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

[bringinghopewithme]

[The look Bunny gives him is as incredulous as it is insulted.]

Are you on so many drugs you don't remember who I am? Say 'thanks' and keep it where the suits won't confiscate it or just don't eat it, it's no skin off my back. [he snorts.] Ever heard of gratitude in your life?

[parannoyed]

[His eyes are still narrowed in suspicion.]

The kids got little animal bobbles. I just got food you could've put stuff in.

[He knows you don't like him, Bunny. What changed? Pity?]

[bringinghopewithme]

Can't a rabbit give you guff over the phone without leaping to poison? How many times do you need to be told to lighten up?

[Well hey maybe everyone he knows IS trying to poison him. Whatever.]

Only you could get a nice present and whine about it. At least the kids know their manners.

[parannoyed]

I don't...get...presents.

[Now he looks confused.]

[bringinghopewithme]

[he gets an eyeroll. Because he's high.]

Check under your blanket, mate. I know you're drugged up, but come on. That is the easiest hiding job ive ever done AND you just saw me do it.

[parannoyed]

You know what I mean. In general. Duh?

[He's pretty blitzed, so he's more honest than he'd usually be.]

I haven't talked to my family in years.

[bringinghopewithme]

[oh we're going here? Oh we're getting into it now.

Sigh.

Bunny pulls up a chair. Maybe Wash is unfairly unfiltered, but it wouldn't be cool to ditch him if he needs to get this out.]

Y'know somehow, I suspected that. Something about all the "no one will miss me if I die" messages.

[parannoyed]

[He doesn't really want to share.]

[But he knows things will be easier if he gets along with people in this place. And he drugs and cortical stimulator mean he's definitely less inhibited.]

[He manages to pull it together enough that his words are clear, if a little slurred.]

Earth was losing a war against aliens, one we didn't start. I was part of a special ops project meant to end the war but they were doing terrible things and one of their experiments damaged my mind right when my friends started fighting over the project. They all died or left.

I was ultimately the only one of my friends that actually survived it. Even North died - the reason he's alive here is time travel. He was pulled from the point where he was about to die.

I lost touch with my family because I was obsessed with stopping the project for years. I didn't expect to survive doing it.

[He reaches out a hand reaches and his fingertips brush against the flowers on his bedside table.]

So I'm not...used to people anymore.

[bringinghopewithme]

[For all that Bunny himself has faced the tremendous loneliness of no family, he doesn't have anything cued up to say in response to it that's profound or wise. But "That's rough, mate" won't cut it, so he takes a moment to think on it before responding.]

Well, humans do take some getting used to. And going on living when you expected to die takes some getting used to, too.

[It would be a human impulse to reach out and pat Wash on the shoulder, but Bunny is not a human and he operates with a much more solid personal space bubble.]

Take a few more deep breaths and - and let yourself think about how you'd like to live your life, now that you're gonna do it. You sound like you haven't considered it much.

[parannoyed]

I haven't had the chance. After destroying the project, I've always found myself in another situation where someone has control over me, where I've had to survive.

This place is no exception.

[He pulls one of the flowers out of the vase just so he can hold it. How long has it been since he's just...stopped. To enjoy something vibrant and alive? Maybe it's just the drugs that are making him reflective like this?]

[Maybe it's that the last thing he came from was a vicious mission to win his freedom, and before that he'd been surrounded by metal walls.]

[He can smell it. Sometimes he forgets how nice that is, something you miss spending so much time hermetically sealed in power armor. He holds the azalea close enough to sniff it. It's sweet. Sweeter than he remembers roses smelling.]

[It reminds him of the honeysuckle bush down the lane growing up. It was on the edge of a neighbor's front yard and he and his sisters used to sneak up to it and steal flowers. Their neighbor had hated it so they'd had to avoid getting caught. Each of them taught the next youngest how to break off the bottom stem and pull through the stamen, drawing out a drop of nectar to place on their tongues.]

If I seem...driven. I'm just...trying to figure out the fastest way through it.

[Hence suggesting more training when he got here.]

[bringinghopewithme]

[Now's not forever. Neither is the past. But he's lingering on that point that North, who's here, who he's definitely spoke to, is slated for death in his time. Something to come back to when Wash isn't so near to his own potential death. Or high on opioids.]

No worries. I'd rather work alongside someone driven than apathetic. Doesn't mean I won't pick on you when you're being the tallest poppy in the field, but at least you got drive.

[And still has it after what sounds like a lot of pain and loss and struggle. That's better than the alternative, surely.]

[parannoyed]

Not really much alternative.

[He gets lost in looking at the flower, thinking about how he traded one set of metal walls for another.]

[At least this one has gardens.]

The alternative is a path I need to not go down.

[Because some paths you can't come back from.]

[Just because he fights to survive doesn't mean he hasn't sometimes looked down the barrel of despair. Especially during those empty nights on a rock hard cot in solitary in his prison cell, with nothing but a very long sentence stretching out in front of him.]

It's nice that they have gardens here.

[bringinghopewithme]

Y'know, I'm glad that's your choice. Sometimes when you're being driven you sound like you're aiming your car off a cliff. On purpose.

[That could break his heart alone, if he thought about it too hard.]

You can spend time there if you want. [Sure he has no real authority according to Jorgmund, but the crops are all growing so much better since he started his term of service there that Farmer Bob will let him do whatever he wants, at least. He can allow someone to come hang out in the vicinity of the oak tree if he wants.

And Wash might still get on his nerves after this, but he does deserve to spend time under an oak tree.]

[parannoyed]

[Wash just carefully avoids looking at Bunny when he talks about him aiming his car off a cliff. He isn't sure how to answer that.]

[How do you explain that kind of self-destructive desperation? He almost segues right to the garden thing but it's hard to imaging himself lounging around that often. The occasional walk maybe but it doesn't feel like his place to enjoy, his calm to embrace.]

[He might lose his edge if he gets too accustomed to comfort like that, at least now, before he's free of this place. But he knows that sentiment will probably go down like a lead balloon.]

[So he leads with the car analogy anyway.]

I'm not aiming my car off a cliff.

[For some reason he wants Bunny to understand, maybe because he thinks he might be able to? Maybe because if someone is able to, a part of him wants them to?]

I wanted to lay a trap to try to proactively go after the person that did this to me, one where backup was waiting around every corner even if she laid into me.

I still would've preferred that way of getting stabbed to death. I always prefer the way of getting stabbed to death that has a fighting chance. This didn't. This came down to dumb luck and comic book physics randomly being a real thing.

[He finds the words. Finds an analogy.]

When you chew your leg off to get out of a trap, you're not trying to bleed out.

[The attacker threatened their lives, so he wanted to proactively get rid of her. Prey animals sometimes do the insane thing and throw themselves at a predator with teeth and horns and claws - because they're going to die anyway.]

[Throwing yourself at things to plug up the holes is a shitty attempt to keep the boat from sinking so you don't drown, but it's still an attempt.]

[bringinghopewithme]

[He nods along with the animal in a trap metaphor, because too bad he gets that one too well.]

Yeah, look, I get where you're coming from. But surviving that - whatever she is, the girls got real lucky, and so did you. I just don't want to see any of your luck run out.

Baiting a monster's dangerous. Animals do bleed out plenty often.