[Where time had stretched into the eternities while John had held him and he died anew, it compresses now to the adrenalized tempo of Augustine's overflowing heart. Everything is happening all at once--Darkblood-fast--and a whole Bond's worth of emotions crushes him against the unyielding anvil of his own. Where the Saint's fury and pity and horror and sorrow end and the shrike's own begin is impossible to untangle, currents braiding into a sucking gyre that drags Illarion from sobbing to silence to terrible trembling awareness of misery patent in the air.
Misery from three people, not two.]
Wait.
[It's hardly more than a whisper but the echoes of a far larger space amplify it. The Omen crushed against his side finally stirs, tipping her head back and opening her killing jaws to take one of Augustine's bare wrists in them. Only the merest intimation of teeth touch his skin, as only the illusion of hot breath ruffles the tiny hairs on it; she is only an emphasis, not a threat.
There's something they still need to do.
It had been such a nice night. Everything had almost ended well.
Illarion closes all his eyes and reaches to push the hooding shirt back. Back, and partway out, to free his face. He reaches, blind, across the gap between himself and God; finding the angle of John's jaw, the curve of his neck, he rests his hands there with exhausted heaviness.]
Lord, [he begins, and stops again. He does not know where to go from there. Lord, I'm sorry, except he can feel the whole weight of Duty's rebuke on him now, searing as a brand: He cannot treat himself as nothing, in the walls of this house.] Lord-- [I forgive you, except he can't lie to himself any longer, and won't, to someone he needs so much to trust him.
This isn't working, vassal to liege. It isn't who they are.] John. Vanya.
Be patient. [With yourself. With me. With the awful unsolvable situation. He doesn't have it in him to lay those premises out. He leans in instead, pressing a cool dry kiss as benediction to John's forehead.
That, to the notion he's been lost or broken beyond repair.]
no subject
Misery from three people, not two.]
Wait.
[It's hardly more than a whisper but the echoes of a far larger space amplify it. The Omen crushed against his side finally stirs, tipping her head back and opening her killing jaws to take one of Augustine's bare wrists in them. Only the merest intimation of teeth touch his skin, as only the illusion of hot breath ruffles the tiny hairs on it; she is only an emphasis, not a threat.
There's something they still need to do.
It had been such a nice night. Everything had almost ended well.
Illarion closes all his eyes and reaches to push the hooding shirt back. Back, and partway out, to free his face. He reaches, blind, across the gap between himself and God; finding the angle of John's jaw, the curve of his neck, he rests his hands there with exhausted heaviness.]
Lord, [he begins, and stops again. He does not know where to go from there. Lord, I'm sorry, except he can feel the whole weight of Duty's rebuke on him now, searing as a brand: He cannot treat himself as nothing, in the walls of this house.] Lord-- [I forgive you, except he can't lie to himself any longer, and won't, to someone he needs so much to trust him.
This isn't working, vassal to liege. It isn't who they are.] John. Vanya.
Be patient. [With yourself. With me. With the awful unsolvable situation. He doesn't have it in him to lay those premises out. He leans in instead, pressing a cool dry kiss as benediction to John's forehead.
That, to the notion he's been lost or broken beyond repair.]