Come Sail Away Inbox

[midnightroads]

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Please see Opt-In, as contacting Bash may interact with his Scion abilities.

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[not_the_last]

The shapes in the smoke make her think of Erin, briefly and blurrily.

"No need," she says, equally quiet. "I was hoping to find you."

[midnightroads]

"You found me." He taps the ash off the end of his cigar, raising his eyebrows. He can guess what she's here about--it's not hard--but he wants to know if she's here to bitch him out for attacking a child, or if she's here for something else about the whole thing.

[not_the_last]

She nods. Starts to speak, hesitates, stops. Bites her lip.

Finally says it, looking up at him. "Are you all right?"

[midnightroads]

He lets out a snort that's the bitter cousin of a laugh.

"You're always so much the lady, so careful, so pre-cise. You could piss on a plate and never splash, that's how careful you are. Don't pick around things and use pretty words for me, Cass. I'm not like you, I don't need people to use manners as a shield for my feelings. Is that what you really wanted to ask, or was that just the nice thing to ask?"

[not_the_last]

Cassandra draws up and back just slightly as he speaks, chin pulling in, but that's as close as her response comes to a look of affront, much less shock.

Dry, not quite cold: "That was me being blunt, in fact. Careful would have started with something like I hope you've been well and then picked several intricate dance steps around the carnival before turning ever so delicately into I do beg your pardon, but I couldn't help but notice. I'd be happy to escalate immediately into what the fuck happened back there, if you'd prefer."

(She pronounces the words what the fuck without any particular emphasis; with, in fact, the same precision as the rest of it.)

[midnightroads]

"Someone came at Jeff when he was in possum form and couldn't protect himself, not properly. He doesn't like to speak in that form, let alone sing to use his magic, so making sure he was safe was my job. I didn't touch the kid, just kept him back. I don't know if you've realized this, but I don't get to be harmless anymore. Jeff was possessed in October. I fought and got killed by an evil necromancer in December. I need to be willing to fight back, to not shy away from everything I can do anymore. I need to get stronger, bolder, I can't just say I'm a pacifist, because no one gets to opt out of everything that's happening on the ship. Out in the city, I crossed a lot of lines, keeping myself and Jeff safe, and now...now I don't get to have lines. I need to be tough, I need to be sharp, I need to be dangerous."

He stands, stalking toward her, and as she gets close, she might realize there's tears in his eyes.

"Everything Bash St. Expedit is supposed to be, I don't get to be anymore. I need to stuff that in a box and learn to be the weapon my father always wanted from me."

[not_the_last]

She doesn't step back as he comes closer, doesn't let herself react to the gleam of wetness in his eyes. It isn't until he says stuff that in a box that she flinches.

"You didn't touch the kid." It's all she can think of to say. "You didn't hurt him."

[midnightroads]

"You're telling me that throwing pure fear in someone's face doesn't hurt them? That's a load of crap. I showed him I was stronger than him, it was the sort of thing a bully would do. But it kept Jeff safe, and that's what mattered at the time."

He closes his eyes, shoulders slumping slightly. Like, he wants to take the moral out that she's offering, but he can't, he's busy hating himself, thanks.

[not_the_last]

"And it felt terrible." Very low. "I could see it did. I can see it now."

[midnightroads]

"Yes, well. I gotta get over it, don't I? Fuck me and my choice to be kind first, always. I don't get that choice!" He's yelling now, he can't help it. He can almost feel the cracks in his everything.

Bash has been losing bits and pieces of himself slowly, over the course of the past decade. From discovering he's a demigod and being Tasked with Divine Duties to being sent to Boston to help with the titanspawn invasion there, to seek out the mysteries of the Tuatha there. And then Duplicity, where he was expected to wear the face of a model Dominant, and he did, to the point where they assigned him as a mentor to those who rebelled, who dared buck the system. And now, here. It was Lord Vile that was the last straw--he put up as much of a fight as he could but the pacifist had not learned to be a force of violence.

He needs to learn to be a force of violence.

He needs to not be so weak.

[not_the_last]

"I don't --"

Speaking in the face of his misery feels like standing under a heavy waterfall, like it's trying to batter her down.

"I don't understand. Why don't you get that choice now?"

[midnightroads]

"Because I'm a fucking demigod! I'm strong enough that I might be able to do something someone else can't. If I'd been more ready, I mighta been able to stop Lord Vile--I was one of the ones who sensed him, knew it was bad juju, went to go find him. And my Sundries gifts, I keep getting things to make me stronger, so clearly, clearly this is what I'm supposed to be doing."

It's been battering him down for all this time, Cass.

[not_the_last]

"Supposed to?" It's not quite a sputter, but it comes close. "According to whom? Who gets to make that decision if you don't?"

[midnightroads]

"The Fates? My father? Whoever keeps dragging me into these worlds? My life has never been my own, not since I learned what I am." And even before then...well, he knew all too well what a burden he was to his mother.

He turns away from her. Finds a nearby chair and drops himself into it with an audible plop.

"Are you happy? Is this what you were looking for me about?"

[not_the_last]

"No," she says, her voice lower again, "and yes. I don't like seeing good people hurt themselves."

[midnightroads]

"What's the alternative? Sit still and watch everyone else around me get hurt, when I can be doing something about it?" He's looking down at the floor instead of at her now, looking for all the world like a puppet with the strings cut.

[not_the_last]

She sits down, next to him rather than across.

"But doing something about it doesn't have to mean becoming a weapon, does it?"

[midnightroads]

"What else can it mean?" He glances sidelong at her.

But she's not wrong, he's got this big fallacy wrapped up around him where it comes to anger and violence. He doesn't believe in fighting, and that's where this whole know is tied up in the pit of his stomach.

[not_the_last]

Cassandra breathes out unsteadily. "A lot of things. Getting away, for starters. Getting other people away. Being -- being a wall instead of a weapon, maybe. I don't know."

[midnightroads]

"You don't know. I don't know either. I don't have a fucking clue." He lets the frustration leach into his voice like watercolor paint on a wet page, closing his eyes. "I'm sorry."

[not_the_last]

"I'm sorry too," she says softly. "I came looking for you because I wanted to help, and I'm only now realizing that I don't have any clear idea how to. I just ... don't want to leave you alone with it."

Because he's kind. Because he's in pain. Because he offered to walk her back to her cabin, after they brought Crichton's body to the morgue, back in October.

[midnightroads]

"How are you on touch? I could use a hug, but I get it if you're not the touchy type."

He could use more than a hug, but he's not about to ask anyone to just spoon him until he feels like a teddy bear instead of a person.

[not_the_last]

Without a word she scoots closer to him, and reaches up to wind both arms around his shoulders.

(Without a word, because answering the question how are you on touch would have to cover so many different things, none of which seem important right now.)

[midnightroads]

He just sort of crumples into her, burying his face in her shoulder. And starts to cry.

[not_the_last]

Oh. Oh, no.

What she feels, as he weeps in her arms, is an odd species of panic: I can't, I don't know how, I'll do it wrong. But she's here, and she wanted to help, and if this is what he needs --

So she holds him close, and out of some dim instinct rests a hand on the back of his head, and rocks back and forth with the smallest faint motion.