genessia | [ action | closed ] grace is just weakness or so I’ve been told, I’ve been cold, I’ve been merciless

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[ action | closed ] grace is just weakness or so I’ve been told, I’ve been cold, I’ve been merciless

Who: Szelhamos, Cassian Lynch (in a different thread than Szel), and Tannusen
Where: Genessia City - Velvet Lust
When: At some point after the empty/mutated spirits aren't an issue and it's safe to re-open.
What: First thread: Szel harasses Tannu about his soul being broken. Second thread: Tannu tells Cass he's been cavorting with the enemy. ~~That should go well!~~
Warnings: A whole lot of swearing, I'm sure. Will add if anything more intense crops up.

xxxxx[Szelhamos and Tannusen]

Tannusen sat at the bar on the first floor, all the way over at the end of the stools to limit how many people he'd be dealing with at a time. Someone was already in the seat beside him, and they were distracted by their date on their other side, leaving Tannusen in peace. Thank fuck for small favors, the tiger was content to just sit there with his hands curled around his tea -- the newly-scarred one a little looser than the other, still heat-sensitive.

That was all he was planning on doing, tonight. Just be out, visible, a quiet presence... but at least a present one.

People were hard to deal with, after... everything.

Too jarring, too sharp, too loud.

He had to re-acclimate.

So there he was, dressed down in jeans and a red t-shirt, just staring into his tea mug.

xxxxx[Cassian and Tannusen]

Well, that had been... interesting. Tannusen waited until after closing time, in the morning, and called Cassian once the building was empty of all but himself again. He'd already told the priest he'd be out all night, so waking up alone wouldn't have alarmed the man. It was a rare occurrence, these days.

And he knew what an early riser the human was, so he was pretty confident he wasn't waking him up now that the sun was out.

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THUMP.

The sound of a cane rapping against Tannusen's stool.

A pair of bright, wide gold eyes staring pointedly at him, and the sound of the demon settling into the barstool beside him. That's right, he didn't kick the moron next to Tannusen out.

He goddamn moved a stool into the open space next to Tannusen. FUck you, that's why.

Never mind that Szel never bothered to turn his own head towards Tannusen.

He didn't have to after all.

"... You look like trash."

Good. Good start to this.

Edited 2017-06-11 23:41 (UTC)

Oh good, yes, perfect.

"I'm aware," and aware they weren't talking about his face, which looked perfectly normal, if lacking in any of the usual at least faint smiles. He felt too... drained.

It was an easy lie, with the timing, to just let everyone assume he'd been touched by one of those emotion-sapping spirits. But no, it was a lot worse than that, wasn't it?

And he still had emotion.

He was just... tired. Tired, wounded somewhere that sleep couldn't reach.

"It's like looking at a vacant house with plywood in the windows."

Keep pushing it, Szel.

"Neither of you have figured out how to fix this yet?"

"--Well then, stop looking," Tannusen snapped, hands tightening around his mug of tea.

Look, it was bad enough to live with it.

He didn't need the descriptions, too.

And of course neither of them had figured out how to fix it... it'd either have been fixed by now, or at least been in progress. It was neither of those.

The tiger got up from his stool, taking his tea with. A retreat?

...In his own territory?

Yes.

Bye.

Up the stairs he went.

Sorry m8 it doesn't work like that.

Up the stairs he went, only to be met by a quickly solidifying hazy cloud of smoke.

"Well it's not going to get fixed if you storm off like that."

Yeah... he... he understood why. He did. He really did.

He understood the upset, he understood the feeling, even if he'd never personally dealt with it exactly.

It didn't mean he was going to be good at being nice.

"I'm going to guess your... bartender... wasn't any good at putting Humpty Dumpty together again."

Tannusen came to a halt when that bastard teleported into his way. Really? Really?

Really, apparently.

There was normally enough room to get around someone up here, people went up and down the stairs freely after all, but the fallen seraph had six fucking wings to block things with.

