definitely for anyone who's been brought in through the program. all things considered he'd maybe rather be in the weird sex city than be enslaved with an implanted shock collar, but neither of them are exactly great options. speaking of which, though. he hesitates slightly, especially when she mentions being -- altered, on a physical level. ugh. that's not something he likes thinking about either. ]
The -- shock collars that you said you were implanted with, then. Is it still -- ? [ a gesture, vaguely towards his own neck. is it still in there. he hopes not. ]
I knew a fuckin' werewolf in the last place. And superheroes. And my best friend was from a place where not only was Atlantis real, but he lived there and the Atlanteans had magic.
[ Basically: yeah, as far as she can tell, being completely human and without powers, or from a world where everyone is completely human and without powers, is actually the less common end of the spectrum in these places. ]
Still there? Nah, there was this whizz kid there who figured out how to turn the array controlling them off for good and soon as she did they like... dissolved? So it's long gone.
[ It's a weird way to describe it, but that's how it felt. It was like they just... melted away, became something else. Chances are they were laced with Stuff and just became part of their normal tissues or... something, but she's never had a head for science stuff so 'dissolved' it is. ]
[ hearing her describe her apparently atlantean or magical friend as a best friend makes him pause a little, but it makes sense. how long did she say she'd been there? nine months? it's a long time. and now suddenly she's here with brand new versions of people and without the friends she'd made. he hasn't really stopped to consider how jarring that must be for her, and his brow knits slightly at the thought.
but he gets distracted by the mention of the collar implant. making a bit of a face. ]
I guess I'm glad it's not there anymore, but. [ just. another vague gesture. ] Dissolved? So what, dissolved into you? That sounds.
[ bad. he hates it. he hates everything about it. ]
[ It is extremely jarring being here, so jarring that it's been the source of, well, most of her poor choices so far. Not telling York about what happened with North and Wash before the dreams forced the matter was all about wanting at least one friend not to judge her right off the bat. Dumb, selfish choice she's having to make up for now, but that was the root of it. ]
Yeah, I definitely haven't been thinking about it too hard. Rather it dissolved into me than was still active, though; the only surgeons who could've removed it the old fashioned way without killing us were on the corp's side, so...
[ She shrugs. She's learned to roll with some wild and bad shit since being there, honestly. ]
[ yeah there's not much she can do about it now, so maybe just not thinking about it is the best approach. he nods, with a kind of grim, irritated expression. ]
Corporations and their shitty implants, right? Corporations and militaries, I guess.
[ wash has obviously personally had an especially bad time with his implant, but in general he thinks it's pretty fucky anyway. ]
Did they ever fuck with you in the same way this place does, though?
[ he guesses he kind of slightly means the weird thing about sex, but also you know. their fake memory adventure. while being enslaved in a dystopian hell-world and implanted with a shock collar doesn't sound great, it is a threat that he understands how he would navigate and attempt to combat. unlike what's happened to them here so far. ]
[ She can tell what he's really asking, but still has to throw in a: ]
They had rules against fraternization, actually. And no doors on our bunks. People, well, found ways, but it was kinda the opposite of this place in that fuckin' regard.
[ Now the actual serious answer: ]
Not... exactly? They did some fucked up shit for sure [ including fucking with that Wash's brain in a really concerning way that she's not at all going to get into, because she's pretty sure that'd be triggering as fuck for him to hear about ] but most of the ways we got fucked with were missions. Stuff-created worlds, monsters, shit like that.
We ended up in this town once where some kid had been like, turned into something weird by the Stuff and... he kinda turned the town into a sitcom land? Black and white. Fake families. Laugh track. The lot. Damn thing had my 'character' married to yours.
[ She pulls a face. No offense Wash but 1) they were still very much fighting at the time, she was fully prepared to stab him with a the heel of one of the 50s lady's shoes she'd bee put in until they decided on a truce and 2) she's also a lesbian. Nope nopety nope. ]
We had some fake character memories in our heads and I think if we'd stayed there we woulda... slipped into them, but we got out. That was the fuckiest incident. Kinda the corp's fault but not planned, at least not the same way.
