gunsforhire | Log: All The Small Things

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Log: All The Small Things

Who: Wash (OU) and you!
What: Wash has completed his first job as a mercenary and is out to celebrate it
Where: Out and about in town, picking up some better equipment, and then to the Eagle and Asp for a drink
When: Afternoon to night 29/11
Warnings: None so far

It hadn't been the most glamorous of jobs, but any notion of glamour had been beaten out of him practically the day he'd enlisted. The important thing was that his first job as a registered mercenary had gone well and that was the first step to being able to take care of himself without having to rely on other people. Sure, it would take a few more jobs before he felt comfortable, but it was a start.

That was cause enough for celebration, right?

His first step is to head out to a supplier to stock up on equipment. Nothing fancy for now, but enough to get him started. A good gun or two, and a solid combat knife.

There's other things that he needs, an almost overwhelming amount, he realises now that he has the money to start thinking about it. Clothes that aren't fatigues or armour, and there's so many different kinds that it takes him far longer than it should to pick out what he needs.

And once that's done, he heads to the Eagle and Asp for a drink. It feels appropriate somehow.

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"Honestly, it does," Delta admits. "Though really, if you're anything like the Washington I know... well, I guess it wouldn't help me."

He's allowed himself this one moment, this smoothie. After all, the guy was nice. But Delta has to question why he found this man attractive when he hadn't considered...

Right, he hadn't met Wash until after Maine. Okay. He gets that. Or maybe it was just how lost he was. Delta can't help but notice that he's looked toward people who need help lately.

"He a soldier too?" Wash asks blandly. He's curious despite himself, about what other people might think of the other version of him. "Trust me, it's really hard to shoot when your hands are this full." He could do it if he wanted to, but anything that helped to set Delta at ease was a good idea.

"If only," Delta sighs. If only Maine and Wash and all of them were soldiers, not mercenaries. Then... Then he wouldn't be like this. "He's a mercenary. Paid killer. That seems to be what a lot of people are these days. I seem to be merc bait."

Which makes him look at Wash out of the corner of his eye before he heads to the entrance of the store to open a helmet storage compartment with his thumbprint and pull his helmet out to don it.

"Well, technically that's what soldiers are too," Wash replies. "You're getting paid to fight and kills and quite possibly die. Or worse." And once he'd believed they were protecting people, but when you've had your squad sent out to die because of fucking stupid decisions, you start to feel a little less favourable. "Trust me, I've seen enough bullshit there."

No-one had questioned why the Project had gone down, but they could blame him for destroying UNSC property.

He pulls out his own helmet and puts it on. Easier in some ways. Doesn't have to hide his expression.

"It's not that simple," Delta counters. "Soldiers and their families aren't targeted by other random soldiers, hunted down specifically to be cruel and terrible."

And Delta hates that difference. "Soldiers get to have families and loved ones and support them. Mercenaries... don't."

"Sometimes they are," Wash says quietly, and he can remember all too clearly York bleeding out after being hunted for so long, North dead, and South turning on him until he'd killed her. And Maine, always Maine become the Meta. "From what I've heard, at least the mercs here have the chance of having backup instead of relying on a chain of command that doesn't give a damn unless you have rank and influence."

He shrugs. "But what can I say, I saw my whole team killed because our CO was more invested in us as experiments than as people."

Oh... wow. Delta buries his face again at the thought. And to think, there were still people, his own brother, who thought they were some kind of experiment.

"I'm sorry," he says softly. "To compare my situation to yours is... well, it's wrong. Trivializes what you lost. Forgive me."

He stops at that, and shakes his head. "That's not what I meant. Things suck. They've made me a terrible person. But just because you've not gone through that doesn't mean other people don't get to feel shitty about what's happened to them." What he's been through doesn't justify what he'd done to the Red and Blues, to Doc. He'd been angry and selfish and self-obsessed. And he still is in so many ways. "I just meant... systems suck, in general. There are bad people inside every system. They'll hurt people no matter what because it's just who they are. But there are good people too. My team, we were caught in a really awful system. And it screwed us over. But they were good people and I wouldn't change having met them for anything."

"That makes you and I quite different," Delta informs him simply, moving forward immediately. He doesn't want to talk about all the things he'd change in his life.

"The world is an awful system. Life is an awful system. The one who win are the ones who know how to manipulate it to their own ends. The rest of us just try and survive."

He wouldn't be here if not for them. He wouldn't be who he is. And even when he's angry and hateful about them, when it hurts so much that they'd left him, he knows that beneath that he just misses them. He follows after Delta, catching up quickly.

"Pretty much," he agrees easily. "Because something in you is too stubborn and spiteful to stop surviving."

