deercountry | May 2022: Augustine the First catch-all

Entry tags:

May 2022: Augustine the First catch-all

Who: Augustine the First and ____________ (This could be you!)
What: A little bit of everything, including Event threads, and who knows what else
When: Throughout May
Where: Specific locations listed in TLs.

Content warnings for this character: Explicit gore/body horror as a baseline, probably omnipresent (high-level necromancer); callous and amoral outlook on life (jaded AF); very high likelihood of mentions of death/suicide/weaponized-sexuality in basically any and all interactions.

Specific warning for this post: A profoundly offensive number of conversational lyric-drops in the thread with Anna. ~~It's fantastic.~~

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Augustine wakes up on the First Day of the Fifth Month and what do you know: there's sunlight coming into his room. Would you look at that? He hadn't even realized that his windows face the dawn — whether or not that counts as East, here; he may have been wandering around Trench for most of a month, but that doesn't mean he's been buying tourist maps (or even really leaving town-proper, as yet). So hey, sunlight, excellent!

And then there's rain, falling with a soft slithering whisper, silvering the scene almost as soon as he makes it to the window to look out, which is... less excellent, but okay, whatever, planetary weather is still a thing; he'll deal with it. Also, it still doesn't look all that cloudy out, so hopefully that means that the rain will pass fairly quickly...? And also it seems to be bringing a bit of a chill, so perhaps he'll get dressed instead of standing mostly-naked at the window. (Sorry, anyone out in the yard; he was wearing boxers, at least!)

He's pulling a sweater over his head at the moment the sound shifts again, the rainy whisper turning a little more... insectoid ... and approximately 0.08725 seconds later, the sweater's properly on and he's got both swords drawn and ready in sheer, instinctive ~~hyperspeed~~ reaction — just in time to see a bumblebee amble past his open window. Ah. Well. That's... embarrassing, in a way that semi-public nudity certainly isn't; it also doesn't even remotely mean that he's letting his guard down when it comes to being Prepared to Fight the Herald he keeps thinking he can hear, buzzing just around whatever corner is in front of (or behind) him.

(It's going to be quite wearing on him, by the end of May, if he has to deal with that every day of the month... ~~good thing he's got a field trip planned for him...~~)

It's not that long after the Preliminary Bee Incident that Augustine turns back to his room and discovers that, somehow, there's a new blanket folded neatly on the foot of his bed: a buttery-yellow in color, a bit fuzzy, very soft; somewhere between velvet and suede, as he touches it, and yet before he thinks to think about what it is, to sense what it really is, he senses... calm. Comfort. Radiating up from his fingertips, where they're touching that blanket, and suddenly he's aware of just how tense his forearm has been since he first heard that buzzing sound, because now it... isn't.

He scoops it up wholesale, tucking it under his arm as he walks away from the bed, intending to find someone — John, Paul, Harrowhark, whoever he sees first — to ask who'd thought it was a good idea to go sneaking around in his room, and what the hell they thought they were doing leaving him a strange blanket. Of course, by the time he actually does find someone, the blanket has migrated a bit — wrapped around his shoulders now, instead.

(Somewhat later, in the afternoon for instance, you may be able to find him sitting out on the porch, once again wrapped up in that blanket despite everything — and, maybe, covered in death's-head moths, to some degree or another. They are, at least, mostly on the blanket itself, or his trousers, or his shoes, and not... his face.)

Since moving to Gaze with Palamedes Viktor has kept from wandering the area. At the moment he's been to the school and the bunker he now calls home, most of his time otherwise spent in his lab at the Willful Machine and the market there. He's the damnably curious sort so it isn't like he won't wander on occasion but Gaze? It's a nightmare. Which is saying a lot since most of the Trench has general nightmare aesthetic but seriously, Gaze is higher on the list than most.

Regardless the sun is up again and though Viktor is used to the dark from half a life in the undercity the other half got used to a little sunlight once and a while. It helps he can now see all the twists and turns of Gaze properly, and Rio is restless with the coming of something like spring. A walk couldn't hurt- ok, a walk could hurt a lot in many ways but he's still going to take the risk.

