The Tale of Tavish Blackwood

[goesdown]

Who: Tavish Blackwood (Crowley) and OPEN
Where: Storybrooke, mostly his house, his business and the diner.
When: Throughout the event
Rating: PG13
Summary: Tavish Blackwood leads an ordinary life as an ordinary tailor.
The Story:

Day 1:
Tavish Blackwood goes through the motions the same as ever. He wakes up and makes himself a nice breakfast alone. Some mornings he has a mess to straighten up, but there were no house guests last night and on this morning, everything is just as he left it the night before.

He sips his coffee over a boring news paper and gets dressed before heading over to the modest shop where he does his tailoring. There's a bell at door to get his attention, but he keeps his back to it for much of the day, pinning and sewing a dress for someone's boring party about a boring thing. The woman had yammered on about it, but he can't remember a word.

By the end of the day, he's worn and weary and had far fewer projects than he'd like under way. He walks home, checking familiar places for a familiar face and then he goes home alone.

Days 2-3:
Today, things feel less monotonous and Tavish isn't sure why. He makes his breakfast a little different and he smiles over the paper. Business has picked up a bit, no thanks to Lerman, and he's starting to feel a little more optimistic about his life.

He walks to work and the weather is nicer than it's been in ages and he even opts to prop the heavy door to his shop open and let the fresh air in. He's still busy with projects, but they're all coming out perfectly and he can't help smiling down at the suit that he's taking in.

After he closes up shop, he heads to the diner. It might be nice to be social for a while before bed.

Days 4-5:
Once the smoke passes over Tavish and his memories of his other life come flooding back, he's left shaken. He's human, isn't he? He certainly feels human because he feels at all. That life has to be some sort of illusion, doesn't it? Except maybe he was happier there. Is that worth being a demon? He can't quite process all of the terrible things he's done if that life is the real one.

Instead of facing the problem head-on, he heads to his shop, closing all of the blinds and covering the windows until no daylight seeps in. Then he gets to work sewing, as he always does. The front door is still unlocks with its little bell tied to the doorknob, but anyone who enters will find him crouched over a sewing machine with only a desk light to see it.

Comments

Day 3

[first_demon]

Lily swans into his shop with a bright smile, sliding up to the counter in a more vivacious manner than normal. Her mood soaring as well. "Mr. Blackwood." She gives him a once over, glad to see he is in good health and in a good mood like her.

"So, I know it's a bit late notice, but I was hoping I could get a priority rush on a dress? It needs to be taken in a bit and I'd like to wear it tonight."

[goesdown]

Crowley is hardly unhappy to see one of his most loyal customers. Much as he'd like to be too busy to squeeze this in, he really isn't.

"I think I should have time today if you'd like to try it on so we can fit it."

He gestures towards the curtained off changing room.

"Shouldn't take more than a few hours."

[first_demon]

"Thanks," she said, a little breathless that she had managed to get to do this at all. It was inconsiderate of her to monopolize his time like this and she wasn't ungrateful. He was, after all, one of the best in time.

Slipping behind the curtain, she pulled on the white dress, grimacing at how big it was. "Has it been quiet today?" She asked, stepping out after a few minutes.

[goesdown]

"A bit, yeah. Nice to see a loyal customer, though." He brings his work to a good stopping place before he gets up to collect a handful of safety pins and a small notepad.

"Let's see what we've got here." Tavish circles around her, looking at what he'll need to do before he starts to pin anything.

[first_demon]

She gave a sigh, bashful that he would see how large this dress had become on her. "I bought it after I gave birth to Eve. I guess I didn't think I was going to lose this weight." Lily said, watching him circle around her.

"It was flattering at the time, just tight enough. Now it's a tent."

[goesdown]

"I don't know a lot of women who would complain about losing weight."

He moves closer, pinching at seams and testing the fit.

"At any rate, we'll have this fitting in no time."

He starts to slip safety pins in to keep track of what he needs to do to the dress.

Day 2; evening

[oversight]

Some days are hazier than others. For Blake, it usually depends on the night before: how much money he can scrounge, how much alcohol he can weasel past his lips and into his already frail and thin body, how effortlessly he can stumble back to safe haven, usually in the back seat of his useless car.

Times are tough, but he's tougher, right? Or so he tells himself every time he's drunk and brewing enough attitude to argue with the locals. Most days he goes home whole, but every once in a while he ends up pathetically sobbing into a dirty paper bag around the cheapest rotgut he can find.

It's all so wrong, so unfortunate, but he doesn't care. Not about the stinking week-worn clothes or the scraggly beard or the way his hair looks greasy and flat and unkempt. Why should he bother? He can't work, he doesn't have what it takes to start over, and this shithole of a town holds every memory he's got. Even if he wanted to leave, he probably couldn't.

So, fuck it. Thomas will charge on as per usual, blind and stupid drunk, dirty and ranting to only himself as he tries to fight a signpost outside one of the local shops.

