008: I know my call despite my faults and despite my growing fears

[payingfordeliverance]

Who: Xerxes Break + CR
What: A catchall for springtime threads
When: March and April, perhaps even May
Where: Around and about

Content warnings: To be determined; will update as necessary

Comments

For Qrow: Backdated to February

[payingfordeliverance]

[The trip home is blessedly free of further incidents, provided that you don't count Xerxes Break deciding he does not wish to be fussed over and behaving accordingly as an "incident". The gentle, loving bickering with Ange continues the entire way, and when they arrive at the house, he turns into an imperious and demanding pain in everyone's ass. He is still cold from the weird snake venom, he declares, and wishes to warm up by the fireplace in the parlor because the lunar-powered space heater that lives up in his bedroom simply cannot beat a proper fire. So he's going to need a pillow nest to put there, and since everyone wants him to stay sat down, they will have to gather the pillows for him and pile them to his satisfaction. He sends them for extra pillows multiple times, decreeing that the ones stolen from the couch are not enough. And also he needs tea, and also nearly getting eaten has made him very hungry so he will require snacks, and on top of bleeding all over himself he was dragged across a forest floor today so he is filthy and will need a bath and after that he will want his favorite pajamas, and these are his most comfortable trousers and he's terribly mad about this whole thing, and so on and so forth until everyone is satisfied that he's healed enough to be up to his usual level of exhausting and therefore will be totally fine.

This is exactly the reaction Break is looking for.

Only once Ange has been handed off to the care of her loving wife does he finally settle down. Then, alone with Qrow, the truth beneath the shenanigans becomes visible again. He wants to settle in the parlor for the moment because he needs to rest before the final trek up to his bedroom, and his pride draws the line at letting other people see his lover help him carefully up the stairs. The relentless bitching about the chills gives way to violent shuddering as he lays there in his pillow nest, no longer bothering to try and hold still. He won't be able to hold his teacup on his own. And the light of the fire only emphasizes how pale his face still is, and just how much darkblood is shimmering all over his ruined clothing. Ange saved his life today, but he's still going to have to recover on his own for a while, and this is easily the worst shape he's been in since he arrived in Trench freshly dead.

It was arguably a waste of energy that he very much needs to put on such a show. Break just...didn't want Ange to settle in for her own rest still worrying about him. By the time his lover has settled in at his side to fuss over his wounds, still not quite closed and in need of cleaning and bandaging, Break has had time to realize just how wretched he feels in every way possible. He looks well and truly pathetic.]

...it was my fault. What happened.



[OOC: Sequel to this thread.]

[bolstafir]

[He's struck by a memory of something he said to Yang, what feels like lifetimes ago -- sometimes bad things just happen. It was one of the ways he had coped with a miserable semblance in a world that often felt exhausting to live in, to lay the blame at the whims of the universe and bury the self-loathing down deep, at the bottom of a bottle or preferably three.

As Break blames himself for nearly dying, the sentiment feels uncomfortably familiar, all over again. Qrow could gently shush him here, brush away the thought wholesale as he gently pulls a warm cloth against still-seeping injuries to clean them before the antiseptic and bandages are applied, but it's not as though it would do any good. He can feel the tangled gnarl of Break's emotions across the bond, that wound-tight irritation at oneself when a miscalculation proves costly. For all he tries to dampen his own end, there's a trickle of his own guilt that comes through in a similar way -- if he hadn't been distracted by that damn vision, he could've made it faster. It wouldn't have all been on Ange to kill the beast and keep him alive all by herself.

He sets the cloth down a moment and leans up against Break, careful not to jostle any of the wounds.]

This is where I probably oughta say something cool, like how the important thing's that you're safe now.

[And it is. He's not denying that it is. But...mmm.]

But now you'd know for sure I'd be full of shit if I tried to act like I wouldn't feel the exact same way in your place.

[perils of a blood magic soul union: the mortifying ordeal of being known.]

[payingfordeliverance]

[Break leans up against Qrow in turn, grateful for the warmth of him. He can't twist toward him as much as he'd like, given the placement of his wounds -- his core is out of action, and while he'll be able to stand and move around and so on, transitioning between up and down and rolling over are going to take some strategizing for a little while. But he nuzzles his face into Qrow's shoulder at least, muffling a bitter little laugh in the other man's shirt.]

Thank you for sparing me that cheese. If you were too cool at me now, I'd probably die from the final blow to my pride.

[Whatever he feels of Qrow's sense of guilt, Break doesn't address it. It's so like his own it's probably not worth talking about. Or, maybe that makes it even more worth discussing, but -- not right now. They won't get anywhere with it, so close to today's scare still.]

[bolstafir]

Nah. I think we've had enough of that already.

[It's delivered with a faintly cheeky grin, but there's a sense of earnestness to the remark nonetheless. He's including Break's original death here, on top of death-adjacent experiences in Trench aside from this most recent episode. Trench needs to stop yesterday, if not sooner.

He lets a few moments pass quietly like this, Break's face pressed against his shoulder, before he ventures:]

What happened?

[payingfordeliverance]

[There's a bit of a pause after Qrow asks — not because Break doesn't want to talk about it, but because he's exhausted enough that being tucked up against someone he trusts so much even for such a short time is enough to have him starting to drift. He stirs just a little as he gathers his thoughts, but otherwise remains where he is.]

…the beast was right by the path through the wood. To all appearances, it was dead. Even Baltus thought so. He could sense a danger nearby, but — well, dead beasts attract others. I thought I'd dust the corpse, to discourage whatever was coming from hanging around the path.

