sunchime | [ the open york post: comeback edition ]

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[ the open york post: comeback edition ]

hello welcome to the very specific genderbent au york i have been playing for like 15 years this is the only york i play now

Agent York // Natalie van der Haast (AU)
AGENT YORK - AU INFO
Name: Natalie van der Haast
Background: Grew up in south Jersey with three older brothers, a piano teacher for a mom, and an auto mechanic for a dad. Comfortable upbringing, though she got into her fair share of trouble growing up. May or may not have joined Project Freelancer as an alternative to other punitive measures in response to some questionable things she may or may not have done with classified information as a soldier.

LOOKING FOR...
Gen: Action (I LOVE to write action/fight scenes), AI drama (gotta have it), mystery and plot intrigue, h/c as long as it's also kinda funny. Missions and heist shit. I love heist shit soooo much I can't get enough of it
Ships: My main ship interests are Wash, Carolina, and Maine, but I can be sold on most York ships. finger guns
I also love a stupid drama triangle, especially when one of them has been dead for a while

I'm down for both shippy stuff and gen threads and I'm down for smut. Feel free to throw down a top level with whatever your heart desires, but here are some prompts to help get the ideas goin'

CANON POINTS
Project Freelancer: Pretty much any canon point in here is golden. Great for actiony missions and AI drama. And also of course the high concentration of pure Freelancer drama.
Post-Freelancer/Out of Mind: That (mumbles)-year period when she's out planet-hopping looking in search of Carolina until she meets her untimely demise at the hands of Wyoming. that ass hole
Recovery One: Yeah yeah York is dead at this point but hey. What if she wasn't

YORK LIVES AUS
The staple of every York player. Here are some of my favorite scenarios to work from but I am ALWAYS down to try new things
Out of Mind/Recovery One: Wash (or someone else!) gets to York before she fully kicks it and patches her back up. And then it's unfinished business time (of both the Carolina and/or Maine variety). Or Freelancer Drama: Electric Boogaloo.
Chorus (option A): York goes to prison for Freelancer Crimes instead of dying and winds up on the Tartarus. Now she's working with Felix and Locus to take out Wash and Carolina. Bonus AI brain trauma from having Delta removed. Freelancer drama cubed.
Chorus (option B): By whatever bulllshit means, York is brought back to life on Chorus somehow. It's been a while since I watched the Chorus trilogy but isn't there something funky with portals in those seasons? idk it's not important. It's RVB anything is possible. The point is: opportunity for really really rich Freelancer drama when your dead friend for whom you've grieved is suddenly back in your life. Also York and Tucker are funny

MISC AUS/PROMPTS
AI Swap: York draws the short straw and gets Epsilon instead of Delta. Things go about as well for her as they did for Wash in canon, but differently bad. Who's here for some hardcore dissociation. Optionally: York is Recovery One.
Ejection Trauma: York loses Delta for one reason or another (AI recall during Project Freelancer. The Meta gets to Delta but she survives. Some other third thing. Take your pick) and transitioning to being alone in your own head is really fucking hard. Who's here for even more hardcore dissociation
Texting: who needs a log when you could do a tfln
Setting Swap: Project Freelancer is very easy to AU into other settings. Like soooo easy. Hit me up I love Project Freelancer setting AUs.

Feel free to hit me up at

runawayballista for plotting!

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At that, York snorts. "KIA? Sounds like Command's gettin' real ahead of itself these days."

For a second there, she sounds just like her old self — but then her stomach goes cold with a possibility she hadn't considered before.

"Wait. You're not with them, are you?"

York's expression suddenly goes uncharacteristically guarded, and she takes a step back from Carolina, tensing to move if she needs to. It'd explain why she hasn't been able to find Carolina all these years. Obviously, if Carolina was one of the Recovery agents, she'd know very well that York's not dead, but maybe this is some kind of ploy. They sure seem fucking desperate to get their hands on her — what wouldn't Command try?

Carolina shakes her head and is that a touch of remorse or some kind of quiet jealousy that simmers with the anger beneath her skin. Her jaw clenches tight for a moment before she looks back up at York. A living, breathing, York. Right in front of her.

"Never," she replies sharply, her dark eyes distant. "Never again."

