Even the illusion of June is enough to send a stabbing pain through my chest

[butnotyet]

Who: Augustine the First and ____________ (This could be you!)
What: A little bit of everything, including Event threads, and who knows what else
When: Throughout June
Where: All around Trench; specific locations listed in TLs as necessary.

Content warnings for this character: Necromancer with visibility issues (still running a little bit Invisible Man) seeking CR for explicit gore/body horror as a matter-of-fact daily occurrence / being jaded AF about life in Trench and otherwise (look, man, he's older than dirt) / needs more people to be slutty at-or-with (bearing in mind he is, again, currently at-least-mostly Invisible, you/your character's kinks/mileage May Vary, player more interested in vague/FTB/finessing a scene than anything explicit). Also, his omen is his brother, and also a venomous snake, and also really chatty.

Specific warnings for this post: Nightmares featuring a lot of violence, including self-inflicted/suicide; various types of religious imagery/discussions, definitely including "taking the Lord's Name in vain"; invisible nude spying on God (might get spicy).

Comments

1. Don't Give Up On Your Dreams [Cassowary]

[butnotyet]

So here's the problem: Augustine the First isn't really looking like himself, these days.

He's been getting used to it, over the past few weeks, since coming back from a double-pocket-dimension and waking up invisible on the third morning after his return, inasmuch as it's possible to 'get used to' such a thing. At least full-face-masks and hoods are relatively common, out and about, in Trench, amongst those who follow the path of Practical virtues; arguably, living in the Necrolord's house, surrounded by Blood Ministers, it's probably reasonably intelligent to do one's best to avoid even the slightest traces of blood pollution anyway, isn't it? Wearing gloves, either out and about or at home for food preparation in the kitchen, well, that's just mannerly, no harm there. Trying to eat or drink or smoke, at home, in company, isn't really his preference at the moment, which means a good number of his meals have been prepared in the middle of the night, if he needed to taste them as he went to make sure they would be right — eating, and drinking, and smoking in his bedroom, or outside its window, has kept commentary to a minimum. Who knows if everyone he lives with has even realized he's invisible, and not just being cantankerous following his time as an undead avianesque wood-elf, anyway?

So here's the question: If a man's face is showing signs of his victimization by a nightmare-demon, but nobody sees it, is it even really happening? Does anyone really care? Or will the demon be just as invisible as he is, wherever he goes?

---

Alfred told him when and where Cassowary wanted to meet; Alfred was utterly delighted to have met him; Alfred was chattering on and on, about him, and a moth-bird Omen who could read for him, apparently — and somewhere between worry and relief, reassurance and laughter and dismay, Augustine just feels so tired that the urge to take a nap becomes overwhelming —

It doesn't help, of course; he wakes, if anything, even more exhausted. But. It's a new month; he's got plenty to do, even if nothing is actually important — even if there's not a damn thing in the world that's actually going to make a difference to anyone but himself, right now —

(If he stays in his room too long, though, he suspects that John will know, somehow, and will find a way to say something about it, without ever really saying anything meaningful enough to address any of the issues between them, here in Trench — it's better, or at least less painful, if he behaves as if nothing at all is the matter; after all, he's got millennia's worth of experience doing that and keeping those conversations out of reach.)

By the time two whole days of this have passed, though, he can't remember the last time he felt this exhausted. It isn't just a question of sleep quantity — he's gone days, sometimes weeks without sleeping, before; adjusting his body chemistry to compensate is second nature. It just also isn't enough. He isn't dehydrated. He's even eating!

And he feels like he hasn't slept or rested in a year, by the time he approaches the Gilded Whatever-it-is — the pressure of Alfred's coils around his shoulders, steering him one way or another, providing his only real sense of where he's going.

"This is," he begins, and half a block passes before his thoughts are organized enough to conclude: "— a bad idea, I should — why am I even — I can't talk to him like this, Alfred, I can barely string a sentence together!"

He blinks again, hard, to force his eyes open on the rebound — when did they leave Gaze?

More importantly, when did they enter a building?!

(This is far from the first time Alfred has been responsible for moving Augustine's body from one location to another, of course — and doors are far from the most complicated device he's manipulated while doing so, for that matter — but he's never done it from the outside before. He's never seen his brother like this, drained and dazed and despondent, foggy and forgetful, wretched and wrecked, sleepwalking through life — but at least that makes steering him easier.)

«You'll be fine! Both of you have been wanting to talk — it'll be good to sit down and figure things out between you, don't you think? Look, there he is, over there in that booth by the back — go say hello! If everything goes badly, we can always leave, but I bet having something like a conversation to focus on will help you stay awake, anyway.»

(He's worried that he's lying; Augustine really doesn't seem like he's going to be fine, at all — but he's also incredibly reassured that the great dark mass of Cassowary is still present, even though it's taken hours longer to steer Augustine's lurching form across town than originally expected — there's no getting around the fact that they're late, but maybe he can head things off at the pass —)

«Hello again! Lovely to see you, so sorry I got him here late — my fault we didn't leave on time,» he tells his brother's ... complicated-and-mythically-uncertain-relationship partner when they're only halfway across the room. (He's too anxious, worrying about Augustine like this; at least some of that is leaking into his mindvoice, although he hasn't realized it yet.) «I hope you haven't had to wait for us for too long!»

