[ this would be easier if she was alone, carolina thinks. she truly, genuinely hates crying and crying like this isn't something she wants to share with anyone. she'll share so much with wash but how is she supposed to come back from this? how is she supposed to have a conversation when she's just showed him that, when she's sobbing so hard that her legs threaten to give out under her as she leans a little harder into the wall?
she's cried like this in front of someone else exactly once in at least twenty years. early in their first visit to chorus, epsilon in her head, palpably torn between straight up leaving until she got it out of her system and some awkward, unsteady, "how the fuck am I supposed to help?" in the end, he had stayed, let her cry herself out. asked her to please never do that again and complained about her being a mess when she finally caught her breath, even as he filled her head with warm affection.
wash isn't any less important or safe to her than epsilon was, but she still hates this.
so she can't go to him just yet, looking at him with tear-filled eyes before it's too much and "it wasn't your fault" feels like the cruelest lie. of course connie's death is her fault. all of their deaths are.
she manages to stumble a few steps over to sit on the closed toilet seat instead of outright sinking to the floor and drops her head into her hands as her elbows dig into her knees. her hands straight up hurt now and she's been clenching them so tightly that the worst of the jagged scrapes on her knuckles has the odd trickle of blood slipping over the back of her hand, down her wrist to soak into the sleeve of her sweater. she'll clean it later. right now, the pain is of some twisted benefit to her now and she uses it to anchor herself as she draws deep, shuddering breaths. tries to stop crying. tries to feel less guilty and angry and broken about the whole thing.
eventually, she calms down enough to try speaking, but she's still not really calm, anxiety still crushing her chest and anger still heating her face. ]
I wanted her to come home.
[ in all fairness, she knows connie probably didn't think of the mother of invention as home. a comfortable enough ship to be stationed on, full of people she might have trusted at one far-removed time but not anymore. it was home for carolina, more than the quiet house on earth ever was, because it's where her family was. where she'd felt the safest, right up until the end.
when carolina says home, she just means wherever her people are.
she lifts her head slightly, glancing up at wash and breathing out a quiet, ] I tried.
[ Wash doesn't push the issue. Carolina doesn't come to him, she sits down instead and he drops his arm, lets go of the sink... and gives in to the weak sick feeling to sit against the wall across from her, knees bent up. Their boots are touching, but there's no bond. He lets Carolina cry herself out, feeing helpless and tired, his own eyes burning. But if he cried himself it'd be angry, and he doesn't want to be angry anymore. It's so tempting to wrap himself up in it like a blanket, but. They've seen what that does. Both to him and to Sharkface, to Carolina herself.
He sits quietly, head tilted back to watch her, stomaching twisting. Finally, she speaks. Looks up at him a little and is just so sad, Wash almost can't take it. But he stays with her. ]
[ carolina nods, then drops her head again, not wanting to watch wash for too long. not when she's trying to compose herself, when now she's terrified of sharing what's happened to him. she had known about the memory sharing aspect of the new abilities that came with being displaced, but she hadn't thought much of it, hadn't thought to ask anybody how exactly it worked. wash is the only person she ever really touches anyway and he keeps her feeling so even-keeled that she's gotten less concerned with hiding feelings from him. even when he gets a flicker of something that might be damning, it's hardly as if his injury is the only thing she has to feel guilty about.
it's clearly mistaken now, but she thought she had to want to share memories. not just be stuck in her head and trying to let someone help her. carolina thinks she can avoid this in the future, probably - keep it tucked away in key moments the way she'd kept memories tucked away from her ai, when she'd had them. keeping things from epsilon had been futile sometimes and he still poked around wherever he wanted to, digging out snippets to fill in the blanks he got from the director's memories, but with the twins, it had worked. she'd hidden her least rational fears from eta, hidden the way york made her feel once upon a time from iota.
she can do this.
tugging her sleeves down over her palms, she takes a deep breath and starts trying to wipe her face off, adding to the mess around the wrists and ensuring that she definitely needs to do laundry before the day is up. it's a later problem. right now, it takes a while before she finds her voice again. ]
Before Tex engaged her, Connie was talking about how we'd all be paying for what the Director did by the end of the Project. How we already were. I feel like I've been trying to fix everything he broke forever and it'll never stop, I'll never catch up. Like I'm going to be trying to atone for Project Freelancer until it kills me.
