He exhales a hah, like it's funny. Paul's hand is warm and gentle on his shoulder, but horribly steady. The boy on the beach, tucking a blanket around him like a cape, did not move like this. John hates that he moves like this, even-handed as a man being God.

"You told me once," he says, heavily, "about a dream."

His brow tightens, voice lulled with the cadence of remembering:

"Ash on the sand... pillars of fire, pillars of salt... and they give you a crown."

There's an implicit question in it, a great stretch of apprehension. He opens his eyes and looks at Paul over the bridge of his extended arm. There is a twist of misery in the set of his mouth, barer now than ever.

Like a truth, like a parable, he says:

"And it still feels just like this."

He drops his gaze, and his hands, to the sand. Clenches his fingers into it, like that'll take the blood off, even through another hitching little cough. He has to blink past the dizziness. This bit never lasts long, but he's always hated it.

"While I still have breath in my body," he says to the sand, with the low gravity of a vow, "I will not let them get away with it. I decided that."

He opens his hands, and the sand comes out in dirty, clotted clumps.

"I've been breathing a long time."