hfm_logs | And I Ran [Closed]

Entry tags:

And I Ran [Closed]

Warnings: Violence! Also probably swearing.
Location: Near the warehouses
Characters: Wash, Greg, Casey, and Bones
When: About a week after Bones reemerges from the subways
Summary: The usual morning jog turns into a Nox fight, because literally everyone in this group has terrible luck.

There was something to be said for routine, especially when the rest of your life made a point of being in a constant state of upheaval. Even though Greg had moved out, and Bones had recently come from a month-long bout in the subways, Wash made sure that the morning jog still happened every day, like clockwork. It meant that, for an hour every morning, he could go as hard as he wanted, enough to get the day started and the cobwebs shaken from his brain and to let him feel like he still had some semblance of control over his situation; it also meant that he could share his cooldown with someone (though it was a full workout for Greg; he had to remind himself of that sometimes).

For the past few days, Bones and Casey had taken to joining them. They kept up, and it was good to have them around; Wash wasn't going to complain.

"Another mile or so and we'll call it good."

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As relieved as Greg was to hear Wash coming to again, he couldn't muster more than a tired grin. "Welcome back, Wash." It would never make sense, to him, how people could still have the energy to move after all that--or even the desire to move, even without energy. Greg just too deeply respected the value of some good R&R. "Rest a while, buddy, you earned it. Saved our bacon back there.

"But really, guys, I don't need a weapon or whatever. They don't even work right on those things, do they?" Backup plans were all well and good, but it would be better to make sure they actually worked. Either way, Greg was still having trouble wrapping his head around the idea of fighting at all; even after all the time he'd been here, he'd done a pretty good job denying the necessity until today.

Greg considered waving off Leonard's administrations, but the doctor was too quick darting from one patient to the next for him to do anything but rub the spot afterwards, slightly bewildered. "Oh. Uh, thanks. Man, the future's neat. No needles, no spit. I hope we invent one of those soon."

"Hey, Wash. Welcome to the magic club!"

Casey was only kind of listening to Bones as he watched him flit around the room. Talk, talk, talk, blah, blah, blah, trying to argue with him that they weren't as awesome as they were. What was the point? They had a fight to win and now they knew how to win it. More or less. Most of the work was taken care of as far as Casey was concerned. Now it was just the fighting left. That was the fun part.

The future tech was cool though. Casey kind of wanted to take it apart and see how it worked, but he could save that for later.

"I'm just talkin' for escapes and stuff! Seemed like they slowed down with a whack to the head." Maybe he could remember the formula the turtles used for smoke bombs. He watched Wash try to turn over and shook his head. Dude was still trying to get up, just like Leonardo did when he was down after a big fight. Leader types really were all the same.

Wash tried to argue - he didn't need a whole week; he'd be fine after a day; seriously he just needed some sleep - but it just came out as another moan. Okay, maybe what he was thinking didn't quite match up with the reality of the situation. Maybe he-

There was pressure on his neck and a sharp hiss, and that train of thought derailed immediately. Wash froze, breath caught in his throat, waiting for the sedative to take effect, for the fog to rush in and overwhelm his mind, bury his strength and wipe his focus until he couldn't stay alert couldn't think could only remember couldn't remember which memories were his-

But nothing happened. He actually felt even more awake. It hadn't been a sedative - he'd just thought it was, learned from forced repetition that that was what came out of a medgun to the neck, but- but that wasn't the case this time.

Then what the fuck-

Bones came near him again and he lashed out, grabbing Bones' wrist and yanking with all of his strength. Admittedly, there wasn't much of it right now, but hopefully he had enough leverage or at least a low enough angle to bring the doctor down to his level. "Don't ever do that again," he snarled, voice wavering on the last few words. He wanted to be angry - because anger was easy, because anger worked - but he wasn't. He was tense and shaking and trying too hard not to panic.

It'd been a rough morning. It'd been an excitable morning, it'd been a dangerous morning. Between the sheer relief of getting everyone home and the immediate swap over to his medic mentality Leonard forgot something important: These were his people, but they weren't his crew. They weren't from his time, they didn't know what his tools were, or what his medication was, or how any of it worked. He griped and bitched and talked about be'n a doctor all goddamn day but when all he had to do was wave a regenerator over skin or use a hypo to fix up hurts-

to people not from home, it looked weird. It was strange, it was different, and he'd been so caught up in 'mend mend mend' that he'd completely forgotten to walk them through what he was doing and why. More importantly- and more horrifying in retrospect-

He hadn't asked for their consent. Sure, patching up scrapes? That was one thing. The hypo, however- hell he took it on faith that the tricorder would tell him that what he had would work and wouldn't effect them adversely.