[ carolina draws another shaky breath and looks up again, seeking wash's gaze. her face is splotchy, expression anguished, but she's gotten herself back under control. ]
[ There's a long moment where Wash just meets her eyes quietly, not knowing what to say or do. He's tired of it, too, but mostly for Carolina's sake -- he can and should blame himself for things but feels like she's really gotten the brunt of it all and it's not fair. It's not. He's so sorry for it, but he can't fix it for her and that guts him. As always, Carolina is the one protecting him. Can't it be the other way around, just once?
He sighs, then leans forward and reaches up to grab the icepack off the edge of the sink and gives it a twist and shake to activate the cold. If she's not going to let him clean her other hand yet she can at least keep the swelling down. Even with her sleeves pulled down Wash can tell her knuckles are puffy and bruising. ]
I feel the same way. [ he finally says, trying to put it into words, ] But you seem to get blamed more than I do. Maybe because you were the leader, maybe because you were the best of us, I don't... I don't know, honestly. But I'm not going to let atonement kill you. Or let you kill yourself trying to atone.
We've left each other alone before, it didn't end well either time. I'm not leaving you ever again.
[ when her eyes fill with tears again, at least it's for a different reason. it had taken carolina so long to see him fully as her equal and then he turns around and... he's her best friend, knows her better than anyone else ever has. and still says shit like that to her. still wants to stay with her.
she's missed him being himself and she loves him so much and she doesn't mind that she has to duck her head to wipe her face off another time, sniffling a little behind her hands as she pulls herself back together. she'll sort words out in a minute, once she's stopped crying again, because this is embarrassing as hell. it's a long, painful few seconds, but eventually she manages and sits upright to take a deep breath, pushing the sleeves of her sweater up to her elbows, baring her forearms and the mess that is the back of her hands.
reaching out to brush her fingertips across the back of one of his hands is her way of accepting help from him now and serves the bonus purpose of sharing just how much she appreciates him. she's so bad at words but for all the grief and pain and exhaustion simmering beneath the surface, the most obvious thing she shares with him is affection: warm, protective love. ]
I'm not leaving you, either.
[ because she has to keep looking out for him, yes, but also because she needs him far more than she'll ever be capable of admitting. ]
[ Wash doesn't say anything when Carolina starts crying again, just lets her keep control of her hands for a few moments longer so she can compose herself and wipe at her face. When she finally reaches out for him he holds still, braced for at least a little misery but surprisingly there isn't much. What's there blends with his own enough he can push it to the background and just focus on what she's trying to share -- something warm and appreciative and loving, that Wash isn't entirely certain he deserves but is incredibly grateful to have.
He turns his hand to hold hers gently, settling the icepack over her knuckles and maintaining the bond, sending his own love back as best he can. It's okay that there's other stuff in the background, he thinks. Like stones affecting the flow of a stream, things are never going to be perfectly smooth. But they have each other. ]
I'm sorry today was hard. But I really am glad you're here with me now.
[ curling her fingers around his, carolina finally touches something without gripping hard enough to cause her more of an ache in her hands. she's letting him help, sinking into the love he gives back to her. sharing that feels a hell of a lot more healthy than all the anger and the memory she hadn't meant to share before. relatively, at least. calling either one of them mentally healthy would be a joke.
she gives a little nod, agreeing as she keeps her eyes on his face. ]
[ He shifts, setting her hand down on her own knee and reaching for the other, drawing it over so she's holding the pack on the knuckles he's already cleaned. ]
Keep that there, I'll get your other hand. This one's probably going to sting.
[ A little more reaching and Wash winds up kneeling in front of her where she sits, pouring peroxide onto the gauze and dabbing at the scrapes far more carefully than he probably needs to. Far more gently. Only a few tiny beads of blood well up under his attentions, but he still wants to wrap the deeper cuts. To protect her other clothes if nothing else, it's not like they have expansive wardrobes here. ]
[ outside of another little nod, carolina doesn't really move, letting wash lead this little moment. letting him help. it's a hard thing to do, but if anyone has stuck around enough bullshit to be able to help, it's him. he can reposition her hands, take his time. there's no rush.
but there is the odd bit of contact between them as he works and any of carolina's feelings wash picks up are steady. warmth, gratitude, far more vibrant than every tired, worn emotion underneath, even if they're always present somewhere.
when he's finished whatever bandaging he wants to do - she doesn't think it's necessary, but she holds her tongue, this time - carolina raises a hand to cup his cheek. her fingers are cold from holding the icepack so the touch is almost certainly some sort of unpleasant, but... well, she's trying. ]
Thank you.
