genessia | Forward dated to After The Water Event because something something something

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Forward dated to After The Water Event because something something something

Who: Cassian (Now as one person) and Amberdrake
Where: Attleton, at Drake's office
Why: We've all learned an important life lesson about punching tigers.

So... returning to one body was actually a lot less painful than one would imagine. Rather it sort of happened while both halves were asleep.

The painful part, on top of clashing memories, was the insane amount of physical damage. All of it. Just all the physical damage ever. Is his jaw broken? Shit there's holes in him too holy fuck how did those get there- Oh his ribs were broken again.

... Welp.

There was always Drake, but as Cassian recalled... Drake didn't much care for Everglade. And he really didn't need this to be more trouble than it already was.

Which was why, a good... hour or more later, Amberdrake would get a visitor.

In Attleton.

In a very thick obscuring cloak, not that it'd matter due to the fact that one of them was an empath and the other one was walking around with like more than three broken bones at a time.

Not even a voiced answer to alert or greet him, just a text-

I've cocked some things up

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"So you're tellin' me the nice fellow with the note for his tree who teleported me out of a closet was a feckin' illusion?

And that all this time, ye took no personal interest in me at all, tis why ye kept comin' over when I asked ye to and help me dig through a crypt.

All an elaborate game unto which the end was... what then?

I suppose then I should tell ye, if that's the case, then I've only an interest in ye for your soul and that's it, makes just as much sense to me."

"I tried to hurt you," Tannusen said, very quietly. "I don't know why you're so eager to sweep that aside, or to write it off, but I can't."

His fingers tightened visibly against his folded arms. No gloves; the white knuckles were as plain as day to see.

"I just can't."

"Yeah, and fifty percent of me was gonna kill you. Slowly! Painfully! It's terrible, it's almost as if we were plannin' on doin' the same thing to each other in a different shape innit?

Like we're just a pair of terrible people who happen to really get along with each other!

What a feckin' concept, Tannusen, djya think?"

GOD YOU'RE SO DIFFICULT.

The smaller man was now advancing, lifting a fist to wave it.

"And if yer sweepin' my murderous cannibalistic plots against ye aside I'll sweep your violence away too!

Now I'm gonna say this once and I don't want to repeat it again, and if ye open yer stupid feckin' gob and tell me I'm wrong one more time, I'm gonna get my shotgun and explain it with that!"

Aaand with that, he aimed a solid right hook for the pooka's jaw, the war cry echoing through the room-

"I like ye, ye stupid, thickheaded gobshite!"

The swing connected, as they tended to do when Tannusen wasn't in a mood to fight back. He lifted a hand to his jaw reflexively, and finally made eye contact.

He really wasn't doing good!

He could see that, but expressing feelings other than anger and irritation were difficult for Cassian, and when he reeled his fist back for another enraged blow, the lack of any kind of argument on Tannusen's part was the anchor that dragged it back down.

An open hand moved to rest on the one that now lay on Tannusen's jaw, the smaller man quaking with the most confusing mixture of emotions and thoughts he'd ever had to puzzle over in his long, long life.

"... And if ye don't care for me back, say it now, and say it honestly. Meet me in the eye and tell me you never want to see my face or hear my voice again, and I'll grant ye that, Tannusen.

... Because if that's what will make ye any happier, than it'll be enough to make me happy."

Tannusen swallowed, and looked away for a moment like he was really going to try to do exactly that if he could just steel himself enough for it...

But he couldn't.

"I... care," he said, very quietly, like it was a secret he didn't dare speak of too loudly. "I can't pretend I don't. It would be better if I could, but I can't."

"It wouldn't, because it'd be a lie. A terrible one that never needed to be said, and it wouldn't only wound just you."

His motions were awkward and fumbling, as if showing tenderness were alien to him, but he smoothed a shaking hand over his jaw where he'd struck him.

"Because I mean what I say, Tannusen, and I'd pluck myself from here if ye asked it of me, simply because ye did."

