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

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"You used to yell at me just because it was what I expected," Tannusen pointed out, repeating the motion with his thumb. His gaze dropped from Cassian's eyes to his mouth, then came back up.

Sorry, was he supposed to find the staring disconcerting? That shit was hot.

"That wasn't humorin', that was makin' ye comfortable and it didn't take anythin' out of my day."

After a moment, the priest pressed more against his chest, uttering a disgruntled snort.

"Ye gonna do it or do I have to figure this shite out meself?"

"What, you can go two thousand years without a touch, but now you're impatient?" Tannusen smiled, one of his lopsided actual smiles that lacked any of that careful polish. "I'm flattered."

And also, a tease.

"Do you know how rarely I touch someone without my gloves on?" the tiger asked, and stoked his fingers across Cassian's cheek. He leaned a little closer, his eyes half-closing. "Shut your eyes, Cassian."

"I ain't got all feckin' night!" Okay yes he was impatience, impatience born out of nervousness. The sooner he tried it the sooner he could decide if he liked it or not, and the longer he put it off the more his bravery about this would be sapped.

"Strange time for ye to get shy, Tannusen." He mumbled, but his eyes did shut without much of further fuss.

"I'm always shy," Tannu chuckled quietly, "I just hide it really well."

He closed the gap, tilting his head to the side and brushing their lips together, the gesture almost painfully gentle. Another brush, and a third, each a little more insistent than the last, until he let his bottom lip catch and roll a little. His breath was warm, and smelled only of tea and honey.

"Clearly." But at last, when Tannusen closed the gap and let their lips brush, he was silent. And totally, totally unsure of what to do.

At all.

His brain rushed a mile a minute, through all the stupid movies he'd ever seen with a kissing scene. None of them really seemed like they'd work well right now, he really wasn't interested in passionately chewing on someone's tongue for ten minutes.

But the overwhelming urge to do something finally goaded him to press a very unsure and very clumsy kiss back.

He's trying!

Tannusen was quite pleased to accommodate that clumsy kiss. His fingers stroked over Cassian's jaw, over and over, trying to help soothe racing thoughts and jittery nerves. Everything was fine, see? They were kissing, and nothing had exploded. No one had kicked in the door to the tiny little office; there was no hurry.

Nothing had exploded, no one was breaking down the door to tell him he was going to hell, he didn't immediately burst into flames here.

If anything... it was considerably more pleasant than he thought this was going to be.

There was some relaxing here.

Not a lot of it but hey, it was there. He felt it.

Just enough to lean a little more back into Tannusen.

Tannusen didn't push it any further than that; just pleasant touches, soft and warm. No attempt to slip the priest tongue, or to let his hands wander at all. He was behaving, okay? Okay.

He only drew to a halt when the tingling in his lips started to get uncomfortable. It was gentle friction, but it was still friction! And if his cheeks and his pointy ears were a little warmer than they'd been at the start, well...

So Tannusen liked the guy, sue him.

"Not so bad, right?"

Behaving was nice, even though this was something Cassian wanted, getting tongue on the first kiss would have been a shocking and probably unwelcome addition to all this.

He took a deep breath when they were through, letting it all out slowly through his nose.

There was actually color on his face for once, a faint, but obvious soft pink.

"... Aye, not so bad at all."

"Good," Tannusen brushed his fingers over a suspiciously pink cheek, but didn't actually comment on it. He just smiled and took his hand back, now, though his other arm stayed draped over the human's shoulders. "Not where I was expecting this conversation to go, I admit."

Good, don't even bring it up. This evening is going really great and he doesn't want you to ruin it, Tannusen.

Comfortable like this, he was content to rest against the other and stare at the ceiling now.

"Nae, can't say this is how I imagined my evenin' goin'."

Tannusen was very good at ruining nice things, that was half his angst over being Cassian's first exposure to this stuff! But he was making a hell of an effort, okay. A hell of an effort.

Case in point, have a topic shift.

"So how did you find more rooms in that crypt when you can't even get in there?" Had he found a map? Ground-penetrating radar? Literally just uncovered more stonework?

"I loosed a coffin from where it was and it knocked some masonry down in the process.

As it turns out there's a staircase that's been bricked off further back, from what I can see with a flashlight."

"Huh," Tannusen took that in stride, of course. He was the widow of a sluagh, this shit just wasn't weird to him anymore. "Do old crypts typically have secret basements, where you're from? I imagine if the people in the main room were loaded..."

"Not usually. Might be somethin' interestin' down there. Didn't here no movement, so if it was a vampire or somethin' else, it's probably long since dried up."

"Well, hopefully there's nothing nasty on the chimerical side," Tannusen snorted, "an old, forgotten underground wing of a crypt sounds like the ideal lair for something made of expectations and nightmares. And chimera don't dry up."

Not that it would stop him from helping out, but he hadn't made it so far past his expected lifespan by walking blindly into such things.

"I still need to re-cast Oakenshield, at the very least. That's what kept stopping your bullets."

"Well maybe they get bored and bugger off after a couple centuries." Though frankly, Cassian didn't sound convinced of that one.

"I'm not leavin' it alone in any case, I want to see what's down there. Might be somethin' interestin'."

Still, good to know what spell it was that could eat elephant shot. Impressive.

"Now that's one hell of a defense spell."

"Well it had better be, it's my first line of defense," Tannusen chuckled, "I can't count how many assassination attempts that single spell has just... cancelled. I've had entire Freeholds of Fae after me, both of their own volition and because the nobility ordered it. And there's Trench, of course, and his entire crew."

"Be pretty useful if I had that, I'll tell ye what. Already had me ribs broken once here, wouldn't have happened with that on me." Ah well.

No sense picking that all to pieces.

"Guess that just means I have to stick even closer to ye."

"Oh no," Tannusen chuckled, "having you close, how will I ever cope?"

What, like he wasn't going to flirt, now!

"It only helps against things and people that have been Enchanted or are already Fae, but I could cast it on you anyway if you want." It would certainly offer some protection against Tannusen, if the two ever had to fight again.

Which, yes, he definitely had in mind while making the offer.

"I'm sure you'll learn to manage just fine." And since we're on the same page, there was no reason to not accept it.

"Looks like I'll have to get used to bein' dizzy then, won't I?"

"Having a cantrip on you would keep you dizzy?" Tannusen frowned, already re-thinking the offer. "It's a passive spell, it only wakes up when it's needed. Which... would also be bad, if it knocks you on your ass in the middle of a fight."

"I don't know, I just know whenever ye enchant a place my stomach does the flips."

There's a shrug from him. Hell if he knows, Tannusen!

Edited 2017-01-23 06:53 (UTC)

"You said it's like god isn't coloring between the lines, or something like that," Tannusen mused, "is it because you're literally seeing two overlapping worlds?"

Maybe it was less to do with the magic itself, and more with the visual effects of being Enchanted.

"It's how I always see everything, so I forget how weird it can be."

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