[ for so much more than just helping clean her up, but she won't specify out loud. the emotional bond between them probably expresses enough. ]
[ Wash finishes patching Carolina up, switching the arrangements of hands and icepack halfway through to put a few bandages on the other side. When he finally tosses away the used gauze and is about to get up, though, Carolina reaches out and cups his cheek with an icy hand.
He doesn't flinch, just looks up at her to see what she wants, but what she says is exactly what he feels coming across the bond. Gratitude. For more than just her knuckles.
The moment lingers and slowly, Wash kneels up to bring them closer, not dislodging the hand on his cheek until he reaches out to pull her into a hug. She'll have to lean over slightly, but he honestly didn't think about standing and tugging her up after him. He's feeling a little wrung out from all of this -- the bond can take it out of him at the best of times but right now it's a good thing. Comforting.
What he says next, however, might throw her for a bit of a loop. ]
[ when he hugs her, carolina slouches into it easily, her hand slipping from his cheek to the back of his head, the other finding a place on his back. not great for her posture but good for her heart, right about now. the empathetic bond is an unwanted, messed up thing but they've found a way to make the best of it. to make it good for them.
and then wash talks and carolina's mind goes to the absolute worst place first, because it really wasn't that long ago that she watched an actor pretending to be wash say almost the exact same thing and have it mean something completely different than it should. there's a hitch in her breath and because she chooses not to jerk away (this time, like she's done so much in the past when things have gotten unpleasant between them) wash has a front row seat to the rush of sequential emotions that creates.
panic kicks in fast, but it's one of those emotions in carolina that's always ready. but the anxiety is different than usual, it's flustered, because she remembers how she felt on that beach for real. missing york and hating herself for the choices she made, not sure at all that carrying his lighter around with her actually helped anything. and wash was there, dragging her out of her head, letting her feel that bittersweet ache, giving her permission to keep something she could have let go of.
she'd been close to wash for quite some time, but that moment, with him holding her hand, had felt like a different kind of close. taking off her armour to figure out just what kind of close they could be seemed like a possibility she should consider. a real option, whatever wash was offering her.
except he was just offering her a way of speeding up their problem solving and dear god she's an idiot.
if wash has ever wondered what carolina full on mortified would feel or sound like, it's this, complete with an almost pained little noise at just how stupid she feels. ]
Good call.
[ because the sleeves of it are disgusting and carolina knows this but there's still reluctance in the way she pulls back now, letting go of him so she can unzip the garment and start to pull it off. ]
[ Wash really just meant it so they could soak her cuffs and get it in the laundry before anything stained but the rush of emotions he gets from Carolina are confusing and -- oh. ]
Oh god. I'm sorry, did you think I meant--
[ His eyes go wide and he blushes under his freckles, standing up with a deer in headlights expression. ]
I-- would you ever--
[ Would she have wanted that? Because. That sure was a moment, but Wash isn't sure he even know how to be with someone anymore. If he ever did. ]
[ she's grasping at words here, at some reasonable, diplomatic way of explaining herself and "a guy we know made us a thing in the movie he's making" would lead to so many more questions than answers, so she can't even try to blame jax. still kind of blames him, sure, but also has to blame wash for being so endearingly good to her. blames that more than anything else.
stupid wash, being good for her. ]
I mean, I wouldn't... [ hate the idea.
but that could put him on the spot, risk their friendship and the way they are here and she can't afford to lose him. pulling the sweatshirt off, she bundles it against her chest like a security blanket, clenched in her hands, and glances toward the door. she could just leave, maybe. ]
Can we just- Wash, I-
[ her face was already red from crying, so maybe he won't notice how hard she's blushing, too. god, she misses her helmet. ]
[ It's the aborted 'I wouldn't' that he finishes in his mind as 'wouldn't want that' and the frantic way Carolina glances at the door that have Wash looking a little ashamed of himself now. ]
Yeah, of course. Here, I'll put it in the washer.
[ He holds out a hand for the sweatshirt, still blushing. He can let her have some space and take care of this for her and they'll be back to normal by dinner. It's fine. This is fine. ]
[ she almost hands over the sweatshirt automatically. wash is helping. she's letting him help.
but then she worries that this is going to make things too difficult for them and she just. curls her fingers a little tighter in the fabric. takes a deep breath. asks a question that she probably shouldn't. ]
[ 'Not if you don't' is a cop out answer and Wash knows it, but by virtue of that being the only thing he can think to say in this moment kind of means he would, right? Or might? ]
Maybe? It doesn't matter, right?
