[ 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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«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. ]
no subject
[ 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. ]
no subject
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. ]