Being covered in the viscera -- the smell -- of a dead body that had been dead for a while also isn't helping Tannusen's sanity, all things considered. He can still taste Isaac's hands with his human taste-buds, feel the soft meat under dull human teeth...

Why had one of his first responses to finding his dead husband been to chew on his hands? He still doesn't know. Isaac had been gone for days, it wasn't like he'd wake up. Some weird instinct baked in from a past life, perhaps? Some things are like that, even when he doesn't have the memories to go with them.

The human priest with the gun is talking.

Tannusen turns his head a little to the side Cassian's on, staring at him. Those bright blue eyes of his are only half-focused.

Hoarse, from the very vigorous strangulation, he rasps out, "...I think I'd have preferred the forehead-smooch."

You know, as far as payback goes. Smooch his forehead and let him go off and get got.