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tunastime · 4 months

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Recovery One

Washington undergoes experimental surgery: installing Project Freelancer's AI program into his head. Epsilon tries to break his way out of Washington's skull. Washington deals with the symptoms of a thing that wants nothing but to escape.

aeuhmmm so I got a little silly with the freelancers again and decided to write something about what wash and epsilon might've gone through before it was extracted for obvious reasons. this is chapter one! tagged this pretty heavily on ao3 but tw for blood, injury, medical procedures, emotional hurt/comfort, and trauma. (3238 words) (read it on ao3!)

The walls of the Mother of Invention seem colder tonight. It's like Washington's body is a heat source, and the hard beds of Recovery One are the sink, drawing every last shred of warmth from where his flimsy surgical clothes meet cloth. He can feel the handful of sensors stuck to his skin, along the inside of his left wrist, keeping careful track of his heart rate, his oxygen, and his blood pressure. The base of his skull is still aching, a thrum that settles equally in the channel of his spine.

Cold, shivering, curled pathetically on that hard mattress, Washington is trying to sleep. He's twitchy, stomach twisted into rough knots, and every time he shuts his eyes the spinning of the world only gets worse. The gravity on Invention is generated by a massive column of constantly pulsing electricity, but if Wash were to step foot onto the ground below him, he's certain he'd float upward far too quickly. Or fall face down. One of those would definitely happen.

He tries to breathe through the wave of nausea that passes. It's all a byproduct of the chip in his skull. The voice is quiet for now. They're fighting to use the same body—his body, with all its human joints and mostly untorn muscles and surficial bruises and just a handful of really broken bones. It hurts like something electric shudders just under the first few layers of skin, or like someone took his nerves and ran them through the shredder. He kind of feels like the paper in the shredder, or the shredder itself. Or maybe the paper when it’s half in the shredder and half out. When's the last time he held a piece of paper? Did people still shred paper? He breathes again.

He's under a 24 hour watch. Twenty four hours of this. He screws his eyes shut and the ship around him swings back and forth on a pendulum. He digs his fingers into the muscles of his shoulders and tries to breathe through it. The stars start to fade after a moment of breaths through his teeth. North used to joke about how anxious Theta made him—that swing of artificial fear through his nervous system, how he had to breathe through the waves of adrenaline to keep himself level. Little spikes happened now and then, making a purely perfunctory condition ten times worse, but North seemed to nurture himself until the feeling gave way to something productive.

Wash isn’t having that much luck.

It wasn’t something easy to pin down. He wasn’t just anxious, or sad, or angry. He wasn’t happy, or disgusted, or a middle combination of the emotions he knew how to regulate. It felt like a swirl of everything, of nothing, completely out of his grasp. The AI—Epsilon—was having a field day as he tore open the synapses of Wash’s standing memory and tried to make room. And Wash was fighting back. The lines had already begun to blur and Wash could only assume the after-effects were due to that unalignment, that unmeshed surface. Epsilon needed a blank slate. It was the only thing Wash wasn’t able to offer.

When he breathes again, his stomach turns violently. He lurches, hands grasping at the cool bedside, swallowing hard. His hands shake as they hold onto the smooth surface below him. Okay, fine—eyes open. Another breath out of his teeth. He can taste sour in the back of his mouth.

The world is foggy when he opens his eyes again. He drags himself up slowly as his head continues to spin like a wobbly top. The top sheet comes with him, wrapped over his shoulders as he drags himself into the bathroom. There’s a moment where he wobbles, stepping forward for the first time, socked foot firmly set on the floor. He can’t even think—the quiet that was there seems to settle into a background of whispers he can’t make out. He speaks out loud to himself, trying to get a word into his crowded brain, or to force himself to step forward.

“I need a drink, that’s it,” he says, in a voice he’s not sure is entirely his own anymore. He swallows again. Anything to get the taste out of his mouth. He can hear that echo of a voice bounce around inside his skull as he drags himself forward uneasily.

“Please,” Wash manages to garble out. “I can’t… I can’t help you.”