[ wash listens as attentively as always, though with clearly increasing confusion. Stuff powered by human thought is a big concept to wrap your head around, and the idea of an entire world just being black and white is strange, and also uh, what. ]
Married? What even -- [ actually, you know what ] -- No. Never mind. Probably better if I don't ask, right.
[ yeah, probably. but even with that. they haven't really spoken before now, and she's talked about this whole other world, but hearing her describe it in more detail gives him -- a much better sense of just what she's apparently been through. ]
I guess we don't have Stuff here, but. [ just vaguely gesturing at. everything. ] They can just -- do that here, I guess. Fuck with us like that without even trying. It wasn't black and white and we weren't married, but it was still pretty fucked.
[ Explaining more about that mission would lead into the whole— thing that happened with North, and she’s not ready to get into that with him right now. At all. The stuff about the other world itself is less personal. ]
Supremely fucked. Don’t like that they can just… do that shit, not at fucking all. I knew they’d fuck with us in some ways, with the food and trying to get us to fuck more people and shit, but that was… a whole other fucking level.
They’re really upholding contracts made during that shit?
[ she brings up the contract, and wash noticeably just cringes a little, lifting a hand to rub tiredly over his face. he's still -- processing everything that happened, and part of him is still reeling, emotionally and otherwise. but wash sure has learned to be able to pick himself up and keep going even when his mind is a mess. he doesn't really want to get into the weight of the whole thing with her, but the contract and the consequences of it, that's fine enough. and still a goddamn pain. ]
Yeah. Hundred percent, still entirely binding. [ kneading a little at the corner of his temple. ] That I ended up in any contract is shitty enough, but that it was a contract with this fucking asshole.
[ he's dead, which is nice ( as long as wash ignores the crushing sense of guilt and the weird emotional trauma of it, and boy is he going to ignore the fuck of that right now ), but he's going to be back and it's going to be so, so much. ]
God that is bullshit. I mean, I'm not surprised, but it's still bullshit. Sorry you got stuck with that shit.
[ There's some actual sympathy there, in her own South-y way. She would fucking hate to be in that position. ]
Outside of the weird fake memory bullshit of him being your flighty ex? 'Lina mentioned his name and that's he's a merc from our world, that's it. Guessing you ran up against him before?
You know the fake memory bullshit? Maybe you remember running into him sometimes in the elevator or something, or just heard things across the hall? [ she probably heard lots across the hall honestly but. ] And how he was generally obnoxious and insufferable as fuck?
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
[ he means it well. well-intentioned needling. friendly even, he's doing his best.
wash will take a few minutes before heads over to the other side of the hall. he's just holding the pistol, which is a little awkward, but he figures that's better than technically trying to conceal it and it's not like he's going to put it in a gift box or something. he does, however, also bring along a bottle of whiskey, same brand that she sloshed all over his floors actually. hopefully it wasn't just fake-her that liked that. ]
-- Hey. [ just awkwardly, when she answers the door, totally averting his eyes for few moments. he sounds almost sheepish, really, but he gets over it for the most part after a few moments, clearing his throat. ] I've, uh, brought.
[ vaguely brandishing his offerings. in a non-threatening way. ]
no subject
[ The contrast to her own arrival at his door with the same items but much less awkwardness is actually kind of hilarious, and she bites back a snicker as she leans against the door frame. ]
You sure did. Uh, thanks, Wash.
[ Okay so it’s a bit of pot calling the kettle black because really she’s no less awkward to start with as she accepts the pistol, first, then the bottle. Holds it so she can see the label and snorts, amused. ]
Did you go buy this, or do these places come with identical stashes?
no subject
The latter. I guess this is the house brand or something.
[ but if she inspects the pistol she might notice that it's been cleaned and touched up, and wash did absolutely go out of the way to do that. ]
no subject
[ She tucks the bottle between her legs so she can check the pistol’s mag, shaking her head to herself because okay maybe Wash doesn’t think it’s that bad to take a loaded gun to a meeting with a friend, but fake her was also apparently drinking, being obnoxious, and generally a fuckhead, so she’s gonna judge her for it anyway.
