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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"...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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