All Up In His Grill [video]

[parannoyed]

[Important intel on he and Dave's attacker has been shared, important theories have been theorized. And after Wash rested and then nearly collapsed in pain the few times today he tried to move (to get a little healthy movement going to keep the swelling down or go to the bathroom instead of dealing with the indignity of using a bedpan), Wash has been forced to take on a slightly higher dosage of pain killers, alongside being given a little alien tech device on his temple to help manage it.]

[Now after sleeping most of the day, he's awake. And loopy from the combination of tech and pain killers.]

[He's managed to get his comm on and in float mode.]

[And now he's whispering to it.]

Hey. Hi. Hey little buddy, wake up. So I can say hi to other...buddies.

[Special K, the nurse who's a better doctor than Dr. Glotfelty, is teaching a newer nurse and she smiles when she sees Wash whispering to his comm. She urges the timid-looking student nurse closer. "Don't worry, Judy. Only like two percent of the big scarred tough-looking guys on the rig are Plankers. The others like Wash here melt like buttah the second you're a tiny bit nice to them. Like buttah. Don't they, Washing Machine?"]

[Wash gasps dramatically and flings out a hand for a high five.]

It's my favorite nurse. Up top! Hit your hand on my hand. Hit my hand! Do it!

["He likes high fiving a lot when he's juiced." Special K's smile is sweet and genuine as she gives him a little high five. Then she adjusts his bed to help him sit up better. His torso is a scarred mess in the places where the bandages don't cover.]

Special K. Hey. Hey. Heeeey.

["Heey. I'm here, Wash, what do you need?"]

Hey. Can I have an extra pudding?

["What are the magic words?" she asks.]

Nurses are underpaid and undervalued.

["See why I like this one?" Special K asks the student nurse, as she gets a pudding out of a nearby fridge and a spoon, and opens it for him. "Looks like only chocolate right now, Washing Machine."]

That's fiiiine. It's all good in the hospital hood. I am unto the chocolate like the...the Mayans who were all about the - the chocolate.

["Alright, have your treat, I'll see if we can get you some late lunch since you slept through breakfast, okay? And then we're taking a crack at changing your bandages and your surgical drain."]

[Wash breathes out a low whisper.] Noooo.

[Special K whispers back, "Yeeeesss.">]

[Wash whispers back.] Nooooooooo.

["You've got a half hour of whispering to your friends on your little buddy, okay?" Special K says, with a sisterly tousling of Wash's hair. He leans into it despite himself, clearly grateful for the basic kindness from someone.]

[Wash is still whispering.] Fiiiiine.

[He turns to his comm, eating his pudding.]

Heyooo.

The nurses are so nice here. But you know, I've been in sooo many Medbays and they're usually kind of nice? Nicer? Than other...people. They were even almost nice in the Medbay in prison and nobody was really nice there.

[There are a few secrets, a few things locked up in the vault of his mind even while high as a kite, but he's definitely a little more loose lipped than usual.]

Hey. Hey, can you guys - can you see these guys floating around? [Wash swats at the air with his spoon.]

["What guys, Wash?" asks Special K.]

There's shadow people in the air, like...floating?

["Mild hallucinations are sometimes a side effect at your dose of morphine and the setting on the cortical stimulator," Special K says, showing something to Judy on his chart. "What are the shadow people doing, bud?"]

They're just like...all up in my grill. [Wash turns to the comm, to the rest of his rigmates, his voice filled with mild outrage.] Are you guys - are you guys seeing this? Rude.

Comments

[turntex]

oh my god

[Dave had been allowed to leave after the first night (with the requirement that he come back for checkups later). There's not much more that can be done for his injuries at this point besides letting them heal, and it was getting pretty crowded in the medbay.

But right now he is hurrying on back because this is an experience that needs to be had in person. He's almost forgotten that he's mad at Wash.]

[parannoyed]

Dave. Hey. Hey Dave.

You gotta tell these shadow guys to fuck off for me, they're not listening to me. You're an upstanding foul mouthed young man, maybe they'll listen to you.

[turntex]

shadow guys huh
ok tell you what
try waving your comm at them and saying the magic words
best case scenario itll straight up banish that [PROFANITY CENSORED]
and if not then itll at least summon me to deal with the problem in person
benefits of knowing a god

[parannoyed]

Okay.

What are the magic words?

[turntex]

what does your heart tell you

[parannoyed]

[The comm can be seen being nudged around, waved at the hallucinations.]

[Wash goes with what is in his heart and reverts back to the magic words he knows work for sure.]

Nurses are underpaid and undervalued.

[Off camera, a nearby Special K and Nurse Judy can be heard barking off a few laughs, sorry Wash.]

[turntex]

[A minor benefit of being a literal time god is having a fantastic sense of timing. Dave slows his jog so he strolls casually in right as Wash is waving his comm around.

Generously, Dave holds back a smirk. Mostly. There's maybe a teeny bit of a twitch at the corner of his mouth.]

Well, shit. Guess that didn't work.

[He gives an idle wave to the nurses with his good arm.]

[parannoyed]

[Special K reaches into the fridge and plops another pudding cup in front of Wash, and he gasps, eyes wide with astonishment]

Yes, it did, it just worked a different way.

[turntex]

[The wave transitions smoothly into a solitary jazz hand, and then a fingergun at Special K.]

Magic. Not entirely bullshit after all.

[He makes his way over to Wash's cot and leans his ass against it.]

Anyway, you're a fucking idiot. Just putting that out there.

[parannoyed]

Why? Like what specific reason.

Of many possible ones?

[turntex]

The self-awareness is pretty good. I'm mostly pissed about the ill-advised martyr shit, personally. But I get the feeling this isn't the best time to lay into you about all that.

