"Yes, well. Everything's always easier with distance. I'm sure that if I had been able to look at myself from the outside, I'd have shaken my own teeth loose." That's not how perspective works, sadly. At least not until someone listens and explains it in a way that clicks.
Macaque waits through the explanation, and is... touched. And a hint guilty, because Wash shouldn't have to rip himself open to stop Macaque from getting himself into bad situations. But mostly, it strikes him as a similar show of trust to letting his six ears show.
"Okay." He's being given permission to use that name in emergencies, and he'll do so sparingly. At the very least, considering using something so loaded as a way to jar Wash out of a mood might clue Macaque in that he needs to be careful. "Thank you."
"I wish I had a name of my own to give you, but I never got one of my own." He was called the Six-Eared Macaque because that's what described him, and to almost everyone around him, that's all he ever was.
"I feel that," Wash said. He would be hella judgemental of himself. For many reasons, honestly.
He nods and actually lifts up his hand, to kiss his knuckles. "You're giving a lot to help me," he said. So he wants to recognize that trust. And his name was a show of trust. It throws off a lot of his mental balancing acts, and its takes being in an incredibly safe place to hear it without some kind of mental kick.
"Its never too late to choose your own name," he said. "Or I could call you Sixer. Most people I know back home used some kind of nicknames or last names." Really, he was probably getting away with Wash as long as he has by virtue of the number of nicknames people use.
That kiss is such a little thing, but it feels much bigger in Macaque's head. "You went into my heart to help me, to say nothing of giving me your whole story just to help with the nightmares. And this whole setup, which took a lot of paying attention to what I like . I think I still have a ways to go before we're even."
That doesn't mean he's going to fight too hard about it. He just knows what Wash deserves from his perspective and it's a hell of a lot. "But... I'm glad you see me that way. Stupid choices and all."
"Referencing six might get people asking questions I don't want to answer if it's overheard. But... some people call me Mac for short." Which he never actually gave them permission to do, they just decided to and he was fine with it. This is the first time he's offering it.
Its hard to say how big it actually is, but its not nothing either. Its important to see what affection gets a reaction. It helps in figuring out where he stands when it comes to these feelings.
"Ah, but when people ask those questions, that's when you start making up bullshit. Its amazing how long you can avoid actually explaining the reasoning behind a nickname," he said with some amusement. "But Mac is good too."
He is still looking at his hand, tracing those slow circles. "The heart did also have guilt and having experience with how they function," he said. "Even if I hate them, having people just be reckless in a heart is worse. As for telling you...that I had to. One thing amnesia made clear is having a support system is vital for how bad it goes. Epsilon may have broken the class, but it was Article 12 that made all the pieces fall."
He shrugged. "As for the paying attention thing, I'm just good at details and also you and I have similar taste in food."
Macaque chuckles, though it comes out almost flat. "I'm great at bullshitting -- well for anyone who isn't you at any rate -- you don't have to tell me that. I just know that don't want to do it about that." There's a reason he started going by just Macaque, except for when he introduced himself to MK, which was more about hoping MK would clock him from Journey to the West and be all the more eager to train with him. Little did he know how shit MK was with any parts of that story other than 'Monkey King Does Something Awesome'.
Besides, turning the defining trauma of his life into a cute nickname and then getting potential stranger questions and then horseshit stories following from that, or at minimum having to think about the possibility, would be a lot for anyone. If he was that healthy a lot of things would be different.
"It doesn't really matter why you did all that stuff. You still did, and one of the reasons was to help me." He doesn't want to say it was the reason, since probably supporting Choco and Donnie was in there too, but it's good enough that wanting to help Macaque was a factor. "I'll have to pay closer attention to you so I can make some effort to keep up with repaying it all."
He pauses, thinking for a second, then decides it's not worth trying to bypass the obvious. Whether he says something or doesn't, Wash will know.
"Choco didn't tell me about Article 12. I'm not asking you to get into that if you don't want to, but just so you know I'm not familiar enough to follow."
"I mean, part of the fun is people know the stories aren't real, but one of them MIGHT be real and trying to figure it out," he said and shrugged. "But fair enough."
"It was one of the reasons, yeah," Wash said. It was also helping someone important to Choco and Donnie, but for all Wash can be an utter bastard...he does like helping people. He cares about people and wants to make the world better. It was why he joined the army in the first place. To help keep people safe, because he was good at what he did, and the army needed people.
He just gets a lot more tired about saving people these days after all the bullshit, but that part of him isn't gone. It just needs more breaks.
"To be fair, I'm not hard to figure out. These days. Choco, the guys, and Carolina have done a fuckton to get me to not ride so hard on my bullshit. At least out of high stress situations," he said. Its honestly really weird NOT having something potentially trying to kill him every other day and he has to remind himself to not become a paranoid asshole about it.
