[ Action | OPEN ] if love's a fight then I shall die, with my heart on a trigger

[black_black_heart]

Who: Cassian Lynch, Tannusen, and OPEN
Where: The hospital folks wake up in when they've died.
What: A direct continuation of this scene.
Where: Six+ hours after Cassian's death.
Warnings: Angst, probably some gore, more angst.
NOTES: Folks are welcome to encounter him wandering the hospital, but please don't prevent him from finding Cass in that thread at the end of it.

- - - - -

Tannusen could be found wandering the hospital in a daze, dried tears caked on his face, his right arm and hand a bloodied, burned mess. His soul, already crumbling to ash in places from the act he'd just committed, smoked and hissed at being inside this banal place that ate away at the Faerie like an acid.

He didn't care.

The tiger wandered the halls, brushing aside the fake people who tried to stop him for one reason or another -- it wasn't visiting hours, his arm -- without seeming to really even register them.

...

Eventually, eventually, one of the rooms he glanced into made him stop in his tracks. Pause, for a long few minutes in shock. He hadn't really expected Cassian's body to re-appear here, and wasn't sure, yet, what it meant that it had. Tannusen stepped into the room and stared at the body for another long moment, not quite registering that it was breathing; the expression was no longer slack with death.

It was only after he'd climbed right onto the hospital bed with the unconscious man that he realized there was a heartbeat drumming away in that thin chest.

He didn't know why.

The tiger just clung to the smaller man and shut his eyes, listening to the sounds of life where there shouldn't have been any.

Comments

[black_black_heart]

"Dream logic," Tannusen reminds him, and only when Cassian's fingers are safely away from the strangely-hard slits, does he let his milky white claws emerge. They're too damn big to fit in there, surely. Especially with actual finger-bones and... yeah, dream logic. "It's best not to think too hard about it, I find."

[feckinboomstick]

Dream logic. Right.

Sounded about like the same explanation another weird dream oriented fairy gave him at home about literally everything.

"It doesn't hurt at all does it?"

Look, that just sort of came out unbidden, huge goddamn claws are coming out of your fingers, it looks like it should hurt.

[black_black_heart]

"Of course not," Tannusen chuckles softly, "I mean, it probably would on the other hand, but I'm not trying that one right now."

Everything's sort of... cooked, over there. His claws retract again, and then it's just a regular hand... with those freaky god damned slits. This is why he usually wears gloves, at least on the chimerical side of things.

"...You're extremely over-dressed, you know."

[feckinboomstick]

"It just-" Okay no dream logic got it. Stop thinking about it, it just works. "Aye. Leave that hand be, I can see everythin' I need on this one."

Oh... yes.

They were going to take a bath.

He'd never actually bathed with someone before, which was saying something considering he was there for Rome.

He plucked at the buttons of his shirt- He wanted this! He did want to take a bath with Tannusen!

It was just... getting the clothes off.

... Like taking off a bandaid, right? The quicker the better.

"Aye, you're right." Before he started to fumble at the buttons, starting to stubbornly ignore the butterflies waking up in his stomach.

[black_black_heart]

And Tannusen was more than willing to help, turning to pluck at buttons and such with his one good hand. He knew his way around Cassian's clothes by now, at least.

And they'd both been nude around the other a handful of times, by now, but never... at the same time.

So, that was... something. Not to mention climbing into a tub together guaranteed a lot of skin contact.

Also a first.

...Firsts he'd assumed would never happen.

[feckinboomstick]

Skin contact and naked at the same time, yeah this was kind of a step, wasn't it?

At least Tannusen was helping, the tiger was pretty good at getting Cassian undressed at this point.

Cassian wasn't even aware there would be a new scar, until the shirt was opened. He didn't get much of a chance to cover it back up either.

Too surprised to see it.

Brilliant, pink and new. Freshly closed and tender looking, at least it had skin and not a scab.

Not... that it made the three inch long jagged mark any nicer to look at.

"... Oh."

[black_black_heart]

Tannusen paused at that point, too, and gingerly touched it with a few fingers -- the pads, not the harsh slits at the tips.