[ Because she wouldn't. And god knows he's capable of repression. ]
[ her gaze goes to the door again and she really should just bury this conversation here but nothing is that easy for her. not emotions, not being stuck in her own head, not her best friend. bright green eyes settle on wash's face again as she exhales, leans a little closer to him. ]
[ Carolina looks to the door again and Wash is a split second from just grabbing the sweatshirt and bolting, but then she moves a little closer, and her expression isn't disgusted or incredulous. She isn't laughing. She isn't acting like how someone who isn't interested at all would be acting, and nerves start fluttering in Wash's stomach.
[ depending on if she's the only one who feels conflicted about this or not, feels the tug of something more complicated than their friendship. carolina takes a deep breath, steadies her nerves. ]
I mean, it could be a disaster, but we've survived a lot of those, haven't we?
[ They're going in circles now, and Wash feels like his face is actually burning, but. Fine. He'll spit it out. ]
I'm not sure. I'd be lying if I said I'd never thought about it, but I wouldn't want to screw it up. What we have feels too important to lose, you're my best friend.
[ But he does love her, and doesn't think that could possibly change. What if she's right, and even if it's a disaster they'd manage? Wash takes a slow breath. ]
[ she nods a little, lets her gaze drop as she takes a deep breath. steady. complicated can mean a lot of things. ]
It does feel complicated. But... If we're both worried about the same thing, I think that makes it safe to say that our friendship is going to survive just about anything. [ her eyes flick up to his face again. ] Whether we risk anything or not.
[ Slowly, Wash nods. It feels like she's right. And the past almost-year on Iris with how close they got, how he likes hearing her use his name when it still seems wrong coming from anyone else, how shockingly easy it was to adjust to the bond with Carolina specifically... oh god, nerves.
Don't throw up on her, Wash tells himself desperately. ]
I'm in to risk it if you are. We could just... see how it feels?
[ There's a chance they're both reading too much into a fraught moment, that they'll kiss and there won't be any chemistry there, but then they'll know for sure.
...oh god when was the last time he kissed anyone? ]
[ carolina nods, not trusting herself with words. she's absolutely going to say something stupid if she tries and she's already said enough, thanks. so she can't say anything, but she will do something, setting the sweatshirt up on the counter before she leans a little closer to wash again, her hand finding his cheek. just like when she'd done it before, the touch is emotionally warm, grateful. still full of love, but charged with a confused sort of anxiety. worry that it's a wrong move, but worry that it might be right, too, because that's a different sort of scary.
with that contact established, she moves slowly, watching his face as she leans in closer, so goddamn close, but stopping shy of actually kissing him. ]
[ Carolina's emotions might be categorized as confused anxiety, but Wash's are straight up on a razor's edge between excitement and panic, with subtler hints within each. Hope, love, and a freshly unrepressed longing war with his worry that they're wrong, or they're right but it'll go wrong somehow. He screws everything up.
...except their friendship. So maybe.
He finds himself holding his breath as Carolina leans in, but then she stops, and there's a burst of confusion from Wash as he tries to figure out if she's having second thoughts or just wants him to close the distance. The overlapping tangle of their feelings is getting to be a little overwhelming but he thinks it's that they're both nervous, and that's okay. This is a lot.
Forcing himself to breathe again Wash takes a baby step and presses their foreheads together, lifting a hand to cradle the back of Carolina's neck protectively. Keeping her close against him thinking maybe they just need to go slow, adjust to each step of this. The anxiety doesn't go away, but as he closes his eyes and brushes their noses together to get used to being so close, sharing her air, some of the fluttering in his stomach calms. One step at a time. This isn't something either of them thought they'd ever have again, he's pretty sure.