...honestly, Donnie's security system is helping him fight that impulse A LOT.
He hummed. "It was hard to say if she did. It might even take her a bit to put the pieces together, though I'm sure she will at some point," he said. "Article 12 is Leave of Absence from the military. It can be for various reasons, but mine was 'unfit for duty due to mental instability.' Until I could pass a psyche eval, I couldn't rejoin the army. Now, keep in mind, at this point? The army was desperate for bodies. We were in a war that threatened the extinction of the entire human race and we were still losing at that point. To be declared mentally unsound means they had to prove I would be a detriment to those around me. Unsafe and a threat. And oh look, I was full of a whole bunch of tech that meant a civilian mental ward wouldn't be able to keep me. So the Project so graciously took responsibility for me."
"I have a different answer every time someone asks me where the things I toss in the portals end up. I know the game. Even why I'm blind in one eye, and that's how Wukong killed me so not exactly fun to think about. But if I start doing it with the number six, sooner or later I'll be caught off guard and I'll flinch. There's a reason I keep them covered unless I don't have a choice. And once while I was out with Red, but that was more about getting a reaction out of him." He grins shamelessly. Totally worth the staring and whispers.
Macaque follows the mood into something more soft and serious when Wash gets into Article 12. The Army brass sounds just like those assholes from Heaven. Moving real people around like chess pieces and not caring what happens to them on their watch. "...Damn. Gotta love bureaucracies when they do shit like that."
Wash hummed. "Well, nice to know you're comfortable enough with them to show off when properly motivated. I'm glad you have Red Son for that, at least," he said. David isn't a name he can hear all the time, but it had been a relief the day he realized when alone with Carolina, the Blues, and Reds, he could stand to hear it more often.
Its an important thing to be able to do.
"The UNSC isn't perfect, but they were trying their best. They tried to maintain some sense of order and ethics. But desperation allows for a high likelihood to not look too closely and hope something works. Anyone too blatant gets taken down, but those who know how to keep it close to the vest, they could get away with a lot. There was a lot of that. Some of it was malicious. Some of it was like the Project. Where there was good intent, but they took advantage of that blind eye. The fucked up thing is that was actually what helped win the war. Project Freelancer wasn't the one, but the one who kidnapped kids to experiment on ended up being the game changer. That was actually the project that figured out the processes that make up a lot of my own augmentation," he said. "But one of those kids, Masterchief, he'd been instrumental in ending the war. Both with the Covenant and the Flood."
"But that is a whole thing. I don't blame the UNSC for not looking close enough. They hadn't even noticed there was multiple AIs in the field when there should only be one. Not to mention all of the Agents that had gone MIA at that time. Them not getting too concerned about me being put into Project Freelancer's personal psychiatric ward isn't such a surprise. Especially when our concept was to mix an AI with a human brain, it was kind of expected go crazy could be a consequence," he said, tugging up Macaque's sleeve a bit to pet his arm fur.
"Not only him." That was just the one notable time in public. He'd have done the same with MK if they hadn't been going where they were going. "Choco encouraged me to take my glamours down at your place, which I will when I think of it. At this point I have to actively remember to leave them down rather than the opposite."
But since they're on the topic, down go the glamours. Ears and his eye (and others, one of which is a scar that will show when Wash rolls his sleeve up).
--Anyway, there are more horror stories to listen to-
"Kidnapping and experimenting on kids?!" Macaque practically growls it in a way that makes clear that it's a very good thing those particular assholes aren't in front of him right now.
He allows his sleeve to be tugged up, he's still stuck on a military kidnapping and experimenting on children. If Wash were to look up at his face right now, it looks scary as hell. But when the petting starts, he forces himself to relax. It's over and done with, and not really his right to be furious over.
"Good. I'm glad for you," he said. "And I'm not surprised. Even if she's having trouble with her stuff, she would never want anyone to feel like they have to hide themselves. She'd steal my helmet whenever she visited my world and knew it was a safe zone," he said. A brief pause. "She would steal it because she knows I won't fight her on it and recognize I may need the push."
"Yyyyeah, it was...a whole thing when it came out," Wash said. He's not happy about it either. But its also been a very long time since that all happened and came out, so he had his time to be horrified by it. What could be done, had been done. "Desperate people make desperate decisions. It doesn't make what they did okay by a long shot, but its the same reason I agreed to get another person shoved into my brain. If it meant planets would be glassed anymore, it seemed worth it. 'What is a few dozen kids compared to the billions who have died and will die?'"
Desperation at its very infest.
