The invisible snarl on his face — and, maybe, in his tone — would seem to indicate that the next thing Gus says starts with the inaudible word bitch.
"— I am the First," he spits out at her, but it's an undertone, a mutter, and lip-reading isn't going to help anyone realize he's talking, right now.
Besides: you're not gonna be the last — somewhere out to sea, above or below the surface, the least Joyous saint imaginable is undoubtedly waiting to make (or more likely ruin) Anna's day — well. Better not to spoil that surprise yet, surely?
There's... a lot, here, to chew on; a lot more than he expected when deciding to risk the cigarette —
"Expensive mistakes indeed," he sighs, letting go of the tension coiling through his shoulders as powerfully as a second snake, stretching his neck just a little, side to side, and then he's just... lounging there, against the wall, as utterly relaxed and balanced (and apparently unconcerned) as someone kicking back in his own bed, secure in his knowledge of his own safety.
He knows the history of the past ten thousand years far too well to think she came out of the Nine Houses; if she remembers Earth, well, that means she left it by other means — and there are terribly few of those to choose from, which means now he knows who might have taken the mind (brain? soul? both?) of a girl from Earth and plonked her into a robotic body —
And this isn't the first time he's worked with them, after all, nor the last he was expecting to; he just was hardly expecting... this.
"How much time did you lose, in-between?" Gus asks, with a calm and academic curiosity. "Did you ever learn? And more to the point, then — why try to figure out if I meant the person you thought I might, with such a leap as you took?"
Even now, when the cat is so far out of the bag that the bag is ready to be picked up from the dry cleaners', long-ingrained habit keeps John's name-as-His-Name from Augustine's lips in range of unsainted ears.
Thoughtfully, he adds, "It can't all have been for the lyrical references, no matter how well you play that game — and even granted what you said about your own father, that was still just such a lot of leaping."
no subject
"— I am the First," he spits out at her, but it's an undertone, a mutter, and lip-reading isn't going to help anyone realize he's talking, right now.
Besides: you're not gonna be the last — somewhere out to sea, above or below the surface, the least Joyous saint imaginable is undoubtedly waiting to make (or more likely ruin) Anna's day — well. Better not to spoil that surprise yet, surely?
There's... a lot, here, to chew on; a lot more than he expected when deciding to risk the cigarette —
"Expensive mistakes indeed," he sighs, letting go of the tension coiling through his shoulders as powerfully as a second snake, stretching his neck just a little, side to side, and then he's just... lounging there, against the wall, as utterly relaxed and balanced (and apparently unconcerned) as someone kicking back in his own bed, secure in his knowledge of his own safety.
He knows the history of the past ten thousand years far too well to think she came out of the Nine Houses; if she remembers Earth, well, that means she left it by other means — and there are terribly few of those to choose from, which means now he knows who might have taken the mind (brain? soul? both?) of a girl from Earth and plonked her into a robotic body —
And this isn't the first time he's worked with them, after all, nor the last he was expecting to; he just was hardly expecting... this.
"How much time did you lose, in-between?" Gus asks, with a calm and academic curiosity. "Did you ever learn? And more to the point, then — why try to figure out if I meant the person you thought I might, with such a leap as you took?"
Even now, when the cat is so far out of the bag that the bag is ready to be picked up from the dry cleaners', long-ingrained habit keeps John's name-as-His-Name from Augustine's lips in range of unsainted ears.
Thoughtfully, he adds, "It can't all have been for the lyrical references, no matter how well you play that game — and even granted what you said about your own father, that was still just such a lot of leaping."