In doing so, she does notice—she hadn’t even had chance to run basic maintenance after getting the pistol back from Jorgmund, it had been… well it was showing her time on the run, that’s for sure. So it’s obvious what he’s done. Huh. ]
Guess it must be. Thanks. You really didn’t have to.
[ Which is 100% about the cleaning and touching up of the gun and not the whiskey, she’s counting on that being obvious even if it might not be. ]
You really didn’t arrive with a pistol too? Bummer.
no subject
[ yeah, it's fine. just by away of apology. he's naturally inclined to obsess over proper maintenance of everything anyway, it just kind of made sense for him to return the pistol in a nice state, especially when he hadn't exactly taken it -- nicely. he's making effort, in his own way, trying to keep conversation up although it's clearly not the easiest thing in the world, relying on south more than that since she's much more of the talker between the two. they've managed to avoid each other since arriving in the city despite being neighbors, save for the occasional interactions on the network. that they had to be fake versions of themselves to interact at all is maybe not great. so he's trying. ]
Armor, BR, and one of the UNSC standard-issue knives. Armor did come with my enhancement though. [ might come in handy sometime. ] What'd you get?
no subject
Armour, M6 [ she holds up the pistol ] and my assault rifle. No unit, though, not that it'd be much use without an AI.
[ Which is kinda weird to her, because her armour absolutely had it when she was back in the last place. She'd even run it once or twice with Delta's help when she had him. But she gets here, and it's gone. Doesn't bother her, but its still weird. ]
Got lucky, really, hadn't touched any of them in months before I was snatched here. Only had 'em on me because we'd just overthrown the corporation that controlled the rig and got our shit back from lockup.
no subject
[ firing range or something similar. he'd make a pretty good instructor, or maybe something oriented towards self-defense. wash has sure learned to be a good teacher after spending years babysitting a bunch of absolute idiots. it's a pain, but he enjoys it. kind of.
raising an eyebrow. ]
You've not told me that much about where you were before, but it sounds like you had a hell of a time.
[ a little dry, mostly sarcastic, but he guesses they got to overthrow a corporation or something, and that's always fun, right? sure. better than being constantly crushed by a corporation. wash tried really hard to overthrow a corporation and it didn't completely work out. ]
cw: reference to enslavement
Yeah, she uh, she's offered to put a word in for me too. I've been taking some security shifts at this native-run club but... yeah, no, not sticking with that longer than I fuckin' have to.
[ She's not really suited to much else. Not the teaching kind, that's for sure, which leaves her skillset... well, limited in application. She sucked at school, all her skills are tailored to war or at least fighting. ]
Fuck, man, it was a fucking hell of a place. Literally, hell. Dystopian nightmare world. They'd had some war a few years back using bombs that like... turned shit into this thing called Stuff? It could become anything, powered by human thought or... something. Give people powers, form monsters, whole locations...
[ It was a hell of a place. The missions they ran were... sure something. She came out of it with powers herself, actually, which is... extra weird, still. ]
Corporation dragged any of us that arrived there in to 'help them' [ she air quotes it and everything ] aka, implant us with a shock collar and enslave us to work for them. Hence, overthrowing the assholes. Finally.
no subject
when she mentions the shock collar, when she mentions being implanted with it, there's a moment when he noticeably tenses -- it's only self control that prevents him from completely cringing. god, he hates the thought of that. so so much. the scarring on the back of his neck is old but still feels fresh, sometimes. ]
Hope you gave them all the hell they sound like they deserved. [ good job on kicking their asses, south, wash approves. maybe even like, burn their corpses and blow them up a few times or . . . okay maybe not. ] Glad you got out of it, at least.
Powers, though? [ another raise of an eyebrow. ] Like what? Bombs, radiation, become Superman?
no subject
Oh, yeah, we tore that shit apart. So fucking satisfying.
[ It was a hell of a chaotic day, but they pulled it off. Once the array was down and the people who'd come in with powers from their own worlds were back at full strength... the rig didn't stand a chance. ]
Ugh, it'd have been cooler if it was shit like that. I mean, the York I knew there could fuckin'... phase through stuff, which was pretty cool, but like...
