genessia | Since the Dawn of Time

Entry tags:

Since the Dawn of Time

Who: Szel and Tannusen
What: Szel's finally hauled himself out of his tower of perpetual drunk misery to inflict his bad mood on someone else.
When: Nowish? Late evening day after Christmas.
Where: Velvet Lust in Genessia City
Warnings: Drunk bitching, maybe mentions of past injury, who knows.

Well.

Here he was.

Merry Goddamn Christmas.

He'd spent the entire eve and holiday itself locked up inside his fortress in Everglade, refusing to leave... except on voting day. No point in changing up leadership, both of them sucked and at least one of them he was familiar with, suck wise.

Best to keep the suck in a predictable pattern, he was in no hurry to mix up the suckiness.

He'd voted, obviously hungover, the one benefit of being eyeless in that he wouldn't have to worry about any excess light giving him a headache.

No, his hearing took over for that, jamming in his vote before vanishing off into the ether, headed for one place and one place only.

For a few weeks, he'd been tended to and pampered by the usual, but it was one thing to get a ton of compliments and doting words from a pack of mindless servants. It was entirely another to get them from someone who wasn't being coerced into it.

Oh Midge was honest enough of course, but Midge was also, technically, just another part of him.

Poor Tannusen. One moment he might find himself comfortably alone in his spot at the club.... and the next his tea cup was being pushed away slowly by a gold tipped cane, right out of arms reach.

"That's enough of that."

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Tannusen had quite likely spent the last few days pretty exclusively with his fiance anyway, so just as well Szel hadn't gone hunting him down during all that. The tiger raised an eyebrow and then looked up and over at Szel, not entirely surprised by the entrance. "You find my tea objectionable? Or is this another go at getting me to drink something stronger?"

Oh no, he'd gotten the idea that the two were pretty involved with each other for the past few days.

In his own way.

Look, as long as he didn't stomp in and ruin the entire thing, it was fine. You're welcome.

The fallen seraph, once satisfied with the distance between Tannusen and the tea, promptly tossed himself into the seat beside him, leaning against the tiger, but refusing to actually sit himself in his lap as he usually did.

"I'm finding it objectionable that the tea is getting more of your attention, currently."

The telltale golden eyes of Midge were with him today too, the insect having assumed the shape of a slinky, sleek black cat, draped comfortably over his shoulders.

"I'm in here, the drinks take second place now."

"Unlike most of this place, I do in fact have enough brain cells to manage tea and you at the same time," Tannusen chuckled, giving him just enough space on the seat to get comfy, but not enough to even remotely discourage the leaning. And since Szel had already initiated contact, the tiger just went ahead and looped his arm around behind the demon's back, under Midge's current shape.

Speaking of, "'Sup, Hooty."

Nope, that wasn't going to stop just because they'd teamed up on keeping a certain bird out of trouble!

Of course, there was no comment from Midge, he is working, Tannusen. The bugs baleful stare seemed a little less bitter than usual though, and he doesn't bristle nor move away as Szel saw fit to get nice and close, which, by proxy, took the lesser demon with him.

"Impossible, that means at some point you'll be doing something else than talking to or paying attention to me. I need a hundred percent focus, Tannusen."

His voice seemed vaguely hoarse today, more of a bite than usual, Midge communicating better than his master did what the issue might be as a brief flash of light from a spotlight caused the demon to squint painfully and duck his head.

Yeah. Technically one being, that was right.

"It's been a miserable month."

Hm, interesting.

"Have you been sloshed ever since leaving the house?" Tannusen even sounded a bit impressed at that. Look, he knew how resistant to effects the drug-demon was.

Not that he was judging, however. Four billion years of an alternative timeline... an objectively better one, at that...

Yeah.

"No."

Yes. But he knew how awful that sounded so he wasn't going to admit to that shit. Midge answered for him, as a loud riff from the music caused the cat to dip his head... Just in time for Szel to jam one ear against Tannusen's shoulder, and a hand over the other.

"... I have a headache. Can't someone have a headache?"

