[ Wash is nothing if not tired. Always, always tired.
It's a simple, physical truth, in one part. He barely sleeps, he doesn't sleep, the better part of a decade and he's found the only way to keep the nightmares at bay is just to not give them a chance to come. He throws himself into everything he does wholly and fully, works himself to the bone, and of course he's tired there, too, even if he never feels like he does enough. There's his long memory, so his mother used to call it, how Wash still remembers everyone who's wronged him even years and years in the past, lets it burn and rage until it boils over, and that's tiring too. And the lying? By god, the lying was the most exhausting of all. The first time he'd really snapped, the first time he let it all go, it'd been as vicious and ugly as it was inevitable.
The lying he's put behind him, for the most part -- there are different lies, letting his friends believe that he's a changed man rather than this being always who he was, the secrets he still guards fiercely and will never let go. But even if the exhaustion of constantly maintaining a front is gone, the paranoia and tendency to see knives everywhere in the dark has only grown worse, if anything else. And that's tiring. That's always tiring.
If this is the liar that's speaking to him now, Wash can answer him in turn. ]
It is. [ It's almost sympathetic. He sees that smile on him, like he's imagining Wash drunk and dancing in the streets, and Wash takes that as an excuse to smile a little back in turn. ] I don't envy you for that.
[ He was never as good as you are, and it drained him all the same. A pause, at the question, before he answers again; ] Like I've said, Byerly. I just made myself useful.
[ On the surface, all that means is he grew out of the fool and into the soldier -- or he found something different to lie for, found something to funnel all his purpose towards other than his own damned misery, and at least on that front what he'd done in the end had been, ah, mostly successful. And now, let his friends be trusting, let his friends move on. He'll be the one who remembers. He'll be the one who sees watches every shadow, the one who guards their secrets, and the one who'll drive himself into the ground doing it. A tip of his head. ]
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It's a simple, physical truth, in one part. He barely sleeps, he doesn't sleep, the better part of a decade and he's found the only way to keep the nightmares at bay is just to not give them a chance to come. He throws himself into everything he does wholly and fully, works himself to the bone, and of course he's tired there, too, even if he never feels like he does enough. There's his long memory, so his mother used to call it, how Wash still remembers everyone who's wronged him even years and years in the past, lets it burn and rage until it boils over, and that's tiring too. And the lying? By god, the lying was the most exhausting of all. The first time he'd really snapped, the first time he let it all go, it'd been as vicious and ugly as it was inevitable.
The lying he's put behind him, for the most part -- there are different lies, letting his friends believe that he's a changed man rather than this being always who he was, the secrets he still guards fiercely and will never let go. But even if the exhaustion of constantly maintaining a front is gone, the paranoia and tendency to see knives everywhere in the dark has only grown worse, if anything else. And that's tiring. That's always tiring.
If this is the liar that's speaking to him now, Wash can answer him in turn. ]
It is. [ It's almost sympathetic. He sees that smile on him, like he's imagining Wash drunk and dancing in the streets, and Wash takes that as an excuse to smile a little back in turn. ] I don't envy you for that.
[ He was never as good as you are, and it drained him all the same. A pause, at the question, before he answers again; ] Like I've said, Byerly. I just made myself useful.
[ On the surface, all that means is he grew out of the fool and into the soldier -- or he found something different to lie for, found something to funnel all his purpose towards other than his own damned misery, and at least on that front what he'd done in the end had been, ah, mostly successful. And now, let his friends be trusting, let his friends move on. He'll be the one who remembers. He'll be the one who sees watches every shadow, the one who guards their secrets, and the one who'll drive himself into the ground doing it. A tip of his head. ]
I'm sure you'll find your own ways to fight.
[ Or you've already found it, you damned liar. ]