[ Paul crumples. He crumples upwards, into straightness and stillness, but John recognizes this for what it is. The boy touches fingers to the back of his plain brown palm as though reaching for an anchor, then falls away again as though succumbing to the current.
The room is quiet but for Lazarus's ragged breathing. It is dark but for the thalergy-dense and still-cooling blood on the floorboards. For all that he has spent his days in Trench healing the sick, this is something different: there is a feeling to this moment like a shift of gravity, a purity of motion, a divine certainty. When he steps past Paul, it is as God going to bestow a miracle.
The boy before him is a miserable curl of blood and desperation. He is all undirected agony; he is a fight-or-flight mess. It is nothing like he'd been on the beach before the battle, drunk and careless on his coming death. It reminds him more of a bad dream.
He offers his hand out, steady in the space between them. His eyes are implacably dark, the central rings the same white as bone or scouring ash. On the beach, he had made this offer with a slouch and a smile; here it recalls the half-real press of a plastic water bottle between hands. It awaits the indignity of a choice.
no subject
The room is quiet but for Lazarus's ragged breathing. It is dark but for the thalergy-dense and still-cooling blood on the floorboards. For all that he has spent his days in Trench healing the sick, this is something different: there is a feeling to this moment like a shift of gravity, a purity of motion, a divine certainty. When he steps past Paul, it is as God going to bestow a miracle.
The boy before him is a miserable curl of blood and desperation. He is all undirected agony; he is a fight-or-flight mess. It is nothing like he'd been on the beach before the battle, drunk and careless on his coming death. It reminds him more of a bad dream.
He offers his hand out, steady in the space between them. His eyes are implacably dark, the central rings the same white as bone or scouring ash. On the beach, he had made this offer with a slouch and a smile; here it recalls the half-real press of a plastic water bottle between hands. It awaits the indignity of a choice.
Just balancing the scales, really. ]