Can I ask for tuckington 37, 38, 41, or 44 please? Which ever you choose
The pain in his head and chest spikes hot when he moves, but Washington grits his teeth and climbs another foot up the collapsed hillside. He hauls himself up the final stretch onto the eroded hilltop with shaking arms, struggles the last few inches, and finally makes it.
Tucker is already at the top. He doesn’t help him up.
Closer to the ground, standing next to their jeep where the landslide has blocked the road and buried its bumper, Caboose calls up to them. “Do you see anything?”
“Just dirt and trees and rocks,” says Tucker.
“Doesn’t look like there’s a way around,” Wash adds. “We’re gonna have to clear the road.”
“Amazing,” Tucker drones. “Seriously. So glad to have you along.”
It’s been a full twenty-four hours of driving since Sidewinder, and Tucker has been sniping at him the whole way. Something gives this time – either his fatigue or hunger or the wounds he’s sustained – and Wash finally snaps and says, “So was there a vote on whether or not you were gonna take me? Because it kinda seems like you were on the losing side.”
“There’s no losing side, asshole,” Tucker grumbles. “There’s only the Caboose Wants to Adopt the Psycho Freelancer and Also He Can Pick Me Up With One Hand So I Guess He Gets His Way Again side.”
“Okay, but why the animosity? I haven’t done anything to you.”
Tucker’s laugh is sharp and unkind. “Oh my god. Fuck off with the buddy-buddy thing, all right? We aren’t friends, dude. You wouldn’t even be here if you hadn’t fucked over Church, like, multiple times, so leave us the fuck alone.”
“It was a deal,” Wash says defensively. “My freedom for Epsilon’s.”
“And now neither of you get what you wanted. Cool story. Hey, do me a favor? I’m gonna turn around and head back to the jeep now. Try your best not to stab me in the back.”
Wash steps aside to give him room to maneuver down the rocks and mud, and when he does, the loose ground unravels beneath the weight of his armor. He flails his arms as the dirt and rocks come apart and he braces himself for the fall–
Tucker grabs for his forearm automatically, and catches it. Sunlight glints off his visor and there’s no sound but the tapping of rocks tumbling down the sharp drop below him. Wash hangs suspended for an agonizing moment, until Tucker gets a grip around his wrist and yanks him back up onto solid ground.
“Christ,” Tucker sighs. “I thought you were supposed to be some kind of badass.”
Wash winces. The wrenching way his fall had been halted tore something open beneath his undersuit, but nowhere near as badly as impact with the ground would have. “Thanks…Thought you were gonna let go for a second.”
Tucker’s helmet jerks back, affronted. “After the shit we pulled to get you this far?”
“Look,”Tucker says, heaving a dramatic, world-weary sigh. “Let’s get something straight. For whatever reason, Caboose seems to like you, even though you were fucking all our shit up just like, yesterday. So not only would I have to listen to him whine if something happens to you, I’d also be on the stupid goddamn road trip alone, with Caboose. So if you die, I’m gonna kill you. Understand?”
Not really, Wash wants to say. But Tucker’s already skidding down the slope of collapsed mud and rock, completely uninterested in his answer, so he says nothing.
He holds the high ground for a while longer, watching Tucker cut the jeep free of the rockslide with his sword and Caboose clear the debris with his bare hands, and wonders if this was actually a better choice than prison.
