genessia | [ action | closed ] too many sharks, not enough blood in the waves

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[ action | closed ] too many sharks, not enough blood in the waves

Who: Cassian Lynch and Tannusen
Where: Cass' subarchway house
What: These issues don't dissipate for love or for convenience. Tannusen usually isolates when he's in A Mood, but he won't always catch it in time. This is one of those times.
Warnings: Discussion of past on-camera murder, and mental illness.

Normally, Tannusen kept closer track of his... moods. Normally, he'd have been gone for the day, sent a text to let Cassian know he was fine, and been gone probably the next night and day as well. Before Lil, he would have just retreated into Velvet's basement during the night to avoid people. At the moment, he didn't have an actual plan in place and that was probably another symptom of his growing... lax.

Comfortable, he'd let things slip and didn't even realize it yet.

The growing unease scratching away at the back of his mind had been easy to write off as background noise; the tiger currently standing in the kitchen at the house chopping some vegetable or other for some thing or other he was making. Cooking had been something he'd taken up for the house as soon as he and Trahearne had moved in with Cassian, and the sylvari's disappearance hadn't put a halt to that. He just made a little less, that was all.

The knife slid easily into carrots and then came through them at the end with a definite chop! Tannusen stared down at his work with a slightly sour expression, his thoughts really starting to sink down and be swallowed in static.

Sliiiiide-chop!

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Tannusen, to his credit, had been very good at hiding the issue. Not good enough to dispel all possible notice of it, but good enough that the effect, the toll it was taking on the pooka at the time, was downplayed.

Cassian knew something was wrong, but unto what extent was a mystery to him.

Which was what led him to quietly watch Tannusen this time from close to the fridge, his hand on the door of it as if he'd come in here looking for something out of it.

He wasn't.

"... Been an odd day, hasn't it?" The tone was light, but the expression was searching, as he moved to finally open the fridge.

While the house was mostly quiet enough that it was almost like isolation... well, he didn't live here alone, did he?

Cassian.

Mid-slice, Tannusen's stare left the carrots, the tiger glancing over at Cassian out of the corner of his eye. His expression had flattened into neutrality. Neutrality wasn't normal around Cassian; no smile, no warmth. Blank and flat.

Chop!

Realization sank in slowly. He wanted to turn on his heel and leave; spare Cassian dealing with him like this. The urge was so strong that he fought it by sheer reflex -- it wouldn't work anyway, he knew, the priest would just follow him if he did that so suddenly.

"...Has it?"

And just like that, Tannusen's attempts to bury it had been all for naught. Something would have been in his expression. Some light, some softness. Looking instead on the blank, cold expression of a shadow was... uncomfortably odd.

Frighteningly so.

"... Aye. It has." He glanced to the knife, then back at Tannusen once again.

"Ye've been very quiet. I've a thought somethin' weighs upon ye."

Cassian deserved better than Tannusen's garbage. The tiger followed the glance to the knife, lingered there a moment, and then he set it down.

"You trust me too much, Cassian."

Another presentation of the argument the tiger always chose. Defaulted to without fail. This insisting that he wasn't good enough, that he was terrible, too much so for Cassian. And now that he was, apparently, dangerous.

Tannusen wouldn't be lying, Cassian knew he was dangerous. But not once, for a moment, did he think that the pooka was the most dangerous to him.

No, now, here, in Genessia, the creature most menaced by Tannusen... seemed to be Tannusen himself.

His expression softened, and the fridge door closed as he moved closer to the other man.

"I trust ye well enough. Here, dinner can wait, luv..." A gesture towards the living room, out of the kitchen and away from... things that may stir more unfortunate memories.

"Lets sit a while."

Tannusen left the knife on the counter and moved, yes, but with a few fluid strides unlike how he normally moved, getting close enough to Cassian to reach up with one hand to touch his face.

