[At first, Paul thinks he's cut himself under the grey, soapy water in the sink. He pulls his hand out of the water with a soft, quick inhale, and he's running the tap to rinse the suds from his palm when he feels the alien, invasive press of something foreign in a wound that isn't his.
His gorge rises in a scalding eruption of citrus, prophecy burning in the back of his throat as his eyes flare with pale light.]
Don't -
[He's not saying it to the man at his elbow, whose void-black gaze falls on Paul from a great distance removed. He closes his hand around his left wrist under the shadow of a cresting wave of obliteration, and when it falls, so does he.
There is pain that can be anticipated and braced for. There is pain that cannot. That Paul has felt nearly this before doesn't change that. The sounds that spill wetly through his clenched teeth as he goes to his knees (steadied and slowed, though he can barely tell) are proof of that. He feels a hand dissolve tissue layer by tissue layer, nerves exquisitely flensed, ligaments and bones in sizzling disintegration.
When it's done, it still hurts. His unharmed wrist is a raw, burning wound, his unblemished hand past it a numb absence. It moves when he tells it to, but when he sees what it looks like when he does he decides to keep it still. His face is slick around the eyes, damp around the mouth, and he shivers at the cold.
He's not thinking when his Omen scrabbles out of his sleeve to fall to the floor in front of him, when he looks to her with wild, thoughtless panic.]
Lazarus. [He ekes out, rasping and strained, as Sophia's ears prick up for vocal transmission.] Where are you?
ii. wonderkind
His gorge rises in a scalding eruption of citrus, prophecy burning in the back of his throat as his eyes flare with pale light.]
Don't -
[He's not saying it to the man at his elbow, whose void-black gaze falls on Paul from a great distance removed. He closes his hand around his left wrist under the shadow of a cresting wave of obliteration, and when it falls, so does he.
There is pain that can be anticipated and braced for. There is pain that cannot. That Paul has felt nearly this before doesn't change that. The sounds that spill wetly through his clenched teeth as he goes to his knees (steadied and slowed, though he can barely tell) are proof of that. He feels a hand dissolve tissue layer by tissue layer, nerves exquisitely flensed, ligaments and bones in sizzling disintegration.
When it's done, it still hurts. His unharmed wrist is a raw, burning wound, his unblemished hand past it a numb absence. It moves when he tells it to, but when he sees what it looks like when he does he decides to keep it still. His face is slick around the eyes, damp around the mouth, and he shivers at the cold.
He's not thinking when his Omen scrabbles out of his sleeve to fall to the floor in front of him, when he looks to her with wild, thoughtless panic.]
Lazarus. [He ekes out, rasping and strained, as Sophia's ears prick up for vocal transmission.] Where are you?