Private Mind Games: The Interrogation of Dr. Grene

[Braze]

Tags: Tannor Grene ​

Location: Tannor's Office, Evening

The door chimed softly indicating an arrival and in the figure of Braze stepped with an easy, almost boyish smile that looked almost a little too perfect. His usual restless energy was gone. no where to be seen. In its place was calm confidence and an oddly warm demeanor. Under one arm he carried a small, elegantly wrapped box.

" Good evening Mr. Grene ," he greeted, voice smooth. "I've been thinking about our last session. I was… a lot. More than usual, even for me." A sheepish little laugh escaped those lips. "Figured I owed you an apology. These are from that little bakery on the promenade... the one with the candied violets. Thought we could share while I actually try to be a decent patient this time."

He set the box on the low table between them and opened it. Neat rows of delicate sweets gleamed under the office lights. Braze picked one up, popped it into his own mouth without hesitation, then gestured invitingly toward Tannor.

"Peace offering?"

His eyes — Braze's eyes — were bright, attentive, and completely unguarded.

 

[Tannor Grene]

The chime had barely faded before Tannor looked up from the datapad in his hands. His attention settled on Braze immediately, and though his expression remained composed as always, there was a subtle shift of recognition at the sight of the box tucked beneath his arm. More noticeable, however, was the change in him. The restless edge that had clung to Braze during their last session seemed absent now, replaced with something smoother. More deliberate. Tannor observed it quietly as Braze spoke, not interrupting the offering of apology or explanation.

Then his gaze dropped briefly to the opened box. The candied violets earned the faintest flicker of visible consideration.
“Well,” Tannor said at last, setting the datapad aside with unhurried care, “it would be deeply irresponsible of me to reject pastries used in the interest of therapeutic reconciliation.” There it was again; that dry thread of humor, light enough not to overwhelm the room, but intentional all the same.

He reached forward and selected one of the sweets with measured ease. “And for the record,” he added as he settled back into his chair, “you do not need to apologize for struggling during therapy.” His tone remained calm, matter-of-fact. “If anything, I would be more concerned if you arrived determined to perform stability for me.” A slight pause followed before he took a small bite from the pastry. The approval was immediate, if subtle.

“Hmm,” Tannor murmured thoughtfully. “That bakery continues to weaponize sugar with alarming effectiveness.” A faint warmth touched the corner of his expression then. Not quite a smile, but close enough to soften the atmosphere further.

His gaze returned to Braze fully. “You do seem calmer today,” he observed gently. It was not suspicion, nor an accusation. Simply an observation. “Less crowded, perhaps.” He let the statement rest there without immediately dissecting it. “Was the week kinder to you,” Tannor asked, “or did you simply get better at carrying it before you walked in?”

Tag: Braze

 

[Braze]

Tags: Tannor Grene ​

The boy's smile softened at the joke, before he settled down relaxing in the seat.

"Maybe both," he said after a moment, as if weighing the answer with honest care. "The week was quieter than I deserved, and I… tried not to ruin that... I hope you don't mind me showing up so early. " His gaze lowered to the little box between them studying them with curious interest before looking back.

"I know you said I don't need to apologize for struggling," he continued, voice soft, almost chastened. "But I think there's a difference between struggling and making other people uncomfortable with my ... Problems." He considered that for a brief few moments...

"Less crowded," he repeated, as though the phrase had pleased him. "That's a good way to put it....."

Then, with a faint tilt of his head, he said, "Ask me something difficult, Doctor." The sweets had been laced with a heavy sedative, potent enough to knock a grown man unconscious. The creature wearing Braze's face watched with pleased anticipation, waiting for the first signs of weakness to take hold.

 

[Tannor Grene]

Tannor regarded him quietly for a moment, thoughtful in the wake of the request. Ask me something difficult, Doctor. A faint breath left him, almost amused beneath the surface. “That depends,” he said calmly. “Difficult for whom?” The question was light, but not careless. His attention remained fixed on Braze with that same steady observance that had defined every session between them.