Alfred steers Augustine to the booth in question, nudging him to sit, but he's busy staring — drinking in what feels like his first sight of a long-lost beloved in centuries, maybe — something that doesn't apply, can't won't shouldn't apply, and he shakes his head a little to settle his thoughts and voice before making a titanic effort at normality.

"Hello, Cassowary, or — well, whatever else you'd like me to call you, I suppose," he manages, urbanely enough. His brother's words percolate slowly into his thoughts. They were late? Hadn't they left when it was barely past lunchtime...? "I... hope the evening finds you well."

[unsheathedfromreality]

One of the benefits of undeath--double-edged as those always were--is Illarion doesn't have nightmares. He doesn't dream, either--can't even really sleep, which might have implications for how corrupted he grows over time--but at least he hasn't been having nightmares in the wake of his little adventure.

Not that he's been acting like everything is fine or back to normal, either; he still hasn't reached that equilibrium, even after weeks. Able physician as he is of others' hearts, he's (of course) refused to diagnose the cause of his own particular lassitude... But had known, on some dim level, that honoring his invitation to Augustine (and Alfred) might do him some kind of good.

Thus, he was at the Gilded Calf at the beginning of the dinner hour, a dour little patch of black-and-white amongst the understated furniture and tasteful golden idols of the Pthumerians. And thus he'd waited for all the hours it had taken Augustine and Alfred to cross from Gaze to Cassandra, patient and still as a thing dead (the waitstaff had even given up on him) until Alfred's greeting stirs him from his silent vigil. He blinks once from behind his veil; at his left hand, Iskierka looks up and carols a greeting at the approaching pair. "Not too long," the shrike replies reflexively, through his Omen--answering before either of them can clock Augustine's appearance, and take a moment's pause in so-doing.

Or not clock his appearance, in Iskierka's case. The shell of the man's clothing is there, but it's wrapped around a hollow that her poor little avian brain can make neither hide nor hair of. Illarion--in this instance unimpaired by sight--is quicker to pick up on the physical tells that there's something very wrong with the other man, something that makes sudden sense of the unwonted concern in Alfred's cheerful voice. He rises from his own seat as Augustine arrives (and stares at him, or so he inexpertly reads from the set of the human's grave and beloved features), expression fleetingly troubled. "I'm well, but you seem half-drowned in Hell's River."

Without even having to think about it, he's using the elven tongue they'd have shared, if the memories were real. It feels right--and more to the point, it doesn't matter one way or the other with the blood magic. (He'd hope, anyway. If he thought about it. Not everyone got a clear translation of all the languages he could speak--but this feels right to use, and so--)

"What's wrong, Ava?" The diminutive slips out before he can catch it, and by then it's too late to do anything.

[butnotyet]

I'm well, he says, but before Augustine can murmur some relevant pleasantry, before his mind can think about the way his tongue wants to curve in order to respond, there are other words making themselves known to him.

half-drowned in Hell's River and he's more right than he knows, of course he is — there's a part of Augustine that's still there, a part of him that will always be there, no matter what God or the Pthumerians may try to do, in bringing him here — this body, no matter how familiar it feels, is still wrong, still inhuman, the very blood in his veins has become something unbearably alien and bloodless, fruit and dust and mouldering books, temptation and despair and fucking glitter — his soul is his own, he thinks, on most days, but his body will always, always, always be trapped in the Hell found at the crushing bottom of the River.

(He remembers every myriadic second of the time he spent there — every moment seared into synapse, overwriting the memories stolen from him, those precious few memories he could never bear to lose, slipping through his desperate fingers — what else is Hell, but the unraveling of everything you ever were, everything you wanted to be, until you are nothing at all but the hunger that will perpetuate this curse on the next victim to come in range? What is Hell, but wondering if lost Ulysses was the one siphoning away his long-cherished memories of Ulysses?)

Alfred is wrapped tightly around his shoulders again, squeezing hard enough to bruise, but it's the serpent's tongue flickering all the way to his tympanic membrane that shocks him into movement, reflexively slapping at Alfred's already-withdrawing head.

What's wrong, Ava?

He doesn't know. He doesn't have the slightest clue why he can't focus — why everything is dragging at him — why —

"I'm —"

"Hey," he hears, the words clearly in Alfred's voice. "Can you meet me at the north balcony, ASAP? There's something I want to show you, and I'm going to need your help."

(He's shuddering, no matter how tightly he holds himself under control; there are tears burning in his eyes like acid rain, and he cannot bear the way this mask is smothering him, suddenly — he jerks it off with fumbling fingers, the zipper tearing at his skin, the injury healing almost before the dust of his blood shimmers to the surface.)

"I just don't know how long it'll be before this is over and done, and I can't begin to tell you how much you won't want to miss it."

"No," Augustine whispers into his hands, unable to feel the weight of Alfred coiled around his shoulders anymore — how can he, when he's so far away? "No, no, no, don't —"

Don't make me say this again. Don't make me see this again.

There's another soul near him — one he knows better than he should, better than he ought to be able to know — his hand shoots out (too fast) to clutch at a sleeve, a wrist, a wing, whatever might be close enough to remind him that he's here, he's now —

(There's a mirror on the far wall, in the back, near the bathrooms — a reflection shows a moderately-young man, well-muscled but slender, his sandy blond hair cut shaggy and haphazard in front of steely grey eyes watching Augustine and ignoring the shrike sitting opposite him. A woman leaving the bathroom interrupts the line of his gaze; when she finishes crossing in front of the mirror, there's nothing there but the view of the room itself.)

