genessia | [closed] you’re the antidote to everything except for me

Entry tags:

tannusen

[closed] you’re the antidote to everything except for me

Who: Camael and Tannusen
Where: Velvet Lust
Warnings: Nah

- - - - -

This would be Tannusen's first night back at the bar since having his soul stitched back up. He'd been off for a few nights -- he didn't have to be here every night anymore, with this many employees holding it down -- but here he was. Early, of course, starting off with taking chairs down off the tables in the downstairs bar.

It was really easy to forget that there were people who could see souls, even now. Not a concern the tiger was accustomed to, that one.

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Speaking of which-

"Man, you look like you need a drink."

Well of course he was there, his shift was starting soon, had to get the bar set up. There stood Camael, glass in hand, watching Tannusen with an... exceptionally thoughtful expression.

Tannusen knew full well his physical appearance was immaculate. One of his many suits, not a wrinkle to be found, not a hair out of place, the metal on one hand and at his throat shining and decorative. So, he paused with a chair halfway flipped and eyed Camael for a moment in return.

...Right.

Soul shit.

"Is that your expert opinion as a bartender," he went back to putting chairs down, "or a dude with wings hidden in a second reality?"

He knew no one else was in the building right now; even Kay had a distinct scent to the tiger.

"Yes."

But hey, Tannusen didn't drink, so at the very least he could get a calming cup of tea.

"... See you made a real good friend here."

Bits and pieces of someone he deeply recognized.

"Real good."

He already knew Szel... tolerated Tannusen.

He'd not quite cottoned on to how deeply the pooka was... tolerated until now.

That's some fucking tolerance from the spider.

"Halfway intelligent pooka make for excellent diplomats," Tannusen set the last chair on its feet, tucked neatly into its corresponding table. "Is it that big a deal? Maybe I just made a very compelling bargain."

He knew full-well that wasn't it; Szel had definitely wanted to help him. But that didn't mean he couldn't be coy about discussing it.

"Yeah? What'd he ask for?"

Tea slid over, and the angel leaned comfortably on the bar, resting his head in his hand.

"Can't be your soul, he can't do anything with it, whole or busted. Can't be Cassian, you'd never agree."

And unspoken, everyone in the room knew the spider and the priest would sooner set themselves on fire than share a room with each other for too long.

"You didn't answer my question," Tannusen pointed out, but tea was as effective a way as usual to summon him over, and he slid onto a barstool in front of it.

"Yeah. It's a pretty big deal, depending on what he did it for."

In return for something after being bargained with? Well that's typical Szel territory. But after all that went down between Tannusen, Szel and Cassian, frankly Camael was surprised the demon even wanted to be in the same city as the tiger, let alone put his soul back together for him

"Maybe I agreed to go after you, next," Tannusen said with one of his perfect, polished smiles, before taking a sip of his tea.

"No you didn't."

A bright smile back, the angel moving back to the glasses to finish setting them all up properly.

"It's important. Trust me."

There was a short pause, a thoughtful pause-

"... He's still the same person he's always been. Banged up, cracked and busted..." A few bottles straightened here and there-

"But I'd like to think... he still cares, can still care. I'd like to think he helped you, despite no doubt puttin' on a big song and dance about how it ain't that way, out of the goodness of his own soul."

"...He asked for something he knew he was already going to get in exchange for leaving Lil with me," Tannusen confirmed, in light of that extra information after the pause. "There was a 'bargain', but it was pure posturing. And he... tried to comfort me, during it. He tried to sing."

A longer silence as Camael studied the glasses set up, skirting his thumb along the edge of one.

"... Used to do that a lot whenever someone was upset. People aren't sad long in heaven, but it happens sometimes.

Thought he didn't have it in him to sing anymore."

"Yeah, Lil's done it a lot, so I'm not surprised that's his go-to method."

No need to elaborate on why Lil's done it a lot around Tannusen; having to murder one's own beloved to save them from an eternity of being digested by an eldritch horror isn't exactly a fun time. Just thinking about it makes shit itch uncomfortably that can't be scratched. All that stitching of that quilt-work soul, it feels weird.

Not as painful as before, but so fucking weird.

"It wasn't in tune, but I could tell he was trying to tune it."

He may not have laid a hand on his guitar in months, but the tiger still knew a shift in pitch when he heard it, even when it was subtle.