[goesdown]

Tavish always keeps an eye out for Blake. Things have... changed, but that doesn't mean that everything has. He's watched Blake slide downhill for years and still Tavish catches him sometimes, even at the expense of his own home.

On this night, he catches sight of Blake fighting with imaginary demons on a public street. Easily, he steps into Blake's personal space to pull him away from his current preoccupation.

"Fancy seeing you here, darling."

[oversight]

Slow to react, Blake turns and pulls away from the form suddenly invading his field of vision. His arm comes up to guard his face — a hasty measure he learned sometimes helps when the cops are looking to subdue him — but he over-corrects and stumbles back a foot or so, stopped eventually by the very sign he'd been looking to fight.

"What's—? What're— what'd'you want?" He asks, voice slurring. The drink of the day is whiskey if the smell of Thomas is any indication. It doesn't quite turn him into an asshole, but it tempts him to act bitter, even if Tavish has never done anything but support him.

Wavering of his feet, he steps closer to the other man. "Hey. Hey, let's get— let's get a drink, eh?" For old time's sake, he almost says.

[goesdown]

It breaks Tavish's heart just a little to see Blake like this. He'd never admit it out loud, but there had been a time when he'd admired the man greatly.

His face doesn't betray any of his feelings, though, even as it lacks his customary smirk.

"Why don't you come back to my place?"

Tavish's house is safe, at least. He keeps something a bit cheaper than his own tastes in the fridge for nights like this. Better Blake is inside where it's warm and safe and there's no one to start a fight with, lest they go the way of the sign Blake had been trying to take out. When it's all said and done, he can tuck Blake in on the couch with a trash can next to him and advil on the table. It's a well-worn routine.

[oversight]

Blake generally wouldn't care about the offer, but some nights it rings clear as a bell, like Blackwood's taking pity, like he doesn't trust a guy even knows how to take care of himself. Reaching into his pocket, Blake grips a few loose crumpled and dirty bills and brings them up to shake at the other man.

"This is all I need," he says, voice thick with accusation even if he doesn't quite know what he's saying. "Come to— come to the bar. I've got this, I've got this..." Turning quiet, he reaches out to tug at Tavish's sleeve and inadvertently drops a pair of ones. Now comes the dangerous part where he's got to get down there and retrieve the money.

"Whiskey sours tonight." It's supposed to entice the other man, but Thomas is hardly in the mood to really sell it for more than a hope and dream of his own.

[goesdown]

Tavish lets him bend and reach for his dropped money, but his hand hovers by the small of Blake's back, ready to grab or catch the mad as needed if he starts to go down.

"I've got whiskey at home, sweetheart. And real lemons."

He stays close, not making a movie to extricate himself from Blake's grip.

"Come on. It's cold out here."

day 1

[hybrida]

There are some days he feels like throwing money around. It creates a sense of power, of control, two feelings he's been lacking lately and that just won't do.

His preferred tailor has always been Tavish - Owen Lerman was just flat out annoying to deal with - and he enters the store with a lazy stroll, hands in his pockets. He sees Tavish behind the counter, back turned, and makes his way up to the man.

"Working hard, mate?"

[goesdown]

Tavish hears the little bell ring, but he wants to finish the seem he's sewing before he turns around. The sewing machine whirs as he finishes the last few inches, backstitching neatly at the bottom and lifting the foot to cut the threads and set the pants down flat on his work space.

"Hard enough." He smiles as he turns around and rises to his feet. "What can I do for you today?"

Day 5

[vates]

Daniel almost wants to call out of work like he did the day before, but there's just... too much. Kevin Tran's life is awful, and is he supposed to accept it as his own? Is he supposed to accept that his father is an angel who possessed his teacher and killed him? Is he supposed to accept that his boss once tortured him and killed his mother? But then they wound up in Wonderland and are sort of friends now, or whatever they are? There are people he could go to talk, but ultimately, when he gets right down to it, the person he wants to talk to is Tavish.

As awful as Daniel's memories are, it's hard to reimagine Tavish as a demon. How is he processing all this? Maybe he can reassure Daniel, tell him that none of it is real.

Once he gets to the shop, he stops just outside, looking at the windows and feeling the pit of his stomach sink; that doesn't seem very encouraging. Steeling himself, he opens the door and closes it behind him; the bell is annoyingly cheerful, and it seems to echo.

"Tavish. Um... Hi."

[goesdown]

He's so buried in his work that he may as well not even register that he has company. As it is, he does hear the little bell on the door and he assumes that it's just a customer. What's the point in customer service at a time like this?

"Daniel." He turns around. "Feeling better today?"

Though he won't pretend not to know what's really at play there. He's not exactly having an easy time of remembering all the horrible things he's done to Daniel that he never actually did.

[vates]

Daniel's first answer is a long sigh, and then he shakes his head with a short, "No." Because one thing he's appreciated about working with Tavish is that neither one really has time to bullshit the other. He makes his way over to his chair, even though he isn't sure if Tavish really wants to talk.

"You got the memories too?" He assumes yes, but maybe Tavish is lucky. Maybe it's not everyone in town. Yeah, right.