"I don't know," he whispers, in words too intimate to be spoken outside a bedroom, or at least in the most profound privacy — words he last spoke in this order in a bedroom, in his bedroom, tangled together in a nest that never existed. "I — help — please, Cas —"

His breath stops, in something too much like a sob, too much like a weakness, too much emotion for him to bear — too much for him to have ever shown — except the once.

[unsheathedfromreality]

It is not the first time Illarion has watched someone begin coming apart at the seams from waking nightmares. The signs--pleading conversation with something not-there, tearing at the self in a horrible spasm, grabbing at anyone or anything known to be solid--are aching-familiar, and the shrike goes still for a beat of a mortal heart as Augustine (Ava, Agushka, his dear one, still his, says memory) begins the uncontrolled slide down that slope.

And there is something clinging to the other Sleeper's back.

The shrike has not witnessed this before himself but he recognizes it on the instant. Even if he has been disconnected from the life around him, lax in all but his duties to gods and Pthumerians, this falls firmly within a Disciple's remit, this had been the talk of the Pale Sanctuary as the advent of Remina's month loomed over Trench. Augustine grabs at him outwardly, clutches feathers in a way that makes Illarion ruffle them in acted alarm, before he's reaching back and moving round the table to gather the taller man to him. Help, please.

How can he not? How can he not, even when the thing in him that craves suffering stirs to see someone hurting so openly (and whispers there is a way to kill these demons he'd enjoy very much, if he'd just take talons to it--) (no, inconceivable: he doesn't really know the man, but it would be like lifting a hand to his own family). "Shh, shh," he breathes between his fangs. "Don't weep, Ava. I'll help. Of course I'll help."

Convenient, they're in Cassandra--convenient, they're in an establishment catering to the one profession most prone to swoons, faints, and sudden violent visions sweeping them up--an establishment that's made certain conveniences available for the most prophetic of Trench's people. Illarion lifts his head, ((feeling)) for the nearest of the staff--finds one already hovering nearby, since this kind of fit really is something they see all the time. "Your ritual room?" the shrike only has to ask, and the robed woman's all too happy to escort them to a quiet little place in the back with a heavy wooden door and walls studded in Paleblood stone.

There is a fainting couch; there are cushions on the floor. It's toward the former Illarion urges Augustine, keeping at least a hand on the man all the while. Brusque as he's being, he can still project a little worried fondness as he says, "Sit."

And then, more worryingly: "Do you trust me to see what's haunting you?"

He has learned to ask--even if now may not be the time for such caution. He has learned to ask, because the Waking World is never so eager to do anything to Sleepers as to put them in each other's heads, and rip open each other's secrets--especially the ones they'd least like exposed.

He must ask, because he thinks Augustine might have asked, if he'd known what Nephele-that-isn't would have shown him--and he wishes to at least give lip service to that, even if urgency demands he not bother.

[butnotyet]

There is nothing of coordination in how Augustine moves: he is disjointed, a mechanized marionette being fed down the incinerator's chute, disarticulated and discarded and trapped in a Hell of another's making — or, worse, of his own.

There is nothing remarkable at all in how Alfred moves: he has moved Augustine's body, keeping it safe from harm, a myriad myriad times; this is no different — except, perhaps, that his serpentine body vanishes, absorbed once more into his brother's, from whence it came, as he takes over and moves smoothly (as a dancer, as a swordsman, as an elf) in tandem with Cassowary and the unnamed attendant.

Do you trust me to see what's haunting you?

"I guess I'll have to," Alfred answers — and freezes, startled by his words, startled by his brother's voice forming them (in English, a language no one from the Nine Houses has claimed to speak in thousands of years) —

And then Augustine drops, as the marionette's strings are cut, but that's fine, with those cushions on the ground; he doesn't even hit his head on anything, and only gives the slightest hiss (of pain, of irritation) as he awkwardly drags himself more fully onto his cushion.

(That reflection, outside, glances back at the table where they'd been sitting — and scowls, and walks away, out of the frame of the mirror.)

Cassowary's question echoes in the room, or in his nightmare-blinded mind — is there a difference, really? — do you trust me? — and he knows he needs to answer it, but he also keeps shaking his head, as if it's going to get rid of a fly buzzing by his ear.

He knows the words he wants to say; when he opens his mouth his voice is wrecked again, by the screams and sobs of his soul's entrapment in the River's Hell, but his words are in an ancient language gone to the birds — "Whenever I am afraid, I put my trust in thee," he croaks, reaching blindly for the one person who still hasn't lied to him, who still hasn't betrayed him, who still fucking cares what happens to him —

"I'm just leaving the library now — I'll be there in what, ten minutes? Think you can hold on that long to whatever it is?" — "I guess I'll have to," Alfred answers.

(The fact that Cas seems to know what to do is such a relief, lifting such a weight off Augustine's heart, that he could cry, again — that he is crying, again — but the dark trails of glittering seawater on his cheeks are just as invisible as Ninth House greasepaint had been — it's only when they sublimate to Omen smoke, letting Alfred reform and hover an arm's length above his fallen saint of a brother, that any of it can be seen at all — but then, the attendant shut the door from the outside, so who's to see anything that occurs in this room?)