He runs his hand over Macaque's arm. Traces over the scar. Gently runs through the fur. "Glassing was orbital plasma bombardment. Any place on the planets surface that's hit will turn into Lechatelierite. Looks like glass. Destroys all life on the planet, plants included. Once the process has started, the only hope is to leave the planet. Even if the glassing ships are taken down, which was rare, the atmosphere will be too wrecked for life to keep living on it. And the only way to leave a planet is by ship. Which would be shot down, so forces had to focus on protecting those ships instead of trying to take down the Covenant ships. Glassing was Covenant procedure for any planet they found that was occupied by humans, unless there was a specific reason not to. Usually because there was Forerunner ruins somewhere on it. Ancient race the Covenant worshiped. Several billion civilians, they'd wipe out without a second thought, but one ancient pyramid? Then it was ground troops."
"I wish she wouldn't read into it. I wish no one would. It's about me and not about them, or how much I love them or trust them. But I know how easy it can be for people to get the wrong idea, so I'm trying to be better about it. For a given definition of better." Success varies according to a lot of factors.
Macaque doesn't especially want to hear more, not once the genocide starts. Not much turns his stomach, but that does. However, if Wash needs to say it, then the least he can do is listen.
"Not to state the obvious, but everything about that is fucked. Does it still happen?"
"I'm pretty sure she's not reading it as a rejection of her. She isn't removing my helmet because she thinks I don't trust her. Its that I use it as away to maintain a distance and safety as a default defense mechanism. She removes it so I'll bond more with other people because she knows I want to," he said. "But you can ask her to be sure."
"No, not anymore. Like I said, Masterchief ended up being the silver bullet. There were other factors at play, of course, but he was a deciding factors in a lot of ways. We managed to find out the truth behind the whole genocidal practices and found a way to make peace with some of the species in the Covenant and deal with the rest who wouldn't be reasoned with," Wash said. "It doesn't make what happened to those kids, or to a lot of other people right, not by a long shot, but..."
He just kind of pauses, staring at the middle distance. "But...I do understand it. I was on one of those ships as a kid. Less than five percent of the population got off world. So...for all of the UNSC's flaws...I still remember the soldiers and relief workers who touched down on a city that was half in rubble, still trying to find people before the plasma got closer. Still bothering to ask where my parents were, that they would have tried to save them if they had just been trapped."
He sighs, but only lightly. More an exhale than anything. "In my case, it's the opposite. Hiding my ears encourages me to interact with people. I know I shouldn't care, but here we are. The first however many decades of my life was spent in nonstop isolation because of how I looked, it's not easy to brush off. Maybe as long as a century and change?" Ah well, the timeframe isn't important, the point is it was a long time.
Macaque is quiet again as Wash speaks. "You've really never had it easy, have you?"
He nods. "Understandable. People really can be dicks," he said. "...and monkeys." Humans and monkeys need to get it together. "Their loss, really. You're pretty cool and the ears are pretty in a way that's hard to describe, but they are."
"I had a great foster family," he said. "Dealt with bullies because even when there's a massive war orphan problem, some people still decide to make it a whole thing. But my sisters and parents? They were great. Had my back. Even if dad always hated my cats, but I'd get Cindy in on the puppy dog eye action and he'd cave."
"But...whenever I was in the war, it was bad. Some of it is just normal war stuff, but I did have a streak of being in some notably terrible incidents. On the other hand, it was a lot of forged in fire moments. I didn't always succeed my missions, but I became known as someone who got his people out alive and just wouldn't die. I was incredibly vexing for a lot of my COs." He chuckled. "I'd call them out when they were making the wrong decision or being assholes for no good reason, but they could never quite justify court martialing me because I had saved like ten guys just the other day. I got transferred a lot."
There is a noticeably long pause. Wash can probably tell without looking that complimenting his ears made him blush. "And here I thought you were just playing with them for the reactions." Which he probably mostly was, but even so.
"I'm glad you had people. Even if they didn't all like cats." Adorable to imagine tiny Wash with puppy eyes though, pleading for another kitty.
On the other hand, imagining him being justifiably a dick to his superiors is fun in a different way.
"I mean, the reactions were certainly worth it," he said. "But if I could get at them comfortably from this angle, I would be petting them. Your arm is just easier." Laziness is saving Macaque's cool points.
"It was honestly probably my saving grace in a lot of ways. I don't know if I was born with the mental divides I have, but I learned to build the walls that time as a kid. Kept me going. But the McCormicks allowed me to move back into having fun and loving people and all that again. Instead of being stuck in the trauma, I could allow myself to be...human and happy. Keep terrifying laser focus for times when I needed it, be happy the rest," he said. Even if surviving the glassing didn't require the rage, it had been shutting down all his other emotions that had kept him from freezing up and getting killed.
"Even if it meant fighting dad about cats all the time," he said with a huff and a fond smile.