So off he goes. It's a slow going, more than usual with the area just uneven enough in places to make it a hard go with his crutch. Annoying but not enough to turn back, especially with Rio happy to bound and skitter ahead. He doesn't pay particular attention to where they're going aside from avoiding falling into a pit somewhere, and eventually a house looms that Viktor is only vaguely familiar with.

Pal pointed it out once, the place most of his friends and fellow necromancy world people lived, which... that makes sense, given the place looks like a haunted house even in the light of day. The last time he saw it it was dark and at a distance, this time he can actually take a moment to take in gargoyles? Interesting. He's busy squinting at them when Rio makes a rush for the fence and he has to hurry after her.

"Rio," he sighs, voice slavic in accent and clearly not expecting his omen to immediately listen. She's got her huge face pressed to the bars, staring at one of the- gardening skeletons. Necromancy. He quietly thanks the fence for existing so he isn't dealing with Rio trying to play with a skeleton when he glances up and notices the man on the porch.

Covered in moths, the hat- well. Viktor would say he looked cosy if he wasn't, you know, covered in moths. He isn't fully aware of the fun darkblood quirk of the month just yet so it's mostly a baffling sight, though he recovers enough to offer an apologetic, "My apologies for her, she's eh... curious." Of your lawn skeleton. Life is weird.

Rio, as she's still on the far side of the fence, is out of the skeleton-gardener's purview, and therefore it completely fails to react to her.

The man on the porch, on the other hand, slowly turns his head to take in the crutch-wielding young man who is, apparently, talking to ... him. Huh. Turning his head, meanwhile, disturbs the two quite large moths on his head, who were not actually a hat — as evidenced by the way they launch away to the underside of the porch ceiling.

"Is that a hellbender of some sort, or are you planning to tell me she's just your pet dog?" His voice is lightly carrying, vaguely British-ish-maybe, and sounds... distracted, or dreamy, or something along those lines. (This is not remotely his usual vibe, but... well, there's that blanket...) A hand emerges from the yellow fabric, waving vaguely. "Unless she's got a tongue longer than her entire body, I don't think she'll be able to reach it from there, anyway, so it's no bother."

Well, that's just more moths instead of a hat. Viktor takes a moment to just regard the moths flying off, wondering now if this is a Trench thing or a this moth guy thing. In a way he's a little worried for the guy, the last time bugs were around the Trench they were those butterflies that drained people like hope vampires, and this man seems... well, a little out of it?

Again, hard to say, since he doesn't know the man. No skull face paint so not one of the Ninth people people, probably. Not a teenager, so not one of Pal's gaggle of unruly teens. Who were the others... maybe that emperor Palamedes mentioned?

"She may be whatever a 'hellbender' is for all I know, I've never been given a proper explanation for what exactly her species is," Viktor answers with a one shouldered shrug as Rio's tongues do indeed dart out, tasting the air but so far no, not long enough to be a problem. "She's my omen. Usually she does not cause trouble."

Usually. He does have to squint at moth man a moment before his vague concern compels him to ask, "Are you well? Given the butterflies last month your eh... your flock of moths is a touch concerning."

"Type of salamander, I think," answers Moth Man On Porch, sitting up slightly to peer down at Rio and her tongue...s? "Usually only one tongue, though, so far as I recall. You've seen her like before, though? Before you were here?"

Slightly belated, relative to his shifting, several of the moths rearrange themselves; some of them fly up to join those first two in the porch ceiling. "And these? These are just death's-head moths, I think... Terribly peaceful, actually."

A thoughtful pause. "More like the little orbs that were dropping around last month's lepidopterae — they eat, I don't know, plants or some such, I think. Not human flesh." He picks one up and examines it briefly, and if his eyes are glittering almost as much as its are, well — who's going to be able to see that, from all the way down by the fence? "Not sleeper flesh, regardless," he amends. And back to Rio: "What kind of trouble does she cause, when she feels like it?"

"Hm, close then. I've been told she's a pixiemander but, in truth I think the man might have been eh... fucking with me, would be the term." Viktor shrugs, then, "Yes, I met her when I was young, and this is certainly the same one. She is a rare mutation, there are no others like her."

Well, as long as they aren't eating him that's probably good. They look simple enough, and eventually he'll see for himself that it's just the darkblood thing of the month with how many bugs Palamedes will make.