“You worry a great deal about making other people uncomfortable,” Tannor continued after a moment. “More than most people your age do.” His posture remained relaxed, one arm resting lightly against the chair as he spoke. “Which usually means one of two things.” A slight pause as his thoughts seemed somehow longer to collect than before. “Either you’ve spent a long time managing the emotional states of the people around you....” His gaze remained steady. “Or you learned early that being ‘too much’ came with consequences.” The words settled softly between them. “And perhaps,” he added gently, “both.”

He reached for the tea beside him then; not hurriedly, simply as part of the conversation, but paused halfway through the motion. Something subtle shifted. Not outwardly at first. Just the faintest narrowing of focus behind his eyes, as though a thought had momentarily slipped out of alignment. Tannor’s fingers loosened slightly against the cup. Then came the delayed realization. It was not fatigue. Nor distraction. A sedative.

His gaze returned fully to Braze. This time the silence stretched differently.
Longer. More attentive. Tannor did not panic. The instinct simply did not exist strongly enough in him to surface outwardly. But the stillness that settled over him now was no longer therapeutic in nature. It was assessment. The room felt....slower. Heavy at the edges.

His eyes flicked once toward the open box of sweets before returning to the boy seated across from him. Or what wore the shape of one. “I see,” Tannor said quietly. The words remained composed, though the precision of them had softened slightly at the edges. A faint wave of dizziness pressed behind his eyes. He absorbed it without visible alarm, one hand coming to rest carefully against the arm of the chair to steady the subtle shift in balance. And still he watched. Not with fear. But with understanding. That is until his eyelids felt too heavy to remain open. Darkness welcomed him then; like a warm and fuzzy blanket.

Tag: Braze

 

[Braze]

Tags: Tannor Grene ​

He watched with glee as the lethargy took hold, dragging the doctor down into the velvety embrace of darkness.

When Tannor Grene would awaken, he would find himself strapped to a specialized chair in a darkened room, with a bright medical light glaring overhead.

Where was he...?

It was impossible to tell. Only a single door existed in the pitch, and it rested behind him, out of sight. There were dark shapes in the room, hard to discern beyond the edge of the harsh light beneath which he had been seated. A cheerful tune was being hummed somewhere ahead of him. A figure moved in the recesses, preparing items across a table just far enough away to make it difficult to tell what was being set out on the counter. The creature still wore Braze's face, and seemed perfectly, happily absorbed in whatever it was preparing.

 

[Tannor Grene]

Consciousness returned slowly. Not with panic. But with awareness. Tannor’s breathing deepened first, subtle and measured as sensation gradually reassembled itself around him. The restraint against his wrists. The pressure of the chair beneath him. The sharp intrusion of overhead light pressing against still-heavy eyes. He did not immediately struggle.

The humming registered next. His gaze adjusted in increments, the brightness carving pale outlines into the surrounding dark until the distant figure resolved itself into familiar proportions wearing an unfamiliar intent. Braze’s face. Or something arranged carefully inside it. For several quiet seconds, Tannor simply observed. Even now; drugged, restrained, and displaced, his attention moved with clinical steadiness rather than fear. Gathering details. Rhythm. Environment. Distance. The emotional texture of the room. The cheerful humming was perhaps the most revealing thing present.

At last, his voice emerged low and roughened faintly by sedation. “You’ve put a great deal of effort into this.” There was no sharp demand of where am I? No immediate threat. Only calm acknowledgment of the obvious care behind the staging. His eyes flicked briefly toward the indistinct objects on the table. “Which suggests,” Tannor continued quietly, “that this is not impulsive.” A faint pause followed as another wave of heaviness moved sluggishly through his limbs. He adjusted against it carefully rather than fighting it outright. “You wanted an audience.” His gaze returned to the creature wearing Braze’s smile. “Or perhaps,” he amended softly, “participation.”