"Oh, there was always some stupid luck. I could tell you some stories about Loki, but yeah, it got a lot more obvious in warzones. I got declared KIA five different times before showing up with my squad a few days later. Always managed to blow things up just the right way to get things done in the most chaotic way possible. I would have some kind of incident with a car once a month. I met Connie in basic, she taught me to throw knives. I met Maine on another planet, and I was the only guy who convinced him to take off his helmet and eat with the rest of the squad. This was before they were recruited to Project Freelancer. And then one day I was on a nothing mining planet with like three settlements on it, we found some Forerunner tech, just in time for the Covenant to show up. I got put in charge because the CO was horrifically wounded in the first barrage and he knew my reputation for not letting people die. And we were too small to get help any quicker than a week, and if any Covenant to retrieve the tech we found, the planet was glass. It was last or die. Now this was before I was augmented and I slept...four hours in a week. Luckily, I remembered the weather report had flash floods soon, so I had us blow up the terrain to make mud pits swallow up enemy forces. So we just had to hold the wall and take potshots on those not swallowed up by the ground. And when back up arrives, whose there, but Maine. He greeted me and then I passed the fuck out into the mud. That was how Freelancer noticed me."
Another pause, and then Macaque's weight shifts to hold himself and Wash up as the tree behind them -- vanishes. Macaque portaled the tree and its entire root structure three feet back. He then lays down on the ground and pulls Wash along with him, so they're laying on the ground rather than against the tree. "Pet away." He's still a bit red, but whatever. After hearing Wash's horror stories, he wanted to do something nice.
Yeah he sure did do that just so Wash could get what he wanted. It's not like it took effort.
"That explains a lot, your foster family I mean. Why you're able to be who you are." Instead of completely out of his mind. Macaque would probably have been very different if he'd found any acceptance earlier in his life.
"Stupid luck, but at least some of that was you." Credit where it's due, and all. He did a lot without magic or unique strength, advantages that Macaque had always taken more or less for granted.
Well, how can he say no to that? He'll shift to a more comfortable position, a hand going to his ears, petting his ears gently. Being very careful compared to how rough he had been the other day.
"Yeah. I love them a lot. They likely think I'm dead by now, but....I know where they are now. I was able to find that out before all the Time Travel nonsense. I just kind of have to get the nerve to face all that. I know they'll be happy to see me. But they'll also see all the differences. But...I want Choco to meet them. And the guys and Carolina. Its just one of those things that need to be braced for and I need to stop being kidnapped by gods or whatever," he said, a bit wistful. Its not like he could tell them he joined Project Freelancer. Codenames were that for a reason. Who knows what they've been told.
"Well, of course. Luck only makes the situations. If you don't have some ability to capitalize on it, it can only get you so far. The Reds and Blues have even stupider luck, and even they needed some skills to use it effectively," he said. "Caboose is strong and does some weird stuff when it comes to machines, like Donnie level stuff somehow, Grif is great with vehicles, Sarge is great at reading chaotic battlefield situations, Simmons is smart, Donut has one hell of an arm, and Tucker...well, Tucker is a lot of things, and he's pretty amazing when he tries," he said and there is a definite note of fondness to his tone on that last name.
Macaque starts purring pretty much immediately. And it really is quite unlike a cat's purring, if he's listening for that.
"If you could stop getting kidnapped, that would be good. You and Choco both. In fact, please stop or else Red is going to need to rip through a lot of dimensions looking." He's just saying, it's for the greater good and all.
Macaque chuckles at the Obviousness. That's probably nothing compared to how he sounds when he talks about Red or MK or especially Wukong.
He is definitely listen. Its important to memorize specific sounds and purr types.
"To be fair, Roxy knows to look out for us if we actually go 'missing.' Church is a mother hen and he hardcore adopted Choco. And Epsilon would be the same for me. Its the whole 'time usually isn't passing' that's usually a problem. Its why Lott feels like he only saw us two months ago even though its been like...a year. Or something. Its been a long while, time is a mess," Wash said. "And I'm pretty sure Donnie is making interdimensional tracker schematics by now."
So much gently scritching for the ears. "There is also something to be said for making connection. They managed to get through to a lot of people in crazy situations just by taking chances for people who may not deserve it," he said. "But they've never been wrong regarding second chances." Maybe first chances, but not seconds.
His purring is much deeper than a cat's, for one thing, and it has a wildness to it that house cats don't.
"I could've told you that time is a mess and I don't even remember exactly how old I am." No surprise there. "Interdimensional travel isn't really my area, but I've done some reading about it to impress Red so I'm confident when I say it's complicated as hell. Explaining what will happen is exponentially harder than explaining why something did happen."
He hums and leans into the scritching. "I'm all for making connections. Making the best of what we have. All that. Why do you think I'm letting you at my ears even though it goes against centuries of habit?"
"It is very complicated. I think Roxy and Caboose are the only people I know who could understand it fully," he said. And one is literally made for it, and Caboose just might be an eldritch being, it would not surprise him. "I'd need to count the days to really say how much time has passed."