[Ange had wanted to leave it for someone else to deal with, but Break has been training with a great Huntsman for well over a year now, on top of the knightly urges he still possesses. He'd have been antsy all night if he'd just walked away from anything that might have led to random passersby on the path getting attacked by the monsters of Trench. If people were slaughtered because of his neglect, the blood would be on his hands as surely as if he'd killed them himself. Break knows there is no need to explain this to Qrow.]

Because it was dead, I didn't have my little shield up, and…the next thing I knew, it had its fangs right through my middle and was dragging me off. I suppose it was only playing at being a corpse, to lure in prey.

[Therein lies his self-loathing, which increases over their bond. He can't use his shield constantly the way the Remnant people use their Aura. It's hard to argue that conserving his energy was the better choice when having it up just in case would have prevented his injuries today. Prevented the fight that followed, and saved Ange so much distress. He has been hanging out with a Huntsman, accompanied him on his beast-hunting excursions in the past. Surely he should have learned to be suspicious.]

[bolstafir]

[Ah. The picture certainly becomes clear from there. Break blames himself for not being suspicious enough, and it's true what Qrow said, that he would've felt the same in his shoes, and yet -- where Qrow stands at his side, he can't help but see it as an incredibly easy mistake to make. It is not as though Qrow goes and researches the beasties around Trench himself, and he rather doubts even the Hunters that have been part of Trench for decades do any such thing, either. If anything, there's a little affectionate swell of feeling at the fact that Break had been more concerned with the safety of potential passerby than his own; naturally as it might come now, there was a time when he'd been young when such a choice would've been incomprehensible to him. It's the kind of mistake that represents the best of what they've both chosen to become, each having climbed over a small mountain of skeletons to get there.]

Man, if there's one thing Remnant ever had going for it, it's that the Grimm had the decency to turn to ash as soon as they were dead. This whole thing where we have to deal with the corpses is one hell of a ripoff.

[Picking the cloth back up from where he'd put it down, he sets back to quietly cleaning the other injuries. There's little he can say that'd actually help; no amount of logical arguments or reassurances that he couldn't have known or that it wasn't his fault will change how frightening today's experience was.

...There is one thing, though. Break will probably feel it first, a sort of warmth that tries to fill him against the cold spells of the poison--that overwhelming, enveloping kind he may have felt from Qrow alongside his embarrassment back when he was trying to write that letter and found his feelings resisting being put into such simple things as words.]

I'm...glad you didn't die.

[It feels like an important distinction, from what he claimed he wouldn't say, before. With the way Sleepers work, Break would've been "safe" eventually. Death may not hold the permanence it once did for either of them, but it still means something. It's still a severing, a separation -- and with their souls connected the way it is, he shudders to think what that would feel like. The interim period had been difficult enough without that extra layer of grief when it had been Ruby or Ozpin.]

[payingfordeliverance]

[Qrow's easy acceptance is far more comforting than any attempt at making Break believe he doesn't deserve the blame here could ever be. His acknowledgement arrives and passes and that is that. No need to dig further into what happened, or argue about just how much he ought to be kicking himself. Now, the important thing can be that Break is safe, and he finally starts to relax even as the unpleasantness of having his wounds tended to causes his breathing to hitch here and there.]

…I am, too.

[Qrow's affection over the bond is something Break would wrap himself in like a blanket if he could. That warmth is met with a sense of being reached for, thank you and glad you're here and want all at once. He pats around until his hand lands on Qrow's knee and rests there, keeping them in contact as he echoes his lover's thoughts without realizing.]

Even if we come back in the end, I…when that time came at home, I meant to be alone, but — Sharon and Reim found me, and I made such an awful scene and that was that. All our time together and now that's the last they'll ever know of me. It makes me crazy. To think of giving anyone else such horrible memories, to give anyone else that sort of burden to carry, I really can't stand it at all.

[His death at home is one of the nightmares Qrow sometimes watches him wake up from. It shows up in all kinds of ways.]

Oh, poor Ange. She was so frightened. I'm certain today will haunt her.

For Ruby: March, post-Rokkenjima

[payingfordeliverance]

[The world ends, more or less. The dimension Ange created in a twisted attempt to build a safe haven for her loved ones is gone. The house she shares with Ruby returns to normal. When the witch awakens, she removes the magic she'd implanted in Break and Ruby, connecting them to her as her furniture. Break, who had been lurking in the house to keep an eye on the girls as Ange slept, is certainly free to go.

He stays.

Baltus wanders the grounds when he isn't keeping one or both of the Nieces company, keeping an eye out for any signs that someone affected by Rokkenjima may be inspired to get a bit of revenge for this or that. The grim's patrolling leaves Break free to take up proper residence in the kitchen, cooking up all his best comfort foods in the hopes that the girls will be inspired to eat -- pizza, a twist on nikujaga with mushrooms rather than beef, proper mac and cheese that hasn't come out of a box. Given the atmosphere, he certainly isn't running another gleeful tea party, and he gives the girls their space. But his presence is solid and steady, and it's easy to tell when he's in the kitchen by the music that drifts softly from his omni, the gentle stuff he likes when he isn't being obnoxious with show tunes from children's movies.

Some good talks will need to be had before Break will be satisfied that he can return to his own house. But with everyone still finding their feet in the aftermath — himself included, though he won't admit it — it's not as though Break can simply waltz up to them and start making mentor speeches. So he simply keeps himself available, and waits for the girls to come to him.]