The light above him hummed faintly. Tannor blinked once against it, expression remaining composed despite the circumstances. “I am curious, though,” he said after a moment. "Was any part of our earlier conversations actually his?” The question settled into the darkness between them. It was not accusatory, but precise. Because that, more than the restraints, seemed to interest him.

Tag: Braze

 

[Braze]

Tags: Tannor Grene ​

"How kind of you to notice; you're off to a good start trying to build rapport with me," he purred softly, turning about with a small shrug and a smile. "That is what this is, isn't it? A little warmth, a little observation, a careful attempt to make the monster feel seen."

His borrowed smile brightened beneath the medical light. "I do enjoy a captive audience." He said it in naked earnest honesty.

"I do not need your participation to get what I want from you… however, the challenge is more thrilling this way." He tilted his head, wearing that eerie little smile across the borrowed face.

"I wouldn't know much about the pup. That's why I'm here, you see. A business associate of mine wants some information... this is all business you see?"

His smile lingered as if some how that weren't the full truth.

"You give me everything you know about the little brat's Weaknesses, and this will be smooth sailing for you. I let you go, and you leave here unharmed."

 

[Tannor Grene]

Tannor listened without any visible reaction, the restraints a quiet, constant reminder rather than something that drew his focus. If anything, his expression remained composed and steady in a way that didn’t quite match the situation. “I should also clarify something,” he said after a moment. “Doctor-patient confidentiality is not a suggestion. It is not conditional, and it is not something that can be negotiated through....enthusiastic hospitality.” His gaze stayed level, voice even despite the sedation weighing at the edges of his awareness. “And before you assume that that makes me uncooperative,” he added, “it may be useful to understand what happens when people in my position are no longer bound by it. There are reasons that boundary exists.”

Then after a brief pause almost seamlessly, he continued; his tone shifting back into quiet analysis. “That said,” Tannor said, “you’re asking for weaknesses, which tells me that you already see him as a problem, rather than a person.” His eyes flicked briefly toward the dim shapes beyond the light before returning. “And that suggests to me that your employer either lacks direct access to him or lacks the understanding to approach him without external guidance.”

A faint pause was given to allow his words to settle. "Which suggests to me that you’re not entirely confident in what you’ve been sent to retrieve.” His gaze settled fully on the creature wearing Braze’s face. “And if this truly were only business,” Tannor said, “you would already be testing whether I am the correct point of failure.”

A small silence. Every moment allowed him a little more clarity, and a little more control over his own body. “But you’re not,” he finished quietly. “You’re still trying to persuade me.” Another measured breath was taken. “Which tells me that you’re not entirely certain what I am.” A slight tilt of his head was dine then, almost as though he was studying the creature in a different light. “And that uncertainty,” Tannor said, his voice soft but precise, “is where this becomes dangerous for you - not me.”

Tag: Braze

 

[Braze]

Tags: Tannor Grene ​

"Confidentiality...Boundaries.... Ethics... All those neat little walls civilized people build so they may sleep at night and call themselves merciful… how quaint. I never said I don't mix business with pleasure, sweetness."

The creature purred playfully, seeming to enjoy listening to him go on and on about his own thought process, as if theorizing, naming, or finding some tangible explanation might gift him even a sliver of control over what was about to transpire.

"On the contrary, I am offering you a moment of leniency. I'm being rather generous by offering you the gentle approach. You needn't worry your pretty little head about why my employer sent me."

He smiled, "I am not here because I don't know how to hurt him. Children are simple in that regard. They bruise just as easily in all the places adults pretend they have outgrown."

His voice softened, almost tender as he reached out and set a gentle hand atop his head and pet softly.

"I am here because someone like you knows which bruises he hides… which ones he protects… and which ones he thinks make him ugly.... what I want to know is what keeps him awake at night... that is a different kind of wound entirely."