Shit.

Wash grabbed and yanked and Leonard didn't rightly fight him, going to his level easily. Slow like he'd handle a patient that was distressed (because Wash was nothing if not fucking distressed) he explained himself. "Hypospray. It was a painkiller for your head, somth'n for the nausea, an immunobooster and some vitamins. Greg-"

he spoke without turning, eyes and attention mostly on Wash. "I gave you a muscle relaxant for your back. I should've asked and told ya what I was do'n before I did it. Old habits die hard, all that. This ain't my Sickbay and y'all aint my crew, you're not obligated t'do what I recommend or be bullied into treatment on my say so. Even if I do strongly recommend we all take a day to start."

A beat passed.

"Wash- I'm gonna put the hypo down now, awright? It's gonna go back in it's case." He didn't move yet- waiting for some kind of nod or reaction from Wash first and foremost.

Edited 2015-08-25 05:29 (UTC)

Suddenly things had gone from exhausted but casual recovery to uncomfortably tense. Greg looked between Wash and Leonard, cleared his throat, and gave a nod neither would see.

"It, uh, it's all right, guy. If every porkchop were perfect, we wouldn't have hot dogs. It's been a rough morning, a little relaxant's just what I need, probably." Whatever sciencey thing it was, it sounded like something everyone could use right about now. Anything to break the tension. The last thing they wanted after this morning was more drama.

"Hey, you know what else we need? We were saying something earlier about ordering in, right? 'Cause, man, I am famished. Anyone knows what's open this early?"

Edited 2015-08-25 06:51 (UTC)

Woah.

Something big just went down and it wasn't really clear to Casey what exactly it was. He hadn't really thought much about what Bones was doing; it was more-or-less what his friend Donnie did back home whenever anyone needed patching up beyond a few bandages or a splint, and Casey understood about as much then as he did now. Donnie was a brilliant kind-of-a-jerk too, and Casey just trusted him to do what was needed.

But whatever happened between Wash and Bones...well, something about the hypo had set Wash off in a way that Casey had never seen. He leaned forward to watch Wash, who was clearly distressed. If this had been one of the turtles, he would've run over there to check on him immediately and it would have been appreciated, but it seemed like a bad idea this time.

Good thing Greg came in with the save. "...I could go for some pancakes or somethin'."

Try as he might, Wash couldn't stop shaking. He could usually see the breakdowns coming - he could usually see the signs, feel the memories bearing down on him, give himself time to shore up his walls and prepare. It had been a long time since the last time he'd been triggered out of nowhere and it had happened in a place he'd just started to call a home with people he trusted and he hadn't seen it coming and he could not stop shaking.

He was expecting Bones to fight back, to yell, because these things happened and he needed to get over it and keep moving like he always did-

But he wasn't fighting back. He was...he was explaining himself. And apologizing. And waiting for Wash to react, treating him like he was a scared animal liable to take Bones' head off-

Because that was exactly what he was acting like.

His grip loosened, then dropped. "Warn me next time," he managed, inwardly wincing at the waver that wouldn't leave his voice. He wasn't okay - not right now. He needed time time alone - he needed to regroup, to sort through his thoughts and lock away the ones that weren't his. Normally, he'd be in his armor; normally he'd just shut off most of the helmet feeds and the radio and take some time to himself in the temporary darkness and quiet. But he wasn't in his armor, and he didn't have the strength in him to get up off the sofa, let alone get to his room.

He reached behind him, fumbled for a few moments, and yanked the blanket off the back of the sofa, pulling it over him and curling up under it. It was stupid and juvenile and he'd already been fucked over two separate times today and it wasn't even eight in the morning and he needed this.

He took slow breaths - in for five, out for ten - and listened in the space between them, slowly reorienting himself. The padded room was years ago. He was in control. He was okay. He could do this.

And breakfast sounded really fucking good right then. "Bacon," came his muffled input from under the blanket. At least his voice didn't shake too badly on that one.

"I'll ask." Better than warning, requesting permission. It should have occurred to him to do that earlier- but now he knew one more thing about Wash. Something about the hypo, the placement on the neck, or whatever had just happened was a trigger. Soldiers had PTSD but that? A hypo was a medical device, anything similar would likewise have to be a medical device. Whatever set him off, whatever Wash had been through was medical in nature and sure, he'd seen the scars and wondered but-

A war was a war. A hospital? Was meant to be restful. Later he would ask. For now he took the freedom he was given to set the hypo aside and settle down in front of the sofa, not really wanting to move. Much as he'd like to settle Wash with a hand on him like he would Jim- he ain't Jim.

