[Paul has been back in himself for only hours, sinking into shivering nerves and foreign bones like someone returning to the time-dimmed halls of their childhood home now occupied by strangers. He slips through himself like an intruder. And then Lazarus reaches out for him, unsteady or not, and there he is -
Paul has always sought to hold himself upright and certain around Lazarus, even in the shuddering aftermath of his frenzied, bloodied dreams - in the anticipation of disaster - even in the depths of it, even as the bodies fell around him and the sea opened up into hell. The worst Lazarus has seen of him was his anger, and even that Paul curbed, drew back on taut reins. His weakness bled through anyway.
He's taken so much. He left Lazarus like this, fractured and wounded, alive after a shadow of death sung through his entwined self, all for the sake of giving Paul an advantage Paul spent like so much wine into sand. He doesn't deserve more.
If there was anything worthwhile left of him, he'd stand.]
I thought I could change it. I thought, if I tried, if I did it right, this time, if I could have done it right-
[The thunder is very far away. It echoes over a filthy shore. It sings in a frigid, lightless abyss where a soul still dreams, lost and irretrievable. Paul's face crumples, and then so does he, pitching forward to bury his face against Lazarus' shoulder. He takes, again, because that's all he does; that's all he is.]
no subject
Paul has always sought to hold himself upright and certain around Lazarus, even in the shuddering aftermath of his frenzied, bloodied dreams - in the anticipation of disaster - even in the depths of it, even as the bodies fell around him and the sea opened up into hell. The worst Lazarus has seen of him was his anger, and even that Paul curbed, drew back on taut reins. His weakness bled through anyway.
He's taken so much. He left Lazarus like this, fractured and wounded, alive after a shadow of death sung through his entwined self, all for the sake of giving Paul an advantage Paul spent like so much wine into sand. He doesn't deserve more.
If there was anything worthwhile left of him, he'd stand.]
I thought I could change it. I thought, if I tried, if I did it right, this time, if I could have done it right-
[The thunder is very far away. It echoes over a filthy shore. It sings in a frigid, lightless abyss where a soul still dreams, lost and irretrievable. Paul's face crumples, and then so does he, pitching forward to bury his face against Lazarus' shoulder. He takes, again, because that's all he does; that's all he is.]