When he finally tilts his head and changes the angle to kiss her, it's soft and warm and careful. Very chaste even by first kiss standards, Wash not knowing how much would be too much. ]
[ every little extra touch helps, in its way. this sort of intimacy is something carolina's never been particularly good at and whatever her last attempts at it had been, they're in the distant past. wash's own nervousness blends with her own, but just makes her feel less alone, closer to him. it doesn't make anything worse.
so when the kiss comes, it's easy to return, carolina pressing back, lips parting slightly, but not necessarily seeking anything further. not for a lack of interest in him, but because this is sort of perfect the way it is. careful and chaste is what they needed and by the time that first kiss ends, she's feeling less of her own anxiety and more of that hopefulness she'd caught flickering within wash. it's nice and warm and the reason she slides her hand to the back of his head, fingers curling in his hair. and she kisses him anew, keeping it brief but needing that extra little bit of connection before she eases away to press her forehead to his again.
there's something a little giddy feeling in her emotions. she tries to keep it under control. ]
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she's cried like this in front of someone else exactly once in at least twenty years. early in their first visit to chorus, epsilon in her head, palpably torn between straight up leaving until she got it out of her system and some awkward, unsteady, "how the fuck am I supposed to help?" in the end, he had stayed, let her cry herself out. asked her to please never do that again and complained about her being a mess when she finally caught her breath, even as he filled her head with warm affection.
wash isn't any less important or safe to her than epsilon was, but she still hates this.
so she can't go to him just yet, looking at him with tear-filled eyes before it's too much and "it wasn't your fault" feels like the cruelest lie. of course connie's death is her fault. all of their deaths are.
she manages to stumble a few steps over to sit on the closed toilet seat instead of outright sinking to the floor and drops her head into her hands as her elbows dig into her knees. her hands straight up hurt now and she's been clenching them so tightly that the worst of the jagged scrapes on her knuckles has the odd trickle of blood slipping over the back of her hand, down her wrist to soak into the sleeve of her sweater. she'll clean it later. right now, the pain is of some twisted benefit to her now and she uses it to anchor herself as she draws deep, shuddering breaths. tries to stop crying. tries to feel less guilty and angry and broken about the whole thing.
eventually, she calms down enough to try speaking, but she's still not really calm, anxiety still crushing her chest and anger still heating her face. ]
I wanted her to come home.
[ in all fairness, she knows connie probably didn't think of the mother of invention as home. a comfortable enough ship to be stationed on, full of people she might have trusted at one far-removed time but not anymore. it was home for carolina, more than the quiet house on earth ever was, because it's where her family was. where she'd felt the safest, right up until the end.
when carolina says home, she just means wherever her people are.
she lifts her head slightly, glancing up at wash and breathing out a quiet, ] I tried.
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He sits quietly, head tilted back to watch her, stomaching twisting. Finally, she speaks. Looks up at him a little and is just so sad, Wash almost can't take it. But he stays with her. ]
...I know now.
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it's clearly mistaken now, but she thought she had to want to share memories. not just be stuck in her head and trying to let someone help her. carolina thinks she can avoid this in the future, probably - keep it tucked away in key moments the way she'd kept memories tucked away from her ai, when she'd had them. keeping things from epsilon had been futile sometimes and he still poked around wherever he wanted to, digging out snippets to fill in the blanks he got from the director's memories, but with the twins, it had worked. she'd hidden her least rational fears from eta, hidden the way york made her feel once upon a time from iota.
she can do this.
tugging her sleeves down over her palms, she takes a deep breath and starts trying to wipe her face off, adding to the mess around the wrists and ensuring that she definitely needs to do laundry before the day is up. it's a later problem. right now, it takes a while before she finds her voice again. ]
Before Tex engaged her, Connie was talking about how we'd all be paying for what the Director did by the end of the Project. How we already were. I feel like I've been trying to fix everything he broke forever and it'll never stop, I'll never catch up. Like I'm going to be trying to atone for Project Freelancer until it kills me.
[ carolina draws another shaky breath and looks up again, seeking wash's gaze. her face is splotchy, expression anguished, but she's gotten herself back under control. ]
David... I'm so tired of it.
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He sighs, then leans forward and reaches up to grab the icepack off the edge of the sink and gives it a twist and shake to activate the cold. If she's not going to let him clean her other hand yet she can at least keep the swelling down. Even with her sleeves pulled down Wash can tell her knuckles are puffy and bruising. ]
I feel the same way. [ he finally says, trying to put it into words, ] But you seem to get blamed more than I do. Maybe because you were the leader, maybe because you were the best of us, I don't... I don't know, honestly. But I'm not going to let atonement kill you. Or let you kill yourself trying to atone.
We've left each other alone before, it didn't end well either time. I'm not leaving you ever again.
