i'll crawl on my belly til the sun goes down

[tadpoled]

WHO: Tav, Captain Marcus Rowntree
WHAT: Tav has an 'episode'
WHEN: Late Guardian, evening through dawn
WHERE: The Gallows
NOTES: Warning for Tav talking about wanting to do terrible gorey things.

[Tav feels the first warning when he's finishing his dinner and stands to return to the Gallows. His stomach squirms, bile threatens to crawl up the back of his throat, and fatigue hits him like hammer. He sends to warning message to the Captain before picking up speed, nearly tumbling down stairs and hitting walls as he goes. The sweat dripping into his eyes certainly doesn't help in helping him find where he needs to go.

However, he makes it, even as his vision clouds and his legs threaten to give out on him. Tav staggers the last few steps up into the Gallows, looking the portrait of miserable. He doesn't know how much time he has left, but he needs to be locked up now.]

Comments

[luaithre]

There is a sense of urgency to Marcus' gait, but an absence of panic. He registers the message sent to him and does not break into a sprint; there are altogether too many stairs and passageways within the Gallows to navigate to make that sort of expedience useful. There are things he has to do first, too.

Bundles of rope, first, if a little skeptically retrieved. An accomplice, second. Ellis is plucked from the guardsroom when Marcus descends the central tower and makes for the residential one where Tav resides.

So, two sets of heavy footsteps, rising up through the stone staircase and then into the hallway. Marcus has his staff equipped in hand, and his glance about the hallway has more of a hunter's impatience than apprehension, before leading the way to the correct room.

[tadpoled]

By the time the Captain has traversed the many steps and towers, Tav has divested his vest and as many of his outer layers as is decent. He has no weapopns to doff, but he leaves anything that could be misconstrued as such outside his door. No need to give his other side any kind of leverage.

He knows he must have sweated through the pants and shirt he still is wearing as his stomach churns, bile threatening to force its way up through his teeth. Tav can feel it, the the urges, his other self, his true self fighting to be set free. He doesn't see his butler, but that doesn't mean hallucinations are that far off.

He hears the footsteps and assumes the presence of the Captain and someone else. And if not, then someone come to kill him. Tav bites his tongue with the effort to keep fighting and tries to allow that blood to sate the Bhaalspawn inside. He kneels down on the ground in an attempt to cool off, ease the churning of his stomach, and prevent him from falling asleep.

The last time he faced this, Gale was there, for better or worse, helping him through the night. Gale, how he misses him, misses his tangents about whatever they might be facing, how pretty his blood might look painted across the groun-- no. It's getting worse and getting worse fast.

He needs to be locked in as soon as physically possible, so Tav calls out in desperation, "Captain!"

[heorte]

Mace in hand, Ruadh dispatched to seek Wysteria, Ellis looks askance at Marcus upon hearing that shout echo down the hall. He is only a half step behind, at Marcus' left.

"I'd like to ask some questions, later," carries no accusation in it, no impatience. Now isn't the time to trifle over the particulars of the situation.

And he and Marcus have enough shorthand to approach a threat together, to manage it if it escalates past containment.

[luaithre]

"As would I," is muttered, having slowed but not stopped at his title being called.

Looks at the clutter on the floor of the hallway, can deduce its purpose, and nudges a few things aside with the edge of his boot as he steps into the threshold. The weapon he has is a little more than a stick for magic useage—one end finishes as a blade, as long as a shortsword and forged of near-black iron, and the runic engravings pressed into the metal are currently dull and dormant.

It's kept at his side, not quite negligent but not threatening. Rather than rushing to manage ropes or locks on doors, he looks down at the man kneeling in his room, sharply analytical, as if trying to find the threat in someone who looks more ill than deadly.

"What do you need?" seems like a good starting point.

[tadpoled]

Tav’s vision begins to swim, fatigue pulling him closer and closer to his murderous sleep. No, no, it can’t happen like this. He can’t kill again.

Then he hears the captain’s voice and Tav slowly raises his gaze, despite the panic running hot beneath his skin.

“I need to be locked up or bound,” his speech is starting to slow as he pants out every breath. “It’s nearly here.”

[heorte]

It is a silent, questioning echo, telegraphed in the raising of Ellis' brows.

But true to form, he refrains from questions in the moment. Without a clear sense of danger, watching a man who seems better served by a healer than the pair of them and their weapons, Ellis goes no further than the doorway, looking in.

Wordlessly hooks his mace back onto his belt, prepared to follow Marcus' lead in either of the options presented to them.

[luaithre]

It's heavy, the thump of coiled rope landing on the ground, tossed there. Marcus enters the room further, keeping some distance still, circling around. He is aware of Ellis behind him, and then to the side of him by the time he comes to stand here, between Tav and the windows. It's good that the other Forces member is where he is, a solid presence at the only exit.

"You aren't going to hurt anyone," Marcus tells the rifter, meanwhile. "We won't let you."

No, whatever happens in this room will be summarily contained to it. But he would like to know what they're dealing with, exactly.

[tadpoled]

As he begins to sag closer to the floor, Tav barely has enough energy to ackowledge the Captain’s second, but it makes sense. His fatigue is running him closer and closer toward doom and he has nothing to do but hope the the Captain is fast with his rope.

“Run—“ Is the last word he gets out before he sinks the floor in exhaustion. Marcus and Ellis have bare minutes before the Bhaalspawn emerges.