Tannusen spent a moment just staring up at him like he was seriously considering shoving past anyway. He knew how little Szel weighed, after all. He'd done evasive maneuvers once with the rag-dolled demon held up against his side. The guy may not fly anymore, but he was still built for it.

Mostly.

"..."

Tannusen took a drink of his tea, still seriously contemplating that course of action.

"...We didn't try. He's too banal."

Poor Camael, so damn pretty, and nice, and mellow, and... boring, to a Faerie. Painfully fucking boring. Too orderly, too... scripted. Banal.

Don't try it, Tannusen.

"Of course you didn't, he'd melt whatever was left of your soul like a Hershey bar in the microwave. He has absolutely no connection to chaos or glamour, no angel does."

A beat.

"You'd be better off with someone who has celestial knowledge, but none of that celestial banality." Well... Less of it.

"Cassian isn't equipped for it, he's only human. I know that siren was in this club-" He jabs a finger at the necklace with that single, silver scale.

"If he'd been here you could have asked him to help." ...

"But you are fresh out of options, Tannusen. There's officially only one monster in this city stocking in supernatural super glue. I know you don't want to die now, not when you don't know if you'll come back in one piece, or at all. And I know living with a shattered soul is about as comfortable as chewing on a lightbulb.

So I'll be succinct.

I'll paste it back together again.

For something, of course, I don't do charity."

That was quite the lead-up, and quite the... offer, even if it was for a trade.

"...Glue?"

"I'm not entirely sure how to phrase it. Souls aren't really things you stitch."

But the talk of the consistency and texture of souls could wait for another time.

"I can't promise one hundred perfect perfection, but it'll be enough to facilitate further repair. Consider it on par with restorative surgery."

"I... see," kind of. Tannusen took another drink of his tea, like having a chat about putting his soul back together while blocking the stairs in the middle of Velvet was just normal business.

"And you don't do charity. What are you wanting in turn?"

No, he knew full well it wouldn't be anything lewd.

He figured he was about as appealing right now, to someone who saw souls, as a necrotic leper.

He'd not elaborate on why he'd no interest in sleeping with Tannusen currently.

It went a bit deeper than the appearance of his soul, that was for sure, and most of it wasn't even the pooka's fault.

"The book." Cassian's book.

"I assume he was less than keen on letting it go for any reason." Especially not to give it back to the spider.

"Yeah, I've been... working on it," as he'd said he would. The pooka was more than capable of lying, yes, but he rarely said he'd do something and then... didn't. Not his preferred flavor of lie, that.

"He's already not going to be keen on letting you tamper with my soul. To put it lightly."

Because yes, the priest was going to be involved if this was happening. Tannusen trusted Szel, weird as that fact was, but something that could so badly also effect Cassian if it went wrong? Yeah, he wasn't doing this in secret. The priest would be there.

If they did this.

"No. He won't. But I'm sure he won't be happy if you stay this broken for the rest of his stay here."

Yes. The priest loved Tannusen. Szel was definitely aware of that. He was aware that Cassian would probably try anything once to help Tannusen heal.

And yes. Szel was more than willing, perhaps even gleeful, about exploiting that, even if it was, in the end, in the best interest of Tannusen and Cassian alike.

Nothing made him feel happier than blowing away an expectation.

"I won't force it. But no one else here can put you back together. Feel free to shop around, but as it is, your choices are spending the rest of your time in that body as a series of fragmented parts brokenly stabbing into your very being, or letting me help you."

"I wouldn't trust any other options with it, anyway. Even the fish, if he was here."

Yeah, digest that for a second there, Szel.

Someone trusts your demonic ass.

"...I'll have to talk to Cassian about it... all of it."

Stoppit, he's not giving you a trust face right now. This isn't a trust voice.

No trust.

Be uncomfortable okay, he doesn't wanna be nice, at least make him feel like he's being a little bit of an asshole in some semblance, stomp your feet a little.

There's a snort.

"Fine, explain everything to him. I know he's aware no one else in Dumbfuckistan here knows how to fix this."

"Yeah."

Sorry Szel, Tannusen just sounds quietly resigned to the whole thing. Not indignant, not even too uncomfortable, just resigned.

