You'd be waiting a long time. [ It comes with a flicker of meaning, unintended: she should just come for him, come for him alone, not these games. Not this messy scattershot fallout. It's like being dropped on a planet with a Beast, but also a whole army of civilians and bystanders, just to make things really inconvenient. Just to drive home how he'll always— sacrifice— everyone— else.
It's a bitter, ugly welter of fear and anger in him. ]
I don't want to lose you to this, [ comes the thought, clumsy with frustration and some sharper, possessive fear. ] If you die down there I'll be pissed.
[ So that's what it feels like to be caught in a (blessedly brief) hysterically-giggle-loop ... while in the crushing, freezing depths of the northern Atlantic, then! Lessons learned all around!
(Let him go back to punching sharks; that was easier.) ]
«Already missed both of those boats, didn't we?» [ he answers at last, as all the miserable giggling finally dies away. John has died, and she spat his sorry corpus back to shore; Augustine has thrown himself deeper into her depths than any simple human could ever hope to survive, and she hasn't granted him even a second of squid-shaped reprieve.
So of course he's swimming back to shore; what the hell else is he going to do? Sink to the very bottom, so that he can walk the length of the Marianas Trench, and see how many of their songs he can still fully sing in his head, and how many times he has to play through each of them before he's done? Still going to take quite a while to find that particular geological feature — and how frustrating would it be, to see the very end of the journey, and have her squid him then?
No, better to come back to shore; he still owes Sarah an apology, and he has a dragon-child to hatch, and —
[ It's a long, long time before Augustine says anything else, either. Long enough for the light outside to change, for day and night to switch places; long enough for John to have cleared everything out of Augustine's room and dumped it on the lawn; long enough to have moved himself into Augustine's room and made a nest in the bed, between the swords and the blanket, out of dirty laundry; long enough to have set the house on fire and leave it nothing but smouldering ashes; long enough to have gotten a good dinner and a bottle of Trench's fanciest wine inside him; long enough to have started shitposting on the network, maybe. ]
«Are you still there?»
[ It's wistful; it's a little afraid, and definitely off-kilter, and maybe even has a faint hysterical edge of remembering the phrase Are you there, God? It's me, Margaret — whoever the hell Margaret had been, whenever the hell that phrase had mattered to anyone. ]
«Don't — don't go, like this — I'm so tired of the dark and cold, already —»
[ There's a momentary flicker of his voice, his presence, his attention — as if he's turned away, to talk to someone else. ]
«Of course I need you here, don't be an idiot — don't you want a break from me? I should think you'd be tired of being buried there.»
[ And fuck him, but it's immediate: even if he's petty enough to go quiet, leave Augustine to fumble in the dark, he can't bear it. He replies like he's desperate for a breath of air.
It's the same tone he's used sometimes, through the years, when he needs to be steady. When he needs to card his fingers through someone's hair and put something back together again, make it all hold for just a little longer. It doesn't come through smooth, on this attempt: he sounds too much like John and too little like God, drawn tight and close with caring too much. ]
«You used to tell us stories, sometimes — do you remember?»
[ Wistful.
Distant.
Distracted? Perhaps; the sort of distracted that says that this, actually, is the distraction — this conversation — away from some other unpleasantness before him. ]
«You'd sing, sometimes, as well, but I dare say that would come across rather more strangely, under the... circumstances.»
[ There's an itch, under his words; an ache; the awful sensation of bones deforming, melting away — and this isn't the first time, in recent months, that John has felt a tail multiply the number of his caudal vertebrae, now, is it?
(It's not the first time he's felt ribs grow into place, either, is it —) ]
«Tell me a story?»
[ (He is very nearly begging, judging by his sudden volume and breathless tone.) ]
[ He can feel it. On his end, John sits back in his chair and shuts his eyes, feeling the easy and human curve of his spine and simultaneously the hideous melt and warp of a growing tail. ]
I ever tell you the one about Jonah and a big fish?
[ Ha ha. That'd be cheery and nautical. Except that God isn't coming to save him from drowning, and Augustine isn't going to tidily repent. Can't or couldn't; doesn't need to. They looked that head-on and fumbled it about fifty different ways, these past few months, and it's just...
It's exhausting, this thing they've become. It's not like he doesn't know it. ]
Could catch you up on the local drama, [ he says instead, with abrupt weight and certainty. ] I might be cancelled, now. On the network. Pyrrha put a dagger in my gut because a five-year-old thinks I'm a jerk.
«Well,» [ he points out, very reasonably, ] «you are a jerk, although I can't remember her ever stabbing you for it before — what's so special about this particular kid, to bring out the ol' ultraviolence?»