He manages to stumble to the doorway of the bathroom, sheet left crumpled at his feet as he braces hard on the edge of the sink. His breaths come fast and hard as he stands upright, fingers white-knuckled where they grip the countertop. The world tilts, and he feels his body slump into the wall beside him. The white light of the room does little to obscure the sheen of sweat on his face, or the way his hands shake as he tries to turn on the faucet. He cups his hands. The water is cold on his flushed and feverish skin. He presses his cool, damp palms to his eyes and drinks from his hands. Washington breathes. The world seems to settle as the cool air hits his skin. He’s not seeing double for now.

The moment of reprieve is short-lived. His stomach folds over itself, rolling a cold, then hot wave across his skin as he doubles over the sink. The voice inside his head is slamming against the walls of his skull like it could break through. He can’t understand the words, how they crush and morph together against the new spike of pain behind his eyes, but it sounds like screaming. Something scared, and horrified, and desperate, pleading. But maybe that’s him.

He gags. The rest of his dinner comes up in the sink. He coughs, trying to swallow it back down, nose stinging. He heaves in a breath. His eyes water and he doesn’t stop them from dripping off his cheeks.

Breathing heavily, Wash drags his hand over his face. It comes back damp, still shaking. He can taste iron in the back of his throat. When he looks in the mirror, eyes dark and sunken, it’s like he can barely recognize the face looking back at him. Wash shuts his eyes tightly. He holds to the edges of the sink, breath shuddering and whistling as he inhales. More tears fall; fear, grief, nothing actually his.

“I can’t—” he says, he sobs, as the voice—Epsilon—pleads. Pleads for him to make space, to be something other than he is, to let him out, to let him go. “They won’t—”

Across the room, there’s a quiet knock on the door. He jolts, eyes darting to the closed door. Another knock. Wash brings up a shaky hand, wiping the tears from his chin. He rinses off what he can from his hands, pulling tissues to dry his face. He can still taste the film of bile in the back of his mouth. Washington steadies, blinking his eyes fully open.

“Wash, it’s North. Came to check up on you.”

North. Oh. Wash shudders as he laughs, just a little. Sure. He leans back from the sink, lowering himself gingerly to the floor to grab the sheet. As he steps carefully to the bedside, he replaces the sheet and begs that he finds his sense of composure before he opens the door.

“Coming,” he manages, voice wavering.

He makes his way around the bed, hand braced slightly on the wall as he steps over. The door slides open as he stand in the doorway.

North is standing in his pajamas, a concerned sort of pull to his face. He smiles a little when Wash opens the door, but Wash is too busy staring at his own socked feet and North’s boots to really notice. North’s voice is soft when he speaks. It reminds Wash of the one time South blacked out during dive training and North wouldn’t leave her side.

“How’s it goin’, buddy?” North says gently.

“Best day of my life,” Wash jokes, laughing weakly. North huffs out a laugh, folding his arms.

“I know they’ve got you under watch, so you’re in good hands,” he says, inclining his head. “How’s the headache? The tingling? Anything blurry?”

Wash takes a second, sighing and shutting his eyes. It’s funny that North would say that, isn’t it. He gets the shuddering feeling of something not his own as he stands propped against the wall, trying to hold himself up.

“Still painful,” he manages, pressing his hands to his eyes. “Everything’s blurry.”

“Yeesh—” North says, sucking in a breath through his teeth. “You’re taking it slow though, right?”

Wash nods.

“I’m trying to,” he says. “Best I can given the circumstances. It’s hard to sleep with all the…” He waves his hand around listlessly around his head, as if trying to get his point across. The voice. The emotions. Whatever chugged through his memory and forced itself in. It was an almost-physical, painful sensation. North nods knowingly. Wash doubts that he knows much at all.

“I’m sorry, Wash,” North says, his concern sincere. “It’ll get better with time, though. You’ll have a few days to settle in before the Director sends you out on missions, I’m sure.”

Wash nods again. It’s the most he can really do. His head feels like it’s full of soup gone sour.

“Right,” he says slowly, the words thickening in his mouth to a paste. “Right, I hope so.”