"I'll call you when I have an answer."

No, most certainly was not waking him.

Cassian had been quick to arrive too, not having expected Tannusen to ask him to come up at all, honestly.

Still, the bar was empty, so he supposed the one on one time he knew the fairy so desperately needed wasn't going to be interrupted now.

"Ye alright, Tannusen?"

Tannusen was quick to take Cassian's hands as the man came into the bar, closing and locking the door behind him. "No worse than I have been," he murmured, lifting Cassian's hands in his to press a kiss to each.

They both knew, even if the human couldn't see it directly, how bad his soul was doing.

How... crunchy it all was, inside. Razor sharp shards of glass, everywhere, when there should have been one large pane.

"Let's go upstairs, I have tea for us up there," Tannusen went to lead the way. Upstairs while the bar was closed was a whole different atmosphere than when it was open. Quiet, and better-lit than during operating hours, at least when he turned the overheads on.

And sure enough, there was an infuser and three (three?) mugs waiting at his favorite booth. He gestured for Cass to slide in first.

His fingers brushed across Tannusen's face and jaw, leaning in himself to press a kiss to his cheek. He knew. He didn't have to see it, he was well aware of how shattered the fairy was inside.

"Callin' me over for tea? Ye could have had me company in the basement." But up he went and... yeah his eyes are narrowing a little bit at the third cup. In he slides, taking his cup and eyeballing the third ever still.

"... We expectin' company then?"

"...Maybe," Tannusen slides into the booth after Cass, draping his scarred arm over the priest's shoulders and reaching out with his other hand to pour them both some tea. "And if so, the basement won't do. Not many people know about that."

Tea poured, the Faerie leaned in to belatedly return that cheek-kiss.

"I've got some things to tell you," wasn't there always something else? "You're... not going to like it."

It was nice to see the burn healed. Even if he got... sliiiightly salty about who did it. Slightly.

About an hours worth of yelling salty. He can't help but continue to run his fingers along the now healed skin, scarred or not. It was just nice to touch him everywhere again.

"I'm startin' to realize there's a great deal of things happenin' here I don't or won't like."

CAMAEL.

Yeah well, Tannusen hadn't been thrilled to discover his new bartender was a goddamned angel from that goddamned world, himself. But it hadn't been an hour of yelling, at least.

In jeans and a t-shirt today, there was plenty of that new scar to access, shiny and sleek.

Hell, where to even start...

"I didn't know, at first..." Tannusen began with some hesitance, "and once I did know... I had to keep a steady course in order to access what I needed to free you from Hastur. I couldn't tell you, then, in case it tipped it off."

And what he'd needed, of course, was Lil...

Which he'd stolen from Szelhamos.

"That's a great deal of beatin' 'round the bush I'm gettin' here, are ye goin' to elaborate or am I gonna have to play charades with ye?"

In the end, whatever Tannusen did... it helped separate him from Hastur. It helped free him, and... well it couldn't be that bad. It could be anything at all and it probably wouldn't be as bad as playing host to an outer god.

Still hard to keep out the annoyance though.

"Be direct, I ain't glass."

"Well I can give context first or I can just bluntly say it with no helpful background information," Tannusen took a sip of his tea with his free hand, and set it back down. "There's not much in between. But I've given you some context, now, so..."

Ohhhh boy.

Oh boy, oh boy.

This was going to be... oh boy.

"...I'm not... in any peril or injured in any way you don't already know about."

One final disclaimer, there!

"I've had... dealings with Szelhamos for months. Since February, in fact." So, for nearly as long as Tannusen and Cassian have officially been an item.

He hadn't known the two knew each other; certainly hadn't known they were enemies, or that Szel was who'd cursed Cass. All he'd known was he was allowed to sleep around and hey, this blind guy who came to his bar a lot sure was a flirt.

He's been with Tannusen long enough to be fluent in Tannusenese.

'Dealings with'. Translation: 'I dealt with him.

with my penis'

Roughly.