[ Admittedly, Alfred had been doing more of the driving at that point; Augustine had tuned in at the sharp prod, expecting another assault-by-eldritch-and-horrible-denizen-of-the-Deep, only to find that Alfred was at a loss — and then, well, they'd been playing "keep the human away from the maliciously-playful dolphins" for a bit, there, as well.
... But also: ]
«What's this about 'the network'?»
[ If John isn't paying perfectly close attention, will he even realize that Augustine has no idea what he's talking about? Nobody's mentioned a network to him, yet; it's not like he's used to having one around, either... ]
He was small and cute and she thought I might reduce him to ash, apparently, which I do take personally.
[ There is a wry twist to the next words, a huffed sigh. ]
You haven't found it yet? For the best, believe me. Video feed to the whole town... anybody's game, a total free-for-all... the comments section is always a nightmare.
[ Or, in other words, it's something he has no control over — something he has never had any control over — and so he'd rather just pretend it didn't exist, Augustine supposes.
But all he shoots back is: ]
«And what, in that explanation, is meant to explain your cancelation?»
[ If their Gideon were in town, the vibes would be pretty different; it'd be tougher for anybody to get a leash on him with Gideon at his side. But then, Pyrrha's here, so maybe not. Maybe it'd all be a bigger mess for it. ]
It's, you know, the usual. God is an asshole... God eats planets and cute little kittens for breakfast... God's wife isn't that hot...
[ No points for guessing which spurred him to a reply. ]
[ Technically speaking, of course, she isn't that hot — she is, in fact, cooler than being cool; she's ice cold — pour one out for Augustine, who still doesn't actually know the details of the Tomb's arrangements, and therefore can't make the joke.
Instead, slowly, with mounting exasperation and disbelief: ]
«And so, quite reasonably, you politely asked why it was she was saying such terribly unkind things...»
[ He knows better; his thoughts don't even allow John to get one of his own thoughts in edgewise, much less "words out loud". ]
«No, of course you didn't. You went off like a nuclear explosion, because a child behaved in a childish fashion and you couldn't bear to be outdone, could you?»
[ (His tone would seem to indicate that this is not, in fact, a question that he's asking, here. Perhaps an exclamation mark would suit better.) ]
«Besides,» [ he adds after a moment like struggling to catch his breath, with a dulled and careworn attempt at his old facile levity, ] «everyone surely knows that kittens are more of an amuse-bouche than a breakfast, don't they?»
Put a knife to my throat [ slips out, a frisson of knotted grief and anger. He corrals it. He gets back on track. ]
I did not go off like a nuclear explosion, [ says God, who has never in his life known when not to make a joke. ] I mean, not this time. Believe me, I'm our local expert.
[ Augustine's thought comes at him fast and hard, relentless, nearly interrupting his own — ]
«Pyrrha put a dagger in your gut because a five-year-old thinks you're a jerk.»
[ (Having a good memory can, in fact, be a terrible thing, if it spans a long enough time; Augustine has always been very good, or very lucky, or both, when it comes to his memory's ability to know what to compress and what to store in full, long-term — but throwing John's own words back at him doesn't even really need that, anyway, does it?) ]
«Are you going to reconcile those for me, then? Going to tell me what you did do, John?»
[ There's an undercurrent, there, too: Are you finally going to tell me something genuinely truthful, even if it shows you're in the wrong?
Hard to say if it's even words, though, or just a prevailing sense of exhausted skepticism. What's the difference?, John had asked — he wonders, off and on in the back of his mind, he has wondered, since coming here, if John has managed to remember or re-learn the answer to that, yet. ]
There have been a lot of daggers. [ He's gone impatient. ] Don't worry about it. I haven't blown anyone up.
[ This settles into an irritated simmer, but then: ]
I'll backtrack. From the top. When I washed up, Gideon came to meet me, and it didn't go great... she's pissed. She's walking away. [ They all are, he doesn't mean to convey, but does anyway. They've all left me. ] She put me on blast for all of Trench. We went back and forth a little... Pyrrha's been playing damage control... It's gone quiet, now.
[ The quiet comes from Augustine, too, in the wake of that; radio static, or a conversation in a room too distant to hear anything but the rise and fall of voices — unable even to identify the language being used, much less the accent — a conversation that has nothing to do with John, and everything to do with the wonder of having Augustine and his brother together in one place, once again.
It's just that, well... it lasts a while, this time, once again. Long enough for Augustine to relay everything to Alfred, maybe; long enough for them to discuss whether or not it's worth trying to hunt for a meal, or just keep burning those Lyctoral fires; long enough to debate which Gilbert & Sullivan operetta was the greatest of all time; who knows. ]
«They left you as soon as they could load up a truck, after getting back from the beach,» [ is what comes across, finally, in the tired tone of someone trying to be gentle about something that probably should have already been obvious. ] «Everyone who was going to, anyway — whether permanently, or just until you stopped being... that.»
