[open] i can't forget it

[franciscoramon]

who: cisco + anyone!
what: catch-all & soulmate stuff
when: september
where: anywhere; if you want a starter, please hit me up at platoapproved!
warnings: will add as needed

[will add here]

Comments

[spellslots]

[It's not that he doesn't know that Cisco would easily offer any of those things, it's just hard to accept it sometimes. There's a reason he went to Bryn, not Cisco or Lup, after Lucretia first changed, and it was because he didn't want to be around someone who was going to make him actually open up and talk about it. Not that Cisco would've pushed it, but he is, by nature, that kind of person and even Taako isn't immune to it.

It's exactly what's happening right now, even if logically he knows that immediately burying everything and putting on a front isn't the greatest way to cope, sometimes that seems preferable to actually opening up and being any kind of vulnerable. But right now Cisco's the person who's here and he's - grateful, even if he also hates it a little bit.]

I know, bubbale. [If he sounds a little choked up, maybe Cisco will ignore it.] Um, I don't-- Not right now? Not really into like, doing anything. At all.

[He's .2 seconds away from tears and he's pretty sure that almost anything will trigger it at this point.]

I'm just fucking tired.

[Of all this bullshit, really.]

[franciscoramon]

Okay. We don't have to do anything.

[ Cisco can hear it in Taako's voice - how weary he is, how close to breaking down. Under certain circumstances, he might have tried to encourage that, to get Taako to just purge those bad feelings and hope that he would feel better afterwards. But his instincts are telling him that right now isn't one of those times. Not when Taako is so weary, when he'd just gone through the indignity of being so angry, and being beaten in a fight, and being hurt, and having his sister spread all that on the public network.

So Cisco doesn't push him. He just keeps holding onto him, not showing any signs that he is going to let go until Taako wants him to. They sit like that for a moment or two in silence, before Cisco says quietly: ]

I ever tell you about the time I got blown up by Pied Piper, aka my least favorite coworker of all time?

[ He had done this sometimes with Caitlin, in the first awful month after the particle accelerator explosion, when she was a wreck over Ronnie (and Cisco was trying to pretend he wasn't a wreck over Ronnie, too). He would just hold her for a while and talk about complete nonsense - bad 80s movies he loved, or awful conferences he'd attended, the personal quirks and foibles of the professors he'd had in college. Anything to get her mind away from the present, to fill up the silence with words that didn't really matter all that much.

And he thinks maybe that will help Taako, too. So he picks a story that seems harmless - Hartley Rathaway, with all his privilege and spite and stupid grandiose plans involving sound waves - and starts to recount it. He starts right around the beginning, how much he'd hated working with Hartley, how he'd thought he was finally free of him once Hartley was fired. He dodges some bits of the story, for his own reasons; it's pretty clear, that most of the parts he's glossing over heavily revolve around Eobard, but there's still plenty to tell that doesn't involve him much. Cisco talks about how he'd missed the implants in Hartley's ears being explosives, how he'd gotten his ass blown up and had to deal with all the concussion bullshit afterwards.

He talks at a steady pace, but his attention is divided - only half of it going into the story while the other half is focused on Taako, and his breathing and whether he seems tense or uncomfortable. The point here isn't to tell this tale because it's important, but because he wants to give Taako a little slice of escapism, something to focus on that is not his life and how miserable he is right now. ]

[spellslots]

[It's a relief to have something else to focus on, something that he doesn't have to actually think about or respond to, because both of those things are a long way away from something that he's capable of doing. Listening, though, he can do, and it's helping to take the edge off the tension that had settled in his chest even after the fight is long over. His breathing, which had been a little rough, evens out as Cisco talks, slowing down to a more sedate pace that says a lot about how worn out he is.

If he was human this might be where he'd doze off, but he isn't so he doesn't, though it's a near thing. Cisco isn't family, not the way the IPRE are, not the way Lup is, but he's someone that Taako trusts enough to truly let his guard down around. There's still a part of him that expects that to bite him in the ass someday, but he hopes it doesn't.

By the time Cisco's story is wrapped up, the urge to cry has (mostly) passed and the shitty feelings have subsided to a manageable level, at least for the moment. Taako gently extracts himself from the embrace, leaning back and scrubbing at his face to try to shove away a little of that exhaustion.]

Thank you.

[Thank you and I'm sorry are two things that Taako doesn't say a lot, but this is important enough to break his own little rule about owing people shit or admitting he needed help or whatever the issue with showing gratitude is.]

[franciscoramon]

[ Cisco has been holding Taako for long enough that it feels strange for the first moment or two, after he moves. But when Cisco gets a look at him, Taako looks... better. Not good, by any stretch, but less fragile. Less like he is holding himself together with both hands.

He can tell the difference, between that thank you and the kind of casual thanks pumpkin that Taako would toss out easily if Cisco handed him his hat or brought him a mug of tea. This is a thank you with some weight, and he doesn't take that lightly. But he doesn't want to make a fuss over it, either, so he just smiles softly and says: ]

Anytime.

[ It's only a moment after that that Cisco hears the sound of the door open - Lup, returning from her errands, which seems like a good time to excuse himself. He wasn't about to leave Taako on his own, but if Lup is there, Cisco knows she will take care of her brother. So he says a quick goodbye and, with one last glance over his shoulder at Taako sitting on that couch, looking small and wan, he leaves. ]