[ Dramatic sigh, then she briefly, perfectly mimics her brother's voice for four words: ] I got this shit, [ back to her normal voice ] and this thing where... okay, it's actually easier to demonstrate. This.
[ It won't work quite right with Wash looking at her when she activates it, but it still has a partial effect—Wash will find that his eyes can't quite settle on her, like something in him is telling him to simply not perceive her presence. If she hadn't been in front of him when she used it, he'd never notice the skipping effect at all and she'd be functionally invisible to the human eye. ]
no subject
there's a bit of amusement when she mimics north's voice, but then -- huh. his brows knit in confusion. its like nothing happened at all but something did happen, too, he can still see her, he's literally right in front of her, but he also can't quite -- focus on her.
he shakes his head, looking away for a moment and looking back in an attempt to "reset" himself, but that almost makes it harder. it's bewildering and disorienting when she's right there, and he blinks, looks away again. ]
That's -- Okay. You can turn that off now. [ another shake of his head, god that's strange. ] I can see how that'd be useful, though, if you weren't already right here in front of me.
no subject
[ It turns off as suddenly as it turned on. ]
Weird as fuck, right? I hate it. A lot. [ frank and simple ] But yeah, it's come in useful sometimes. Got the jump on some folks during the big fight. Used it to break into some of their offices once, walked right through the room without anyone seeing me.
[ Which was pretty cool, to be fair. It is useful, she can hate it and realise it's not a bad power to actually have. ]
Problem is I have to be next to someone to turn it on, and stay within ten feet of 'em to keep it up perpetually.
[ She essentially has to be in someone's shadow to turn it on. It's like a psychological callout via weird Stuff-induced powers and she hates it. Especially as she never even liked running stealth jobs in the Project, they just kinda... shoved here there with North. She can do them, but ugh. ]
no subject
wash can tell she isn't thrilled about this ability of hers in general, and so he'll move on. ]
So you all ended up with weird little superpowers from the... Stuff? [ just kind of pausing around the word because seriously. stuff. ] And you can still do them here.
no subject
[ She snickers slightly, he's not the first person to get tripped up by the name. It really is pretty fucking stupid as a term for something. ]
I don't think everyone got them, but most of us. And that was on top of the people who had other crazy fucking powers that they just had from home.
But pretty fuckin' much. Think contact with the Stuff changed us on some physical level, so they've stuck even now I'm here.
[ Which is definitely weird in itself, thinking about being changed like that, but she tries not to dwell on that side of it much either. ]
no subject
Honestly, from what I've seen of the people around here, being completely human and without any powers or abilities might be less common.
[ less so for the natives, but definitely for anyone who's been brought in through the program. all things considered he'd maybe rather be in the weird sex city than be enslaved with an implanted shock collar, but neither of them are exactly great options. speaking of which, though. he hesitates slightly, especially when she mentions being -- altered, on a physical level. ugh. that's not something he likes thinking about either. ]
The -- shock collars that you said you were implanted with, then. Is it still -- ? [ a gesture, vaguely towards his own neck. is it still in there. he hopes not. ]
no subject
I knew a fuckin' werewolf in the last place. And superheroes. And my best friend was from a place where not only was Atlantis real, but he lived there and the Atlanteans had magic.
[ Basically: yeah, as far as she can tell, being completely human and without powers, or from a world where everyone is completely human and without powers, is actually the less common end of the spectrum in these places. ]
Still there? Nah, there was this whizz kid there who figured out how to turn the array controlling them off for good and soon as she did they like... dissolved? So it's long gone.
[ It's a weird way to describe it, but that's how it felt. It was like they just... melted away, became something else. Chances are they were laced with Stuff and just became part of their normal tissues or... something, but she's never had a head for science stuff so 'dissolved' it is. ]
no subject
but he gets distracted by the mention of the collar implant. making a bit of a face. ]
I guess I'm glad it's not there anymore, but. [ just. another vague gesture. ] Dissolved? So what, dissolved into you? That sounds.