Intimacy was intimacy in the end. Now he knew Tannusen didn't know a damn thing when he first engaged with Szel. Surely he never would have started if he knew. And it'd already been explained after that, that he'd kept it up in order to obtain necessary information... Which Cassian could now easily connect to Lil.

So the outburst that was coming was not due to Tannusen fucking about with the demon that made his life so difficult, but-

"Ye could have died horribly, ye sentimental idiot!" Yeah.

"At what point did ye start figurin' out all his fluids was feckin' poison- Did he poison ye?

Did he faff about with your soul?

Tannusen, I can't see that soul shite, did he do somethin' to that?!"

"I've been poisoned a few times now, yes. But he was nice enough to tell me about the fluids before hand."

Whelp.

"And yes, to faffing about with souls... but no, he hasn't done anything to it."

A little mild poisoning here and there, yes, but that had been quick to flush out. Even more temporary than the poison that had come about when fluids had finally gotten involved; the Faerie soul was generally far more durable than any mortal body.

Of course, there was an irony in that right now, what with what was intact and what was... not.

"That's... actually part of why this is coming up now."

"... He's why ye were as high as a kite a month earlier.

Innit."

Goddamnit.

"I- No, I'll bother with the logistics of that later, I know I'm missin' somethin'." He didn't know that much about the fae of Tannusen's world. Not as much as he'd like, at least. Oh he knew what this was leading up to.

"So what'd that filthy used car salesman of a fallen seraph want in return for scotch tapin' your soul back together?"

"...Yeah, yeah he is," Tannusen couldn't help a faint, wry chuckle. Not much got past Cassian.

--Case in point.

"Well. The book, of course, which I already felt should be tucked away on a shelf in Hell's library well away from... other mortals. It would be safe there. I'm probably the only successful infiltration and escape that that place has seen in billions of years."

If not 'ever'.

"That feckin-"

Oh of course he wanted the book. Cassian didn't even want that damn book anymore, it belonged in hell.

It really did.

... But then-

"I spent about two thousand years playin' keep away with him with that feckin' book. D'ye know how many goddamn meals he's fecked right the hell up? I broke a perfectly good bottle of whiskey on him once, shite was damn near half me stipend.

He can have that book back when he apologizes for bein' a crusty bag of bellends or when he pries it out of me cold dead lifeless hands, he can."

Tannusen laughed at that, he couldn't help it, and he leaned the side of his head against his own shoulder, up and over Cassian's as it was. "Yes, I heard you two got banned from a Chuck E. Cheese's once."

Well... At least he was laughing. It was enough to take a little bit of the edge out of the cranky priest, who sunk into his chair, grumbling.

"T'was his fault, had he not shown up I wouldn't have had to use the band as a conduit for the souls of the dead, I was low on bullets.

It was frugal."

"I'm pretty sure you inspired at least one video game franchise with that stunt," and Tannusen pressed a kiss to the side of Cassian's head, then reached for his tea again.

MORE GRUMBLING.

"I ain't lettin' him no where near ye unless I'm there. I won't hear any argument against it."

"What, in general?" Tannusen had... worried that might happen, once Cassian was told.

"Tannusen.

If ye ain't dead now.

Probably means ye won't be dead ever.

By him. I ain't lettin' him play with your godsbedamned soul without me bein' present, but I'm not volunteerin' to stand outside a bedroom while ye bump uglies with each other."

A beat.

"... I don't despise the fecker. It's... complicated."

"So you're not forbidding me from... dealing with him," oh, the air-quotes were almost present, there. Though there's a faint chuckle, "...I doubt there'll be more of that, but I've grown strangely fond of his company."

Yeah, so, that's a thing. Cass can't exactly fault him for having a weird taste in company, can he?

"But yes, I intended for you to be there if he was going to try to work on my soul."

And a vague gesture with his tea mug at the third, empty cup.

"To be clear, I already agreed to try to get the book for him in exchange for him not trying to steal Lil back. This was definitely a token demand, on his part."

"I get the feeling I'll have a big cranky bird flappin' about the house if I said otherwise."