2. Patience Is A Virtue [OTA, plenty of room to split stuff up]

[butnotyet]

3. That's The Spirit [closed]

[butnotyet]

The morning after the nightmare breaks — is broken — Augustine wakes far later than usual, feeling incredibly disoriented by the misplaced sunlight. "Ugh," he mumbles into his pillow, considering pulling it over his head and going back to sleep again for the rest of the day — nobody's expecting him anywhere, are they? "Turn it off, can't you?"

There's an assumption in his speech — that there's going to be someone there to hear him, for all that he knows he went to bed alone; that Alfred, specifically, will hear him. That Alfred will be beside him, always; his beloved brother, his martyr, the fuel for his sainthood — the first of those being eternally the most important.

"I can't turn it off, Augustine; it's the sun," Alfred replies, sounding very amused — but a few seconds later, the curtains close more thoroughly, dimming the room into shade and shadow and a half-awake suspicion that he's missing something.

But for now — for now, he is comfortable, in a warm bed, in a twilit room; and his brother comes back to bed, settling in sprawled against the headboard, calloused fingers combing soothingly through Augustine's hair, and his eyes are mostly closed again within seconds. Forgotten, unacknowledged stress melts away from his forehead, his temples, the back of his neck. It's been too long since they've done this, hasn't it? It's so familiar, lulling him back towards sleep, even as he tries to remember what it is that's nagging at him —

"Tell me a story," Alfred interrupts suddenly, shifting back down the bed until they're facing each other — a memory that echoes through every cell of his body, every iota of his soul, the ten thousand times these two brothers have shared a whispered conference nose-to-nose in the dark — a memory that reverberates so strongly he nearly chokes on it. "Something I wasn't there for, that reminded you of me — and what it was you remembered, too."

He's never been able to deny Alfred anything, not really — not with those ashen-grey puppy-dog eyes looking at him like this, so hungry for a bedtime story — and time is fluid, misplaced, does it matter how long it's been, since they've done this? does it matter where they are, right now, or when? are they children, adults, immortals, ghosts, reborn and reincarnated, does it matter?

"Once upon a time," Augustine begins obediently, reaching up to take his baby brother's hands in his — four hands in two firm-grip fists, because neither of them are ever letting go.

[butnotyet]

After ten weeks, everyone who lives in the house in Gaze is long-since used to seeing the nearly-six-foot-long thin and flexible brown tube of Danger Noodle known as Alfred Quinque. He's a constant presence: slithering through crevices, swimming through the air to get a better perspective, offering friendly and helpful commentary and advice — in the kitchen, in the garden, in the weight room, in those early-morning sparring sessions — a truly patient, genuine, gracious individual, as mindfully present as Augustine is a void in human shape.

It's awfully difficult for anyone to dislike him. Even if they don't like snakes — even if pathologically afraid of snakes — he's got a way of hanging back just enough, and chatting cheerfully and calmly, that wears away at dislike and distrust and fear as gently and relentlessly as water drilling a hole through a stone.

So it might be noticeable, in later June, when he starts to seem... off, somehow; restless, uncomfortable, reticent. Sometimes a little too loud; sometimes he vanishes unexpectedly — even in the middle of a conversation.

Even, possibly, in the middle of his own sentence: vanishing, without warning or explanation, as if his layer of reality has just been rendered invisible, while all the rest of life's film reel keeps playing uninterrupted.

It's that, really, which makes the rest seem like joking about needing to shed his skin isn't the right way to go — that, and the fear he's miserably trying to hide —

And the way Augustine seems completely oblivious to his dismay; the way Augustine, barely visible as he is now, still looks more and more exhausted with every passing day, with every time Alfred vanishes; the way Augustine barely seems to notice his brother-Omen at all, only looking around for him at approximately eye level —

Augustine looks so happy, under all that exhaustion. Blissfully satisfied, perhaps, if not for the way Alfred looks worse and worse, every day —

They're still talking, often enough; Alfred's voice audible all throughout whatever level of the house they're on at the time — always asking for another story, and Augustine is always ready to provide one, even as his voice goes hoarse and cracked from how much he speaks.

(cw: violence)

[butnotyet]

It's not easy to see signs of injuries on a Lyctor at the best of times, given how quickly they heal — easier to see the injury itself, to mark the deformations of flesh and bone, to track the exsanguination, whether internal or external, than to see the traces left behind, if any, minutes or hours or days later. It can hardly be easier to see signs of injury on someone who is still, almost entirely, invisible.

(Most eyes aren't very good at picking out subdermal bruising at any point, for that matter, even in a bog-standard human body. In a Sleeper's body...?)

So it's the scent which clings to Augustine, drifting in his wake, that tries to signal the change: the constant, lingering smell of an ancient archive... after the flood waters have receded, that is; the omnipresent old-books aroma, common to so many in the house, overlaid with the sour and pungent reek of mildewing paper and rotting leather. The scent of damage-and-darkblood, one might say.

But maybe it has nothing to do with Augustine; yes, it follows in his footsteps, more or less — but so does his brother, following that perfect half-step behind, just barely off to the side. If Augustine is suffering repeated injuries of some sort, wouldn't Alfred know? Wouldn't Alfred — the very prototype of the Perfect Cavalier — be doing something to stop whoever was trying to harm his beloved brother-and-necromancer?