She was left for dead as much as York had, but here they were: a pair of ghosts talking in the skeleton of a building floor.

"What were you doing?" Carolina picks up the wire cutter before putting the pieces together. "You're stripping copper wires?"

York lets out a breath she didn't even realize she was holding. It's easy to believe Carolina — because she wants to, and because she knows that look, that conviction and fury. It feels like someone pouring icewater down the back of her neck, sending an involuntary chill through her. She's afraid to really lean into relief, though. This isn't a faulty memory, but some part of her is still dissociating, not entirely sure how much of this is real.

But then she's as embarrassed as a teenager caught with some contraband as soon as Carolina asks, and she kicks the pile of unspooled copper wire behind her as if to hide it with a cough. It is extremely ineffective.

"What? No. Of course not. Stripping copper wires? I'd have to really hit rock bottom to resort to something that, uh, petty." She looks like rock bottom. "No, I, uh — I live here."

A really terrible lie, and arguably an even worse prospect.

Everything about this is so familiar it hurts. Carolina tries not to look into it more, but she can't help the ache in her chest as York digs out such an obvious lie. She shuts her eyes for a moment before nodding as if agreeing.

"I can see the pile of drywall would make a really comfortable bed," Carolina replies, her lips pressed into a thin line. "You must be in the middle of remodeling."

She doesn't mean to poke fun at whatever actual reason York is here but fuck if she can't help it. She draws up into herself momentarily when there are whispers of Alpha in the back of her mind. Shadows of what once was.

"Well, I should leave you to it then," Carolina replies. "I've got a tab I need to add about ten shots to."

And maybe then York's ghost will disappear with all the others.

York winces a little at the well-deserved dig. Okay, forget what she's said before — this is rock bottom. And then Carolina moves to leave so abruptly that it gives her whiplash.

"Wha — Carolina, wait!" She reaches for Carolina's arm, to try and keep her from leaving, to make sure she's real. "You can't leave. I've been — I spent years lookin' for you."

Carolina looks up to see York's hand on her arm. Very solid. Very real. Her breath catches in her throat as her gaze continues to meet York's. She can see the desperation in the other woman's face and Carolina doesn't understand it as well as she probably should. She hasn't been searching for York, she's only been on the road to revenge since nearly dying on Sidewinder.

"What are you talking about?" Carolina asks, her expression distant. "I've been covering my tracks since Sidewinder."

And York is supposed to be dead.

"Yeah, I know. It's been a real bitch and a half trying to find you."

York doesn't let go of Carolina's arm. She can't — she can't let Carolina disappear again like so much smoke, because she'd spend the rest of her life questioning if this was all a desperate hallucination.

But something feels...off. If York's honest. she thought Carolina would be at least a little bit happier to see her. Or relieved, even. If only for the discovery that York is not dead as previously assumed.

"At least let me buy you one of those shots."

Carolina scowls at York. She's well aware that York is registered as dead and yet now that she's faced with her again, she can't quite bring herself to be happy. Maybe it's all that revenge casserole she's been eating or what she'd thought would be a quiet enlistment on some far off nowhere that's being disrupted.

"I'm going to enlist in the morning," Carolina briefs York, well, briefly. "I'm getting wasted tonight and forgetting the past ten years before I do."

She points at York with her snared arm.

"You are interrupting that," she finishes, her voice sour. "And you were caught on a security camera. You're getting sloppy."

Of course she's getting sloppy, York wants to say. Delta was yanked out of her head with no warning and she's barely been crawling since then. But she's too busy trying to process this new piece of information, her mouth falling open.

"Wha — huh? Enlist? You want to go back to the military? Are you —" Haha. No. York lets go of her arm, because she doesn't want to wind up with a dislocated shoulder. "Are you kidding me right now? Why the hell would you want to go back?"

She's starting to feel unnerved, and not in a I-just-saw-a-ghost way. She knows Carolina must have been through a lot, and they didn't exactly part on good terms, but even so...shit, is there a memo she missed? Or was that search really as one-sided as it's starting to feel now?

"I'm going to a backwards nowhere planet," Carolina looks down at the arm that York released. She didn't expect to miss that touch.