North smiles. He can tell, all of a sudden, as he does every time North summons Theta to the front, how right he was for his AI, how much the nurturing nature he so eagerly kept hidden blossomed when it was needed, when it would be properly appreciated. That smile alone settles a warm swirl through Wash’s chest, trickling into his lungs and his heart. The same happens when North reaches out, cupping his shoulder with his broad palm and squeezing, just enough to feel the heat of his hand. He jostles Washington slightly as he does. Wash manages a smile, huffing out through his nose, his eyes falling shut again as he lets the comfort of touch sink in for just a moment. As North draws his hand away and Wash straightens, North says:

“Alright, I’ll let you get back to resting, okay Wash?”

Wash hums in response.

“You let me know if you need anything. We’re all just down a floor—I’m sure York and I wouldn’t mind stopping in.”

Wash sighs, finally pushing himself to a stand, away from the wall. He doesn’t say anything, but a creeping realization settles in the pit of his stomach, right next to the warmth that used to pervade his joints. He swallows. Instead of feeling nothing, he feels burning in the back of his throat, up his nose. He nods regardless.

“Good deal, buddy,” North smiles. He nods, just a curt bob of his head. “Alright, I’ll be seein’ you.”

“I—” And all of a sudden, the feelings pervading, the ones not his own, rear their head. He swallows roughly, trying to make out a sentence. He mumbles out his next words, vision blurring. “Please don’t—”

“Wash?” North asks, startling, the twinge of concern now laid thick in his words. Wash startles too, blinking hard. What was happening to him? He shakes his head, turning it from North for a moment as he wills himself back to the present. He isn’t leaving, North lives here. He won’t just abandon him. But he can still feel the weight of the word goodbye. The weight of see you soon.

“Sorry, I’m just…” Wash shudders out a sigh, trying to find a viable excuse. “I’m on edge I guess. Don’t worry about it.”

North’s eyes widen.

“Wash, your nose—” he says, moving forward to help him. Wash takes an instinctive step back, cupping his hand around his chin. He can feel the warm dribble of blood now, the taste of iron in the back of his mouth. He shakes his head as he keeps North at arm’s length, turning to fetch tissue from the bathroom.

“It’s fine,” he croaks out, fumbling for the sink. He runs his hands under the warming water, tipping his head forward. Blood drips into the sink but his eyes are screwed shut too tight to see it. Wash can barely hear North’s voice above the running water, but he hears the door to his room slide shut. Reaching for the tissue, Wash swabs gingerly at his nose, still tasting the metallic tang on his teeth. As he turns back to the room, North is hovering at his bedside, concern written across his whole face. Wash watches his jaw work, his upturned eyes wide and searching Wash’s expression. Washington shakes his head.

“It’s fine,” he says again, barely a sound at all. He jams part of the tissue up his nose, swallowing back whatever was left in his mouth. North gestures to the glass of water still half empty at Wash’s bedside. Wash sits, his legs giving out beneath him, and he drinks.

North takes his time getting to the space in front of him, circling the end of the Recovery Bay bed like Wash were an injured animal about to bite him. Luckily for him, Washington feels far too heavy to move any of his limbs, as if all the energy had been siphoned out of him and into the air, leaving it charged and staticky. He couldn’t find the strength to bite even if he tried. He smooths his hand over the pant leg of his hospital clothes in calculated movements. The scratchy fabric is so thin he can almost feel his body heat through it. Or lack thereof.

“I don’t know how fine it is, Wash,” North says, folding his arms. He leans against the arm of the chair across from Wash, not exactly sitting, but not really standing. “I certainly wasn’t getting nosebleeds like that with Theta.”

“Well,” Wash manages hoarsely, shutting his eyes tight again. “With all due respect, Theta was a little more… stable.”

“Epsilon’s unstable?” North asks. Wash flinches. He can feel that paper shredder sensation again as he shrinks back. “Wash?”

“It’s okay,” Wash mumbles. “It’s just—side effects.”