"And you came to a nightclub?" Tannusen couldn't help but tease, even just a bit. "You do have my phone number, mister Poker Face."

Okay, more teasing, but that ringtone choice was hilarious to the pooka.

"...We can go somewhere else if you like."

"I don't judge you for your mermaid underwear."

He found those, dick.

"Yes, I would. Not because I am hung over. I'm not. I just don't want to sit in the club tonight."

"I actually bought those for the fish, but he vanished again," Tannusen sighed, glancing off toward where Wade would have usually been easy to spot-- but he was gone. "Among others."

...Attachments were stupid.

"Somewhere dark and quiet, then," Tannusen lunged forward to snag his tea with his free hand. "But I'm bringing this." SO THERE.

"The fish? ... Oh right. The siren." That asshole. He was only vaguely aware of him. Szel didn't question the rest of it, though he did grunt in disapproval as Tannusen insisted on snagging his drink.

"Fine whatever." LETS GO, the demon dragging himself out of his seat and stepping back a bit to let Tannusen out, making sure to latch on with an arm around the pooka's the second he was out.

Tannusen was fine with linking arms once he was standing, though it earned a raised eyebrow. Szel wasn't usually this touch-happy, especially out in public -- outside of the booth itself.

Whelp. The tiger already knew why the demon was off kilter, he didn't need to ask.

"I do seem to be a magnet for people from your world," Tannusen led the way toward the stairs, aware Szel wouldn't have any trouble keeping pace even if Midge hadn't been here. With the bug? Not a problem at all. "Cass, you, the fish, Cam. Halfway surprised more haven't shown up and bee-lined straight for Velvet."

After the mess that was the first week or so of December, there was almost a need to be a little touch happy. With Tannusen, in any case. It was difficult for him to ignore the growing neediness as well, but any sort of self questioning happening here was not exactly visible on either demon as he pulled him towards the far quieter bar area downstairs.

"It does have the most magic in the area, aside from Faeren." Closer than Faeren too, honestly. Who the hell wants to walk that far to get some goddamn magic?

Look, Tannusen understood pretty well; he was often more than a little touch-starved himself, after all. "Oh? I know your kind at least can feel it somehow, but is that really that much of a draw? None of you could use it; it's Glamour."

Soaked deep into every board, every rivet, every wire; Velvet Lust was as much Glamour by this point as it was mundane materials. Truly a massive Freehold in all but name.

"It means something is usually up."

Camael had business, after all. He knew what to look for.

"High amounts of magic concentrated in one area tends to mean something is about to happen there at home, or it's some form of fairy stronghold. In any case, Heaven likes to keep tabs on it."

"Well, neither is inaccurate," Velvet was, after all, so soaked with Glamour in part to give Tannusen a steady supply and a place where banality was lesser... but it was also a giant trap that he could spring at-will. One that had grown and grown and grown in power during his entire stay on this world. "As for tabs, that must be difficult when so much of it isn't even on this plane."

Tannusen didn't settle with going to the bar level, however, leading the way on out of the massive, thick oaken door and into the night air. Cleaner, crisper, darker and quieter. The tiger didn't exactly mind these things, having begun eons ago as a terror of what hunted in the night.

Szel took a deep breath as they left, the sensation of invisible, sooty feathers brushing past Tannusen's face for a moment.

"I imagine that would annoy a few of them, yes." God, though. That was so much better. Cool air, quiet night, pleasantly dark save for street lights.

"I can name a dozen right now who'd be cross at having to monitor several planes at once in order to just watch one place."

Poor Raguel.

Tannusen chuckled softly at that, taking a sip of his tea as they walked. "The ones they even could. Your kind can't see the Dreaming, can you?"

As alien a plane as wherever Hastur had come from, but able to drape over reality in places like the thinnest of veils.

"Contact with my soul wouldn't get you so damn high if it weren't so alien, I bet."

"Not angels no. I imagine they'd be too high up for that." Spiritually speaking. Not able to see it, and surely wouldn't survive long entirely mired in it. A bit like a surface creature attempting to walk on the ocean floor.