His head tilted faintly, "But perhaps you do not even know what I want."

 

[Tannor Grene]

Tannor remained still beneath the creature’s touch. Not rigid. Not recoiling. Simply unmoved by the performance of tenderness draped over cruelty. His gaze stayed fixed on the borrowed face before him, attentive despite the harsh light and the lingering drag of sedation still working through his system. “You speak about suffering,” Tannor said quietly, “like someone who mistakes understanding pain for mastery over it.” There was no condemnation in his words. But merely a tone of observation. “And no,” he continued after a moment, “I don’t think that you’re here because you lack the ability to hurt him.” A slight pause followed. “I think that you’re here because hurting him is easy.”

His eyes moved briefly to the hand resting against his head before returning upward again. “But what you actually want,” Tannor said softly, “is significance.” The silence that followed felt different somehow. Sharper. “You want the kind of wound that changes the shape of someone permanently.” His voice remained calm, maddeningly measured. “Not fear. Not pain. Intimacy.” A faint breath escaped him. “You want to be remembered from the inside.” The overhead light hummed quietly. “And that,” Tannor added, “is why you keep talking to me instead of simply tearing information out of me by force.” His gaze held steady on the creature wearing Braze’s face. “Because some part of you already understands that there is a difference between discovering a fear...And understanding why it matters.”

Another measured silence was given. Each moment that passed allowed him to feel more and more awake.

“You asked what keeps him awake at night,” Tannor said quietly. “But that question tells me far more about you than it does about him.” A slight tilt of his head followed despite the restraints.
“Because people who are only interested in leverage ask what hurts.” His expression remained composed. “People who ask what keeps someone awake at night are searching for the shape of their loneliness.”

Tag: Braze

 

[Braze]

Tags: Tannor Grene ​

“Aww… how precious. You’re still trying to make sense of me.” His smile warmed across Braze’s borrowed face. “That’s all right, Doctor. I’m in no hurry. I have you all to myself.” His head tilted slightly.

“You can believe whatever comforts you, sweetness… but I must wonder which you hold in higher regard: your precious confidentiality, or your own well-being...? As for...Intimacy…” He tasted the word as if it amused him.

“You dress your guesses in such lovely little coats, Doctor. But a guess is still only a guess.” He moved away at last, letting his hand slip from Tannor’s hair as he returned to the table.

 

[Tannor Grene]

Tannor watched him move back toward the table; his gaze lingering not on the objects being arranged there, but on the careful maintenance of the borrowed face itself. The smile. The softness. The theatrical warmth. Like someone selecting costumes with deliberate precision.

For a few moments, Tannor said nothing. The silence stretched comfortably on his side of the room, thoughtful rather than intimidated. Then, quietly he responded: “No,” he said. His voice remained calm despite the restraints, despite the lingering heaviness still threaded through his limbs. “I don’t think I’m making guesses to comfort myself.” A slight tilt of his head followed beneath the harsh light. “I think that you prefer this face because it allows you to say terrible things while still being looked at gently.” The words were spoken without aggression. Just precision. “You hide inside something approachable.” His eyes remained fixed steadily on Braze’s features. “Young. Open. Earnest.” A small pause. “It grants you access before people realize they should be afraid.” Another quiet moment passed as he allowed his words to land. “But I don’t think this is what you actually are.”

The overhead light hummed faintly above them.

“And I think,” Tannor continued softly, “that a part of you resents needing the disguise at all.” His gaze sharpened just slightly then. Not confrontational, but intent. “Because for all your talk about civilized people and their comforting little boundaries….” A faint breath escaped him. “You’re still borrowing someone else’s face to be understood.”

Silence again. Then, gentler now he continued: “That usually means one of two things.” His expression remained composed. “Either your real face inspires less confidence than you pretend….Or somewhere along the way, someone taught you it was unworthy of being seen.”