In any case.

"Token. What, like he thinks he has to?" He actually had to pause for a moment.

"... Aye, I suppose that makes a bit of sense. Demons and angels don't have much by way of free will, I imagine it's all just bloody instinct for him."

"Yeah, he..." a pause, and an amused snort, "chased me down to make his 'offer'. Then told me he doesn't do charity. But also that I should take him up on it. But I was welcome to shop around. But, but, but."

Tannusen played with his tea mug on the table with his free hand, his other arm still draped over Cassian's shoulders. "So, basically as close to a free offer as I think he's capable of making. From sheer pride, if nothing else."

That sounded a lot more uncertain than what he was used to. For a moment, his memory was dragged, this time a touch uncomfortably, back to the perky, but painfully awkward little AI in the bar.

Nope.

No.

Not feeling bad for that asshole.

"... That stinking book deserves to be in hell, I suppose."

"So... you're okay with this?" Tannusen hadn't been entirely sure the priest would go for it if he didn't push, and he hadn't pushed.

"No I ain't.

But I'm more not okay with you bein'..."

Hurt, mostly. Hurt in a way he couldn't possibly fix on his own. Even if he'd been a far more accomplished holy man, he was well aware now that heaven couldn't help put this puzzle back together.

"I'd rather get rid of the book then have ye live like this."

Tannusen sat quietly for a moment, arm still draped over Cassian's shoulder, head resting on top.

"You ask what I see in you, I think it's your compassion more than anything else. You have such a big heart, Cass..."

His hand moved to Tannusen's, twining his fingers around it.

"Only for ye, Tannusen."

Of this he was sure of. No one else had ever made him... really move so far out of what he was comfortable with. No one else had ever been worth that level of trust and dedication.

"You barely knew me when you held my face and talked me through that first panic attack I had around you," Tannusen turned his hand to thread their fingers together.

Yes, that incident still stuck out in his mind. It had been the big turning point, if he had to put a pin in a spot and label it as such. Cassian had gone from that guy he liked -- and thus got some strange, awful, painful satisfaction out of the idea that he loathed him in turn...

(Not unlike his recent dynamic with a certain someone else.)

But, on the topic of fixing his soul, "Szelhamos is still... banal, but not nearly as much as Camael. Part of it might be the fact that he's fallen, but I've known demons before and they were nearly as banal as any angel."

He had an inkling of what made Szel different. 'Something new', Cam had said. 'Getting him to flex his free will', Cam had said -- if of the hologram.

It didn't take someone as smart as the tiger was to start clicking the pieces together.

"I knew ye well enough." Try as you might, Tannusen, he'll find a way to make it seem like he only likes you, and you alone. He went to bury his head against the other man's neck, mumbling into it.

"He's cracked, s'what he is." Different than the other demons he'd stumbled into, but he'd never say it was better than what he was used to.

More annoying, maybe.

"Daffy."

Tannusen didn't buy it for a second, though. Cassian tried to hide his kindness -- could anyone blame him, after two thousand years? -- but the tiger didn't buy that he'd been some miraculous exception, not even for a second. Not that early on.

"Cracked is good, in this case," the tiger relaxed a bit at having Cassian burrow into his neck, shutting his eyes for a moment. "Shall I call him, then?"

NO ITS TRUE HATES EVERYONE BIG MEAN CRANKY OLD MAN BLUH BLUH

It was a good thing that wasn't stated out loud or there'd be complaining from the priest.

"Cracked he is then."

Ugh.

"Can I have a drink first before I deal with that crowin' rooster?"

"Of course, love," somehow Tannusen doubted Cassian meant more tea. He untangled them to slide out of the booth, and held out his hand for the other man.

'Love'.

It brings a smile to his face almost instantly, wiping away the stormy look that had been slowly appearing earlier. He reached out to take Tannusen's hand with a soft laugh.

"Right... Just a quick one." Couldn't be too smashed for this after all.

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[ action | closed ] grace is just weakness or so I’ve been told, I’ve been cold, I’ve been merciless

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