you were injured. you don't remember? [ OTA ]

[hardwearing]

WHO: Wash & whoever!
WHERE: dreamland~~
WHEN: March 15-31
WHAT: dreamshare x3 (one fluffy, one relived, one traumatic)
NOTES OR WARNINGS: oh boy. war, torture, self harm, suicidality, imprisonment, dissociation... possibly more, will add as needed.

i. poker night

There are three moons.

It's night on Chorus, and a group of soldiers are out in a field under those moons, playing cards. There's some food set out between them (not much, with the rationing, but someone inexplicably got snacks) and they have their helmets off, a rare sight during a war. Those that know Wash will recognize him in the group, sitting between two people in teal armor -- a redheaded woman and a man with symbols buzzed into his hair. They're all frowning at their hands.

"I fold." A man in orange armor throws down his cards and eats a cookie from his pile.

"Grif, you can't keep folding just so you can eat your bets." The soldier who speaks is in maroon armor, and trades in two cards.

"You don't know my life, Simmons."

"I know if you actually played, maybe you could win more snacks."

"That sounds like effort. I already have these."

"Well I'm not lending you any more!"

The oldest of the crowd, a grizzled man in red armor, speaks sharply. "You shouldn't have lent him anything! In my day we--"

"Oooookay, everyone who is playing." The lone woman in the group cuts off the fight before it can start, tossing a cookie into the center. "Time to bet."

"Are we sure this deck is legit? Caboose, where'd you get these?" The man beside Wash only has half a cookie left in front of him, and doesn't seem happy about it.

"Tucker, just play." Wash rearranges his cards and bets two cookies, leaving Carolina to meet him. "Or pull a Grif and eat it, I don't care."

"Ugh, fine." Tucker drops his cards and stuffs the cookie in his mouth. "I fold."

"Sarge? Donut?"

Everyone else plays, and turns out their hands. Somehow, the man in blue armor wins, though he has to be told that by the guy in pink. "Yay!"

"Fucking again?!"

"I am very good at this game."

"It's just dumb luck! Emphasis on dumb!"

The soldiers continue to bicker, but Wash just smiles quietly to himself. Eats a cookie from his meager pile and looks around at the others. There's a sense of belonging here, in this ragtag group of idiots, and Wash hasn't felt that in a long time. It's then that he turns to look at the visitor.

"What are you doing here?"


ii. "Freckles, shake!"

Welcome to a brutal firefight. The colorful soldiers and their would be saviors are hopelessly outnumbered. Wash is huddled behind some crates providing cover while the others run away, towards the only way out of their cliff-isolated little canyon. There's a precariously fragile tunnel through the rock that they're hustling through to the waiting ship on the other side, Freckles as a Mantis guarding the entrance.

From Wash's position, through all the gunfire, it's hard to make sense of the chaos, but his team's shouts are audible through his helmet's radio that somehow anyone in the dream can hear.

"What are you doing, where's Wash?" A worried voice comes through.

"He's still at the base!"

"What?"

A third voice, sounding panicked, "Sir, if we leave now, they'll just follow us back to headquarters!"

"Aw, shit, somebody get me some explosives!" A fourth voice, sounding authoritative -- presumably the leader of the soldiers helping them. Meanwhile, from the dreamer's vantage point over by Wash, multiple soldiers go down trying to get to the tunnel.

The first voice chimes back in. "Wait, guys, there he is! Wash! Wash, come on!"

Wash glances back towards the escape route, and now a soldier in teal armor is visible through it, waving for Wash to hurry the fuck up.

"We've gotta seal this tunnel!" Another random soldier, maybe the one who was running with an armful of explosives who gets shot straight in the head before he can set any charges. There's a robot standing beside the opening of the tunnel, now their sole defense. There's no other cover left for Wash between his position and only way out...

He looks to the enemy force advancing towards his friends, checks his clip -- he's nearly empty. Back to the robot... and he makes a decision. He can't run. He has to protect them at all costs.

"Freckles..." Wash hesitates before giving the command, then takes a deep breath and orders the droid to do the trick Caboose taught him, which isn't quite what it sounds like. "Shake!"