[parannoyed]

Nah, now or later won't matter. You're...young. I'm dad...dadly? Daddish aged?

[He pokes a hallucination Dave can't see with his spoon.]

I know you're going to try to convince me you're super powerful with your...time double? Double trouble?

But I know that already.

[That's not why he'd done it.]

You could be the goddamn Wolverine and I'd still have done the same thing. The fight was getting bad.

[turntex]

And that's why you're a fucking idiot. Glad we worked that out so quick.

[Helpfully, he waves a hand through the air in front of Wash like that might clear up some of the distracting shadow hallucinations.]

Anyway, your scale is way off. Wolverine's a furry with a manicure, he's got nothing on me. And we've got all kinds of anime-level nonsense going on around here. I know exactly how old you are, but for all you know I'm like a thousand years old. Sit the fuck down, kiddo, I'm telling you to let the pros do their goddamn jobs.

[parannoyed]

No.

[He shakes his head.]

First of all, you're a teenager. You reek of metaphorical axe body spray. It's just like [he gestures with his hand] Fwoosh! Radiating off you at all times.

[Dave, come on. There is the briefest moment where Wash's expression is actually sober.]

And you can get hurt. [He points with the spoon.] Your arm is broken.

We can learn to work together better. That's what I was saying when I first got here. About training and discipline and a rada rada oorah sis boom bah, you know. People learning to fight better together.

So maybe next time, when we're in a fight like that, it doesn't go that far south.

But the times when it gets that bad, for whatever reason it do, that's when you're a kid again and I'm an adult again, and maybe next time I can figure out how to protect you better than shoving you down a laundry chute but I'm still gonna do it if it gets that bad.

Booosh.

[He drops his spoon on his tray like a mic drop.]

[turntex]

Okay, first of all, how fuckin' dare you even metaphorically imply I'd have anything to do with Axe body spray.

[A moment of levity before his hint of a smirk fades. Even leaning all casual-like against Wash's cot, he seems tenser, jaw tight.]

Listen. I got plenty of training growing up. It's a bit late to be handling me with kid gloves.

[A little fleck of pudding flies off the spoon as it hits the tray, and he stiffly wipes it from his sleeve with a swipe of a finger.]

It's real cute that you think you're the one in charge of protecting anyone, but you're gonna get yourself killed trying to play hero for someone who doesn't need it. You're not gonna get any glory. It doesn't make you a better person. It just makes you dead, and I don't think you're the kind of person that'll get back up after that.

[That's the rub of it. On some level, he does appreciate the thought and recognize the basic decency in it. But heroism isn't a concept he associates with anything good. The greatest hero in his personal world was a piece of shit and him dying heroically didn't make Dave feel any better about him.

He'd rather just keep the genuinely good people. They don't need to die over that shit, especially when they don't have to, especially when he can prevent it.]

[parannoyed]

I'm not a hero. I'm not trying to be one. I'm usually bad at it. Historically speaking. And glory's a piss poor reason to do that for someone.

[Says the guy called one of the heroes of Chorus, but he doesn't remember that. All he knows is Freelancer was a bust.]

But if you didn't need it, you wouldn't have a broken arm. Heyooo.

[He's got you there, Dave.]

[turntex]

[Does he, now? Dave scoffs.]

Between the two of us, who's still hospitalized and high as fuck on painkillers? I'm not the one who got an elevator dropped on his head. In fact, I was the guy who got an arm snapped to save his head right at the start and then went a whole fight functionally with one arm tied behind my back.

[Not that he would have won. It wasn't like he was armed or anything. They didn't do great offensively overall, but Wash probably covered the bulk of that for the both of them. Dave spent most of that fight trying to split her focus and keep both of them alive.

Still, something about Wash's response seems to have eased a bit of the tension out of him.]

[parannoyed]

She could heal. [He gasps.] She was the Wolverine.

And she was toying with us. But getting bored very quickly. And in two-on-one it's not just down to their attacks and parries, you're as weak as your own inability to stop one of your attacks from hitting your ally. And I was getting tired weirdly fast.

[He gestures at his bandage with a thumb.]

Which makes sense since apparently she'd tapped my liver like a frat kid shotgunning a beer and moved so fast and I was so high on adrelaline I didn't even notice.

And if I faded out, you would've had to fight her alone.

[Wash shakes his head, making it clear that was a non starter.]

[turntex]

[S i g h.]

Yeah, yeah. Are you eating that pudding or what? You're torturing me here. The nurses were never that nice to me and you're not even appreciating it properly.

[They were pretty nice, but he just wants to change the subject.]

[parannoyed]

[Wash already has his first pudding, so he picks up the second pudding and holds it out.]

[Super high and uninhibited like this, he's a lot nicer than he usually is.]

[turntex]

Hell yeah.

[He can cease giving Wash a hard time for pudding.

Now, he has no spoon and only one functional arm, but Dave's a gremlin teen boy who grew up in an apartment that rarely had clean utensils. He can manage. He gives no complaints as he peels back the foil lid and just goes in to swipe up some pudding with his tongue.]

[parannoyed]

[Wash points to a nearby cabinet with utensils.]

Spoons.

[A pause.]

Not because manners but because you'll have trouble getting to the pudding at the bottom of the cup.

[turntex]

[He considers that for just a brief second.]

Solid point.

[He's done his fair share of awkwardly tonguing pudding cups before, but it does suck – and maybe it's not the kind of show he wants to put it on for a hospitalized new friend who's currently high as shit – so he goes to retrieve a spoon. He returns and unceremoniously hops up to sit on Wash's cot before digging back in.]