Space for now, grounding contact later.

"Diner around the corner delivers if you give 'em an extra five on top of the cost. They do a damn good breakfast." He rubbed at his wrist, frowning more at himself than anything else. "Extra platter of bacon for Wash. Chicken an' Waffles for me. Y'all call it in, number's on the fridge. I'll pay."

Once more, food came to rescue any tense situation. Greg added a heaping of eggs to the order, just for all the proper breakfast food groups. At some point, someone who could use their feet put some coffee on to perk, too.

Greg may or may not have dozed off while they waited for the food to arrive, which means he absolutely did. As tense and anxious as he may have been about any number of things, above all, he was tired. As far as he figured, anyway, everyone could use the time to keep catching their breath. Everything else could come when they all had the right amount of brain to process.

It was only once the food arrived and spread over the coffee table before the couch, filling the room with wonderful smells, that he was able to start feeling properly like a living person again.

Casey made coffee. Got plates and forks. Answered the door and brought the food over to the table. Anything he could do that wasn't just sitting around. He could have used the downtime to sit and goof off but the tension in the air drove him to just...do things.

As far as he could tell, he was the only one who could stand to be up and about and the only one who could keep the mood in the mood from getting unbearable.

"Grub's on!" He announced loudly for those who were sleeping, "How do you guys take your coffee?"

Wash spent a few more minutes under the blanket breathing and trying to sort himself out. It was only after he stopped shaking and was fairly certain he could function like a normal human being (or whatever counted for normal around here, at least) that he pulled the blanked off his face and stretched out on the couch.

Given the quiet in the apartment and the exhaustion that followed close on the heels of a spent surge of adrenaline, it wasn't long before Wash fell asleep where he was, flat on the couch and half under a blanket. He startled awake when the door opened, but didn't wake up fully until Casey's announcement. "Strong," he replied, the word muffled by the fact that his face was still half-buried in the sofa. He'd sit up once coffee happened. Really he would.

Greg and Casey were a godsend, Bones decided. Between the two of them they got a meal ready, delivered, and handled and most of the odd tension dissipated. He'd have to bake 'em a pie or something when he was up to standing in a kitchen. Or standing period, the carpet was pretty damn comfortable for the moment.

"Black, two sugars. Thanks, kid." Bones sat back, medical kit squared away for the moment, head tipped up to where Wash was on the sofa. He looked a little better, he supposed, but more bedrest, proper food, and less stress would be good for him. "How you hold'n up?"

"Milk," Greg added through a yawn. The food finally lured him into sitting up, pushing paper plates towards the various spots, and then carefully beginning the experiment of how much he could stack on top of a waffle.

"You really saved us back there, man. It was pretty darn cool." Wash was clearly feeling like hell, so there was no harm in trying to pump him up a little. "What was that, wind stuff? Haven't seen that one before."

"Yeah, seriously! That was so metal!" Casey called back from the kitchen, offering the highest compliment he knew. "Fought a guy with wind powers once. He could make, like, the biggest tornadoes I've ever seen!"

Casey has only ever seen one tornado, but that's not important. He brings a tray of mugs over to the table, only spilling a little. "Dude, when you learn to trash Nox with that stuff you'll be tossin' 'em like footballs!"

"'M'okay," he murmured to Bones before giving sitting up another try. It took him a bit - slow and steady, using the back of the couch for support - but he made it upright and immediately reached for the bacon, snagging a couple of pieces. He was feeling better already.

He paused at the compliments. "Dunno," he replied, reaching for the one mug of black coffee on the table. "I was starting to think I didn't have magic at all." It was a very casual admission of a very real fear - that he'd spend his whole time here useless, unable to fight or protect anybody. Evidently that wasn't the case anymore.

The start of a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. "Tornadoes, huh."

"I put forth the motion that practic'n tornadoes happens far, far from the apartment." Shit blew up around them often enough as it was. For now he'd rather not deal with that and instead focus on keeping his people patched up.

or on the coffee. Coffee was good. Coffee didn't go out and get cut up and complain when he fixed it either.

He took his mug and slumped back, sipping before picking at his food. "Will say this much- it was like a goddamn photon torpedo went off."

"Well," Greg took a bite out of a carefully constructed waffle-chicken-egg sandwich, "seems like it was worth the wait, yeah?"

He took a moment to really, deeply appreciate what was happening in his mouth. Oh man. Food is great. Excuse him, he needs more syrup. He glanced sidelong at Bones as he mentioned the blast.