Is it better or worse, to think that this rotten-blood scent could be Alfred's?

(Up until the middle of June, when anyone's gotten close enough to notice Alfred's smell, it's been what anyone might have expected — a little bit snake, a little bit old-books, and at least half smoke — a paper fire, perhaps, or some of those same books being burned. A very clean scent, soot notwithstanding. Not this.)

"Tell me a story," Alfred says like an accusation, every time his attention snags somewhere — and Augustine flinches, like this is just the next of the thousand (paper)cuts bound to bring about the end of his life.

When did he turn into Scheherazade? When did his voice become such a wreck? It's sounded like this before, here in Trench — when God first found him on the beach, when his brother's name was the first prayer on his lips, when he was fresh from a condensed eternity in Hell, when the only way to keep track of time was in counting how many times his vocal cords shredded from the screaming — but by the time he finished with the tour of Teacher's house, before he'd spoken to anyone else, that was all healed up. There's only one person here who might recognize the sound — or two, if one counts Alfred, but... well.

"Not that one," dismisses the younger Quinque brother, with a fierce scowl and a flick of his fingers, palm wrapped around the pommel of a blade that Augustine willingly surrendered. "Tell me something new. I've already heard your excuse for why you weren't fast enough to win, that time — why are you trying to waste mine? Haven't I given enough for you yet?"

There's been so much of Augustine's time-sensitive darkblood displaced, since Alfred's humanity was first returned to him, something like a week and a half ago — more would be necessary to actually see the lightning-or-faster flickering of Patience's white-bladed rapier, from sheath to jaw to sheath again, put away without being cleaned... again.

Augustine doesn't cry out, or flinch, or reach for the injury at his neck, or think about pain, or the way that (Alfred would never mistreat his brother weapons like this) — that — that this wound takes too long for blood to well up, too long by far to draw closed again.

He draws a shaky breath that tastes of rotting and mildewed books, racks his mind for another story, and tries again, raising the hoarse whisper of his voice.

"Once upon a time..."

(open invitation)

[butnotyet]

Maybe you're worried about Alfred; maybe he vanished in the middle of a conversation with you, without warning or explanation; maybe when you next spoke, he made no mention of it.

Maybe it's happened more than once, by now. It's been going on for quite a while, after all — days and days, weeks even, that the downstairs residents of the Emperor's House have been having a problem — and even if you could rival Alfred himself, in the omnipresent-spying-about-the-House capacity, you won't see them talking to each other about it.

But that's fine, really — isn't it wondrous, after all, that Remina has remembered Alfred so much more clearly, so much more accurately, than the Moss King did? It's such a tremendous gift, to give Augustine back his brother, whole, not merely a sliver of soul as a slithering serpent — no, this is everything either of them could ever have wanted; what even God Himself couldn't, or wouldn't, give them, nearly ten thousand years ago.

They're happy like this; everyone should be happy with them, and not worry about the lackluster, faded finish on those less-and-less-often-present scales, or the depth of the shadows more clearly visible than the rest of Augustine's face.

They're happy; don't you want to share in that? Don't you want to come tell Alfred a story?

[wannasmash]

Midoriya checks his T-shirt for food and washes his hands. He is distracted from preparing a meal in the kitchen. (He sometimes cooks when he's over, as he has since March when he learned the state of domestic affairs here. They have since improved; Paul no longer burns rice.)

The snake Omen who he's spoken to in passing, who seemed friendly and helpful--compassionate, patient, wise, in Augustine's words--has disappeared mid-conversation. Midoriya no longer thinks these disappearances are a fluke. He decides his first step is to find Augustine, which presents its own unique challenges this month.

He wanders into the hall in his socks. (He's always removed his shoes despite house custom.) He's prepared to search all the common areas for both snake and man, and Paul and Kaworu's room for the snake, just for good measure. He hears a sound--

"...Alfred-san?" he asks quietly.

[closed] (cw: extreme violence w/choking, verbal/emotional abuse, hungry ghosts, murderish)

[butnotyet]

"I told you —"

(There's a sharp, cut-off sound, here: a man's involuntary cry of pain, interrupted — in this case, by someone much stronger grabbing him by the throat and squeezing, hard enough to disrupt such petty considerations as 'the function of vocal cords' or 'breathing'.)

" — that isn't good enough, you utterly — useless — waste of flesh! I should take you back to the shore and drown you myself, send you back to the Hell you belong in —"

(A crashing collision, in the hallway: a body flung against a wall, or pinned up against it forcefully — then dragged sideways, every piece of furniture or art or ornamentation becoming nothing more than another piece of collateral damage: broken glass, broken bones, broken hearts and broken dreams.)

"— no, that's —"

"Do you think I care about your opinion? That it matters, after all these years? Did you really think you could get away with killing me, with reaping all the benefits of my death, for all this time, and you'd never have to pay the penalties yourself? Grow up, brother!"

"— please —!"

"You've been wasting my life, and my gifts, for all these thousands of years —"

(This voice, the dominant voice, is sing-song, now, but more than that: less solid, more present; less Alfred, less singular, less human, and far, far more of a dreadful, hungry choir — and that weak, quiet rasping croak raised up in protest cannot possibly be Augustine's — can it?)

"I don't think you get to keep it — them — any longer, brother. No, I think, in fact, that I'm going to take and eat your life, just like you ate mine."