North’s face grows taut and stern. When Wash flicks his eyes up to read his face he’s met with a strong set to North’s jaw. North shakes his head, sounding unconvinced.

“It’s not supposed to be this bad,” he says. He drums his fingers against his arm.

Wash sighs. The sound is curt when it leaves his chest. It’s all the energy he has left to expel before it dissolves into an empty hollow in his chest.

“It’s nothing,” he says.

“Washington,” North starts, leaning off the chair and moving toward the bedside. Wash curls further over his lap, as if trying to move away from whatever suggestion North could have for him. It’s not something so easy to fix. It’s just. It’s just—

“It—” Wash takes a long, laborious breath in. He feels something very small break inside his chest as he breathes out, his exhale shuddering. His vision goes blurry in the few feet in front of him, from knees to floor, that he can see. “I don’t—”

“Hey…” North soothes. He lowers himself to Washington’s side, hand coming to cup his shoulder. Wash leans, half intentional and half not, into the touch as North squeezes his arm.

“The memories aren’t mine,” Washington babbles, unintelligible to anyone but himself. “I don’t want them in my head.”

“I know,” North placates regardless. And for a moment, it feels like he means it. It doesn’t really matter if he does or doesn’t. The arms that come around him are strong and warm and solid and friendly as Wash makes contact with the hollow of North’s shoulder. He doesn’t mean to collide and fall so easily, but the arms around him hold on, and hold firm, and he begins to think through the haze of memories not his own that he really didn’t have much say in the matter. North draws him in regardless and Wash sinks himself into his side. He cries and no sound escapes him. He squeezes his eyes shut. Faintly, he can hear North whistle out a breath, through the shff of fabric as he slowly and gently drags his palm over the line of Washington’s shoulders.

“I just need it to stop,” Washington chokes out. It doesn’t matter who’s speaking. The relentless tug of war continues on in his head, even if he can’t hear it, even if it won’t really surface. It doesn’t matter who wants their memories back. It just matters that his body feels like he’s been electrically shocked: drained, shaken out, and hurting.

“Breathe, Wash,” North soothes. Washington does as he’s told, the air scratchy in his throat. He shudders out the breath, trying to keep each stable and even. North doesn’t say anything for a while. He lets Wash breathe and lean into his shoulder, and the silence gives Wash a moment of reprieve as his mind goes quiet. He just focuses on breathing, in through his nose and out through his mouth. North leans just slightly back into him, cheek resting on the top of his head.

Wash blinks his eyes open. He stares into the middle distance with his vision still blurry, and North’s weight against him keeps him, rather than whatever threatens to invade his memory further, grounded. Wash makes an unintelligible sound as North sighs.

“Great, Wash,” North says lightly. “Doing great.”

“Well, I feel like shit,” Wash manages, almost amused.

North hums softly in agreement, but doesn’t really respond. His hold around Wash grows a little tighter, though, firmer around his shoulder and forearm as Wash sags. His eyes shut again as his breaths remain even, face pressed to North’s shoulder. He’s a bit too large for them to properly fit together, even as they sit side by side on the bed. He lets go of a long breath as the rush of previous anxiety, the new bubbling fear, and exhaustion slip out all at once. In their wake is a pit of nothing, absent of emotion, in his stomach. Tired lingers instead in the same space, around that nothing. He can feel his body grow heavy against North and he has half the mind to mention how tired he actually is. But North hasn’t moved, regardless if he’s noticed or not, and the hand on his shoulderblade, and the head resting against his, remains. The world goes blissfully soft for a moment, his body heavy and his mind quiet. It’s only when he blinks his eyes open again that he realizes he’s lying down. North is gone.

He squints at the room around him, lifting his head slightly. He’s on his back with the sheet draped over him, comfortable against the pillows. For once, his body and head don’t ache, and whatever voice that might be screaming is silent. When he lifts himself further, the room spins, tipping violently this way and that. Wash lets himself back down. For now, he decides that the comfort he has is better taken than lost, and he shuts his eyes.

The world goes muted and grey around him. His body sinks to the mattress.

He has a feeling he won’t wake again for some time.

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