[superhell pcs] thancred

[voidshift]

Comments

[voidshift]

[well. in between snacks, he just sets a hand on his face and leans in to kiss him, hoping that helps him settle a bit.]

[onlythans]

[It takes a while, and some coaxing, but kisses have a way of winning out in the end so eventually he just sighs and finally relaxes a whole...like, fraction.]

I know it wasn't easy for you, either.

[No one would find it easy to watch all of that, but especially not Ryn, considering.]

I'm sorry. It's been a hell of a few days on you.

[voidshift]

-it has, yes, but. I'm still here for it to be a hell of a time, and so are you, so you know-- I'll take it.

[they're both here. both alive. that matters a lot, after all of it.]

[onlythans]

...Ryn. After all that, everything we just heard. I don't want to ask it, but I have to.

[Without thinking, he holds him a little tighter, gripping a bit more like he was doing at the trial.]

Do you know what you'll do, if someday I'm forced to hurt you?

[voidshift]

Thancred, I- don't ask me--

[...but, well. no one expected it to be lavi, for nameless. uriel for zagreus. and then today, where they don't know what happened. he's not looking at thancred, at first, a little distressed sound muffled against his shirt as his ears flatten.

he is thinking, though.]

...I don't know. What do you think I even could do? [a little helpless, there.] I can't fight you effectively. I've got a few things I could try, and I might, I just-- if you were genuinely trying to hurt me...

[ugh. another few moments of silence.]

Probably best if I don't tell you exactly what I'd do. But it'd kill you, wouldn't it, to wake up and realize you'd murdered me?

I'd fight back. Don't know if I'd win, but I would try.

[onlythans]

[He gathers him in, one hand coming up to hold the back of his head, curling around him as best he can like even now the instinct to shield him is strong. It makes it easier to murmur against his ear, quiet.]

If I try something against you, you need to take out my sight first. Cut them, throw something over my head, flash something bright in my eyes. Don't let me get close to you. If you think you're far enough away that you've got time to see an attack coming, you don't. You'll still be in range of the daggers if I throw them.

[He lets out a shaking breath. Draws another one in.]

If I'm hunting you, watch for cover I could use to hide in above you. I'll take high ground. My eyes first, then my legs. Fight dirty and hit me anywhere you know I'm wounded. Try to open enough wounds that I can't keep up with you, and collapse from the bloodloss. When I'm incapacitated, cut my wrists or my throat and run, and leave me to bleed out. All right?

[voidshift]

No.

[soft, but no less emphatic for it. he's listening, he is, but.]

Thancred, I was a healer. Do you think I don't know enough about the body to make it quick, if I got you down first? I'm not leaving you to bleed out alone, shut your damned mouth.

[onlythans]

I don't want to know what you'd do. 'Tis better that I don't. But if I think too much about what I would do if I were out to harm you —

[Then, gods forbid, he'll have a plan. A ready-made plan just waiting in his mind for malevolence to come in and claim it.]

So long as you understand. You cannot let me get close to you. Don't get careless thinking that just because I'm on the ground, I'm no threat.

[voidshift]

...I know. Just- trust me to do what I can to live. Leverage what I have. If it comes to it... I don't want to kill you, I don't, but I promise I'll try not to leave you to live with it.

[onlythans]

And I don't want you to have to lose me. But if we're at that point...then I'm already gone, Ryn. You've got to understand that. It won't be me.

[There's something twinging in his voice that suggests he's not really saying that for Ryn's benefit at all, but for himself.]

...Gods. I thought that nightmare was behind me.

[voidshift]

I wish it were.

[after a few moments-]

If it were me-- would you do the same?

[onlythans]

[He's quiet for a lot longer than a few moments.]

Yes.

[He shifts his hand, running the pad of his thumb along Ryn's cheek.]

I wouldn't leave you to wake up to the horror of what you'd done.

[voidshift]

...all right.

[he tilts his head into the touch, there. that's- it's the answer he wants, as much as he wants to live.]

I- lost myself, when I died. Still don't remember all of it-- maybe people died, maybe they didn't, but I don't...

Don't let me wake up and know it happened.

[onlythans]

Shhh.

[It's a soothing noise, not a hushing one. Gods, if only there were a way to hold Ryn tight enough that the subconscious fears hanging over them could be forced to recede, even just a little distance — but there isn't.]

Tell me what you do remember...?

[voidshift]

[if only there were, honestly. he'd do it in a heartbeat.

he's silent for a few moments.]

I've told you a bit about the Void. About the whispers. If you delve too deep, the things that you find there-- it's not about resisting, anymore. It isn't possible to.

I was... overconfident. I pushed too far, trying to draw more power from it, and what I touched was... [his ears flick, hard, as he shakes his head.] I got the power I was looking for, but it was too much. I wasn't myself when it killed me, I don't know if anyone tried to stop it, or if I lashed out at them, all I heard was-- it was only the voices.

[onlythans]

It drove you mad. But it left enough of you to remember?

[Sounds awfully familiar, in the worst possible way.]

Do you still hear them now?

[voidshift]

...no. I can't touch the Void, here.

I don't know what would happen if I could, but they've said-- they have their capabilities back, after dying.

[so-- maybe some of his fears about dying make a different kind of sense, now.]

[onlythans]

"They've". You've been talking to the dead? Lavi and Chandra and the rest?

[voidshift]

Mostly Lavi, Eto, and Chandra.

[onlythans]

I see. I can't imagine any of them would have any reason to deceive you about something like that, either, so.

[Well, that's. Hm.]

...I wonder.

[voidshift]

...wonder what, Thancred?

[onlythans]

Why is it only here, then, that such things are suppressed? We call it being "dead" when someone leaves here and goes there, but those were words given to us, weren't they? We didn't come up with them ourselves. And it's nonsensical to think that one might be dead only to become more dead.

[He hums.]

If our powers were a threat to whatever is keeping us in this position, we'd lack them on every level. It can't be a question of security; why should one plane be any more or less vulnerable than another? So why keep them from us here and only here?

[voidshift]

That's always felt off to me, yes-- calling it dying when we're already dead. I mean, not many better words for it, but...

[still weird.]

I've been assuming something along the lines of-- I don't know, that they're already out of consideration so it doesn't matter. One of them said there are other people and demons there that just ignore them all, that they assumed it's the hell we go to after this if we don't make it out.

[onlythans]

Consideration for a game we didn't ask to play, but were tossed into regardless.

[Idly, he pets Ryn's tentacles.]

But then why cheat? If it were one person given advantage over all the others from the start, why bother with the whole of the game to begin with? Just choose a favorite, afford them the favor, and hang the rest of us. And if it's not one of us that's behind the malevolent influence, then who benefits from introducing it at all?

[voidshift]

Wait, what do you mean, cheat? I don't think I heard anything on that.

[the tentacles wind easily around his wrist and fingers, affectionate.]