[ "That", flatly, because it's easier, simpler, neater than any of the other ways he could describe the absolute Hell of those three days —
— the ones he actively chose to remain, as close as his sanity could bear, leaving only to return, again and again, but —
He gets it. He does. He's old news. Of course he came back, even though it hurt him; that's just what he's always done. That's just Augustine, God's patient and dependable Saint. He isn't the kids, the shiny new toys here to keep him distracted away from the fact that this isn't the universe he inherited so meekly. He doesn't run this show; he isn't even necessarily the main character in the story — so why would a well-worn sidekick matter anywhere near so much as a troupe of plucky ingenues? ]
«I'll be back to help,» [ he says — lame as it is — rather than letting himself reflect on any of that long enough, closely enough, to know John will hear it.
He doesn't say when he'll be back; what's the point? It will take as long as it takes, and any attempt to pin it down more than that will just about guarantee a failure. ]
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You'd be waiting a long time. [ It comes with a flicker of meaning, unintended: she should just come for him, come for him alone, not these games. Not this messy scattershot fallout. It's like being dropped on a planet with a Beast, but also a whole army of civilians and bystanders, just to make things really inconvenient. Just to drive home how he'll always— sacrifice— everyone— else.
It's a bitter, ugly welter of fear and anger in him. ]
I don't want to lose you to this, [ comes the thought, clumsy with frustration and some sharper, possessive fear. ] If you die down there I'll be pissed.
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(Let him go back to punching sharks; that was easier.) ]
«Already missed both of those boats, didn't we?» [ he answers at last, as all the miserable giggling finally dies away. John has died, and she spat his sorry corpus back to shore; Augustine has thrown himself deeper into her depths than any simple human could ever hope to survive, and she hasn't granted him even a second of squid-shaped reprieve.
So of course he's swimming back to shore; what the hell else is he going to do? Sink to the very bottom, so that he can walk the length of the Marianas Trench, and see how many of their songs he can still fully sing in his head, and how many times he has to play through each of them before he's done? Still going to take quite a while to find that particular geological feature — and how frustrating would it be, to see the very end of the journey, and have her squid him then?
No, better to come back to shore; he still owes Sarah an apology, and he has a dragon-child to hatch, and —
Well, and there's John. ]
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[ He doesn't say anything else for a long, long time. ]
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«Are you still there?»
[ It's wistful; it's a little afraid, and definitely off-kilter, and maybe even has a faint hysterical edge of remembering the phrase Are you there, God? It's me, Margaret — whoever the hell Margaret had been, whenever the hell that phrase had mattered to anyone. ]
«Don't — don't go, like this — I'm so tired of the dark and cold, already —»
[ There's a momentary flicker of his voice, his presence, his attention — as if he's turned away, to talk to someone else. ]
«Of course I need you here, don't be an idiot — don't you want a break from me? I should think you'd be tired of being buried there.»
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[ And fuck him, but it's immediate: even if he's petty enough to go quiet, leave Augustine to fumble in the dark, he can't bear it. He replies like he's desperate for a breath of air.
It's the same tone he's used sometimes, through the years, when he needs to be steady. When he needs to card his fingers through someone's hair and put something back together again, make it all hold for just a little longer. It doesn't come through smooth, on this attempt: he sounds too much like John and too little like God, drawn tight and close with caring too much. ]
I haven't— I can hear you.
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[ Wistful.
Distant.
Distracted? Perhaps; the sort of distracted that says that this, actually, is the distraction — this conversation — away from some other unpleasantness before him. ]
«You'd sing, sometimes, as well, but I dare say that would come across rather more strangely, under the... circumstances.»
[ There's an itch, under his words; an ache; the awful sensation of bones deforming, melting away — and this isn't the first time, in recent months, that John has felt a tail multiply the number of his caudal vertebrae, now, is it?
(It's not the first time he's felt ribs grow into place, either, is it —) ]
«Tell me a story?»
[ (He is very nearly begging, judging by his sudden volume and breathless tone.) ]
no subject
I ever tell you the one about Jonah and a big fish?
[ Ha ha. That'd be cheery and nautical. Except that God isn't coming to save him from drowning, and Augustine isn't going to tidily repent. Can't or couldn't; doesn't need to. They looked that head-on and fumbled it about fifty different ways, these past few months, and it's just...
It's exhausting, this thing they've become. It's not like he doesn't know it. ]
Could catch you up on the local drama, [ he says instead, with abrupt weight and certainty. ] I might be cancelled, now. On the network. Pyrrha put a dagger in my gut because a five-year-old thinks I'm a jerk.
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«Well,» [ he points out, very reasonably, ] «you are a jerk, although I can't remember her ever stabbing you for it before — what's so special about this particular kid, to bring out the ol' ultraviolence?»