"Hopefully not your blanket either," he points out, before glancing to where Rio is still trying to follow the skeleton from behind the fence. "She forgets her own size and sometimes will jump on people she likes, for one. She likes to chase things that interest her, like your eh, your skeleton. If there's water nearby she will climb into it if possible and make a mess, things of that nature. "

"Presumably just as well, then, that there aren't any active water features in the yard," he observes, as he continues to observe the giant amphibious omen. Can omens be amphibious? Are they even in the same plane of existence as Sleepers, on a day-to-day basis? Alfred seems to swim through the air as readily as he moves against physical objects, whether they're the floor or some sort of three-dimensional option — furniture, humanoid bodies, whatever. If he's tried moving through water, he hasn't told Augustine about it yet. "Although at least water usually doesn't make too much of an irreparable mess — so long as you aren't ending up in a fountain at a library, or something like that...?"

He trails off suggestively, inviting the tale of the time that was absolutely the sort of trouble Rio caused — mainly because he still hasn't actually done anything to, say, open the gate, or actually invite the sidewalk-man and his amphibifriend inside to pester the skeletons more closely.

"I don't actually think this thing can be destroyed," as he flips the edge of the blanket about demonstratively, peering down at it. "Whether or not they want to try."

Maul is trotting by on a warg beast straight out of Lord of the Rings. He vaguely resembles a hyena in appearance. The beast is far too stocky for a traditional saddle so Maul instead has a fluffy hide skinned from something Slicer likely killed himself when it was on his property and set on the warg's back. The reins at least function as normal.

He pauses for a moment on the street, long enough for two moths to land on him, one on his left forehorn and another on his arm. Maul inspects them Pretty-looking little bugs, aren't they? He looks over and spots Augustine on the porch. "A bit warm for a blanket, isn't it?" He calls out. Despite Maul's demonic appearance, his voice is very soft, smooth, and velvety, completely at odds with its owner's extreme looks.

The guy on the porch, hanging out with the rest of the moths, surrounded by the bony remnant sentries of batcat skeleton-gargoyles, blinks and twists and glances over at someone who, at first blush, appears to have gotten very invested in bodymods, to someone used to a humanocentric universe.

On the other hand, given the delay between hearing and looking, he isn't entirely certain that the red-and-black-faced humanoid was the one who spoke, rather than the ... warthog? Hyena? whatever that thing is, on ground-level, wearing ... a sheepskin rug, looks like.

"Oh, I'm quite comfortable, actually," he calls back, lifting a hand in a vaguely-friendly wave. "Are you, with that fur on?"

A more quizzical tone than not, genuinely curious — and if he's staying in the shade of the porch, rather than standing up to get a better look at who he's talking to (whichever of the two of them it is), well, it's probably because he's not entirely certain when he ended up with a moth's compound eyes. (More-or-less lucky for him that they're no larger than his usual eyes, and therefore likely not that noticeable.)

Maul doesn't find it odd that Slicer is the one addressed. Seems like a lot of people do that when it comes to talking with other people and their pets. He can't blame them, his warg is absolutely awesome. He looks down at Slicer. "Well. Are you? Answer his question." Slicer opens up his mouth wide and lets out a loud roar as answer. He's quite intelligent in his own right, even if he's not to the point of being able to understand everything his owner says.

"I suppose that will do for a 'yes'," Maul says, patting the big beast with fondness. He slides over to the edge of the warg's broad back and hops off. He glances again at Augustine. "I have not seen you before," he observes.

Huh. Guess that answers which one is the primary/dominant member of the partnership, at least.

"Do you make a point of seeing everyone who arrives here?" Augustine asks mildly, maybe not looking his most human ever, in the way his head is slowly tilting and turning, as the facets of his (temporary) eyes take in the sidewalk guests from their many different angles.

(They've both failed the Socratic ideal of answering every question with a question, at this point, but he does love testing a conversation to see how long he can keep that up, anyway...)

"But no — I've been here, oh, maybe a month? First I've seen the sun, anyway," with a vague wave toward it. "Gets a bit difficult to tell, when you're somewhere that's supposed to have a rapid circadian rhythm, but it doesn't — we're still well under my first thousand hours here, if that's a more useful answer. Not even seven-fifty yet."

