The Tale of Tavish Blackwood

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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

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With a noncommittal hum, Tavish goes to the kitchen to mix an insultingly watered-down drink. He figures Blake's too drunk to take the difference and he needs more water than alcohol right now. He also sets water boiling on the stove for tea, just in case Blake is feeling nice enough to let him give it.

He never sees any of this as coddling. He's taking care of a friend... or what's left of one. Sometimes he almost sees shadows of the man he'd been skirting around for years, batting warm smiles and light flirtations Blake's way like it had been going out of style.

When he comes back, it's with a tray with both the whiskey and hot tea and a blanket. He sets the tray down in front of Blake and wraps the blanket around his shoulders, not particularly bothered by the fact that Blake had said he hadn't wanted it.

[oversight]

It's been a particularly rough couple of days, emotionally speaking. Seeing old friends and old flames has quite the effect and from Blake's perspective, none of it's good. And all of it stings.

He shrugs off the blanket petulantly and snaps up the alcohol, spilling nearly half on himself and downing the rest like a man dying of thirst. The cup's dropped so forcefully, the whole tray tips and tumbles to the floor, tea included, and Blake follows it. Kneeling in the mess, he haphazardly gathers the items with a clatter, mostly out of reflex because he's not even sure how it happened in retrospect. Story of his life at this point, really.

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Tavish follows Blake down, kneeling in front of him and grappling for his familiar hands.

It's not surprising that Blake would overturn a few things and Crowley never gives him any dishware that he's particularly attached to as a result, but they're just dishes and it's just tea.

"It's alright. I can get it."

His fingers on Blake's are firm and affectionate. Even after all this time, Tavish still wants him to be safe and happy.

[oversight]

The warmth of that gesture is mostly lost, but somewhere in there's a flare, an ache that accompanies that contact. They'd been so close at one time, so much together and to each other even if it wasn't anything official.

Blake doesn't argue, only crawls back up on to the couch, off to one side to remain out of the way of that clean up.

"Why'd you bring me here?" It comes out miserable and dry, full of contempt that he feels for himself instead of any he might have felt for Tavish. "Just to water down my drinks?" He's still slurring, but not nearly as badly as before.

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"To make sure you don't pass out in your own sick in the street and freeze to death."

He rests the dishes on the tray haphazardly and grabs a dish towel from the kitchen to soak up the spilled tea.

Once he tosses the towel down, he perches on the edge of the couch next to Blake, pressed up against his side just a little too closely.

"Darling, I just want to take care of you." It's barely a whisper.

Tavish says it now because no one can hear him except Blake and Blake won't remember in the morning, anyway, will he? He would never tell Blake anything like that sober. Tavish simply isn't that brave.

[oversight]

"Take care of me." He scoffs. "Who needs— who needs taken care of? I take care of me," he says, clearly delusional. Blake stands and pulls his jacket tightly around his frame, already heading for the door. He doesn't need another reminder that people think he's essentially unable to handle himself.

He's almost to the door when he spies the bottle of alcohol in the kitchen and suddenly he's not so interested in leaving Tavish's presence.

"You need— you don't need to worry, I've told you that." Blake turns toward the kitchen to retrieve a drink of his own.

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Tavish pushes himself up after Blake, ready to drag him back in if he tries to go. The man needs to sleep someplace warm and comfortable.

He scrambles after him as he moves and then back towards the kitchen, trying desperately to wrap his arms around the man and slow him down.

"I want to!" How many people does he let into his home like this? How many people does he let into his life anymore? "Please."

[oversight]

Not to be deterred, he pulls them both into the kitchen so that he can pour himself a shot. Everything before that is a flurry of rattling glasses and shaking bottles and by the time he gets some of it down, he's not so interested in shattering what's left.

"You don't know what you want," Blake says, his voice a bit off. He doesn't know what would have happened between them if things hadn't gone so quickly downhill, but he's sure it would have been short of what they should have been. Not that he's at all connected to reality here.

"Go to bed. I'll stay." Which feels like a compromise to keep Blake from saying something cruel, while still giving Tavish some of what he wants.

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The thing is that Tavish knows exactly what he wants and it's something he can't have, so he grabs for the scraps of what's left.

"You could come with me."

It's not an offer of sex. He doubts Blake even capable of the act like this and things between them are hardly in a place that can be fixed by sex, but he'll take the risk of Blake puking in his room if he can have a few hours of... of something.

