[Video/Action | OPEN] you know I give my love a f-f-four letter na-na-name

[black_black_heart]

xxxxx[VIDEO]

[ The camera is shaky, held in an unsteady hand. It catches the entrance of the Cirque du Vrai, briefly, then there's Tannusen. He's... against a wall? The camera's too close to see that he's sitting on the ground, but the angle suggests it. Skull mask pulled free of his head... glazed-eyed and trying to catch his breath. Blood on his lips, dotting down the side of his throat to the black robes that had been a costume. ]

Cass...

[ Couldn't be more obvious of an accidental public broadcast. He's trying to send this in private, but he can't see his fucking screen-- ]

I'm not... safe...

[ Labored breathing only picks up, like something's trying to throw him into a panic. Ramping up his heart-rate, whether he likes it or not. He definitely does not, right now. ]

Jethro... can... Enchant you... get...

[ Get him out here to the tiger faster, and help get Tannusen back to safety. ]

Haaa...

[ Nope, not doing great. His head lolls against the wall behind it, rolling on a neck that's slowly starting to not hold it up. He's visibly fighting to stay conscious, glazed eyes barely open. Then the feed clicks off. ]

---

xxxxx[ACTION]

Tannusen's sitting back against a wall somewhere near the entrance to the Cirque du Vrai, not doing well, as the video above suggests. He's hung up the phone, maybe on purpose and maybe not. Shallow, quick breathing, dilated pupils, fighting to stay somewhere in the middle of the unconsciousness that drags temptingly at him from one side, and the panic attack that's trying to set in from the other.

(( OOC: Cassian Lynch is going to show up to help him, so he's not going to willingly go anywhere, and he may react... poorly, to anyone else. This prompt's just here in case anyone wants that CR flavor! ))

Comments

[feckinboomstick]

No doubt during those episodes, when the hologram couldn't manage to sing or coax the tiger back to sanity, would simply shut off and refuse to hand out any more information until Tannusen had done something to settle himself. As intangible as the light projection was there was only so much the AI could do.

Cassian however, was very physical, and his hands moved to gently smooth through Tannusen's hair, murmuring in Gaelic into his ear. Gentle, soft reassurances, sweet platitudes and ever repeated, the one phrase he knew Tannusen had managed to translate, even if he'd never stated it in English.

"Is breá liom tú."

[black_black_heart]

Tannusen almost wishes he was in his other form, right now. His grief would be so much less obvious, so much less blatant. He knows he's worrying Cassian, and that fact alone isn't helping, even as the smaller man tries so hard to help.

With the drug in his system gleefully shoving him down, as he's pretty sure it'd been meant to do from the start, there's not much to do about it but ride it out. Just hold on and endure and hope it tires him out enough to sleep the rest of it off.

Maybe talking about something... anything else... would help?

"It's my culture, Cass... circuses. Carnivales. I'm the one... I'm the only actual carnie on this world."

He'd had to go look. The tiger had been smart enough to not linger, once he'd realized it was fucking with his head, but by then it had clearly been too late.

"Been in three troupes, Cass. That one's fucked though. Big trap."

[feckinboomstick]

"I know, Tannusen." That he had to go, at least, in his own way. Even if he didn't know the tiger had been a carnie or anything of the sort, a place like that?

Tannusen would have had to see it.

It still was not the best time for 'I told you so' though, so he continued to stroke his face and hair, pressing a kiss just under his ear.

"... Ye know how to eat fire, Tannusen? T'was a trick I first saw in Rome." Maybe asking about circus tricks then.

[black_black_heart]

It was something, right? Some kind of distraction. It had its own perils, but they felt... easier to step around than the one currently turning him into a sobbing wreck on a regular basis without the assistance of drugs.

He fumbled to reach between them to get his phone out of a pocket. "I probably could, but it'd be magic. I don't know how to do it properly. I was... high-wire, in human form."

That Dexterity 5, Athletics 4, had come from somewhere.

Tannusen got his phone out of its lockscreen and went into a folder to pull up a few things he'd transferred to it from his old one. Selected a video, and let Cassian see the screen.

There was indeed a Tannusen on a highwire, an intricate leather winged white tiger mask over most of his face, the rest of him clad in what had probably been some form of spandex. White with black stripes, to keep up the motif.

The figure on the screen did a series of backflips along the wire, way overhead. Stupidly improbable. But, well, Cassian had fought him once, briefly... the man flowed like water in a brawl. Why not on a wire?

"No footage from the first troupe," he noted, because that had been... Trench's troupe, of course. "I met Isaac in the second, did a lot of acts together with me in my other form." Because while Tannusen wasn't... a hundred percent safe to deal with, in his other shape, he was certainly easier to handle than a natural-born tiger would have been.

And also a hell of a lot more impressive-looking. Inbred zoo animals just couldn't compete.

Why not make it look like he had an extra-impressive handler, then?

"And we worked security together with my sister in the third."

[feckinboomstick]

And he would peer at it, watching with no small amount of fascination as the fae danced along the wire like it may as well have been a stage. He was never surprised to see it, no. But it was always impressive. He rested his head once more on his chest and just watched, reaching up to trail his fingers through his hair and across his cheeks.