Tag: Braze

 

[Braze]

Tags: Tannor Grene ​

He snorted with a genuine laugh at that. "Is that your way of asking me to disarm my self? How forwards of you doctor."

He held up a small Opinel knife. "Look all you like, how you like doctor. It matters little to me. " He mused stepping closer to him once more. "Tell me... what's your fondest memory?"

 

[Tannor Grene]

Tannor’s eyes moved briefly to the knife. Not with alarm. But with recognition. The simplicity of it was almost more revealing than the threat itself. It was not a surgical instrument. Nor some elaborate device meant purely for spectacle. Just a plain blade held casually in practiced fingers.

Then his gaze lifted back to the creature wearing Braze’s face. “I think,” Tannor said quietly, “that you’re less interested in pain than you pretend to be.” A faint pause followed as he studied the creature. “Pain is easy. Anticipation is more intimate.”

The overhead light cast sharp shadows across the borrowed features as the question settled between them. What’s your fondest memory?

Tannor regarded him for a long moment before answering. “When I was younger,” he said at last, voice calm despite the restraints, “there was a patient I used to visit during my training.” He did not rush his response. Nor use any dramatic flourishes. “Elderly. Stubborn. Completely unimpressed by me.” A faint trace of dry warmth touched the edges of his tone. “He insisted that I made tea incorrectly every single time I brought it to him.”

His gaze drifted momentarily; not away from the creature, but inward. “He was dying.” The words came simply. “Slowly enough that everyone around him became more interested in managing the inevitability of it than speaking to him like a person.” A small silence followed. “But every afternoon, we would sit beside the window of the medical wing and argue about tea leaves.” Another faint pause. “And for exactly one hour each day, he was not a patient. He was just....himself.”

The room remained quiet except for the low hum overhead.

“The day that he died,” Tannor continued softly, “one of the nurses apologized to me for the loss.” His eyes settled steadily back onto Braze’s borrowed face. “And I remember thinking how strange it was that she believed grief had somehow ruined the experience.” A measured breath passed. “It hadn’t.” His tone remained even. “The fact that something ends does not make the connection less meaningful.”

Then, after a brief pause, his gaze flicked once more to the knife. “And before you decide that memory was chosen to manipulate your sympathy,” Tannor added mildly, “I should warn you....” The faintest trace of tired humor surfaced beneath the exhaustion. “I genuinely did make terrible tea back then.”

Tag: Braze

 

[Braze]

Tags: Tannor Grene ​

He let him tell his tale as he came close and leaned in, locking eyes with him with a knowing smile… He let him finish the tale without interruption and reached out a hand, pressing two fingers gently to Tannor's forehead...

And just like that, the memory started to fade, soft at the edges before slowly drifting away. Not gone all at once, or cleanly taken; Only loosened, blurred, and made uncertain, as though some precious piece of him had slipped from its proper place. If nothing stopped the creature, if nothing caught hold of that fading thread, it might leave behind the troubling sense that something was missing… something important… something he should have known, but could no longer name.

The creature smiled. "There," he murmured. "Let's see what you are without it." The creature watched him carefully. "Now," he murmured, "tell me the tale again."

 

[Tannor Grene]

Tannor did not resist the touch. At least not outwardly. But something in his focus tightened the moment those fingers pressed to his forehead again; an instinctive attempt to hold onto what was already beginning to slip. The sensation deepened. Not loss in a clean sense. But more like misplacement.

A thought placed carefully on a table and then walked away from for only a moment - only to return and find the table slightly different; the angle changed, the thing itself no longer sitting quite where it should be.

The memory of the patient was still there. But the structure around it began to loosen.

Tannor’s gaze remained steady, but the clarity behind it shifted subtly, as though he were trying to look through water that had begun to ripple. “I remember....” he began. Then stopped. A pause that lasted a fraction too long. His brow furrowed faintly; not in pain, but in the growing effort of retrieval. “....a man,” he said carefully. The certainty of elderly was gone. The certainty of training was.....thinner. His voice remained composed, but the continuity was beginning to fracture in small, quiet ways. “He was in a room,” Tannor continued. “A medical setting.” Another pause was made while he tried to focus. That detail held, but now it floated, unmoored from context. Why was he there?