"Spiteful," Delta laughs. "Yes, I believe that would be an apt description of my current life choices. And here I am, doing something quite foolish because I'm thumbing my nose at my family's luck and my recent history. Though I suppose if I were another person I'd be asking you to have coffee with me."

Except that isn't something he does.

"There are worse ways to live," Wash replies, grinning a little. "Make every choice knowing you're being a colossal thorn in someone's side. Sometimes it's okay to be selfish."

His smile falters and he gives Delta a bit of a wide-eyed look when he says that. "Well, if you ever feel like being another person, I'm not going anywhere."

Wait, huh?

Delta just looks back at Wash, a bit shocked to hear that. "Trust me, you wouldn't want me to feel like another person. It's really okay."

This suddenly got awkward, right? Maybe that's just him. "Can we just get the smoothies without acknowledging I said something stupid while mentally comparing myself to my younger brothers."

He already does, that's the trouble.

Wash holds up his hands. it's a little awkward because of the bags, but gets his point across. "Not stupid. But we can do that. Your brothers sound like quite a handful."

"Beyond that," Delta chuckles, shaking his head. "The thing is, it's not even the children who are the biggest handful. That honor is a tie between Epsilon and Gamma most days, but it is what it is."

Now he has to admit that the look of the guy trying to defend himself with the bags from the store is a bit amusing, so he smiles to himself as he says it.

Edited 2015-12-11 02:38 (UTC)

Epsilon. A handful. Who would have guessed? York knows. He hopes that's enough, but at some point is he going to have to stand in front of Delta and say 'oh yeah, your brother was insane and killed himself in my head and by the way, none of you were human where I'm from'. He can't imagine that going down well.

"Kids are more easily entertained I guess. Teenagers? Teenagers and older are just kind of a mess. I know I was." Still is.

"If you ever hear a truly insane conspiracy theory online that seems too off the wall and yet just good enough that maybe it might actually be true... That might be Gamma."

Delta sighs and shakes his head. How many times has Gamma hacked his grades.

"Adults are a mess too, but the kids are pretty happy. Except for the things that they won't have fun with."

"I heard one of those once. Some guys insisted that they'd been thrown forward in time. To be fair, there was some really weird shit going on but time travel is a little far-fetched."

Wyoming had a lot to answer for. And Omega.

"Must be nice, to have not enjoying stuff be the most important thing yo care about."

They're going on six, that's the thing they're most concerned about. But yes, I do envy them that," Delta replies, his voice a bit somber.

He longs for it himself.

And thank god, here they are, just outside of the smoothie place. Delta holds the outer airlock door open for Wash. Those bags have to be a pain.

He's sure that this is about the point where he's supposed to give some platitude about how things are always darkest before the dawn or something like that. He doesn't believe it and he doubts that Delta would appreciate it.

He gives a grateful smile when Delta holds the door for him, and heads up to the counter. There is a dizzying array of smoothies. And so many of them are so much fruit. It has to be frozen right? Or tinned stuff.

"You have any idea what you want?"

Bless the lack of platitudes. Delta wouldn't forgive him for such behavior. Not at all.

But all Delta could tell Wash if he asked about what the flavors were, would be that what wasn't tinned stuff was flavored powders. You want real fruit you've got to go to a far higher end place than this. Except bananas. Somehow those grow and ship really well and are used frozen.

"Nothing with chocolate," is Delta's pronunciation as he stares at the options. After a moment he sighs. It's... not been long enough for chocolate yet.

"I think I'll go with Pineapple berry."

Hadn't York said that Delta loved chocolate? He remembers that, so something has obviously happened. Not really his place to ask though. He's not entangling himself when he's still adjusting to Delta being human. And still alive.

He stares at the board for a few moments more before deciding. "Blueberry, apple and pear," he decides. It sounds tasty. Everything sounds good. He hands over the credits to pay for them and sets his bags down.

"Pears are pretty interesting," Delta says, because he needs something to talk about right now. "Did you know that a majority of fruit juices are made with a base of pear juice? It's a juice that has a relatively plain taste that is easily covered by other fruit tastes, and it's full of vitamins, minerals, and other things that are really good for you. So you're making your smoothie taste little different, but a lot more healthy for you."

There, useless mom trivia.

"Yeah?" Wash says, and he glances back at Delta curiously. "I always thought they just... squashed the fruits," he says, grinning. "Never thought juice was actually a monstrous chimera of fruit."

"Well they do. They blend and filter the fruits to get a lot of the pulp out. But it can be expensive, and in the case of cranberry juice, dangerous to go with a pure blend sometimes," he explains. "So you start with something cheap because no one really wants it for much else but it's easy to grow. You start with pears. Add other stuff in and you've got a great juice. Which is why most things are listed as fruit cocktails."

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