"Hey, no, what are you doing?!" The teal soldier is frantic, and Wash's gaze settles on his friend for the next few moments before Freckles obeys.

Shake doesn't mean himself -- it means everything. The Mantis stomps the ground with a massive robotic foot, hard. The ensuing shudder is enough to collapse the tunnel without explosives, an avalanche of rock coming down between Wash and Tucker. Closing it off, trapping Wash with the enemy but saving his friends. That's it. They're safe now... Wash is not. Neither is Freckles, who is caught in the collapse, massive rocks crushing his metal form.

Wash lets out a sigh, relief and acceptance, even as bullets continue to whiz past him. In reality, this is when he was taken out. In the dream, he hunkers back down behind the crates, clutching his rifle to his chest, looking around to see if anyone else is left alive. That's when he spots the visitor, and gestures frantically to them wherever they might be.

"Get down--!"


iii. your name is david (cw: self harm, suicidality, imprisonment, dissociation)

This is a cell.

There's padding bolted to the walls and floor, once white and pristine but now smeared with blood. No one has bothered to clean it up.

A man with mussed dirty blond hair and a few days growth of beard is sitting up in the corner, his blue eyes rimmed with red and accented by bruise-dark circles, staring at nothing. He's barefoot, in white scrubs, and both his arms are heavily bandaged though he's not restrained. Not right now. It doesn't seem necessary -- is he drugged?

A voice comes from somewhere. That speaker on the ceiling maybe? Or is it just in his head?

"Agent Washington." There's no response, no acknowledgment from the man in the corner, and the voice continues. Smooth and calm. "Has the medication taken effect? Are you feeling better, Agent Washington?"

"Allison?"

No. It's a man's voice, seemingly unperturbed by this mistake. "I know this is difficult, but try to focus. What is your name?"

"I'm..." His head falls forward, revealing angry lightning-webbed scars spreading out from the implant at the base of his skull. It looks fresh. It looks like it hurts. Wash reaches up to grab at his head, and there's blood under his fingernails.

"Your name is David."

"No. I'm..." Lost. Alone. Hurting. No one's come for him. No one cares. He's been left behind here, with just the voice in the ceiling and the ones in his head. That's audible now too, a woman's carefree laughter turning to screams. Wash clutches at his hair, tearing some out, and when he lifts his head again there are tears streaming down his face. Whatever he's seeing, it's horrible.

"Increase his dose."

As if the words themselves could drug him further, the scene warps. Suddenly he's in a metal-walled room, strapped to the chair with a man sitting across from him, his expression as smooth and placid as his voice. The voice from the speaker.

"Do you know your name, Agent?"

“I’m… Church. Where am I--?”

“You were injured. You don’t remember?”

“No.”

“I believe you may be too heavily medicated for this session, but if you are comfortable continuing, I can answer some of your questions. If I may ask my own.”

“I-- okay. Okay.”

“What is the last thing you can recall?”

It’s a struggle but he tries, he’s quiet for a moment while he tries, everything in his head feeling fragmented and sharp, the pieces grating together. It hurts. “It’s my fault.”

“No. You did the best you could. We’ll need your help again, we need you to get better, David.”

“That’s not my name!” He's thrashing now, pain from his injured and bound arms shooting up somehow into his neck, a stabbing at the base of his skull and deep through, all the way through. Something missing, something torn out. His memories, maybe? No, not torn out, shoved in and it broke all that he was and then they took the new self away too, and now he’s… what? Who? Who is he now? Church? David? Washington? He wants to scream but he just feels more tears, and that makes him angry. He remembers anger, that it was familiar once, it was part of him and so he tries to hold onto it, but it gets eaten by the emptiness like everything else.

“I’m sorry you’re in so much pain. Perhaps we should let you rest. We can do this later.”

“No-- no, don’t leave me alone. Please don’t leave me alone, I need to know… what happened to Allison?”

But the Counselor is already getting up, his chair-that-he-isn’t-strapped-into scraping behind him as it’s pushed away. No. No no no no no no….

“Please!”

“Take him back to his room. Make certain he cannot harm himself again.”