[ bad. he hates it. he hates everything about it. ]
no subject
[ It is extremely jarring being here, so jarring that it's been the source of, well, most of her poor choices so far. Not telling York about what happened with North and Wash before the dreams forced the matter was all about wanting at least one friend not to judge her right off the bat. Dumb, selfish choice she's having to make up for now, but that was the root of it. ]
Yeah, I definitely haven't been thinking about it too hard. Rather it dissolved into me than was still active, though; the only surgeons who could've removed it the old fashioned way without killing us were on the corp's side, so...
[ She shrugs. She's learned to roll with some wild and bad shit since being there, honestly. ]
no subject
Corporations and their shitty implants, right? Corporations and militaries, I guess.
[ wash has obviously personally had an especially bad time with his implant, but in general he thinks it's pretty fucky anyway. ]
Did they ever fuck with you in the same way this place does, though?
[ he guesses he kind of slightly means the weird thing about sex, but also you know. their fake memory adventure. while being enslaved in a dystopian hell-world and implanted with a shock collar doesn't sound great, it is a threat that he understands how he would navigate and attempt to combat. unlike what's happened to them here so far. ]
no subject
[ She can tell what he's really asking, but still has to throw in a: ]
They had rules against fraternization, actually. And no doors on our bunks. People, well, found ways, but it was kinda the opposite of this place in that fuckin' regard.
[ Now the actual serious answer: ]
Not... exactly? They did some fucked up shit for sure [ including fucking with that Wash's brain in a really concerning way that she's not at all going to get into, because she's pretty sure that'd be triggering as fuck for him to hear about ] but most of the ways we got fucked with were missions. Stuff-created worlds, monsters, shit like that.
We ended up in this town once where some kid had been like, turned into something weird by the Stuff and... he kinda turned the town into a sitcom land? Black and white. Fake families. Laugh track. The lot. Damn thing had my 'character' married to yours.
[ She pulls a face. No offense Wash but 1) they were still very much fighting at the time, she was fully prepared to stab him with a the heel of one of the 50s lady's shoes she'd bee put in until they decided on a truce and 2) she's also a lesbian. Nope nopety nope. ]
We had some fake character memories in our heads and I think if we'd stayed there we woulda... slipped into them, but we got out. That was the fuckiest incident. Kinda the corp's fault but not planned, at least not the same way.
no subject
Married? What even -- [ actually, you know what ] -- No. Never mind. Probably better if I don't ask, right.
[ yeah, probably. but even with that. they haven't really spoken before now, and she's talked about this whole other world, but hearing her describe it in more detail gives him -- a much better sense of just what she's apparently been through. ]
I guess we don't have Stuff here, but. [ just vaguely gesturing at. everything. ] They can just -- do that here, I guess. Fuck with us like that without even trying. It wasn't black and white and we weren't married, but it was still pretty fucked.
no subject
Probably for the best you don’t ask, yeah.
[ Explaining more about that mission would lead into the whole— thing that happened with North, and she’s not ready to get into that with him right now. At all. The stuff about the other world itself is less personal. ]
Supremely fucked. Don’t like that they can just… do that shit, not at fucking all. I knew they’d fuck with us in some ways, with the food and trying to get us to fuck more people and shit, but that was… a whole other fucking level.
They’re really upholding contracts made during that shit?
no subject
Yeah. Hundred percent, still entirely binding. [ kneading a little at the corner of his temple. ] That I ended up in any contract is shitty enough, but that it was a contract with this fucking asshole.
[ he's dead, which is nice ( as long as wash ignores the crushing sense of guilt and the weird emotional trauma of it, and boy is he going to ignore the fuck of that right now ), but he's going to be back and it's going to be so, so much. ]
-- Did you know of him? Felix?
no subject
God that is bullshit. I mean, I'm not surprised, but it's still bullshit. Sorry you got stuck with that shit.
[ There's some actual sympathy there, in her own South-y way. She would fucking hate to be in that position. ]
Outside of the weird fake memory bullshit of him being your flighty ex? 'Lina mentioned his name and that's he's a merc from our world, that's it. Guessing you ran up against him before?
no subject
[ chorus sure was a whole thing. ]
You know the fake memory bullshit? Maybe you remember running into him sometimes in the elevator or something, or just heard things across the hall? [ she probably heard lots across the hall honestly but. ] And how he was generally obnoxious and insufferable as fuck?
The real one's worse.
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)