"Because I'm great at scritches?" Wash teased and scratched at the base.
"Connections are important though. That's why I told you everything. While I was under Article 12, I was stuck with people I knew would kill me if I tipped the scale from 'potentially useful limited resource' to 'threat.' That they were trying to find ways to break me and mold me to something useful and I had to make them think it was working. They always chose these fresh doctors and nurses to help me, and it didn't take long to figure out the threat. I try to leave, they're not going to be careful with their shots. Couldn't ask for help because getting transferred was the lucky outcome. And they'd always ask me about the agents who fled. Reminded me constantly that none of them had come back for me. Despite my best efforts, I can't say that didn't have an impact. Not as strong as they would have liked, but...it did enough," he said, staring at the sky. "I didn't want you to feel alone with all that pain, because its so much harder to keep from letting it change you."
"You are pretty great at scritches. Must be all that practice." Macaque keeps on purring and a few soft chirps also filter through, though they probably won't mean much to Wash.
And then the rest of that.
"I was still a stranger. You knew that Choco and I were something, potentially, since I was in there, but you didn't know much else. Even though you had your own reasons, it still meant something to me that you did it. I'm not sure if I could rip myself open to someone I just met like that. I remember sitting in that room and being a bit in awe."
"Had to tempt those strays home somehow," Wash said. He has no idea what the chirps mean, well, not exactly. He's always been good at the nonverbal cues.
"It did help that you were important to Choco. Even when she makes friends with the shadiest motherfuckers around, she still charms them and that meant there was a safety net," he said. "And I wouldn't wish for the Epsilon isolation combination on...well, okay, I would on a few people, but I'm a spiteful, vindictive asshole and I know some really evil people. But there's a really long list of bad people I wouldn't wish it on."
"I'm nothing if not a stray." He says it like a lighthearted joke, even if it might sound rather heavy. Macaque is fine with being a stray, now that he's found places to go home to.
The chirps are equally light, affectionate but in an easygoing way. Clearly approving of being petted and scritched.
"You've probably guessed by now that most of my shadiness is a show. Smoke and mirrors. I only started using it after I died, as a way to keep myself from getting close to people. Didn't work especially well. Now I just do it for fun." Everyone knows he's a marshmallow but he's gotta keep people on their toes somehow.
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Re: A couple days after the Questionable Coping
Macaque waits through the explanation, and is... touched. And a hint guilty, because Wash shouldn't have to rip himself open to stop Macaque from getting himself into bad situations. But mostly, it strikes him as a similar show of trust to letting his six ears show.
"Okay." He's being given permission to use that name in emergencies, and he'll do so sparingly. At the very least, considering using something so loaded as a way to jar Wash out of a mood might clue Macaque in that he needs to be careful. "Thank you."
"I wish I had a name of my own to give you, but I never got one of my own." He was called the Six-Eared Macaque because that's what described him, and to almost everyone around him, that's all he ever was.
Re: A couple days after the Questionable Coping
He nods and actually lifts up his hand, to kiss his knuckles. "You're giving a lot to help me," he said. So he wants to recognize that trust. And his name was a show of trust. It throws off a lot of his mental balancing acts, and its takes being in an incredibly safe place to hear it without some kind of mental kick.
"Its never too late to choose your own name," he said. "Or I could call you Sixer. Most people I know back home used some kind of nicknames or last names." Really, he was probably getting away with Wash as long as he has by virtue of the number of nicknames people use.
Re: A couple days after the Questionable Coping
That doesn't mean he's going to fight too hard about it. He just knows what Wash deserves from his perspective and it's a hell of a lot. "But... I'm glad you see me that way. Stupid choices and all."
"Referencing six might get people asking questions I don't want to answer if it's overheard. But... some people call me Mac for short." Which he never actually gave them permission to do, they just decided to and he was fine with it. This is the first time he's offering it.
Re: A couple days after the Questionable Coping
"Ah, but when people ask those questions, that's when you start making up bullshit. Its amazing how long you can avoid actually explaining the reasoning behind a nickname," he said with some amusement. "But Mac is good too."
He is still looking at his hand, tracing those slow circles. "The heart did also have guilt and having experience with how they function," he said. "Even if I hate them, having people just be reckless in a heart is worse. As for telling you...that I had to. One thing amnesia made clear is having a support system is vital for how bad it goes. Epsilon may have broken the class, but it was Article 12 that made all the pieces fall."
He shrugged. "As for the paying attention thing, I'm just good at details and also you and I have similar taste in food."
Re: A couple days after the Questionable Coping
Besides, turning the defining trauma of his life into a cute nickname and then getting potential stranger questions and then horseshit stories following from that, or at minimum having to think about the possibility, would be a lot for anyone. If he was that healthy a lot of things would be different.
