Paul says everything I look at dies, and God's shoulders fall further into his slump, like some great slow erosion. Paul doesn't say— he chokes, he heaves— nothing ever stops me, and God shuts his eyes against the distant churning of the sea.
He knows it before it happens, because he feels the tense and coil of Paul's muscles, the shuddering bellows of his lungs. He knows what violence looks like in the instant before it plays out. It's a long instant. He holds dominion over muscles and lungs; over moments like these; over violence.
He doesn't stop it.
Paul puts the tooth through the wet cavity of his chest, and the blade goes fucking berserk. The blade goes wrong. It cuts him, and cuts him, and cuts him. It is one blow and it is a thousand, each landed a hair's width apart. God's chest is cleaved open in a sudden revelation of indigo; it shines like nebulas; the delicate curves of lung and and diaphragm are beautiful when exposed. He thinks so, anyway. There is something fundamentally satisfying about the dark weight of the liver, the round and naked span of the heart.
John looks at Paul. He looks at this ruin of a kid, of a king, of a deity, and what could he ever say? For ten thousand years he has accepted a law like gravity: there is no turning back.
God— with a blade through his heart, with his chest in tatters— leans forward, onto the knife. He exhales a hah, a little revelatory breath, as though he has thought of a joke. His hand rises to clasp the back of Paul's neck, the vulnerable pale stretch of his nape. God murmurs, into the salt-crusted tangle of his hair:
"You're tearing me apart, Paul."
It comes wet and ragged. His lungs have rewoven themselves, but his ribs grate nakedly against the tooth. It still buzzes-but-doesn't, humming with some sick unreality. It reminds him of chitin.
"We're going to work on it." He says this so softly; his voice is smoothing. In a murmur, you cannot hear the violence in it. His free hand comes up, but does not pry the tooth from those pale fingers. He smooths his palm across Paul's shoulders, instead, like someone soothing a crying child. The tooth judders against his heart; the muscle keeps seizing, spasming at the intrusion; he tells it not to. He doesn't care. "Alright? You and me."
He doesn't draw back enough to look the boy in the eyes, not again. He knows what he'd see. He says, into Paul's hair, "I'll help you."
cw: gore
He knows it before it happens, because he feels the tense and coil of Paul's muscles, the shuddering bellows of his lungs. He knows what violence looks like in the instant before it plays out. It's a long instant. He holds dominion over muscles and lungs; over moments like these; over violence.
He doesn't stop it.
Paul puts the tooth through the wet cavity of his chest, and the blade goes fucking berserk. The blade goes wrong. It cuts him, and cuts him, and cuts him. It is one blow and it is a thousand, each landed a hair's width apart. God's chest is cleaved open in a sudden revelation of indigo; it shines like nebulas; the delicate curves of lung and and diaphragm are beautiful when exposed. He thinks so, anyway. There is something fundamentally satisfying about the dark weight of the liver, the round and naked span of the heart.
John looks at Paul. He looks at this ruin of a kid, of a king, of a deity, and what could he ever say? For ten thousand years he has accepted a law like gravity: there is no turning back.
God— with a blade through his heart, with his chest in tatters— leans forward, onto the knife. He exhales a hah, a little revelatory breath, as though he has thought of a joke. His hand rises to clasp the back of Paul's neck, the vulnerable pale stretch of his nape. God murmurs, into the salt-crusted tangle of his hair:
"You're tearing me apart, Paul."
It comes wet and ragged. His lungs have rewoven themselves, but his ribs grate nakedly against the tooth. It still buzzes-but-doesn't, humming with some sick unreality. It reminds him of chitin.
"We're going to work on it." He says this so softly; his voice is smoothing. In a murmur, you cannot hear the violence in it. His free hand comes up, but does not pry the tooth from those pale fingers. He smooths his palm across Paul's shoulders, instead, like someone soothing a crying child. The tooth judders against his heart; the muscle keeps seizing, spasming at the intrusion; he tells it not to. He doesn't care. "Alright? You and me."
He doesn't draw back enough to look the boy in the eyes, not again. He knows what he'd see. He says, into Paul's hair, "I'll help you."