And then Wash does scream, the sound raw and agonized like a sob, like someone lost who knows they will never be found. A tech comes forward with a needle and sticks him as he struggles, and the padded room fades back in. The chair disappears and Wash is just curled up on the floor, eyes glassy, breathing ragged.

[ ooc: will match format! brackets are fine. any questions, hit me at cuddlebug or on discord at koutavi#1461 ]

Comments

[hardwearing]

[ Wash's eyes open a little wider and he does look at the stranger crouching in front of him, but there's no recognition in his gaze. Just fear and exhaustion, a combination that in this situation clearly means 'no, not again, not more.' He doesn't respond to the name, either, not right now, just lies there weak and heavy.

The longer he looks, though, he realizes that this isn't an orderly. He's in civvies, worn and plain. Like a visitor except the Freelancer holding facility doesn't allow visitors and who would come to see him anyway? There's no one. He's no one.

Right..? ]

Who..?

[ His voice is thin and a little slurred, but he finally rolls his head slightly to get a better look. ]

Do I know you?

[requiemshark]

[ That's a hell of a question, and this is a dream. It's happened enough that Ephemera is starting to clock the rules, the specific blend of strange logic that controls them. The damage doesn't bleed over into the real world. It would probably stop if he killed Washington right now. They'd both wake up, nothing but the memory to show for the moment. And it would hardly be the worst thing either of them has survived. There was a time not so long ago when Ephemera would have believed Washington deserved it.

He twitches. He holds his ground. ]

Yeah. It's okay if you don't remember.

[ He keeps his voice low and even. Not yelling. He remembers this part. How hard it was to deal with the twins in the early days, after. ]

Think you can sit up?

[hardwearing]

[ He doesn't remember. Not yet, though the voice... maybe. More than the blurred face and dark hair. It's hard for him to see straight and he doesn't even try to move at the suggestion of sitting up. What's the point? ]

Why?

[requiemshark]

So you're not on the floor.

[ Ephemera tips his head to the side. Flexing his hands. Hating this. And then he takes a breath. Lets it out.

Makes a decision. ]

C'mon, Washington. It doesn't end like this.

[hardwearing]

[ Wash still doesn't sit up, and actually closes his eyes. Like he's given up, doesn't have the energy to be angry enough to fight anymore. His head's clearing, though, as Ephemera's presence in the dream continues and he keeps talking to him. He's slurring less. ]

They're never going to let me go. I can't fight them all.

[requiemshark]

Hey. Don't do that. Stay here.

[ Ephemera hesitates, hating himself a little, and then he takes a risk. Reaches out and puts his hand on Washington's. A loose hold, easily broken. Even in here the empathy bond does its thing. The blue light looks ghostly and strange in this place. Ephemera's own emotions are complicated, wrapped up in too many things. There's anger at the moment, at himself, at Washington for existing in a space where Ephemera remembers someone he once cared about. Unease at the familiarity of the situation, and a worry that he'll get it wrong. Confusion. Sadness. The hollow ache of loss.

But there's also a resolve to stay, to see this through. No one should be stuck in a place like this, confused and foggy. Locked in the dark. So Ephemera does something potentially very foolish, and he leaves his hand on Washington's. There's a bandage on Washington's wrist. A heavy one. He can guess at the damage. ]

Focus on me.

[hardwearing]

[ At the contact, Wash's eyes snap open, suddenly sharp and aware again. Because the bond does work in dreams, and that's enough to make him realize they're not really here. They're in New Amsterdam, and it's Sharkface in his head right now and that's just. Fuck.

He's still feeling everything he was feeing before despite the awareness, though, which means that Ephemera is getting a heavy dose of fear and despair and confusion -- he's seen enough to guess at what the latter is, an identity shattered and lost. The misery of everyone leaving him here by himself. Alone. In so much pain from what Epsilon left of him that he just wants it over.

It fades as he remembers himself from the contact, but doesn't disappear.

Wash is torn between wanting to yank his hand back because no one should feel this way and being too afraid that he'll fall back into the dream if he does so he just stays very still to see if Sharkface will pull away, breathing shallow and fast... and when the other man stays put he slowly turns his hand to hold on. ]

...you should wake up.