"More than he's done in four billion years."

It wasn't admonishing. There was no hint of sarcasm or bitterness in that tone. Quite the opposite, the warmth behind the comment was clear.

"Figured it went a bit deeper than just a bargain, you got pieces of him in you."

"Like I said," Tannusen toyed with his tea idly, "pooka make good diplomats. When they're not busy living down to everyone's expectations of being little more than a dumb clown."

Well, the common expectations were actually worse than that, but there was no need to dredge up all the kithain stereotypes about stupid beasts being the lesser Fae, was there? Everyone wanted to punch down. Pooka with their finite existences tied to their animal Seemings made a good target for the rest of the commoner kith.

Even if some were -- rightly -- a little hesitant to be too open about that bias when dealing with an exotic predator like Tannusen.

"That's why I wanted to know how big a deal it is. I figure there's not much else you can stitch a soul back together with than more soul-stuff..."

"You can get away with uses pieces of the original soul to patch it back together. Come back with a little less of it, but what's left is all together again.

It's... a bit more complicated taking pieces of yourself out.

More intimate, leaves the other soul a lot more intact, but it's not something you do for just anyone."

Well that was... something, wasn't it. Something a bit alarming, perhaps. Tannusen wasn't actually sure what he thought of that tidbit of information; he'd rather assumed the way Szel had done it was just the way it was... done.

"Well."

...Yeah.

Hey look, time to deflect that shit. "Guess my head game is even more on point than I knew."

"Yeah."

It's not in his face. It's not in his tone. But somewhere in there, it's pretty clear he knows what's going on here.

"Guess it is, ain't it?"

OH TANNUSEN.

".... I'm glad he helped you." He's glad anyone could and did, but... it was made just a little nicer, knowing that Szel had done it.

That it had been to fix the damage wrought by thwarting Szel's own plan made it... even more interesting, in some ways. Shed an interesting light on it all.

"Szel's not as banal, at least."

There was still some of it in there, in those 'threads' holding him together. But it was a small part of a tiny piece of the demon and thus over-all it was minor enough to not do too much damage. The corruption anyone else would have to worry about didn't seem to be much of a concern, at least.

That tiny hint of banality itched like a motherfucker, but it wasn't unraveling him.

"So," Tannusen was still toying with his tea, but he glanced up, "what do you actually look like?"

"I can call him a lot of things, but banal ain't one of 'em." Despite the hints of order in the demon, he was a lot less orderly than most anyone else he knew.

Frankly, he'd be surprised it wasn't the corruption that was itching like an infected would, but then, Tannusen's soul was quite a bit different than anything he was personally used to.

"Me? Why do you ask?"

If everything was a computer code, Tannusen was written in a totally different programming language than anything god or his angels had ever touched.

"Pure curiosity. I saw what he actually looks like... I think. Not something I'm going to ask him."

Assuming they ever talked again. But considering how infected and fucked-up that vision had been, he wasn't sure asking Szel if that was his real self was a good idea. In fact, he was pretty sure it was better to pretend he hadn't seen jack shit.

"What'd he look like?" Because... well Camael could tell him for sure just what Tannusen had seen. He knew what Szel really looked like, what he'd been before, what he was now.

The spider had several guises, it wasn't impossible to believe the demon had cooked up yet another face to hide behind.

"Tall and black and full of tumors," Tannusen didn't sound particularly grossed out by the description, anyway. He saw weirder shit on a daily basis. "Mostly expressionless... mostly. Like a big ball-jointed doll someone ran over with their car and then left out in the rain to collect mold in the cracks."

"Yeah... that's him."

Or what was left of him, anyway.

The seraph shook his head.

"Corruption takes a different form for most of us. Depending on who you are, what you hate, what you did."

The younger seraph had not been cast out of heaven unfairly, that corruption was proof enough.

"We all look a bit like that, corruption and cracks aside. Come in different colors, he was the only black one though."

Camael made it sound a little like backlash from the Dreaming. Break a Dreaming-backed Oath and the Dreaming would take what it was due, there was no escaping it.

"So, what did he do?" It was a natural follow-up, to Tannusen, though he didn't expect much of an answer.

"... He killed someone."

Morpheus was as good as dead, shattered into three pieces now.

"Stabbed them with a poisoned lance."

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