"Who are those people? How can that be our lives?"

[goesdown]

"Yeah, I got them."

He goes quiet for a moment, images flashing in his head... he cut off the boy's finger and he's done much worse to others.

No. No, that's not him. That monster isn't who he is.

"They can't be. They aren't our lives."

[vates]

"I don't want to die, Tavish." Daniel basically blurts that; he hadn't meant to come right out with it, but it's what he's feeling the most. There's a lot that he doesn't want in Kevin's life -- the torture, the isolation, the long days of barely sleeping and translating tablets -- but he especially doesn't want to die. Kevin maybe managed to find some peace with that in Wonderland, whatever that whole place is, but that's so not enough when Daniel could instead choose to live even his shitty life.

"And you're not the best boss in the world, but you're no demon. You're not a king of Hell. Is this -- Do you think all this stuff is going to happen to us? For real?"

He winds up sounding scared. He is scared, and he hugs his arms around himself. He realizes now that what he'd been doodling the past couple of days had been sigils from those tablets.

[goesdown]

"I don't want it to." He can't help the open honesty in that. After successfully keeping everyone, save for one drunk former cop, at arm's length, he realizes that he's failed with Daniel in that regard. They might even be friends of some sort.

Crowley doesn't have friends. He has manipulations and fond attachments. Even his memories of Crowley and Blake seem marred by something that Tavish doesn't like--selfish and demanding an looming just at the corner of even the tenderest moments.

"I don't want to be a demon."

October 28th; early morning

[oversight]

It's very early when Blake decides he needs to see Tavish. More than a days worth of uncertainty has driven him right back to the man who he did his best to avoid on more sober days. But it's not for the usual reasons, not this time, and he's not sure he knows how to explain why he's hastily knocking on the door in the pre-dawn hours.

"Tavish, open the door," he says, a bit too loud. He knocks several more times, insistently, to the point that one of Blackwood's neighbors peeps at the window to see what the commotion's all about. Blake eyes the face in the window, mostly shadowed and back lit, and turns his back to avoid being gawked at. They're probably intimately familiar after all the late night outbursts Blake had manifested over the years.

He knocks again, but this time it's not quite as loud. "It's Blake. John— ah, Blake Thomas," he corrects, not that he expects Tavish to know any other Blakes (John or otherwise).

[goesdown]

Tavish hears the knocking and he considers not bothering to answer it at all. What's the use? There's no one he wants to see and he pulls the blanket over his head and rolls over.

After a while when the knocking doesn't stop, he finally sits up and listens for the commotion downstairs. Figures it's the one person who could actually get him out of bed.

With a sigh, he climbs out of bed and pulls on his well-worn bathrobe. Blake has seen him in worse repair than pajamas and a bathrobe, anyway, so he doesn't bother looking for his slippers and instead walks across the cold hardwood floor with bare feet.

By the time he opens the door, Blake's been knocking for a while and Tavish can't help just staring at him like he's just come back from the dead. Funny that Blake is the one thing in these new memories that doesn't make him recoil in horror.

[oversight]

Not funny ha-ha, but funny, right? Or maybe not. In fact, Blake's actually confronted with Crowley when that door opens — it's the first name to spring to mind, even before Tavish Blackwood — and it's enough for his breath to catch in his throat.

Reaching out, he wraps his fingers around Crowley's forearm and brings them both inside, not intending to spread any more of their oft-troublesome relationship around the neighborhood.

"Let's go inside," he says after he's already crossed the threshold with the other man in tow. He stops just inside the door leaving enough room that Tavish can close it.

"Tell me what you know about demons," Blake says, "and not the personal kind." He figures if Crowley's part of this, any of the mind-shared insanity, Tavish would know.

[goesdown]

Tavish lets Blake move in without resistance and he pushes the door closed without much thought. Doing so puts him very firmly into Blake's personal space and he stays there.

"They're monsters." His voice is low and he leaves off the part where there's a chance that he is one. "They're monsters and they do... terrible things."

And unlike Tavish, they get to be with Blake. They get to be happy and have the bloody world while Tavish has mounting debt and a failing business and a broken heart.

"And they don't deserve you." Not the way Tavish does.

He wants to kiss Blake, because it's the one thing in all of this that doesn't contradict any of the memories jumbled around in his head. Whether he's a miserable man or a monster, he wants Blake. He can't help wondering if Blake feels the same pull.

[oversight]

Blake Thomas doesn't know what to think of that other life, but he's having a hard time not envying it. Sobriety, success, free food, someone caring in his bed as often as he wants it... Christ, it's like some kind of dreamworld, but who shares dreams? That's just not a thing that happens.

He runs his hands down his face and takes a deep breath. Tavish sounds like he's on the verge of losing it, like he's already got one hand on the proverbial door, ready to close it off.

"Is it real? What we saw? Tell me if you think it was real." His fingers curl around Blackwood's sleeve. "Did you love me there?" After asking, though, he finds himself petrified on all fronts as the aspect of the either version of the man in front of him answering the question.