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[So. Church has had to learn a few things pretty quickly. Like tigerlillies are just as Shion said--big playful cuddlebugs who just need some sun and affection. Getting used to having one around all the time took...effort. But Ami, apparently, is happy to help, and her brand of help is usually flopping on you when you're stuck in your head.

So, really, she's had her work cut out for her between both Wash and Church. He chooses to ignore noticing when these things happen and just decides she's just very, very affectionate with her whole body. That sounds like a cat thing.

Or like...thatching roofs. Sure not a thing he's ever had to do or has ever learned how to do. Gardening? That may still be a ways off. And while he refuses to admit that his aim is, in fact, as atrocious as Wash tells people, he knows he's not going to be good at hunting anything running around. So what does that make him, a gatherer? Who doesn't even know what to gather? He shouldn't even be here.

Neither of them should. Which is just one of many, many things hanging over their heads. He's not stupid, or at least compared to the other Reds and Blues he's pretty sure he's not. He knows there's a lot neither of them are saying. Wash especially. Wash who seems to be struggling to show him some amount of...kindness? Guilty kindness. It's weird. The whole thing is weird. He does not...like this. This awkward circling each other even though they now live together. Something's going to break, and it might be one of them, it might be a wall, it might be a voice, but--

But god, he's not going to break this tense peace first. The less said about what happened, the happier they're both going to be, right? So he doesn't have to think about it. About the voices calling out to him and the feeling of being complete when he'd never known he hadn't been and Tex and fire and the wave of light.

No. Don't think about it. Better off forgetting it. Right? Shed memories to keep himself safe? Stop thinking about it.]

Heyyyy big girl. [Ami's fluffy face gets a thorough rubbing.] Never thought I'd be a cat person or have a green thumb.

[It would've been easier if he'd showed up sooner, Wash catches himself thinking. He aborts the thought before it metastasizes into something he can recognize as resentment or envy or something worse - packages it away, compressed and compartmentalized and annexed down into a shape he can safely tuck away where he'll never have to look at it again. Unwanted memories and unwanted dreams can go the same place as every other memory that he was never supposed to have.]

[The problem is just that he's never - he'd adjusted to things without realizing that he had, and now there's a new spanner in the works and what's worse is that it's not just any spanner, but one that he owes for all the shit he pulled, the guilt and disgust and blame and everything. Can't just walk away and say, fuck it, deal with things your own damn self. It doesn't work like that. He's not allowing himself that, for all that it might make shit easier.]

[Right now, he's out of armor - a rarity at home that's come to be as standard as anything else here. His current wardrobe isn't the most tactical or tasteful, but...]

[She gave it to him.]

[So he's not about to get rid of it.]

[Hands in his pockets, halfway toward moving to check his allotment of coffee plants from Ignis, and he thinks it's safe enough to say:]

She likes you.

[About on part with 'Wash being nice out of some kind of twisted guilt complex that he's gonna get yelled about at some point' kind of weirdness is 'Wash out of armor'. He didn't even know Tucker was black! Everywhere's practically a battlefield, and he's certainly never seen any Freelancers out of armor. (Maybe he had. Back when he doesn't remember.) So it's...that's a thing. It's a thing that's on the pile of things to learn and get used to and deal with. Even his voice rings oddly without the armor. He just...he just looks like a person. Just David rather than Agent Washington or Recovery One.

Hoodie's cute. Military and cats. He's not sure how much he's even allowed to ask, if do you like cats is too stupid given he's got a giant plant-tiger living with him.

He doesn't suggest that maybe she only likes him when he's thinking too hard about not thinking about things he shouldn't think too hard about.]

Well, yeah, what's not to like?

These things like to climb on top of robots in particular. Just as a fair warning.

[As Legion learned all too well, a robot provides an excellent warm and sunny spot for a cat to just up and sprawl out on, especially in hot weather.]

Just kind of lie out on top of them. I think it's the heat. Like lying on a computer, but...you know. [Comparing robots to computers feels more than a little insensitive, but he has no idea how one gracefully backpedals from that.]

I don't really know anything about cats, personally. Never had one. [Or maybe it wasn't him. Wasn't his memories.] Isn't a jungle island hot enough? Aren't they gonna overheat?

Don't you overheat?

Outside of armor? A little, I guess.

[Armor has temp-reg, but almost everything feels like it's a little less on point than it should be, between his fried H.U.D. and busted comm. He wouldn't be surprised if the temp-regulation was on the fritz too, on top of everything else.]

They're part plant, so the sunlight's good for them. Photosynthesizing, and all.

I mean when a big tiger lays on you. [Him like now, like, outside of temperature regulating space armor.] But I'm more than happy to take all the warmth. Isn't that right, Ami, yes it is, you big lump of love~ [Kitty getting all kinds of lovin'.] Like Caboose but way less stupid.

I mean...sometimes. She's -

[Like Caboose. That freezes him in place for half a second, which would've looked far less obvious out of armor, because as far as Church knows, Wash's familiarity with Caboose began and ended with the assault on Command.]

A friend of mine brought her back. When she vanished, it seemed like I should keep her. Just in case.

[Church's expressions are, conversely, much harder to read. But Wash has certainly been living in and around people in armor long enough to understand blank visor expressions. Like the way he seems to stare at Wash for a moment or two too long. So. Weird. To see him like this.

Vulnerable, in a way.]

Oh, man, you have friends? Are we talking actual friends or 'shoot in the head and then blow up the body' type friends?

late march /handwaggles

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overflow / threadjack

michael

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