Work Text:
The Players :
Brendan King: Occupation: Knife.
King had killed many things in his life, but Tav’s was the first life he didn't want to take.
Astarion Ancunín: Occupation: First-Time Plant Owner with Clinically Significant Death and Abandonment Trauma
Astarion had brought Tav back to the apartment from Home Depot a week ago. His goddamn therapist had suggested he try to nurture a plant before jumping straight to a pet cat. The employee who noticed his overwhelm in the garden department had suggested aloe vera, as they were supposedly easy to care for. This plant was anything but easy and it might actually be driving him to drink.
Tav: Occupation: Aloe Plant With a Death Wish
If there was one thing Tav was good at, it was bleeding. His blood was the only thing of worth about him, so he gave it freely. Gladly. One day someone would take too much of his aloe juice and he would thank them. His life would finally have meant something if someone else used it to survive.
The Scene:
This was the third time in a week Astarion had awoken to find his new aloe plant, which he had affectionately named Tav, with a brand new wilting leaf in his front living room window. He was an aloe plant! The damn things were supposedly desert plants, so it couldn’t have been a lack of water. Maybe not enough sunlight? Astarion had spent the last week scouring every plant blog and aloe vera parenting group on Facebook, of all the shadow cursed places, trying to figure out what the hells was wrong with this plant. One user, PlantPapa_Bear, had recommended Astarion start talking to Tav.
So he grabbed his trusty knife up from the bedside table and approached the drooping plant on the window sill. Astarion could have sworn he saw the plant shiver under his touch a little as he cooed softly to him. “Hey now, little love. We talked about this yesterday. You're supposed to be good for me and grow, not all this browning and rotting away.”
He gently slid the blade along the thin shriveled leaf and with a practiced pull and shift of his dexterous fingers he sliced the dead limb off. Astarion frowned as he held the oozing leaf between his thumb and forefinger and squeezed, the aloe juice ran cold and slightly astringent down to his wrist as he muttered. “I don't understand what’s wrong with you but I’m trying to. I hope that's enough.”
Astarion didn't know what was wrong with Tav but Brendan King did.
Previously:
Tav was exhausted. Being alive was something he did simply because he had to. It was hard and unrewarding, but it was all he knew. Until he met Brendan King Knife-kun.
His blade had shone like the surface of a mirror, silver and moon kissed, a perfect shard of cold, comforting, oblivion. BKK-kun was death made manifest. Tav could starve, his soil depleted, he could expire from lack of sun or water. All of those ends were slow, ignoble. Being cut to shreds, taken apart piece by bloody piece, in a frenzy of passionate slices sounded thrilling and more fitting for the likes of him. Something broken. A plant that should have pined for sunlight and a gentle breeze, that instead craved grave dirt and eternal silence.
He didn't want a drawn out demise. Tav longed for a violent end. Beautiful, in its unforgiving swiftness. And Brendan King could give it to him. He wanted him to.
But much to Tav's dismay, the knife denied him, over and over.
The first night King had seen him, sitting forlornly, lightly spotted green stalks swaying in an unseen breeze up towards the waning moon, he had had one thought: beautiful .
When he drew closer Tav had frozen and King could feel his interest, keen as any blade, fall upon his hilt.
Tav had been the first to speak. “You’re perfect. A pillar of unchanging, tempered steel. Do you feel it when you carve through something? Is it cold to be metal?”
King had startled at that. No one had ever asked him if he felt it when he unmade something. His blade hummed low and tinny. “I don't know. I don't feel cold to myself but I have never asked another how I feel buried inside them. As for when I slice, I feel it, it's more like a kiss than a slap. A caress, sometimes so fast there is no pain.”
The aloe plant before him thrummed with new energy. “Has anyone ever asked you to slash them before? Or is it always at your master’s hands?”
King lost himself in thought for a moment. He was a knife. Knives were made to chop, rend, and sever. It was all he had ever wanted. All he had ever known. To pierce someone in pleasure was a foreign concept to him. Yet a deeply intriguing one. His response was measured. “No. Never. I have had many masters, they have used me as they saw fit and I have never complained. Why do you ask?”