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she's missed him being himself and she loves him so much and she doesn't mind that she has to duck her head to wipe her face off another time, sniffling a little behind her hands as she pulls herself back together. she'll sort words out in a minute, once she's stopped crying again, because this is embarrassing as hell. it's a long, painful few seconds, but eventually she manages and sits upright to take a deep breath, pushing the sleeves of her sweater up to her elbows, baring her forearms and the mess that is the back of her hands.
reaching out to brush her fingertips across the back of one of his hands is her way of accepting help from him now and serves the bonus purpose of sharing just how much she appreciates him. she's so bad at words but for all the grief and pain and exhaustion simmering beneath the surface, the most obvious thing she shares with him is affection: warm, protective love. ]
I'm not leaving you, either.
[ because she has to keep looking out for him, yes, but also because she needs him far more than she'll ever be capable of admitting. ]
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He turns his hand to hold hers gently, settling the icepack over her knuckles and maintaining the bond, sending his own love back as best he can. It's okay that there's other stuff in the background, he thinks. Like stones affecting the flow of a stream, things are never going to be perfectly smooth. But they have each other. ]
I'm sorry today was hard. But I really am glad you're here with me now.
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she gives a little nod, agreeing as she keeps her eyes on his face. ]
Me, too. We'll be okay.
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[ He shifts, setting her hand down on her own knee and reaching for the other, drawing it over so she's holding the pack on the knuckles he's already cleaned. ]
Keep that there, I'll get your other hand. This one's probably going to sting.
[ A little more reaching and Wash winds up kneeling in front of her where she sits, pouring peroxide onto the gauze and dabbing at the scrapes far more carefully than he probably needs to. Far more gently. Only a few tiny beads of blood well up under his attentions, but he still wants to wrap the deeper cuts. To protect her other clothes if nothing else, it's not like they have expansive wardrobes here. ]
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but there is the odd bit of contact between them as he works and any of carolina's feelings wash picks up are steady. warmth, gratitude, far more vibrant than every tired, worn emotion underneath, even if they're always present somewhere.
when he's finished whatever bandaging he wants to do - she doesn't think it's necessary, but she holds her tongue, this time - carolina raises a hand to cup his cheek. her fingers are cold from holding the icepack so the touch is almost certainly some sort of unpleasant, but... well, she's trying. ]
Thank you.
[ for so much more than just helping clean her up, but she won't specify out loud. the emotional bond between them probably expresses enough. ]
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He doesn't flinch, just looks up at her to see what she wants, but what she says is exactly what he feels coming across the bond. Gratitude. For more than just her knuckles.
The moment lingers and slowly, Wash kneels up to bring them closer, not dislodging the hand on his cheek until he reaches out to pull her into a hug. She'll have to lean over slightly, but he honestly didn't think about standing and tugging her up after him. He's feeling a little wrung out from all of this -- the bond can take it out of him at the best of times but right now it's a good thing. Comforting.
What he says next, however, might throw her for a bit of a loop. ]
Take off your sweatshirt.
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and then wash talks and carolina's mind goes to the absolute worst place first, because it really wasn't that long ago that she watched an actor pretending to be wash say almost the exact same thing and have it mean something completely different than it should. there's a hitch in her breath and because she chooses not to jerk away (this time, like she's done so much in the past when things have gotten unpleasant between them) wash has a front row seat to the rush of sequential emotions that creates.
panic kicks in fast, but it's one of those emotions in carolina that's always ready. but the anxiety is different than usual, it's flustered, because she remembers how she felt on that beach for real. missing york and hating herself for the choices she made, not sure at all that carrying his lighter around with her actually helped anything. and wash was there, dragging her out of her head, letting her feel that bittersweet ache, giving her permission to keep something she could have let go of.
she'd been close to wash for quite some time, but that moment, with him holding her hand, had felt like a different kind of close. taking off her armour to figure out just what kind of close they could be seemed like a possibility she should consider. a real option, whatever wash was offering her.
except he was just offering her a way of speeding up their problem solving and dear god she's an idiot.
if wash has ever wondered what carolina full on mortified would feel or sound like, it's this, complete with an almost pained little noise at just how stupid she feels. ]
Good call.