[ Of course saying that won't help either of them, but he's sorry Sharkface is feeling this. He doesn't belong here. Again he considers pulling back, indecision flooding the link. ]

[requiemshark]

[ Part of Ephemera wants to jerk away, to reach for the knife up his sleeve and end the moment in a permeant way. Wouldn't be hard. A single blow. There wouldn't even be much pain. But part of him wants to tighten his grip, to try and make sure Washington doesn't retreat back into himself. Because the confusion and the fear, they come in waves, and a person could so easily drown in that.

He's never felt this before, but he watched it from the outside. Felt helpless, wanting to protect his people but unable to reach them in the ways he had before. The rules had been changed, reformed under new scars, and he'd needed to change with them. This is different. This is pulsing through him, a despair almost but not quite the same as his own. Close enough to hit some of the same notes, but different enough that he's left reeling just the same. The weight of it, pressing down. Threatening to choke him.

Ephemera breathes, squeezing Washington's hand. He stays where he is. ]

Just focus. You know who you are.

[hardwearing]

[ Slowly, Wash shifts, pushing himself to sit up like the other man asked of him before. He holds on as tight as he can manage with the damage to his forearm, still feeling guilty for doing so (and knowing that if it were Carolina or any of his other friends he'd probably let go to spare them anyway) but this is a choice that Sharkface is making too. For some reason. He doesn't understand, but can figure it out later. Right now... yeah.

Focus. He knows who he is. He nods seriously, breathing evening out.

The real problem is, this is still a nightmare.

"We see you're feeling better, Agent Washington." That smooth voice again, and Wash scowls at it. No longer trapped in the dream, he's just angry. The Director, the Counselor, he hates them with all his being for what they did, and that comes through the bond clear and strong. "Fetch his friend."

A section of padding swings open, revealing a door behind it, and in rush two orderlies with needles and restraints in their hands, respectively. They're aiming for Sharkface, though. ]

No--!

[ Wash struggles to his feet and tries to pull Sharkface behind him without losing the contact stabilizing him, but he can't fight like this. He takes a sharp breath... and lets go.

He startles awake as the orderlies knock him backwards, feeling like he's fallen from a great height and had the wind knocked out of him. ]

[requiemshark]

[ Ephemera stands when Washington does, snarling, his blood already up. They want a fight, these nameless fucks? Oh, they'll get a fight. They'll get their fucking throats torn out.

Then the dream ends, almost as abruptly as it started. Ephemera wakes with a start, heart ponding.

It's over.

He rolls over on to his side. Puts an arm over his face and tries to just breathe. ]

@david.washington

[hardwearing]

[ It takes Wash awhile to calm down from this one -- it's a dream he's had plenty before but it always takes awhile, and Sharkface being there... wanting to help him, wanting to fight with him, it's. Difficult. It doesn't make sense and it's difficult. Ephemera was almost David's friend but then the other shoe dropped and he doesn't know where they stand, where they ever will.

But he can't just let it lie. Not now.

He sits there with his knees up, rocking himself quietly, self soothing and grounding himself. It's about half an hour later, when he can breathe again without it feeling like a sob, that Wash lies back down and sends a message. Short and simple, but worried. ]

Are you alright?

[requiemshark]

[ Ephemera tries to go back to sleep, already knowing that it's futile. The dream got under his skin, the shape too familiar to dismiss outright. Eventually he gets up from the corner of the floor he's jammed himself into and he goes to the kitchen to dig the whiskey out. There's no one here to notice if he gets drunk now, and he doesn't particularly want to try going back to sleep on nothing. He's started making a dent when the message comes. Of course.

So much for trying ignore it. ]

What do you want?

[ Not an answer. But the moment is over and he doesn't particularly want to explain himself, especially not while he's still sober. ]

[hardwearing]

[ This was a mistake. It's not like Sharkface will answer honestly anyway, but... still. He helped. Wash can't let it lie unmentioned. ]

I just want to know you're okay. Then I'll leave you alone.

[requiemshark]

I'm fine. You happy now?

[ Leave him to his drinking. Maybe he can forget this happened. He has a feeling they'd both prefer that. ]

[hardwearing]

No. But that's good enough.

Goodnight.