The knife left behind, he wouldn't have to worry, he hoped, about Tannusen doing something regretful with it. That memory was such a harsh one, for Cassian, for Tannusen.

Perhaps more for Tannusen, Cassian had the dubious sort of relief of passing away so quickly, held in the arms of the other man, not enough time to ponder what had happened or why.

Tannusen, however-

He didn't flinch, even as the other man closed the distance between them so quickly, and as that hand moved to touch his face, he moved to rest his hand on it.

"Tannusen." Soft, gentle, just vaguely prying.

"Please... let there be no secrets, tell me if you're slippin'... I cannot catch ye if I don't see ye fallin'."

"If I decided to pull up a mask, I could," Tannusen said, low and quiet, his expression still flat; a mask in truth, but not the kind meant to put the other man at ease like he was talking about now. "I'd be all smiles and jokes and laughs, Cassian... and you'd never know. Not until it was too late."

His hand under Cassian's smoothed out against the side of the priest's face, and the other...

Pressure, and the faintest prick of that knife he'd left on the counter may be felt through Cassian's thick clothing, right where the scar was. Tannusen didn't even have to look down, only looking at Cassian's face.

Slipping and falling. The knife pressed against his ribs finally forced his breath to catch, only years upon years worth of practice keeping the sudden alarm from forcing his throat to close and chest to tighten.

Still, the mans usually pale face turned, just so faintly, grayer.

"I know." After all, had he not done it once already? Well enough to fool a god no less.

Fatally so.

"... But why would ye ever have to? With me?" He didn't move to shove away the knife, simply to gently rest his free hand, lightly, upon the blunt edge of it.

"Talk to me, Tannusen. Even if it ain't more than tears."

Tannusen's expression finally shifted, a flash of agony lancing through it. "I'm a madman, Cassian, I don't know why it might happen. I could be convinced it's necessary again... I could decide it's a mercy. You're not safe with me."

"I ain't safe with many others either." Less for his own sake, once upon a time.

"And there ain't any other in this world, my world or any other world I'll ever want to see, every day of my life." The hand upon the blade moved again, sliding up along the top of it until he reached the other mans hand, holding that.

Not tightly. No hint of shaking, his skin still so cool in comparison to the other man.

"But I know... you're stronger than that madness, Tannusen. You're smarter than that madness. Ye may be mad, but that madness ain't you. It doesn't have to be."

"I kill you at least once a week in my dreams," Tannusen hadn't moved the knife so much as a millimeter in any direction; it was as steady as the floor they stood on. "Sometimes it's what happened. Sometimes Trench gets ahold of you and I have to do it to free you from him. Sometimes you're still you."

And sometimes... not.

Trench was very good at breaking people. He had a lot of practice. Tannusen's expression crumbled further. "Sometimes it's stronger than me, sometimes it's smarter than me. Sometimes it is me."

He could stand here and tell Tannusen that these were the symptoms of anyone lost in fear. Of course his brain would dredge up the worst possible thing to show him, at every possible opportunity. One didn't have to have an outer thing nestled in their skull for that.

Tannusen sure didn't.

He'd had Trench for that.

"It ain't ye." Solid and firm, his thumb rolling over Tannusen's wrist.

"You're so much more than what anyone's ever told ye. I hope one day, you'll hear me louder than the ghosts of your pasts and the monsters in your skull. I'll keep shoutin' it till ye do, Tannusen. You're the smartest, kindest, most tolerant and patient man I've had the honor of punchin' in the face."

And pulling glass out of.

"Ye put up with so much tripe and garbage, and I ain't heard tell, save just once, of ye raisin' your fist against anyone here, and even then twas not more than to protect yourself. Ye puzzled out a riddle that in two thousand years, I couldn't figure out for meself. Ye stood by in the glow of the hearth as I swore and screamed, broke what was 'round me and naught did ye leave nor tell me I was bein' a fool.

Tisn't a man, beast, angel nor demon alive who could boast so many of those qualities at once.