"Looks like ye were an expert at it." The wire. He didn't have to be convinced that Tannusen was a great tiger, thanks.

"Ye look good up there."

[black_black_heart]

"I still have the mask," Tannusen noted, "it's a very nice mask."

Had to be, for the homeless bum of a tiger to keep it in his precious cargo space in Jethro's saddlebags.

The tiger swiped his thumb over the screen, flipping to another video. In this, a familiar gigantic white tiger sat patiently in front of some kind of small wall, sideways. A man Cassian had never seen stepped onto screen, bowing to and playing up the crowd. Short, but not as short as Cassian. Thinner, though. Almost creepily so, attenuated beneath his flowing harlequin-patterned coat.

Albino.

That was a thing.

The man tossed an apple at the tiger under-handed and he caught it nimbly in his front teeth, then another apple -- caught on the top of his head. The man brandished a pair of fancy pistols, playing up the crowd more...

"I don't get hit," Tannusen decided to warn Cassian, just in case the priest was anxious. Like, obviously Tannusen was alive, but he could have been wounded--

Then BAM, the apple between his teeth exploded, the bullet burying into the wall. And without any hesitation a CRACK of the second pistol made the apple atop his head blow up as well.

The crowd, though the volume was muted, went ape-shit. Especially since the tiger hadn't so much as flinched, let alone gone after the man who had nothing between him and it.

In fact, the tiger was clearly far more concerned with wiping apple chunks off the top of his head with one big paw, like it was only a mild annoyance. Showmanship.

[feckinboomstick]

That was a thing, but Cassian never bothered to speak up about it. He'd heard at least a little bit about Issac so...

He had an idea who he was looking at, and thought it was better, given Tannusen's current state, to not bring it up.

And he was concerned, thank you for speaking up. Sure Tannusen was alive, but that didn't mean he didn't take a slug. The priest still stared at the video intently, as if somehow he'd be able to go the hell back in time and yank guns away from people like a panicked mother.

No, Tannusen was fine, of course, but the quick gust of air was hard to miss as Cassian heaved a relieved sigh.

Don't get shot you stupid asshole.

"Must seem a mite bit borin' here now."

[black_black_heart]

"Never, around you," Tannusen was, at least, climbing out of that pit of despair with the distraction. Yes, even with Isaac on the screen, shoulder-length white hair and all.

Not hard to see where the very first, tinniest, smallest seed of an attraction to Cassian might have started, although the men looked nothing much alike other than the big obvious traits.

"Wanna see a funny one with my sister in the third troupe?"

[feckinboomstick]

"I don't even have any pistols." Okay that was definitely a joke, he couldn't help it. He has the shot gun! But that is Not For Playtime.

"Aye then, let me see it. Could use a laugh right now."

[black_black_heart]

"Mmhmm, but you still smell like gunpowder."

Just a tiny bit, but Tannusen's senses are sharper than a human's.

He swipes to the next video, and this is in a totally different setting. Out in the southwestern desert somewhere, the camera's focused on a beat-up old blue pickup truck and the door to a 5th-wheel RV. Some big, buff knucklehead is siphoning the gas out of the truck, and clearly hasn't noticed he's being filmed.

The door to the RV bursts open and the camera actually zooms in a little on the busted-up face of the woman who emerges in a tanktop and jeans and combat boots, covered from fingertips to elbows in what had to be clay dust. There's several flat, geometric tattoos visible on her scarred-up skin, including a rectangle across one cheek.

As swift as though being shot by a professional, the camera swung over to the fuel-thief. He'd paused, gaping a bit as the woman just stared straight at him. Not a word was said. The camera panned back to the woman -- the tattoos had all moved?! -- and then back to the thief.

...The thief who then picked up the gas can, took the siphoning hose out of the tank, and nervously poured the gas back into the truck. He nearly jumped out of his skin when the cameraman, obviously Tannusen by the sound, started laughing. "Knew you'd get busted."

[feckinboomstick]

"Can't help it if it's my favorite thing." To play with and use, he has a lot of fun with gunpowder.

He settles in to watch the next video, squinting hard at the knucklehead siphoning the gas. Who the hell is that, some random hillbilly? Looks like it. The woman, well she was clearly Tannusen's sister, he'd told him that was who was in it. She looked... vaguely familiar, he couldn't put his finger on what-

Oh and there he went, even politely put all the gas back.

"Aye what a gentleman he is, innit he?" A soft chuckle, poking at the screen a bit.

"Gave it all right back, should have left ye the can too."

[black_black_heart]

"He did. Soon as she reached inside for her coffee pot -- drank right out of it, you know -- he just took right off."

And sure enough, there's the woman reaching into the RV behind her... without dropping her stare from the would-be thief. Aaaaand off he goes! The camera shows Tannusen's sister just grunting into her coffee once, shooting the camera a look -- and a roll of her dark blue eyes -- and then going back inside.

Can't let the clay dry out, after all.

"Always has a certain charm to her," Tannusen chuckled in the present time as the video ended. "And by charm I mean even our werewolves didn't want to get on her bad side."