(The noise in the hallway gets much worse then, quite suddenly, in the manner of a wrecking ball — or an abattoir — or a war zone — or, perhaps, probably, all of the above, and more as well.)

4. Who Is That Masked Man? [OTA, at least early/mid June, anywhere in Trench]

[butnotyet]

How many Sleepers really worry about following along with the Practical aesthetic, rather than the Pleasure-focused? For that matter, how often do they do it when they're actually someone who should be blatantly displaying how much of a hedonist they are?

How often are they inclined to walk around looking visible, so that people interact with them, rather than ... well, not (if they aren't trying to figure out how to rob marketplace shops when anything they pick up will still remain visible)?

When it's been nearly a month that this guy has been wandering around through town on a fairly-predictable daily path, well, by this point there are probably a number of people he's passingly familiar with in a local-smalltalk-chat way who have never once seen his face, and will probably be quite surprised to discover that somewhere, underneath the mask and the invisibility, he's actually quite a standard-looking human. ("Attractive, but grave.")

In fact, at whatever point in the future he can shed the mask and go back to feeling the air on his face, there are probably any number of people who will only recognize him because of how frequently he's wearing a quite large brown snake like the season's most fashionable accessory.

Where are you running into him?

[justoscar]

Where is Oscar running into the semi-visible man with a snake? In Gaze, obviously. While they had initially met in suitably strange circumstances for the both of them, Oscar had made a point to at least try to keep tabs on some of the people involved after the pocket dimension of the world that never was spat them back out. Dressed in a linen button up and work pants, with his thick curls tied back into an aggressively fluffy ponytail, he knew he was hardly recognizable as the Shrike known as Sweetroll.

Perhaps the only similarity was in the unassuming way they carried themselves, and their shared willingness to get dirty. Oscar displayed both that morning on his trek through town, on his way back to the vividly green and vine entangled mansion he had come to call his home with a bag slung over his shoulders.

Someone had spent the evening chilling in the library, and with his more nocturnal sleep schedule he hardly seemed too bothered by it.

Spotting the stranger in a forbidding mask that had been making regular rounds around town, Oscar couldn't help but smile and wave shyly in greeting. Although the stranger had chosen a theatrical get up, it was clear that the two of them were at least united in being a little practical. Still.... they were in Gaze still, and 'practical' tended to take on a different definition in this part of town. He had his own questions-- and this person seemed to travel throughout town on a regular basis.

Oscar had a question, and maybe this man would know the answer.

"Um. Hey. You wouldn't have seen a place that's selling normal fruit, would you? Everything I'm finding right now makes people.... uh, act kinda weird? It's not good, and I don't want that going into the stuff I'm making for the supply caches.

[butnotyet]

It's still very strange, every time someone just starts talking to him. Ten thousand sanctified years, more or less, when all it took was a filmy white robe slung across his shoulders to ensure that any interaction with him was undertaken with the utmost of respect; it might not be surprising, after such a time, that a mere month or two here in Trench isn't enough to alter his, ah, entrenched expectations.

This is not to say that the fellow in the owl-and-leather suit points at himself, or looks behind him to see if there's someone else this kid might mean — no "who, me?" moment here.

He does stare with no obvious reaction for a few seconds before shaking his head and sighing, though.

"If you want apples, quite frankly I believe you're fucked. Otherwise — there's a lot of fruit being sold in a lot of places — I don't know if any of them are uniformly free of effects, the sellers, I mean. Some of the fruits seem unaffected, or safe if you cook them — have a care with the blueberries, though."

The shudder is visible, despite the leather suit.

"What else have you run into?" he asks Oscar, mindful of the way that shutting down a conversation at high speed — here, even more than other places and times in his history — risks throwing away the connections that might make a life more bearable, or even just keep it functional a little longer.

(That, and there's something... familiar, if not terribly familiar, about this kid.)

[justoscar]

"I'm almost afraid to ask after the blueberries,"

Oscar commented wryly, looking up at the owl-costumed stranger with interest and curiosity. At first he had gravitated for the stranger because of the familiar looking presentation on the street, as well as his own bias for owls. Now that they were talking, however, he couldn't help but wonder if there wasn't something familiar about that voice.

"After the problems with people shedding memories or becoming aggressive, I kinda stopped trying to get fresh produce. Which, is a shame. This is a good time of year for fruit, and I was looking forward to doing some canning before we lost the season."

[frogfear]

If it was October, when everyone in town seemed to either don a mask or hide their identities with face paint, Willow probably wouldn't have taken much note of the stranger, even with his unusual appearance. Even over the last several weeks as she's noticed him on her way to the magic shop she has been helping Luna with, it's less the mask and the leather she notices and more the big snake.

It's probably an Omen, and it's probably fine, but she is not a fan of snakes, so she keeps her distance beyond the occasional polite nod or smile and brief greeting.

Until she runs into him after he's shed the costume and she recognizes him as the guy she met at the carnival a couple months ago. The one with the unusual cigarette case and the flair for skeeball. She still keeps her distance from the snake, but the smile is friendly rather than simply polite as she greets him.

"Oh, hey, it's you. Um, Augustine, right?"

5. Clearly There's No Way At All This Can Go Wrong [The Emperor]

[butnotyet]

«I still think this is a really stupid idea.»