"Sure popped my ears. Don't think I could hear anything for a good while after." He swallowed his mouthful. "Probably better to leave tornadoes for later. Don't wanna wipe you out like this every time."

"Woulda bowled me over," Casey wolfed down the pancakes like it was the first food he'd ever eaten in his life, "uh, if I'd been standing."

Breakfast was great. Especially considering he surreptitiously snagged a piece of bacon or two from Wash's plate.

"So now that we all have our magic...what now?"

"Sure could have used it earlier," he muttered with a shrug. Only Greg would understand just how deep that particular bit of regret ran, if he'd heard it. "Still. Better late than never."

A whole platter of bacon on the table and Casey had to go for what was already on Wash's plate. Wash gave him a very pointed stare and refilled his plate from the communal platter that was right in front of him, jeez, kid.

It was a good question, though. "We work on control," he replied. "We need to be able to use magic consistently at will. Right now, Greg's the best at that - we could probably all take a lesson from him." And Wash was way behind; luckily, he knew a thing or two about working his ass off to keep up with people who were better than him. "After that, strategy - we work on ways to combine our skills. Like what you guys did today."

Chicken and waffles. Breakfast of champions. Soon as his stomach was settled enough by the coffee Leonard pulled his plate over and began to pick at it, settling into the comfort the meal offered. "I think you should work on tactics with Casey."

A beat.

"Wouldn'ta thought t'pull it together and use 'em as projectiles like he did. He's got good instincts. Y'all could probably knock out some solid plans. Get some sorta shorthand go'n so we're not scream'n at each other while try'n not to die."

Greg took Wash's meaning, but didn't say anything further on it. This wasn't the place.

He did, however, choke on a chunk of waffle at that compliment. He had a lot of thoughts on his use of magic, and none of them involved "consistent" or "at will," and certainly not "best."

"Woooooah, woah, I'm not--I don't have any control over this stuff. I never know what's going on, the plants just kind of... do their own thing. You guys are the ones who figured out all that cool stuff to do with it."

There was plenty of bacon. If it had just been about the bacon, Casey would've been fine with the communal plate. No, it was about testing Wash by pushing a button, even if it was a small one. Casey got glowered at, but not blown up at. That meant Wash was back to normal. For Wash.

And anyway, Bones just gave Casey a compliment, which he acknowledges with a grin halfway between smug and genuine. "No problem! Casey Jones knows tactics." Well, OK, for Casey, tactics meant thinking on his feet or just acting without thinking at all. But that apparently worked pretty well around here.

And he wasn't about to hear that from Greg. He was killing it with the magic and apparently he didn't even realize it. "Oh c'mon, dude! If you weren't controllin' it then it wouldn't keep poppin' up whenever we need it! I mean, nobody told ya to make spikes back there, right?"

Wash nodded at Bones' assessment, swallowing a mouthful of eggs. He raised an eyebrow at Casey. "You know creativity and improvisation. The other half of this is drilling it until it's habit, and that's what you're going to need to work on." And if you steal his bacon, they will have words.

His other eyebrow rose to join its partner at Greg's sputtering. "Greg, you've been using your magic since we first met. You're a hell of a lot better at this than you think you are, and you'll get even better once you realize that." As far as Wash could tell, Greg's problem wasn't ability - it was his lack of self-esteem. That was going to take a lot more work to overcome than a lack of magical control.

"Bull and shit, Greg. Those spikes were thorny and anywhere from six inches to a full on foot long. You made 'em rise up out of the PAVEMENT. No seams for them to creep up through, they shot straight through asphalt to get to us. If that ain't power and precision, I dunno what is." On the topic of working up stamina and precision, Bones sits back and narrows his eyes at Casey's plate, stealing a few strips of bacon from the communal platter to replace what he'd taken from Wash.

Without taking his hands off his waffles.

Little shit like that? he can do. He's gotten good at that, at least.

"You're also the one that almost always has someth'n on hand on when we're outside. We oughta get you a bag of seeds or somth'n so you don't kill over try'n to call up what you could have on hand."

Okay, well. That all happened. Greg didn't really know what to make of all the praise, particularly on a subject like this. His mouth opened to try and deny it, or point something contradictory out, but the words didn't come. Technically... they weren't wrong about any of it, were they?

At a loss, Greg shrank a little on the couch, cheeks red. "Well... um. Thanks." And then, in order to avoid feeling like he had to say any more, Greg filled his mouth with more syrupy chicken.

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jonesiseverywhere - 2015-09-03 12:50 (UTC) - Expand

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