"It doesn't really matter why you did all that stuff. You still did, and one of the reasons was to help me." He doesn't want to say it was the reason, since probably supporting Choco and Donnie was in there too, but it's good enough that wanting to help Macaque was a factor. "I'll have to pay closer attention to you so I can make some effort to keep up with repaying it all."
He pauses, thinking for a second, then decides it's not worth trying to bypass the obvious. Whether he says something or doesn't, Wash will know.
"Choco didn't tell me about Article 12. I'm not asking you to get into that if you don't want to, but just so you know I'm not familiar enough to follow."
Re: A couple days after the Questionable Coping
"It was one of the reasons, yeah," Wash said. It was also helping someone important to Choco and Donnie, but for all Wash can be an utter bastard...he does like helping people. He cares about people and wants to make the world better. It was why he joined the army in the first place. To help keep people safe, because he was good at what he did, and the army needed people.
He just gets a lot more tired about saving people these days after all the bullshit, but that part of him isn't gone. It just needs more breaks.
"To be fair, I'm not hard to figure out. These days. Choco, the guys, and Carolina have done a fuckton to get me to not ride so hard on my bullshit. At least out of high stress situations," he said. Its honestly really weird NOT having something potentially trying to kill him every other day and he has to remind himself to not become a paranoid asshole about it.
...honestly, Donnie's security system is helping him fight that impulse A LOT.
He hummed. "It was hard to say if she did. It might even take her a bit to put the pieces together, though I'm sure she will at some point," he said. "Article 12 is Leave of Absence from the military. It can be for various reasons, but mine was 'unfit for duty due to mental instability.' Until I could pass a psyche eval, I couldn't rejoin the army. Now, keep in mind, at this point? The army was desperate for bodies. We were in a war that threatened the extinction of the entire human race and we were still losing at that point. To be declared mentally unsound means they had to prove I would be a detriment to those around me. Unsafe and a threat. And oh look, I was full of a whole bunch of tech that meant a civilian mental ward wouldn't be able to keep me. So the Project so graciously took responsibility for me."
Re: A couple days after the Questionable Coping
Macaque follows the mood into something more soft and serious when Wash gets into Article 12. The Army brass sounds just like those assholes from Heaven. Moving real people around like chess pieces and not caring what happens to them on their watch. "...Damn. Gotta love bureaucracies when they do shit like that."
Re: A couple days after the Questionable Coping
Its an important thing to be able to do.
"The UNSC isn't perfect, but they were trying their best. They tried to maintain some sense of order and ethics. But desperation allows for a high likelihood to not look too closely and hope something works. Anyone too blatant gets taken down, but those who know how to keep it close to the vest, they could get away with a lot. There was a lot of that. Some of it was malicious. Some of it was like the Project. Where there was good intent, but they took advantage of that blind eye. The fucked up thing is that was actually what helped win the war. Project Freelancer wasn't the one, but the one who kidnapped kids to experiment on ended up being the game changer. That was actually the project that figured out the processes that make up a lot of my own augmentation," he said. "But one of those kids, Masterchief, he'd been instrumental in ending the war. Both with the Covenant and the Flood."
"But that is a whole thing. I don't blame the UNSC for not looking close enough. They hadn't even noticed there was multiple AIs in the field when there should only be one. Not to mention all of the Agents that had gone MIA at that time. Them not getting too concerned about me being put into Project Freelancer's personal psychiatric ward isn't such a surprise. Especially when our concept was to mix an AI with a human brain, it was kind of expected go crazy could be a consequence," he said, tugging up Macaque's sleeve a bit to pet his arm fur.
Re: A couple days after the Questionable Coping
But since they're on the topic, down go the glamours. Ears and his eye (and others, one of which is a scar that will show when Wash rolls his sleeve up).
--Anyway, there are more horror stories to listen to-
"Kidnapping and experimenting on kids?!" Macaque practically growls it in a way that makes clear that it's a very good thing those particular assholes aren't in front of him right now.
He allows his sleeve to be tugged up, he's still stuck on a military kidnapping and experimenting on children. If Wash were to look up at his face right now, it looks scary as hell. But when the petting starts, he forces himself to relax. It's over and done with, and not really his right to be furious over.
"Yeah, those guys are just like Heaven."
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"Yyyyeah, it was...a whole thing when it came out," Wash said. He's not happy about it either. But its also been a very long time since that all happened and came out, so he had his time to be horrified by it. What could be done, had been done. "Desperate people make desperate decisions. It doesn't make what they did okay by a long shot, but its the same reason I agreed to get another person shoved into my brain. If it meant planets would be glassed anymore, it seemed worth it. 'What is a few dozen kids compared to the billions who have died and will die?'"
Desperation at its very infest.