Alfred sighs, inasmuch as a snake can manage to sigh, when all Augustine does is — nothing; nothing visible, nothing audible. But he can feel the impatient glare his older brother is leveling at him; he can picture how withering it is, even if the angle and perspective (and image) are all wrong for this body and its senses.

The conversation itself had been earlier, of course, in another part of the house entirely, far enough away that Augustine seemed entirely unconcerned about being overheard — or was that just a result of the type of wards he keeps on his rooms? Alfred isn't actually sure, given how little of them he seems to understand, now; did he used to know more than this? How much of this knowledge was discovered after his death, anyway?

Augustine had been pacing, in his room, as much as the small space allowed, worrying at a fraying seam in one of his gloves; Alfred had been lying along the edge of the mirror frame atop the dresser that's been a resident of the room longer than either of them have, watching his brother pacing, listening to the way his muttering gradually grew loud enough to contain actual words, rather than just a lot of exhalations and hums and grunts; eventually the words even started to make sentences, and — just a little bit later still — sense, of a sort.

And somehow, that turned into this: Alfred tamely slithering into God's study, earthbound and practically tame, all the better to push the slightly-ajar door open widely enough for Augustine to fit through without leaving any sign of doing so — all so that Augustine can... stand there, apparently, in the Presence, but not the Sight, of God.

He knows that Augustine is convinced he's going to learn something, as a result of this; something, he thinks, that's supposed to be able to clarify how the two of them are supposed to relate to each other, now, here in Trench, here in this strange and sometimes-overcrowded house. (He knows that Augustine's insistence that they do this right now, while the idea is fresh and Alfred hasn't come up with a good reason not to, has had the side effect that the door to God's study is fully half-open, now, because it would make no sense for Alfred to worry about closing it after making such a blithely-oblivious fuss to open it — and if Augustine is intent on being as unnoticeable as his idiotically naked body is invisible, well, he can't very well close it for himself, either, can he? Alfred's also fairly certain that the goal and the setup are going to cause problems — but Augustine had just kept undressing, when he tried to point that out, stubbornly refusing to listen.)

Alfred hopes he's going to be proven wrong; he would love to have Augustine be right, in this particular instance. Maybe God will say whatever it is Augustine is obsessed with hearing him say. If Alfred knew what it was — hell, if Augustine knew what it was — it would probably be a lot easier to ask him to say it.

The worst part of this, of course, is the way he has to play wingsnake for Augustine the Invisible Silent Stalker Refusing to be Categorized as a Fly on the Wall.

«Hey, my Lord,» Alfred begins, calm and cool and collected enough, for starting out already dreading this subterfuge assignment 100%. He shifts his trajectory, halfway across the room, swimming through the air as effortlessly as he undulates across the floor, aiming to reach the surface of the desk to see whatever it is that's holding God's attention. «Are you too busy to chat a while?»

[necrolord]

Things with Augustine have been... strained. The weight grows all the heavier for how long it's gone untouched, for how little they've come to understand each other. He still doesn't comprehend what happened in that other-space; no one's been able to give him the full story; he hasn't really pushed.

Doesn't really want to, honestly. There's enough to deal with here in town. Why open that can of worms, right? The silence hangs as heavy here as it did in the Mithraeum.

So when Alfred comes to him, John closes his book. He drops everything. He tries to be cool about it, but Alfred knows him. Even for as short as Alfred's life was, compared to his brother's, Alfred knows him like family.

"I can pencil a meeting into my schedule," he says, and pushes his notes away. In their place he extends a hand, palm tilted as though for a handshake, so that Alfred can coil up and onto him. "What's up?"

[butnotyet]

«Compared to me? Almost everything, these days,» Alfred says, humor lacing his words like rat poison, or maybe the sweet-or-savory flavors that make the poison palatable. He takes the offer, unnecessary as he has — technically, previously — proven it to be. It's still nice to be invited to cuddle, after all.

(The last time the three of them had been alone in this room, Augustine had locked the door. Augustine had been very, very drunk. Augustine had probably made an absolutely idiotic fool of himself — but that's the thing; he doesn't know. He doesn't remember. He woke up safe and sound in his own bed, alone, and Alfred — Alfred had let him down; Alfred had taken God's word, promising that he'd take care of Augustine, and not specifying — and the few memories he's clutched close, examining again and again, are too inconsistent to answer any of his questions.)

«Even you are, after all,» Alfred continues, and it's a little easier to know where Augustine is while he's swimming through the air, given the way his brother still distorts the currents rippling against his shadow-formed scales — but he remembers what it is to be human, perhaps better than either of the two men in the room whose bodies still mostly take that form; he remembers what it is to hold and be held, the importance of simple human contact that hasn't been poisoned by time and doubt and need and betrayal.

(He loves them both, and he's always been very good at hugs; was his first act on this Earth not to hold them both, together?)

«Mostly, though, I was curious about what's going on with you, my Lord — you've been here so much longer than we have; I know you've been doing research, along with building up something of a new House,» even if his tone grows a touch more (carefully) dubious, here, «but — I don't know where you want us to fit. You sent Augustine away, once already — and I couldn't follow him!»

Okay, well, apparently he actually does have more to say to God (to harangue at God) on his own behalf than he'd realized; at least it's adjacent to talking about his brother, and how God feels about him, right? Augustine can't blame him for this topic.