[oversight]

It's awful to get stuck on a person, especially one that has so little interest in actually taking care of himself. Blake Thomas fell far and hard and he drug a little bit of Tavish Blackwood with him. Maybe a lot more than a little when you really consider the odds.

"That's what you want," Blake says, "but you don't— you don't know what you want. It's not that," he finishes, like he's giving the best example of wisdom he's got in him. It means nothing, of course. He's far too well along rotting his mind away with booze. He's tempted to drink straight from the bottle, but that won't make any of this go away.

Blake holds the bottle tightly around the neck and sinks to the floor in front of the sink where he intends to sit and drink and fuck the comfortable bed he knows is waiting for him.

Feeling particularly peevish, he takes a long swig and then narrows his eyes at Tavish. "Do you love me?"

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That's about the worst question anyone could all Tavish. How does he begin to explain that Blake is part of the reason he keeps everyone around him at arm's length?

He sinks down on the floor next to Blake, back against the cabinet.

"Does it matter, darling? If I said I did, would it change anything?"

No. Blake would still be drunk and angry and Tavish would still be lonely and miserable and then the last of his defenses would be truly gone.

[oversight]

That wasn't the answer Blake was expecting, anyway. He was aiming to spit out some kind of fortune cookie response about loving and letting go, but in reality even that had been meant as a joke. It's sobering, but not sobering enough.

"You don't," he replies and then takes another healthy pull of whiskey. It goes down bitterly and Blake knows it's because he's lying. "You shouldn't." And that's the truth, but it doesn't take away the lingering taste.

"What good am I, huh? What— why do that? Why you gotta..." Thomas sadly shakes his head and turns to look across the kitchen. The blub-blub-blub of the bottle is a sure sign he's not interested in letting anything more beyond alcohol pass over his lips. He's already said enough.

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"And you shouldn't ask questions you already know the answer to."

Once the bottle leaves Blake's lips, Tavish leans over to press his lips to Blake's.

Il-advised as this is, that question is the final straw holding it back. Maybe he'd been too beaten down to bother before, but these last few days he's felt... good. Things are a little better, aren't they? They don't just have to be better for Tavish. They can be better for Blake, too. They can be better for the both of them.

[oversight]

The contact is surprising enough that Blake doesn't kiss back. He remembers a time when the two of them were close but he never thought he'd end up in a place like this, between a bottle and a good man. After a second he gently extricates himself from the contact and sighs.

"Stop." It's half of a plea, really. "You'll just— you're gonna hurt yourself." He's convinced of it. Which means that he needs to get off the floor and find somewhere else to be. Like hell is he going to pull someone else down (even if he's not stopping to think that Tavish made his own choice to be here).

He scrambles to get to his feet again without putting the bottle down, but he's not very steady under any circumstances.

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Tavish is too surprised to chase after him as he moves away, but when Blake stumbles getting up, Tavish is there to take his weight as needed, shifting up onto his knees.

"It's going to hurt me more if you go."

He's not a bad man in his own eyes, but he is an unhappy man. He wants desperately to feel some sliver of happiness again.

[oversight]

For that moment, it's enough to tug on the part of him that remembers how good they were. He slows to a stop, the bottle dangling beside him, his expression tight and distant. How can he walk away from that?

"I—" Blake takes a drink and then paws at the alcohol that dribbles down his chin. "I don't wanna hurt you," he says, but he knows he already has. And it matters, god does it matter, but he can't help thinking it matters less then it should.

He falters and takes a few stumbling steps back toward the living room. "Lemme shower. Lemme think." A real shower with hot water is too good to pass up even if he's blatantly using Blackwood.

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There are no illusions in Tavish's mind as to how this ends. Blake will trash bits of his house and leave before he wakes up. He always does. Still, he'll take this because it's all he can get.

"Shower. Whatever you need. I'll get you clean clothes."

He lets his hand brush Blake's arm as he moves towards the bedroom to find something comfortable and warm for Blake to sleep in, but he stops in the doorway, back to Blake.

"Darling, if you don't want to be here, don't let me keep you, but if your only objection is to spare my feelings, I'd really rather you just stay. I'm a big boy."

[oversight]

Blake isn't entirely heartless, but when push comes to shove, he doesn't have a whole lot of loyalty, even to himself. He expects to fail, to always come up last, and just because Tavish believes he's worth a damn doesn't mean the world does, too.

"Okay." It's hardly an answer, but it's something to get him by to the next stage of the night.

He drifts off in the familiar place to do just as he said, bottle and all. If he's lucky, he'll fall asleep before he makes it out of the bathroom.