His gaze flickered slightly, just for a moment, as if something just beyond reach had brushed past him. “I went in to speak with him,” he said. But the reason for going in did not follow cleanly. There should have been something before that. A purpose. A shape. Instead, there was only the sensation of having already arrived. The memory no longer flowed. It stalled in place. Like standing in a doorway and realizing you could not remember what you had meant to do in the next room.

Tannor’s fingers shifted minutely against the restraints again. Not in struggle. But in orientation. His breathing remained controlled, but a fraction slower now. Not sedated so much as recalculating itself.

“I know there was tea,” he added quietly. The word felt correct. The feeling attached to it did not fully appear.

A gap widened behind his eyes - not in panic, not yet - but the unmistakable sense of something important having just been placed slightly out of reach. As if it had been there a moment ago. And now wasn’t.

His gaze sharpened faintly. “....why was I thinking about him?” The question slipped out before he could fully contain it. It was not directed at the creature, but at himself.

A silence followed that was different now. Less analytical. More searching. Tannor exhaled once, slowly, as though trying to reassemble the thought by breath alone. “I entered a room,” he said again, quieter. “To speak with someone.” His brow tightened slightly. “But the reason....” Another pause. Longer this time. “The reason is not....”

It didn’t resolve. It simply didn’t come. And in that absence, something more unsettling settled in its place: the realization that a known thing had just become unknown while he was still looking at it.

His eyes lifted fully to the creature’s face now. Not with fear. But with a new, quieter precision. “You are not only extracting information,” Tannor said softly. “You are removing it's context.” The words landed differently than before, less like observation and more like recognition of a system beginning to fail in real time. And for the first time since waking, there was the faintest suggestion that Tannor was no longer treating this as simply an interrogation. But as an active, unfolding violation of something far more delicate than information.

Tag: Braze

 

[Braze]

Tags: Tannor Grene ​

He moved to pull a trolley out from someplace in the dark, then picked up an electric kettle and poured steaming water into a ceramic bowl. He set the knife down on top of the wheeled trolley as he reached for something else.

"How very interesting… you see, Doctor… I don't need your cooperation to get what I want. But for your sake, telling me what I want will be very beneficial to your health… both mental and physical."

He picked up a shaving brush and swirled it about the bowl, working up a thick lather of cream. Then he leaned over and carefully began to paint Tannor Grene with the shaving cream, dabbing it all over his face.

He laid a large, thick, fluffy towel over the man which was hot and warm comparatively to the near frigidness of the room, like one of those towels they might keep warm in a hospital, before picking up the Opinel knife again. He took his time as he drew up a leather razor strop and honed the edge.

"All I want from you is what troubles the boy when the room goes quiet… what thoughts keep Braze awake when there is no one left to comfort him."

 

[Tannor Grene]

Tannor remained very still beneath the towel. The warmth against his face was almost comforting in another context; barber-like, deliberate, intimate in a way that made the surrounding cold feel even sharper by comparison. The scent of soap drifted faintly upward through the steam while the slow draw of steel against leather whispered through the dark. And through all of it, Tannor listened. Not only to the words. But to the care being taken. The towel. The cream. The sharpened blade. The pacing of the room itself. It was not random cruelty, but a ritual.

His breathing remained measured despite the quiet disorientation still lingering at the edges of his thoughts. There were gaps now. Places where certainty no longer connected cleanly to itself. He could feel that absence every time his mind brushed against it; like reaching for a familiar object in the dark and finding empty space instead. But even inside that fracture, the creature kept talking. Kept explaining. Kept needing to be understood.