He runs his hand over Macaque's arm. Traces over the scar. Gently runs through the fur. "Glassing was orbital plasma bombardment. Any place on the planets surface that's hit will turn into Lechatelierite. Looks like glass. Destroys all life on the planet, plants included. Once the process has started, the only hope is to leave the planet. Even if the glassing ships are taken down, which was rare, the atmosphere will be too wrecked for life to keep living on it. And the only way to leave a planet is by ship. Which would be shot down, so forces had to focus on protecting those ships instead of trying to take down the Covenant ships. Glassing was Covenant procedure for any planet they found that was occupied by humans, unless there was a specific reason not to. Usually because there was Forerunner ruins somewhere on it. Ancient race the Covenant worshiped. Several billion civilians, they'd wipe out without a second thought, but one ancient pyramid? Then it was ground troops."
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Macaque doesn't especially want to hear more, not once the genocide starts. Not much turns his stomach, but that does. However, if Wash needs to say it, then the least he can do is listen.
"Not to state the obvious, but everything about that is fucked. Does it still happen?"
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"No, not anymore. Like I said, Masterchief ended up being the silver bullet. There were other factors at play, of course, but he was a deciding factors in a lot of ways. We managed to find out the truth behind the whole genocidal practices and found a way to make peace with some of the species in the Covenant and deal with the rest who wouldn't be reasoned with," Wash said. "It doesn't make what happened to those kids, or to a lot of other people right, not by a long shot, but..."
He just kind of pauses, staring at the middle distance. "But...I do understand it. I was on one of those ships as a kid. Less than five percent of the population got off world. So...for all of the UNSC's flaws...I still remember the soldiers and relief workers who touched down on a city that was half in rubble, still trying to find people before the plasma got closer. Still bothering to ask where my parents were, that they would have tried to save them if they had just been trapped."
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Macaque is quiet again as Wash speaks. "You've really never had it easy, have you?"
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"I had a great foster family," he said. "Dealt with bullies because even when there's a massive war orphan problem, some people still decide to make it a whole thing. But my sisters and parents? They were great. Had my back. Even if dad always hated my cats, but I'd get Cindy in on the puppy dog eye action and he'd cave."
"But...whenever I was in the war, it was bad. Some of it is just normal war stuff, but I did have a streak of being in some notably terrible incidents. On the other hand, it was a lot of forged in fire moments. I didn't always succeed my missions, but I became known as someone who got his people out alive and just wouldn't die. I was incredibly vexing for a lot of my COs." He chuckled. "I'd call them out when they were making the wrong decision or being assholes for no good reason, but they could never quite justify court martialing me because I had saved like ten guys just the other day. I got transferred a lot."
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"I'm glad you had people. Even if they didn't all like cats." Adorable to imagine tiny Wash with puppy eyes though, pleading for another kitty.
On the other hand, imagining him being justifiably a dick to his superiors is fun in a different way.
"Is that where your stupid luck became a thing?"
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"It was honestly probably my saving grace in a lot of ways. I don't know if I was born with the mental divides I have, but I learned to build the walls that time as a kid. Kept me going. But the McCormicks allowed me to move back into having fun and loving people and all that again. Instead of being stuck in the trauma, I could allow myself to be...human and happy. Keep terrifying laser focus for times when I needed it, be happy the rest," he said. Even if surviving the glassing didn't require the rage, it had been shutting down all his other emotions that had kept him from freezing up and getting killed.
"Even if it meant fighting dad about cats all the time," he said with a huff and a fond smile.
"Oh, there was always some stupid luck. I could tell you some stories about Loki, but yeah, it got a lot more obvious in warzones. I got declared KIA five different times before showing up with my squad a few days later. Always managed to blow things up just the right way to get things done in the most chaotic way possible. I would have some kind of incident with a car once a month. I met Connie in basic, she taught me to throw knives. I met Maine on another planet, and I was the only guy who convinced him to take off his helmet and eat with the rest of the squad. This was before they were recruited to Project Freelancer. And then one day I was on a nothing mining planet with like three settlements on it, we found some Forerunner tech, just in time for the Covenant to show up. I got put in charge because the CO was horrifically wounded in the first barrage and he knew my reputation for not letting people die. And we were too small to get help any quicker than a week, and if any Covenant to retrieve the tech we found, the planet was glass. It was last or die. Now this was before I was augmented and I slept...four hours in a week. Luckily, I remembered the weather report had flash floods soon, so I had us blow up the terrain to make mud pits swallow up enemy forces. So we just had to hold the wall and take potshots on those not swallowed up by the ground. And when back up arrives, whose there, but Maine. He greeted me and then I passed the fuck out into the mud. That was how Freelancer noticed me."
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Yeah he sure did do that just so Wash could get what he wanted. It's not like it took effort.