Or in space.

"I can only see it if you enchant me." And if Midge was there, of course.

"You're really proud of that, aren't you?"

"Of course! Why wouldn't I be? You're made of drugs," Tannusen laughed at that, "getting you high is an accomplishment."

TAKE THE SEMI-COMPLIMENT, SZEL.

"And anyway, the rest of your kind are so banal, Enchantment doesn't last near as long for them. It didn't for Cam, anyway."

"... I'll be flattered I guess." Jerk.

"I don't know what would go first, honestly, if one of them were completely submerged in the world of the fae where you're from. Either they'd crack and shatter or they'd melt the entire world around them."

"Considering the Dreaming is nothing if not fluid while they are... not," Tannusen shook his head slightly, "Well, the Dreaming would try to eject them first. That's what it would have done if we'd taken Takeda in with us when we went after Karma's old Duke. If it couldn't kick them out, it would adapt somehow. Probably similarly to living meat adapting to a piece of shrapnel."

Isolate it, toughen up around it. Ball it up in scar tissue.

"I don't think one of them could get very far into it, at least. It would keep them out at the edges if it couldn't remove them entirely. Reality breaks more and more the further in you get."

"At least it can defend itself, I suppose. Better than earth or our fae can." After all, the fae of earth were so intwined with heaven and hell themselves, whether they liked it or not, that there was no closing off either from their home.

Not when their leaders still carried with them heaven's touch and hell's influence.

"They just have to put up with it when someone pops in from upstairs or the basement."

"Well, it has to, with banality being as it is," Tannusen pointed out, "even I can't go in really deep; I'm too banal to get far. Ever since the silver city slammed its gates shut against banality's influence back in the industrial era, all of us locked out have been hiding out in human bodies to survive and it hasn't... not had a long-term effect."

Not to mention Tannusen now had threads of Szelsoul holding his own together. Sooo there was that.

"Too banal for the deep Dreaming; too alien for earth. That's my kind's status, these days."

"I keep forgetting how delicate your kind is." It wasn't stated as an insult. Just honestly a bit of wonderment.

"Ours just adapted. We have fairies who are now based solely around technology." But then, look at where they all came from.

"Quite the short end you ended up drawing."

"Some of my kind think technology is inherently banal, but I don't. What matters is how it's used. Does it inspire, or does it numb? That's what's important."

Jethro, for example; some Fae thought machinery was banal by nature. But what did motorcycles do if not inspire dreams?

"The Scathach are more technologically based than the rest of us, unsurprisingly since they stayed behind on Earth during that first big wave of banality. They've been dealing with it longer, and have adapted better. But then you have the Nockers, for example, whose entire purpose as a kith is to build things, and many have begun incorporating things from the mortal world. Jethro's chimerical form is Nocker-built."

"So what would you consider banal? Most humans would think Camael and Azrael are fairly... interesting people."

Even Azrael, with his dry, soft monotone ended up inspiring something in people.

Usually discomfort, but hey, few mortals could say the Angel of Death was boring.

"You call those two banal."

"They're... scripted. It's hard to put a finger on it, but 'interesting' has little to do with it. Banality is... doubt, rationality, cynicism, disillusionment, realism... a general unwillingness to embrace the fantastic. Everything outside of the Dreaming has some banality to it, of course. Even me. That horrible rigid ticking your kind have going on in the background, that's pretty damn banal."

"Ah, you can hear the gears." It made sense, honestly. All of this. Of course Tannusen would find Azrael and Camael somewhat uncomfortable. All beings of heaven were lawful. Beings of rigid order, of rationality.

Predictability and patterns to the end.

Even Szel still followed it.

"Azrael refers to it as the pulse of the universe. Angels and demons are so entwined with it, their very beings echo with the sound of the universe, living."

"Every time we fool around, I hear it for a while after."

Not enough to dissuade him from fooling around more, of course, but still... yeah, he heard it.