“That,” Tannor said quietly beneath the towel, “is the first honest thing you’ve said since I woke up.” The leather strop whispered once more. “You don’t actually care about leverage,” he continued softly. “Not really.” A small pause followed as he tracked the sound of movement somewhere beside him. “You care about what survives when comfort disappears.”

His voice remained calm, though slower now; not from fear, but from the effort of holding onto continuity while pieces of himself were being quietly rearranged. “You keep describing silence,” Tannor murmured. “The room going quiet. No one left to comfort him. What keeps him awake when he’s alone.” His brow tightened faintly beneath the warmth of the towel. “You’re not searching for weakness. You’re searching for the version of him that exists without witnesses.”

And I think,” he said carefully after a moment's thought, “that interests you because you understand that version of people very well.” His fingers shifted faintly against the restraints again. Orientation. Grounding. “The self that appears after the performance ends.” His voice softened slightly. “After the smiling. After the usefulness. After the mask.” He let a silence stretched between them. Then quietly, he added: “But you’ve made one very significant mistake.”

His gaze lifted slightly beneath the towel, toward where he sensed the creature standing. “You think suffering makes people simpler.” A faint breath escaped him. “It doesn’t. It makes them stranger. More contradictory. More difficult to reduce into something neat enough to control.”

The overhead light hummed softly above them. “And Braze,” Tannor said, his voice steady despite the slow erosion gnawing quietly at the edges of his memory, “is not nearly as alone inside himself as you desperately want him to be.”

Tag: Braze

 

[Braze]

Tags: Tannor Grene ​

"Oh, you think so, do you?"

He mused, reaching out and grabbing Tannor Grene's jaw firmly, tilting the man's head up with deliberate control. The edge of the knife scraped slowly against skin as he began shaving away bits of beard here and there, the blade moving with lazy, in intimately close strokes.

"Or…"

He added, wiping the blade clean with a slow swipe before pressing it back to the doctor's face, scraping again even more deliberately this time.

"…you didn't pay attention."

 

[Tannor Grene]

The pressure against his jaw forced Tannor’s head back slightly, exposing more of his throat to the cold air. The blade followed in slow, deliberate passes; not rushed enough to merely threaten, but careful enough to demand awareness of every inch it traveled. Warm lather gave way to exposed skin in narrow paths while the creature lingered far too close for comfort.

Still, Tannor did not fight the movement. But this time, silence held him a fraction longer before he answered. Not because he was intimidated. But because he was thinking.

The scrape of the blade continued once more before Tannor finally spoke, his voice quieter now beneath the nearness of steel. “No,” he said softly. “I paid attention.” A small pause followed as he steadied himself against another strange looseness moving through his thoughts; that awful sensation that parts of his mind were no longer staying where he had left them. “But I think,” he continued carefully, “that you mistake concealment for absence.” His eyes lifted toward the creature wearing Braze’s face despite the hand still controlling his jaw. “You see what he hides when he’s alone,” Tannor murmured. “The fear. The exhaustion. The spirals.” Another slow scrape of the razor against his skin. “And because you can see those things, you assume they are the truest parts of him.” The faintest furrow touched his brow. “That is the danger of people who study wounds too closely,” he said quietly. “Eventually they begin believing a person is nothing more than the shape of what hurt them.”

The towel’s warmth was beginning to fade now against the colder air of the room. “But loneliness is not the absence of connection,” Tannor continued. “It’s the fear that connection will fail. And those are not the same thing.”

His breathing remained slow and controlled despite the knife poised so intimately against his throat. “You keep speaking about Braze as though the quiet parts of him invalidate the rest.” His gaze sharpened faintly. “But the fact that someone suffers privately does not mean they are secretly empty. It means they learned to survive without believing they were allowed to burden others with it.”

The blade scraped again. Tannor felt it this time; not just the edge, but the intent behind prolonging it. Not shaving. But demonstrating control.

“And I think,” he said softly after a moment, “that you understand that far more personally than you want me to notice.”

Tag: Braze