ᴛʜᴇ ᴇᴍᴘᴇʀᴏʀ ᴜɴᴅʏɪɴɢ (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
necrolord) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
deercountry2023-03-26 11:01 pm
necrolord) wrote in deercountry2023-03-26 11:01 pm
16 . spring catch-all
Who: John Gaius and company.
What: Important conversations, old ghosts, bodyswaps.
When: March into April
Where: Trench
Content Warnings: Tagged in headers as needed. Note all the usual warnings of this character.
What: Important conversations, old ghosts, bodyswaps.
When: March into April
Where: Trench
Content Warnings: Tagged in headers as needed. Note all the usual warnings of this character.
no subject
Seeing those oil black eyes in his own face is so unsettling Qrow-in-John's-body can't help a cringe; he can too-easily picture the familiar Grimm veins to go with them. Even so, he finds that he doesn't really ... feel all that different. That's weird in its own right, too.]
Gotta say. Weirdly underwhelming for trading places with a god.
no subject
I get 'weirdly underwhelming' a lot... or, I would, if people were a little less polite. [ Polite is not exactly the word for faithful eager to die at his feet, but it's close enough by John's count. ] The body's just a body, for the moment, so don't get ambitious about throwing it around.
no subject
[Though if he could punch just one of them, the Moss King would be a particularly tempting choice.
"Just a body", though, what a concept. It strikes him that he's not really sure what he expected, actually. All he knows of the Brothers is their legend and what Jinn showed them, ultimately. He can't imagine them yelping inelegantly in pain over a book landing on their head or puking in bushes or wearing bunny slippers.
(A memory strikes him, from way back on the network, before they'd ever really had a conversation: Don't get me wrong. My heart beats. My lungs breathe. But that's mostly habit, at this point.)
He squints at his own face with borrowed eyes.]
Begs the question, doesn't it? What's a god without his powers?
[Just a man, maybe. Not even a very good one, supplies the back of his mind, unhelpfully.]
no subject
[ This is plainly a joke, but Qrow is looking at him like a man trying to unpick a puzzle, and it puts him ill at ease. John splays his borrowed hands like you've got me. ]
I mean, it's a good body. I like it. This isn't me needing a pep talk. But it's the soul that makes the difference.
no subject
Are you seriously using this as an excuse to preen about being hot?
[Respect, honestly. But if John thought this would distract him away from the gears in his head turning, he's sorely mistaken, because now he's gone and said something else interesting--that it's his soul that makes him a god.
That certainly doesn't sound like any stories certain blue genie spirits in lamps have told or anything.]
So hang on a second -- I thought you were the god of your world. The original.
[But would some kind of progenitor being have their own soul, separate from their body? And in the forest, before, hadn't John mentioned having been a child? He is having such big hms about all this rn.]
no subject
This wasn't really the original shape. You'd be forgiven for missing it among the heap of other, often much more extravagant titles, but The Man Who Became God and The God Who Became Man are pretty bang on.
no subject
It also lasts a while, because really? That time he told the Infinite Man story was that on the nose? Is he destined to permanently be a cosmic joke of the universe? If he had a nickel for every time he knew a man who became a god who became so detached from his humanity he came to hurt the people closest to him and struggle to find his place as the lone immortal among mortals he can no longer relate to or understand he'd have two nickels, but it's weird it happened twice.]
...You were fucking human once. Weren't you.
[It'd almost be an accusation, if not for how petulant he sounds about it.]
no subject
He spreads his borrowed hands like ta-da, the wry expression right at home on Qrow's face. ]
Not even a very good one.
no subject
I can't believe this. That explains so much. Fuck.
[Next time you need me to stand in for another guy, at least give me my lines. I can do voices.
It strikes him as so legitimately unfair that when he got called out on projecting, back then, he wasn't even fucking wrong. Shit. He lets out a huff that'd almost be a laugh, if not for the slight manic edge to it.]
So that's what this bullshit's about, huh, Argonaut thinks he's real cute. 'Surely, this will be the bonding moment that makes them friends!' Fuck off!
[Sorry, he's continuing to have a Moment. Please ignore the mildly unhinged rant behind the curtain here.]
no subject
Something like it. I can talk loudly about our special bond, if you think it'll fool him.
no subject
John, obviously, has no idea what he's actually talking about. The fact that he's deadpanning sarcastically through the situation makes perfect sense, of course -- he'd do the same if their positions were reversed -- but something about it feels infuriating in this moment. Qrow's tempted to shake his own goddamn shoulders in frustration.]
No, you don't get it. He wanted me to know this because you already called it. The first god damned time we talked. I thought you just reminded me of him, but it's so much more ridiculous than that. I bet if I asked how you became a god, you'd tell me some fucked up story about getting dragged into something way bigger than yourself, chosen as some kind of savior for humanity you never asked to be, and then you were stuck? And then maybe you'll tell me your immortality permanently fucked up how you deal with people, because everyone else fades away and you're not going anywhere, maybe even if you wanted to?
[Another bitter bark of a laugh.]
C'mon, tell me how fucking close I am.