"If I had to hear it all the time, I think I'd go even madder. Ironically enough."

"You get used to it." Yeah, he heard it all the time, it was a part of him, duh.

"It's like your own heartbeat. Just gets drowned out after a while. I mean I don't think any humans stand around listening to their hearts all the time."

"I can't hear my heartbeat unless I try," Tannusen chuckled, "and that's only because my senses are sharper than this body lets on. Still, heartbeats vary. They change in tempo, they may even skip a beat once in a while."

"I'm going to admit I don't know very much about hearts except their utility." He after all, didn't have one of those.

"Still, I've never heard a single angel complain about their sounds. Not even Azazel, and he tends to bitch about everything left over from heaven on him."

Well, cliche as it maybe was, Tannusen reached for the arm hooked into his own and took Szel's wrist, guiding his hand up to the tiger's chest. Right over the breastbone, and the scarring over it. Beneath both those layers, and the layers of his suit, was that organic beating heart.

"Right? Different."

Still walking, still had his tea... somewhere. Shush.

He stiffened for a moment. Apparently, this was different than just grabbing Tannusen and dragging him around, or climbing into his lap or leaning on him.

Real intimacy was... gestures like that.

The moment passed, and the sound of a thousand feathers all fluffing and shifting in irritation sounded behind Tannusen's head.

"Yes, yes okay yes, different, I get it, thank you."

Uh oh, Tannusen didn't let go, but he did pause the walking to eye Szel. Hand still held to heart; it wasn't like Szel couldn't get away if he really needed to. "Are you... flustered? By this?"

UH OH.

"That's stupid and you're stupid for asking."

"You're totally flustered!" Tannusen stop. Tannusen no. Tannusen don't laugh--

Too late, he was laughing.

"That's adorable."

"Don't you fucking laugh. I'm not flustered- Give me my hand back you asshole."

And with that he yanked it away, pitch black wings shimmering into existence as they pulled up tightly against him, fluffing and shedding.

"Okay, okay, sorry," Tannusen was still laughing as he said it, of course, "my mistake."

And he offered his arm back up, grinning.

"I'm not even bothered, I was surprised. That's it. That's all that was, I was surprised you would do it, you usually don't get that kind of feely touchy unless something is wrong or we're fucking. That's not something you do in the street.

Like an animal."

That earned another laugh from the pooka, who just resumed walking whether Szel took his offered arm or not. "Well, I am an animal."

Though Szel was right that the tiger usually kept to better decorum about it.

(After all, he often got flustered whenever Cassian held his hand!)

He did, at length, take the offered arm, grumbling. All the while, Midge had not moved an inch, not even to warn Tannusen away when the fallen seraph began to become flustered.

Apparently, the bug really was no longer too bothered by the pooka.

"Yes, but you're a civilized animal."

Ish.

"I wasn't aware holding a friend's hand to your heart was uncivilized," Tannusen teased, amused, "especially when you're discussing heartbeats."

CHECK.

"Look, it's just logical progression. Someone touches someone's chest, the conversation moves to intimacy and the next thing you know we're both talking about our feelings and crying.

I came out here to do neither of those."

"Oh, I think we've both done plenty of that recently, I'm not trying to spark an encore," Tannusen took a drink of his tea as they walked, "but I'd think in private is where that's more of a danger with me than in public."

Most people who'd met Tannusen probably couldn't fathom him doing either of those things; his public face was pretty solid.

"I have witnessed you crying too many times to think that crying isn't going to happen at all.

You'd just wait until you got home and then cry on Cassian.

Where am I supposed to cry?"

A soft cough from the cat wrapped around his shoulders.

"... That I don't already?"

"Do you really want an answer to that, or is that rhetorical?" Tannusen asked, still amused.

"You're an ass."

An ass who's arm he was still holding to, but an ass nevertheless.

Tannusen's only response was to smile into his tea as he took another drink, walking along.

After a moment of thought, "Does this mean we're going to hang out more without having to knock boots? Not that I mind the usual too, of course."

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Since the Dawn of Time

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