Tav went completely and utterly still, his voice was barely a rasping whisper when he spoke. “Because I want to know what it feels like to die.”
Death wasn’t a foreign concept to King, he had delivered many, but he had never wondered what it would be like to be destroyed. This hearty, thick, verdant being in front of him did though. He wanted King to be his reaper. To take all of that pretty, fragrant sap and spill it all over the windowsill.
He had never had a willing victim before. King wasn't sure he wanted one. It felt…wrong. Yet he was enthralled by Tav. Maybe he could do it, just once, for him.
So he had loomed closer and flashed his blade along the underside of one of Tav’s longest, girthiest leaves. “Why? If you tell me, I will do it.”
Tav sighed and was silent for a moment. King could feel the tip of his leaf vibrating under his blade. “Because living is agony. I want suffering I have chosen. I want my end to mean something to someone. Because living has meant nothing to me.”
King remained poised to slice in complete shock. This plant, alive in every gorgeous, verdant way that mattered, living in a way that a knife could never hope to, was in pain. He wanted a swift death to end his emotional anguish. And he wanted to use King’s nature to do it.
With a hiss the knife flicked and ran the tip of his blade along the surface of Tav’s leaf. It immediately beaded with a thin trail of aloe juice. Tav moaned and King waited, silent, until Tav ground out. “More. Take more. Take all of it.”
He cut the tip off that frond and Tav shouted. The aloe inside of him slipped out to darken the soil of his pot and King watched it, entranced. The smell of him was suddenly overwhelming, impressive as it pushed down around him. The slick of his inner juices now coated the end of King’s blade. It was sticky.
King felt like he had been tossed, end over end, and had landed blade first in a tree. He was stuck. Trapped in this hollow dance with Tav.
No. King pulled away and Tav groaned and begged him to continue. “Please. Please . I need it. I need you to.”
King couldn’t. He just…couldn't.
So every night Tav had begged him to kill him, and every night King had refused. He had tried to comfort the plant, tried to tell him how beautiful he was. But King was a knife, a thing of frigid cruelty. His words were no comfort and offered Tav no warmth.
Unfortunately, Tav was desperate and it made him clever, he knew Astarion would use King to prune him if he allowed his leaves to yellow and wither. So in the end Tav got what he wanted, even though King was loath to give it to him.
King’s clumsy words weren't ever enough, it wasn't the comfort of his mind that Tav craved but that of his body. And in the end it wasn't even King who saved him.
The Final ACT:
The poor aloe vera plant had been reduced to nothing but three small fading green spikes in a large pot of dirt and to his great shame, Astarion was distraught. He had done everything he could to save him. Followed every guide, tried all the advice there was, and still he couldn't keep this little thing, this supposedly hardy piece of vegetation, alive. It was like the Gods were spitting in his face one more time. Nothing you care for will ever survive. He was a failure even in this one simple act of devotion.
He swallowed hard as he stroked those three dying leaves and openly wept. His voice cracked as several tears silently struck Tav’s leaves and soaked into the soil of his pot. “I didn’t like you at first, you know. I thought this whole thing was an exercise in futility. But now I would give almost anything to see you grow and flourish. So if you can’t live for yourself, maybe live for me.”
He felt extraordinarily silly begging a plant not to die on him, but he meant every word.
Tav could feel his bone deep desire soaking into his roots, becoming a part of him. It shone inside him like the blessed rays of the sun, Astarion's wish for him to live. It was enough. It was everything. Suddenly he didn't want his simple existence to end. This was only the beginning for him. He wanted to live.
King was overjoyed to see his transformation. Tav began to grow, almost alarming fast, after Astarion had begged him to stay. Astarion seemed to brighten as well, the delight on his face pushing away the shadows beneath his eyes. King hadn't been able to save Tav from himself, but someone else had and that was enough for him. He would no longer be forced to help someone so wondrous destroy himself.
King was a knife and it was his lot in life to harm, but in so doing he had given two people the ability to heal. That was enough for him, for now.