The only man here who's convinced himself that you're a heartless, stupid, vicious animal... is you, Tannusen. And your opinion is the only opinion in the entire world, this entire universe, in all of every possible creation, that matters to me, that can lift me... or break me in half."

Tannusen just stood there for a moment, tears starting to track down his face.

A long moment.

But finally, he let go of the knife, and it fell halfway to the floor before vanishing and then clattering back on the counter instead of hitting the floor and potentially their feet. "Cass..."

His breath was hitching again, though now it was not due to any medical malady. Each syllable was spoken with carefully contained emotion, unwilling to let it all spill free.

"I care not what anyone else will ever tell me of you, no matter what they ever say. I'll spit in the face of anyone who'll speak ill of you, but Tannusen, I will go to battle with ye until the end of time if that's what it takes to make ye see yourself the way I see ye."

Tannusen blinked away tears, though more instantly replaced them. "I'm the reason Isaac died... and in agony with a camera shoved in his face. I murdered you; it doesn't matter why I did it, I did it. That means it could happen again. I don't want it to."

"It matters, Tannusen. It matters why ye did it, and I know ye never raised your hand against Isaac. Don't take the blame for the actions of a coward and a beast, and don't take blame for the product of a circumstance beyond your control.

Had I the ability I'd have snuffed myself centuries before, had I the bravery I'd have starved alone till there was nothin' left and had I the privacy I'd have begged ye for the end, Tannusen.

I've already thanked ye, and I'll do it again and again. The hellish shell of a life I was trapped inside all obliterated, my prison made ash in a matter of seconds and it was all because ye cast your own self aside."

Voice cracking he moved to take Tannusen's face gently in his hands, his fingers sifting gently through his hair.

"Memories of pain and of sufferin' and failure scattered to the winds of time, a conclusion and a breath of a new life, free air, because ye never let your feelin's take precedence over what's right. Dignity and kindness, the hardest choice in the world to make and ye couldn't have picked a better choice.

Thank ye, Tannusen. Again and again, thank ye, for savin' me."

"Cass..." Tannusen's expression somehow crumbled further, and he reached up to touch Cassian's arm.

It had so nearly been the last they'd ever seen of each other.

The smaller man swept in as Tannusen touched him, moving to grab him, to yank him close for an embrace, clutching at the other man tightly as his fingers curled into his clothes.

"I'd sooner be dead than be what I was, you're my savior, my life and my light, Tannusen."

And Tannusen wrapped his arms around Cassian's shoulders and buried his face in his hair, shaking, a single audible sob wrenching out of his throat.

"...'M always going to be crazy, Cass. This won't stop."

"We'll find somethin', Tannusen. Someone, somethin'. I don't want ye to change... I just want ye to be happy."

His hands moved to splay across his back, stroking gently as the bigger man let out a single sob.

"Inside. Here now..." A gentle pull towards the living room, somewhere to sit, somewhere comfortable and warm.

"I want you to be happy, too," Tannusen said quietly, letting himself be pulled wherever Cassian might lead. "My mind just... sinks. I usually notice in time to leave."

"I'm happy when you are happy, Tannusen. I'm not a complicated man."

In they went, Tannusen tugged to the couch and coaxed into settling near him, his fingers once more finding his hair.

"I don't mind bein' here for ye, when ye begin to sink. I want to help ye, Tannusen, in any way that I can. I want to pull ye from that mire ye put yourself in, let me help you..."

Tannusen leaned to the side once they were sitting, resting his head on Cassian's shoulder with his eyes clenched shut. Just trying to get the tears under control.

He did feel better, in some ways. Worse in others, like about drawing a knife on the other man.

"You do help, Cass. Every day."

But when this set in, instinct said to isolate himself, to run off to lick his wounds in private. Part of his brain wasn't quite human or Faerie, after all.

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[ action | closed ] too many sharks, not enough blood in the waves

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