"I'll keep some kind of clearance and wait for him to slip up," Carolina finishes. "Just like you did."

She knows she has no right to go on like this, but York defected, believed lies that Texas told her. No matter if York searched for her when no one else did. That shouldn't matter.

It shouldn't--

Carolina takes in a breath and looks squarely at York.

"It's better than crawling around in the dirt," Carolina's gaze doesn't budge.

Backwater nowhere planet is where York would love to be, too, but she's not so sure the UNSC is gonna send her there. Man, this conversation is getting away from her fast. That sense of unreality is starting to sharpen, a clammy sweat breaking out along the back of her neck.

"Just like I — Carolina, just — just listen for a second," York starts, hoping that maybe, just maybe, she can actually explain to Carolina what she'd utterly failed to do the last time they'd met, but then Carolina looks like that and says those words, and holy shit, she just keeps on hitting new lows today. Somebody ought to make her an honorary geologist for all these rock bottoms she keeps on discovering. Carolina managed to knock the wind right out of her with those words, and suddenly, York feels more alone than she realized she could feel ever since Delta was taken from her. She'd really believed that Carolina would be relieved to see her. Just a little bit.

"Yeah, well," she says, failing, for once, to come up with a quip on time, "I guess being on the run isn't as glamorous as everybody tells you it's gonna be. Thought I'd be in some sexy car chases or something. Nobody ever tells you how much squatting in empty apartments you gotta do."

Carolina pauses, watching York with her artificially dark eyes and then exhales in some shadow of a laugh.

"No, they don't, do they," Carolina looks around them then back to York. "No one warns you of the risks you have to take when you're running from someone a whole lot larger than yourself."

She thinks she hears Allison somewhere off in the distance, a whisper in the dark. She doesn't breathe for a moment as she steadies herself again in reality.

"I'm enlisting," Carolina replies. "You can't change my mind on that."

York feels a lead weight sinking in her stomach, like she's swallowed a brick. She can feel herself breaking out in a cold sweat all over now, and she rubs a clammy palm against the seam of her too-worn jeans. In her mind, she hears the ghost of Delta's voice: York, I am concerned about your vitals. Your heart rate has increased to 120 beats per minute.

"Now's not the time, D," she mutters aloud, not realizing the words have made it past her inner monologue. This is all wrong. Maybe she wasn't expecting the warmest of receptions, but this — this could only loosely be called a reception. They see each other for the first time in all these years and all Carolina wants to do is push her away. And the hair and contacts — they're really throwing her off, starting to make her second guess whether or not all of this is real.

"I don't get it," she says, knowing how stupid she sounds but she can't seem to get the words out any other way. "All that, just to kill the Director? Aren't you tired?" Carolina looks tired. York remembers her tired, but not like this. "Don't you just...wanna get away from all of it?"

She's not sure she can bring herself to admit it now, but she thought that if she'd ever been able to find Carolina then maybe, just maybe, they could find themselves comfortable in the middle of nowhere, as far away as they could possibly get. York realizes that after all this time, she's still been clinging to the hope that Carolina would agree to run away with her. And the reality check is proving hard to stomach.

Carolina takes York in as she seems to dissociate right in front of her, talking to Delta and that Worries Carolina, in a way that it shouldn't. If they were still teammates, she would be more or less forced to tell the medical team that York needed some kind of discharge until she could think straight again.

This time, Carolina is the one who steps in close, places thinned fingers on York's arm.

"He has to pay," Carolina admits, her voice low and sharp as a blade. "For what he did to all of us."

Carolina shakes her head, "I can't let it go."

Carolina's touch gives her goosebumps, and she feels incredibly, colossally stupid, like a painfully awkward teenager — but that touch is real, and it grounds her, and she has to stop herself from reaching for Carolina's hand.

York doesn't exactly disagree, but she's never really been a revenge-motivated person. Maybe she's just never been fucked over hard enough. Kinda hard to imagine what else might happen to her at this point that could possibly be worse than this.

"Okay — okay. So you wanna kill the Director. You need to reenlist, under a, what, fake identity or something to do that? And just...wait for him to maybe slip up one day? There's gotta be a better way."

