[Wash allows it. Lets himself trust for half a second. If anything the news would make York want to keep him alive to introduce him to said Sim Trooper for more stories and good news. "Our mutual friend is dead" makes for a bad introduction if he wants more information about Carolina, and the Freelancers know Sim Troopers have reasons to distrust them to begin with.]
[So Wash doesn't go to him but doesn't move away. But he also doesn't hug back. He just sort of stiffly lets himself be hugged so overall it makes for a really awkward hug, about as impersonal as hugging a tree and about as reciprocal as hugging a teenager in a mood.]
[It's a little comical but...]
[The way his shoulders hunch up; the way he tenses; the way there's a small, sharp intake of breath; like he's fighting off panic by someone getting close enough to knife him in the ribs without him stopping it, they...paint a picture. So does the gun shot scar on the neck that's a lot more visible up close.]
[But he still allows it, because you can get be twitchy about affection and miss it at the same time. He tells himself he doesn't need affection anymore, but...]
[He tells himself a lot of things.]
[Wash clears his throat awkwardly after the hug has overstayed its welcome and that's very shortly into it.]
Why don't you tell the crystal a story about Carolina?
A fearless leader, valiantly rescuing her knights when the evil grand vizier tossed them at enemies they shouldn't have been fighting, because they sometimes needed her to save them when they were idiots.
[They should...probably stop chit chatting like this and get to work, but having a cosmic evil outside feels so unreal it's hard to remember this isn't a video game or something. And they...there's... a lot has happened.]
no subject
[So Wash doesn't go to him but doesn't move away. But he also doesn't hug back. He just sort of stiffly lets himself be hugged so overall it makes for a really awkward hug, about as impersonal as hugging a tree and about as reciprocal as hugging a teenager in a mood.]
[It's a little comical but...]
[The way his shoulders hunch up; the way he tenses; the way there's a small, sharp intake of breath; like he's fighting off panic by someone getting close enough to knife him in the ribs without him stopping it, they...paint a picture. So does the gun shot scar on the neck that's a lot more visible up close.]
[But he still allows it, because you can get be twitchy about affection and miss it at the same time. He tells himself he doesn't need affection anymore, but...]
[He tells himself a lot of things.]
[Wash clears his throat awkwardly after the hug has overstayed its welcome and that's very shortly into it.]
Why don't you tell the crystal a story about Carolina?
A fearless leader, valiantly rescuing her knights when the evil grand vizier tossed them at enemies they shouldn't have been fighting, because they sometimes needed her to save them when they were idiots.
[They should...probably stop chit chatting like this and get to work, but having a cosmic evil outside feels so unreal it's hard to remember this isn't a video game or something. And they...there's... a lot has happened.]