"That explains a lot, your foster family I mean. Why you're able to be who you are." Instead of completely out of his mind. Macaque would probably have been very different if he'd found any acceptance earlier in his life.
"Stupid luck, but at least some of that was you." Credit where it's due, and all. He did a lot without magic or unique strength, advantages that Macaque had always taken more or less for granted.
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He doesn't quite expect this sudden shift, but-
Oh.
Cute ears.
Well, how can he say no to that? He'll shift to a more comfortable position, a hand going to his ears, petting his ears gently. Being very careful compared to how rough he had been the other day.
"Yeah. I love them a lot. They likely think I'm dead by now, but....I know where they are now. I was able to find that out before all the Time Travel nonsense. I just kind of have to get the nerve to face all that. I know they'll be happy to see me. But they'll also see all the differences. But...I want Choco to meet them. And the guys and Carolina. Its just one of those things that need to be braced for and I need to stop being kidnapped by gods or whatever," he said, a bit wistful. Its not like he could tell them he joined Project Freelancer. Codenames were that for a reason. Who knows what they've been told.
"Well, of course. Luck only makes the situations. If you don't have some ability to capitalize on it, it can only get you so far. The Reds and Blues have even stupider luck, and even they needed some skills to use it effectively," he said. "Caboose is strong and does some weird stuff when it comes to machines, like Donnie level stuff somehow, Grif is great with vehicles, Sarge is great at reading chaotic battlefield situations, Simmons is smart, Donut has one hell of an arm, and Tucker...well, Tucker is a lot of things, and he's pretty amazing when he tries," he said and there is a definite note of fondness to his tone on that last name.
Choco is a menace.
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"If you could stop getting kidnapped, that would be good. You and Choco both. In fact, please stop or else Red is going to need to rip through a lot of dimensions looking." He's just saying, it's for the greater good and all.
Macaque chuckles at the Obviousness. That's probably nothing compared to how he sounds when he talks about Red or MK or especially Wukong.
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"To be fair, Roxy knows to look out for us if we actually go 'missing.' Church is a mother hen and he hardcore adopted Choco. And Epsilon would be the same for me. Its the whole 'time usually isn't passing' that's usually a problem. Its why Lott feels like he only saw us two months ago even though its been like...a year. Or something. Its been a long while, time is a mess," Wash said. "And I'm pretty sure Donnie is making interdimensional tracker schematics by now."
So much gently scritching for the ears. "There is also something to be said for making connection. They managed to get through to a lot of people in crazy situations just by taking chances for people who may not deserve it," he said. "But they've never been wrong regarding second chances." Maybe first chances, but not seconds.
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"I could've told you that time is a mess and I don't even remember exactly how old I am." No surprise there. "Interdimensional travel isn't really my area, but I've done some reading about it to impress Red so I'm confident when I say it's complicated as hell. Explaining what will happen is exponentially harder than explaining why something did happen."
He hums and leans into the scritching. "I'm all for making connections. Making the best of what we have. All that. Why do you think I'm letting you at my ears even though it goes against centuries of habit?"
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"Because I'm great at scritches?" Wash teased and scratched at the base.
"Connections are important though. That's why I told you everything. While I was under Article 12, I was stuck with people I knew would kill me if I tipped the scale from 'potentially useful limited resource' to 'threat.' That they were trying to find ways to break me and mold me to something useful and I had to make them think it was working. They always chose these fresh doctors and nurses to help me, and it didn't take long to figure out the threat. I try to leave, they're not going to be careful with their shots. Couldn't ask for help because getting transferred was the lucky outcome. And they'd always ask me about the agents who fled. Reminded me constantly that none of them had come back for me. Despite my best efforts, I can't say that didn't have an impact. Not as strong as they would have liked, but...it did enough," he said, staring at the sky. "I didn't want you to feel alone with all that pain, because its so much harder to keep from letting it change you."
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And then the rest of that.
"I was still a stranger. You knew that Choco and I were something, potentially, since I was in there, but you didn't know much else. Even though you had your own reasons, it still meant something to me that you did it. I'm not sure if I could rip myself open to someone I just met like that. I remember sitting in that room and being a bit in awe."
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"It did help that you were important to Choco. Even when she makes friends with the shadiest motherfuckers around, she still charms them and that meant there was a safety net," he said. "And I wouldn't wish for the Epsilon isolation combination on...well, okay, I would on a few people, but I'm a spiteful, vindictive asshole and I know some really evil people. But there's a really long list of bad people I wouldn't wish it on."
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The chirps are equally light, affectionate but in an easygoing way. Clearly approving of being petted and scritched.
"You've probably guessed by now that most of my shadiness is a show. Smoke and mirrors. I only started using it after I died, as a way to keep myself from getting close to people. Didn't work especially well. Now I just do it for fun." Everyone knows he's a marshmallow but he's gotta keep people on their toes somehow.
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