[ because the sleeves of it are disgusting and carolina knows this but there's still reluctance in the way she pulls back now, letting go of him so she can unzip the garment and start to pull it off. ]
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Oh god. I'm sorry, did you think I meant--
[ His eyes go wide and he blushes under his freckles, standing up with a deer in headlights expression. ]
I-- would you ever--
[ Would she have wanted that? Because. That sure was a moment, but Wash isn't sure he even know how to be with someone anymore. If he ever did. ]
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[ she's grasping at words here, at some reasonable, diplomatic way of explaining herself and "a guy we know made us a thing in the movie he's making" would lead to so many more questions than answers, so she can't even try to blame jax. still kind of blames him, sure, but also has to blame wash for being so endearingly good to her. blames that more than anything else.
stupid wash, being good for her. ]
I mean, I wouldn't... [ hate the idea.
but that could put him on the spot, risk their friendship and the way they are here and she can't afford to lose him. pulling the sweatshirt off, she bundles it against her chest like a security blanket, clenched in her hands, and glances toward the door. she could just leave, maybe. ]
Can we just- Wash, I-
[ her face was already red from crying, so maybe he won't notice how hard she's blushing, too. god, she misses her helmet. ]
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Yeah, of course. Here, I'll put it in the washer.
[ He holds out a hand for the sweatshirt, still blushing. He can let her have some space and take care of this for her and they'll be back to normal by dinner. It's fine. This is fine. ]
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but then she worries that this is going to make things too difficult for them and she just. curls her fingers a little tighter in the fabric. takes a deep breath. asks a question that she probably shouldn't. ]
Would you want that?
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[ 'Not if you don't' is a cop out answer and Wash knows it, but by virtue of that being the only thing he can think to say in this moment kind of means he would, right? Or might? ]
Maybe? It doesn't matter, right?
[ Because she wouldn't. And god knows he's capable of repression. ]
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It might matter.
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He doesn't pull back. ]
Depending on what?
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[ depending on if she's the only one who feels conflicted about this or not, feels the tug of something more complicated than their friendship. carolina takes a deep breath, steadies her nerves. ]
I mean, it could be a disaster, but we've survived a lot of those, haven't we?
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[ They're going in circles now, and Wash feels like his face is actually burning, but. Fine. He'll spit it out. ]
I'm not sure. I'd be lying if I said I'd never thought about it, but I wouldn't want to screw it up. What we have feels too important to lose, you're my best friend.
[ But he does love her, and doesn't think that could possibly change. What if she's right, and even if it's a disaster they'd manage? Wash takes a slow breath. ]
It feels complicated.
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It does feel complicated. But... If we're both worried about the same thing, I think that makes it safe to say that our friendship is going to survive just about anything. [ her eyes flick up to his face again. ] Whether we risk anything or not.
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Don't throw up on her, Wash tells himself desperately. ]
I'm in to risk it if you are. We could just... see how it feels?
[ There's a chance they're both reading too much into a fraught moment, that they'll kiss and there won't be any chemistry there, but then they'll know for sure.
...oh god when was the last time he kissed anyone? ]
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with that contact established, she moves slowly, watching his face as she leans in closer, so goddamn close, but stopping shy of actually kissing him. ]
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...except their friendship. So maybe.
He finds himself holding his breath as Carolina leans in, but then she stops, and there's a burst of confusion from Wash as he tries to figure out if she's having second thoughts or just wants him to close the distance. The overlapping tangle of their feelings is getting to be a little overwhelming but he thinks it's that they're both nervous, and that's okay. This is a lot.
Forcing himself to breathe again Wash takes a baby step and presses their foreheads together, lifting a hand to cradle the back of Carolina's neck protectively. Keeping her close against him thinking maybe they just need to go slow, adjust to each step of this. The anxiety doesn't go away, but as he closes his eyes and brushes their noses together to get used to being so close, sharing her air, some of the fluttering in his stomach calms. One step at a time. This isn't something either of them thought they'd ever have again, he's pretty sure.
When he finally tilts his head and changes the angle to kiss her, it's soft and warm and careful. Very chaste even by first kiss standards, Wash not knowing how much would be too much. ]
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so when the kiss comes, it's easy to return, carolina pressing back, lips parting slightly, but not necessarily seeking anything further. not for a lack of interest in him, but because this is sort of perfect the way it is. careful and chaste is what they needed and by the time that first kiss ends, she's feeling less of her own anxiety and more of that hopefulness she'd caught flickering within wash. it's nice and warm and the reason she slides her hand to the back of his head, fingers curling in his hair. and she kisses him anew, keeping it brief but needing that extra little bit of connection before she eases away to press her forehead to his again.
there's something a little giddy feeling in her emotions. she tries to keep it under control. ]
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