She can admit to herself that she's trying to stall for time at this point, but she's pretty sure that if Carolina ships out to some distant UNSC outpost tomorrow, York's never going to see her again.

Carolina is a hair away from mentioning that she doesn't have any other leads, any other plans, and she's really putting all her eggs in one basket on this one. Thus, it has to work, it must work. She has no other choice. McAlister will never pop up on any Freelancer radars until she's too close to run from.

So she hopes.

"He will slip up," Carolina chooses a different line of thinking to argue on. "And when he does, I will be there."

With whatever weapons she can find.

"How?" All other things aside, this plan does seem kind of insane to York. It would be a massive fucking understatement to say that something's not right with Carollina, but she's not in much of a position to talk. "You get yourself sent to some backwater planet, and, what, spend all your time monitoring secure channels? And if you do hear something, you might be worlds away from him. You just gonna go AWOL? And how do you know you're even gonna get to him before he disappears again?"

Carolina doesn't appreciate York's skepticism. She doesn't appreciate York's opinion in general, not since she defected and literally brought the Mother of Invention to its knees.

"I will get him," Carolina pulls further away. "Now excuse me, I'm going to drink until I forget this entire conversation."

Maybe not the nicest thing to say, but she has a plan and she's sticking to it.

No. No, no, no — she can't let Carolina walk away, not now, not even if it's pissing Carolina off, because better here and angry than gone. York tries to school her scattered thoughts into some kind of order, licking at dry lips as she latches onto the only other angle she can think of.

"Carolina, wait — there's another option." York knows she sounds desperate, that she must look desperate, but shit, it's because she is. "We could go after the Director together — no trying to get at him from the side, no waiting for a chance. Just end it now. I could help you." She manages a crooked smile, no longer sure what'll only push Carolina away, but she has to try. She has to keep trying. "We used to make a pretty good team."

An idea is taking shape in her disordered mind. She never could pull this off herself, and obviously neither could Carolina, or she wouldn't be here. But if the two of them could track down the Director, if they can find out where he's been keeping all those recovered AIs, then maybe York might stand a chance at getting back what she lost, too.

Carolina pauses at the suggestion that they work together. She turns so York can at least see her profile in the relative dark of the hallway. She's listening, at the least. She's stopped moving away for now.

"End it now?" Carolina asks with a measure of skepticism. "The two of us?"

She believed in herself enough to get the job done but York? Carolina had seen little more than a failed attempt to strip wires. Who was to say she was up to the task.

York can't take her eyes off Carolina's face, like she's etching that profile into her frayed memory, like she's afraid Carolina will disappear if she looks away.

"Yeah," she breathes. "You wanna take out the Director, right? Well, I'm not exactly his biggest fan, either. Wouldn't exactly mind making sure he shuffles off this mortal coil."

It's true that she's not particularly motivated by revenge alone, and that she's just been trying to escape for good, but things have changed. Carolina is here, and maybe — maybe York will have a chance to make her mind whole again if they succeed. Maybe they can find a way to stay together after, somehow. Maybe York can find a way to make Carolina want to stay.

"Look," she says, rubbing her hands over her face, slick with sweat, trying to smooth away stray hairs. "I know I don't look like I'm in great shape right now. Six months ago, I got shot and left for dead. And then somebody pulled D right out of my head and took my healing unit and I got left for dead again." Which lines up pretty well with when York was reported as KIA by Command. "Been kind of a rough recovery on my own, not gonna lie. But I haven't tapped out yet."

York moves a half-step closer, like she's afraid Carolina will spook and sprint away at the slightest wrong movement. "I've been monitoring secure channels for a while now, too, trying to find out, and I collected a fair bit of information while I was at it. If we compare notes, make a plan, work together — you won't have to wait for a chance." She'll have to really scrape her mind to recover some of that information, but it'll be worth the migraine. "And who knows Freelancer security protocols better than me, huh?"

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[ the open york post: comeback edition ]

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9/10 geologists approve of this new rock bottom

at this rate she's going to get the nobel peace prize

hell yeah

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every time york thinks things can't get worse, an angel gets their wings

she's literally doing the lord's work

sorry for the delay!

no apologies needed! always happy to wait for your carolina tags <3

<3 and again but life has finally calmed down!

yay for life calming down! <3