With an effort, Alfred smooths his ruffled scales back down, tongue flicking out to taste the room, still trying to figure out how close Augie is, right now. More importantly:

«Sorry, my Lord,» he mutters. «I just — that was hard, having him gone like that. Didn't you think so?»

(Augustine isn't close enough to be breathing down God's neck; he knows that would be stupid. He was planning to get close enough to see God's face, or hopefully John's — but instead he's standing there, stupidly, in the middle of the room, staring at Alfred's face, utterly floored by the intensity of his emotions, utterly astonished by how quickly he's steered the conversation where Augustine had had to beg, after saying so many times how he didn't want to. Truly, he is the best brother any man could ever have lost.

[necrolord]

Alfred talks polite circles around the problem until he doesn't, which seems about right. Of course they're to the point where even Alfred feels like snapping; if anything's a sign that things are bad, it's that.

"I sent him away because he was needed," says John, very tiredly, with his thumb pressed between his brows to ward off the headache. "Because someone with real expertise had to untangle that mess, and we don't have anyone left with more expertise than Augustine... It's not that I wanted him gone."

And there's the issue, right? There's the unspoken question.

"I didn't want him gone," John says again, and it's not clear which of them he's trying to soothe. "Things are— a little awkward, right now, sure. But I'm not trying to foist him off on the first mission that'll have him. Talk about petty moves, right? No; I'm going to need the both of you."

It's easier to say than I need him. It'd be easiest if Alfred didn't make him unpack it at all.

6. every fruit and flower of the fields [Paul]

[butnotyet]

June is young enough, at this point, for most of the fruit to be a mystery still — at least to Augustine, who has mostly been able to resist the compulsion to snack on it on public, given his mask. (And, of course, his desire not to be seen as a walking suit of clothing that's making fruit disappear somewhere above its collar.) Still, the prices for the vast majority of the fruit along the boardwalk are so low, and the desire to feast upon it so compelling, that every time he walks past the beach, he ends up buying more — so much that there's no way he even could eat out all, before it goes bad.

But that's fine, because there's a whole house full of teenagers to bring this back to — and he's spent enough time with enough teenagers, over the eons, to know they're always starving, and that they'll happily eat almost any fruit they can get their lazy hands on.

(Despite that, he's glad he hasn't actually encountered any durian fruit, as yet.)

Sooner or later, the kitchen is probably going to run out of space for all that fresh fruit — or it will go bad, despite God's tendency toward anti-entropy fields — but maybe it'll get eaten, first, or preserved somehow —

In the meantime, the grapes are amazing. They'd make a fantastic wine, too, he decides, and wonders if he knows yet which shop would have the right supplies.

[terriblepurpose]

By all rights, Paul shouldn't have let the first few months in Trench alter his perception of scarcity. It's sensible for a person in a position of providing for others to have an awareness of resource constraints and to look to insure his people against hard times. It's not necessary to go further than that, or to let it preoccupy his thoughts so often, especially given the ability of the head of this particular house to provide.

No one is going to go without under this roof. Paul still counts the jars he's set aside in the basement. Hunger is a memorable thing.

So it is that his raised eyebrows when Augustine comes into the kitchen with a bushel of grapes is undercut by his small smile, his sleeves rolled up to the elbows as he stirs a steaming berry sauce on the stovetop. Augustine's new garb doesn't merit much surprise, at this point. Compared to the Ninth's paint, it's not that strange.

"Grapes, this time?" He says, more to open the conversation than for any other reason. "I think there's still room in the fridge, if you'd be so kind."

[butnotyet]

"One of the many miracles of life," Augustine intones — heavily laced with an amused sarcasm — "having fruit that's actually fresh, taken from the vine or plant or tree within days, if not hours — preserving something for a few millennia, even if it isn't spoiling, really does just take something out of it."

The spirit of the fruit, maybe, more than the actual flavor — but seriously, after ten thousand years, not even kale tastes exactly like it does when it's really fresh.

"Is that turning into jam, or staying a sauce?" he asks over his shoulder, or maybe through it, while he starts rearranging refrigerator contents — wary, of course, that he's going to end up dropping something unseen onto the back of his head, as things shift around. 'Room in the fridge' is possibly only a technical term, at the moment.

«Maybe we could get a new refrigerator,» Alfred suggests with a wary eye at a teetering, foil-wrapped mystery, and nudges it a little more firmly onto that top shelf.

[terriblepurpose]

Another detail to file away for future contemplation: the Saints of the King Undying of Augustine's particular vintage crave freshness. Paul wonders how much of that is a concrete difference and how much is a perceptual one. When it comes to matters of taste, the distinction isn't as discrete as people sometimes think.

"A sauce, for this one. I have to get more jars for jam before I can begin on that. There's been a shortage at the market - I think you aren't the only one going in for fruit." Paul doesn't quite laugh, but the suggestion of it ripples beneath his tone anyway, and the surrealness of the situation only adds to it.

It's not an unsettling surreality. There's conversely something almost comforting about it, something that feels easy and known, even if this is unlike anything Paul would have done in his last home.

"But at least it condenses this down, in the short term, and it gets into the rest of them easier..." He means Kaworu more than Gideon, and certainly more than Harrowhark, who finds this much sweetness overwhelming, in his experience. "I'm surprised you ever had to go without fresh fruit."