"What I tried to do... it is worse, to me," Tannusen still couldn't meet his eyes, not again. "I killed my first target when I was seven. I don't care about murder. Hell, my 'good' side beat the other side to death, didn't he? With my bare hands. That was the 'good' half -- who the fuck does that?"

He sank down against the wall, intending to sit on the floor.

"Even now, I'm just a dramatic, sad asshole."

"Aye. To you." And he couldn't deny those feelings mattered. So he didn't. Instead he followed Tannusen to the floor, settling beside him.

"... Hell of a lot better than some twat I could name who got himself locked in a closet." Okay, he couldn't let that one go.

"Ye are. A dramatic, sad asshole next to a dramatic angry asshole. Perfectly complimentin' each other.

Like a peanut butter cup made out of catshit, we are."

"That is... disgusting," Tannusen couldn't help a weak little chuckle, though. Eww.

"Ye laughed tho." So it's a minor win.

"And ye didn't disagree either."

"It is pretty funny that you locked yourself in the closet," Tannusen, no. "I mean, just the symbolism alone has to be worth something."

Edited 2017-01-21 07:12 (UTC)

"I think the symbolism was me bein' unable to get meself out of the closet, I thought I was better at pickin' locks but apparently that went to the arse in the attic.

So I'm in the closet with problems in the attic, the whole thing could have been written by Shakespeare himself."

Tannusen shook his head. But, he was amused, at least, instead of just beating himself up worse. For the moment.

He leaned back against the wall behind him with a soft sigh, and shut his eyes for a moment. "No, I don't want you to go away," he said, finally. "You should, but I don't want you to. I still like you, obviously. Everything I said before... none of that's changed."

"I'm glad." Blunt and open.

"I don't want to leave. Everythin' I've managed to tell ye before all holds true all the same as well. I don't want to carry on knowin' I could never talk to ye again."

"You even braved my bar," Tannusen chuckled weakly, and shook his head. "And got the attention of the one asshole in the place who's on his final strike. I know the place has a name that invokes a certain kind of stereotype, but it's really not like that. Mostly. Upstairs can get pretty wild."

"I was serious about findin' ye, yer lucky ye hung up on that useless fifty percent or I would have stormed the bar first and called ye later." He gave a long, hard sigh, tilting up his glasses to scrub at his eyes.

"The bar seems nice enough, I wasn't ever a man for clubs anyway."

"What? And you seem like such a glo-sticks down the pants kind of guy," Tannusen teased, "don't bother lying, I know you wear fishnet under all that priesty stuff."

"Ye realize how badly that crap would chafe with what I do for a livin' right?" Well at least he could relax now. That they were sitting inside a room all alone with each other and no one else could hear it.

"After all the feckin' fences I jump and the things I break, may as well wear a sandpaper jockstrap while I'm at it."

"True," Tannusen relaxed a little when his teasing didn't earn an immediate verbal back-hand.

This was so surreal, though.

"Aye." Well. Now this is awkward. What do you do when you admit you like someone after you eat their heart anyway.

"... I'm going to admit I've run out of things to say. The situation has drifted too far out of me field of expertise."

Tannusen folded his hands in his lap, and chuckled. "The two thousand year old virgin doesn't know how to do small-talk? I'm shocked. Well, here's something -- I assume you got along fine with the tree?"

"Talkin' ain't got shit to do with sleepin' with someone, ye don't need words to use your willy." Anyway.

"Aye, he's a very agreeable sort. Never thought I'd meet someone worse at cookin' than I am."

"You seriously just used the word 'willy'?" Tannusen laughed, "With a straight face? Oh my god, it's worse than I thought..."

Come on Tannu, you've seen what the guy sleeps in.

"You two didn't light the kitchen on fire, I hope. Not that I should care, it's not mine."

"Well I coulda used pecker but the situation didn't call for it." Asshole. His pajamas are warm and cuddly, don't you dare insult them.

"Nae, but the fellow doesn't even know how to boil noodles. I know he's a tree but he's got a mouth, surely he eats things, doesn't he? You don't just let him live off peanut butter and jelly all the time, do ye?"

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