Silent, of course. Expression... well, it wouldn't take someone who knew Tannusen as well as Cassian did to read the guilt and pain there. He'd murdered Cassian. Assassinated him, as surely as any other target. And with much the same methods, although he'd rarely had anything as conventional as a knife involved...

Convenient.

Add going paler under his stripes and looking a bit ill, to that expression.

[feckinboomstick]

"Tannusen." That tone. Full of warmth, of love.

The smaller man took the hand that brushed past the scar, and pressed it firmly to it.

The beat of a heart could be felt beneath it, strong and alive, no matter how big that scar was-

"Ye saved me."

[black_black_heart]

It had only been a matter of hours since Cassian had gone lifeless in his arms. Since he'd cleaned and tended to the body with its slack, tell-tale expression. Hours. He felt that heartbeat, though, and kept his hand pressed there.

[feckinboomstick]

"You're a good man, Tannusen."

No matter what the pooka might tell himself, no matter what others might have insisted.

"You're a good man."

[black_black_heart]

Tannusen didn't have a direct response to that; he just stared at his hand on Cassian's new scar, feeling that precious heartbeat under his palm.

"The water's going to get cold," he said after a few more moments of this, because he had no real response to Cassian's assertions. It would be too cold of him to argue, but he couldn't quite agree, either.

[feckinboomstick]

He didn't expect him to agree, but it was nice to not hear an argument either, and he rocked up again on his toes to press a kiss to the other mans jaw.

"Aye. It will."

The belt was next to go, socks off, though again he was left fumbling awkwardly with the fly and button if... only because yes.

This was still the first time they'd been naked in the same room together.

"... If this must be an issue to me for the rest of me life I'm wearin' drawstring pants until I die."

[black_black_heart]

Tannusen of course was more than happy to help with his good hand, brushing Cassian's fumbling hands aside and nimbly undoing the smaller man's fly for him.

Then he went to climb into the tub, careful because he was down to one arm. With Cassian's lungs still being damaged, it was pretty obvious who was going to be playing back-rest here, even if he was going to have to sink down pretty far into the huge crystalline tub to get his shoulder in on the soaking, up where the burn finally tapered off.

Submerging it stung like a son of a bitch, though, and he spent a while doing so gradually, hissing in a sharp breath between his teeth with every graduation further into the water.

[feckinboomstick]

And... there.

Naked.

No lightning breaking in to vaporize him, Hell did not open up under him. ... So far so good.

He was at Tannusen's side in an instant, refusing at first to enter the tub as he worked to help ease him in. Nice and slow...

"Ye want me to find somethin' to wrap it with?"

He wasn't even sure if that would help but it was worth a try, wasn't it?

[black_black_heart]

Tannusen shook his head, his good hand emerging from the water to hold onto Cassian's arm for support. He didn't want the priest out of sight more than necessary, right now, and no, it probably wouldn't help much anyway.

Once he was settled mostly into place, the hand on Cassian's arm let go, but only to offer silently to help the priest step into the tub as well. If he still wanted to, with the blood swirling around in the water. It wasn't a ton, but there was some, mostly re-hydrated dried stuff coming off that arm, and off his skin wherever Cassian's bleed-out had soaked through his clothing.

His hair, of course, coiled along on the surface of the water like usual, complete now with those inky black streaks grown from the hidden spots on his scalp that had stripes.

[feckinboomstick]

No he wouldn't linger outside the tub due to that blood. He'd said he was getting in with him. It didn't even slow him down, nor phase him as he carefully slid into the tub with Tannusen, taking ever so much care as to not brush against or touch the burn.

Tannusen did, however, get a nice surprise.

Of Cassian attempting to slide into his lap, to give him all the contact he could possibly need.

He wouldn't be slipping out of sight again for a long, long time.

[black_black_heart]

That was so much more skin contact than they'd ever had together.

It was nice.

Really nice.

Warm, living Cassian. Tannusen curled his good arm around the human's waist and let his eyes slip shut, content for once to just... be content. Exhausted, from over six hours of absolute hell, but as comfortable as possible with his arm the way it was.

"I love you."

[feckinboomstick]

So, so much more, and he was happy with this, this intimacy. It felt safe... He felt safe.

Tannusen looped his good arm around him, and Cassian rested his head against his chest, draping his arms around his neck and shoulders.

"I love ye too, Tannusen."