[ Admittedly, Alfred had been doing more of the driving at that point; Augustine had tuned in at the sharp prod, expecting another assault-by-eldritch-and-horrible-denizen-of-the-Deep, only to find that Alfred was at a loss — and then, well, they'd been playing "keep the human away from the maliciously-playful dolphins" for a bit, there, as well.
... But also: ]
«What's this about 'the network'?»
[ If John isn't paying perfectly close attention, will he even realize that Augustine has no idea what he's talking about? Nobody's mentioned a network to him, yet; it's not like he's used to having one around, either... ]
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[ There is a wry twist to the next words, a huffed sigh. ]
You haven't found it yet? For the best, believe me. Video feed to the whole town... anybody's game, a total free-for-all... the comments section is always a nightmare.
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But all he shoots back is: ]
«And what, in that explanation, is meant to explain your cancelation?»
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[ If their Gideon were in town, the vibes would be pretty different; it'd be tougher for anybody to get a leash on him with Gideon at his side. But then, Pyrrha's here, so maybe not. Maybe it'd all be a bigger mess for it. ]
It's, you know, the usual. God is an asshole... God eats planets and cute little kittens for breakfast... God's wife isn't that hot...
[ No points for guessing which spurred him to a reply. ]
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Instead, slowly, with mounting exasperation and disbelief: ]
«And so, quite reasonably, you politely asked why it was she was saying such terribly unkind things...»
[ He knows better; his thoughts don't even allow John to get one of his own thoughts in edgewise, much less "words out loud". ]
«No, of course you didn't. You went off like a nuclear explosion, because a child behaved in a childish fashion and you couldn't bear to be outdone, could you?»
[ (His tone would seem to indicate that this is not, in fact, a question that he's asking, here. Perhaps an exclamation mark would suit better.) ]
«Besides,» [ he adds after a moment like struggling to catch his breath, with a dulled and careworn attempt at his old facile levity, ] «everyone surely knows that kittens are more of an amuse-bouche than a breakfast, don't they?»
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I did not go off like a nuclear explosion, [ says God, who has never in his life known when not to make a joke. ] I mean, not this time. Believe me, I'm our local expert.
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«Pyrrha put a dagger in your gut because a five-year-old thinks you're a jerk.»
[ (Having a good memory can, in fact, be a terrible thing, if it spans a long enough time; Augustine has always been very good, or very lucky, or both, when it comes to his memory's ability to know what to compress and what to store in full, long-term — but throwing John's own words back at him doesn't even really need that, anyway, does it?) ]
«Are you going to reconcile those for me, then? Going to tell me what you did do, John?»
[ There's an undercurrent, there, too: Are you finally going to tell me something genuinely truthful, even if it shows you're in the wrong?
Hard to say if it's even words, though, or just a prevailing sense of exhausted skepticism. What's the difference?, John had asked — he wonders, off and on in the back of his mind, he has wondered, since coming here, if John has managed to remember or re-learn the answer to that, yet. ]
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[ This settles into an irritated simmer, but then: ]
I'll backtrack. From the top. When I washed up, Gideon came to meet me, and it didn't go great... she's pissed. She's walking away. [ They all are, he doesn't mean to convey, but does anyway. They've all left me. ] She put me on blast for all of Trench. We went back and forth a little... Pyrrha's been playing damage control... It's gone quiet, now.
[ The quiet is worse than the chaos. ]
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It's just that, well... it lasts a while, this time, once again. Long enough for Augustine to relay everything to Alfred, maybe; long enough for them to discuss whether or not it's worth trying to hunt for a meal, or just keep burning those Lyctoral fires; long enough to debate which Gilbert & Sullivan operetta was the greatest of all time; who knows. ]
«They left you as soon as they could load up a truck, after getting back from the beach,» [ is what comes across, finally, in the tired tone of someone trying to be gentle about something that probably should have already been obvious. ] «Everyone who was going to, anyway — whether permanently, or just until you stopped being... that.»
[ "That", flatly, because it's easier, simpler, neater than any of the other ways he could describe the absolute Hell of those three days —
— the ones he actively chose to remain, as close as his sanity could bear, leaving only to return, again and again, but —
He gets it. He does. He's old news. Of course he came back, even though it hurt him; that's just what he's always done. That's just Augustine, God's patient and dependable Saint. He isn't the kids, the shiny new toys here to keep him distracted away from the fact that this isn't the universe he inherited so meekly. He doesn't run this show; he isn't even necessarily the main character in the story — so why would a well-worn sidekick matter anywhere near so much as a troupe of plucky ingenues? ]
«I'll be back to help,» [ he says — lame as it is — rather than letting himself reflect on any of that long enough, closely enough, to know John will hear it.
He doesn't say when he'll be back; what's the point? It will take as long as it takes, and any attempt to pin it down more than that will just about guarantee a failure. ]