Paul says please, and what could he say to that? For all the hideous echoes, it's said in the tones of a child. He looks upon a broken scrap of a boy; a force of nature, a monster, a shuddering hazard on the sand; but he knows how to see both. He knows it better than anyone.

He's still trying for kindly.

God exhales a breath, and he folds himself downwards onto the sand. It puts the city at their backs; it faces them out to the slow dark churn of the sea. Wind touches his hair and the worn collar of his shirt. He sits forward over his very ordinary knees, flexing his plain brown knuckles, and he turns his lightless eyes to meet the blue-nebula flares of Paul's.

"If you want to tell me about the dream," he says, patient and mundane and so very gentle, "I'll hear it."