Helpful, at least, that he's spent enough time on enough different planets to know that an hour is usually a more-easily-agreed-upon length of time than a day or week or month or year, surely.

Maul keeps the reins of his mount looped loosely around one arm so that they won't drag on the ground. It's also a good position to tighten the slack should Slicer decide to attack. He's confident the beast won't, not after all the training he and Maul have done together, but Maul hasn't gotten where he is by taking chances when there is no need to. He snorts through his nose at the question. "Hardly. Most people who arrive here are idiots. But I seem to run into them sooner or later no matter what." Maul isn't the most social of people but he is nosy and likes hearing gossip, hence why he shows up on so many network posts.

Maul notes the denomination of time the man uses, curious as to the usage of 'an hour'. There was a standard calendar in his own world though even then he's since learned there is a big difference between what a month or week means in his own galaxy versus that of other universes. Still, he assumes an hour where this man is from means what it does most places; sixty minutes. "I have been here physically in Trench for nine months, though I have been traveling through places ruled by Pthumerians for over two years now." He pauses. "At least I think it is two years. The passage of time when it comes to our gracious hosts can be strange."

"Oh so?" Now that's curious; it's also the first time someone has outright told Augustine that they've encountered the Pthumerians somewhere other than this. (Not the same, necessarily, as encountering a person who has done so — but what he doesn't know...)

"Not that the passage of time in general can't be perfectly strange all on its own," which is more of a muttered undertone, "but I have to admit I'm quite curious to hear about the rest of it, if you're offering. Not that I can promise I'm not an idiot — but then, I have to imagine that anyone who does you'd be prone to disbelieve."

He hasn't said anything too idiotic yet, at least. Right?

"Yes. I was in the previous town that was run by them. Deerington, a product of one of the most powerful half-Pthumerians, Julia Sodder." Maul is more than happy to give his (highly biased) opinion on Julia.

"She was half-human and half-Pthumerian. Unfortunately, one of her grandmothers was the Pthumerian Queen and didn't see her so much as a young girl as a tool to be used in a plan that went back generations. But when a child has fantastic abilities that make them very powerful, the worst thing one can do is treat them like they can be controlled and used by others. They sought to harness that power. It didn't work. Julia died and in the throes of her death she created a dream world. There was some similarities here to Trench but it was a very different place. To this day, I don't know if we were brought there bodily or only in mind as some thought. When the last echoes of her power finally faded, the town had the chance to save her. I tried to tell them to give the girl a second chance."

Maul's yellow eyes hardened with fury.

"They chose to sacrifice her instead. Some will claim they thought it was the best thing for her but they only say that because they want to assuage their own guilty consciences. She could have been saved just as the Moon Presence was. She was trapped in the town as well and was Julia's mother, a full-blooded Pthumerian who needed our help. Back then she was known as Cynthia Sodder. People chose to save her and it's mostly because she wasn't just a handy scapegoat to blame for all the miseries that happened there the way her daughter was." Maul feels very strongly about what happened to Julia, but then, given he was once a young child with fantastic powers who had been manipulated by someone who sought to use those powers for their own end, it wasn't hard to see why.

Once upon a time, Augustine the First, Saint of Patience, washed up on a beach, in the form of a vampyroteuthis infernalis. Great day. Very significant.

He spent a month trying to figure out what the hell was going on around here, with middling success; kept a giant dinosaur-head-sticking-out-of-a-hole-in-reality from snacking on one of his housemates; endured some supremely awkward moments with, ah, religious interventions with God (or something that looked like Him, which might technically have made it an idol of some sort...? they haven't really Talked about that); used a damn piece of paper to visit some Other Dimension, that spat him into yet ANOTHER dimension instead of letting him return to this one, and while he was there things were just even more complicated —

He'd never been so happy to be back in a strange and sometimes-hellish landscape, full of he-knew-not-what-but-at-least-gravity-seemed-to-be-reasonably-consistent, in very large part because he had not been happy, at all, to have been parted from his brother's soul, in Nephele-That-Wasn't. Getting back to his bedroom to find Alfred coiled up around what he recognized, suddenly, as a pterodactyl egg, in the middle of his bed — once they finally returned, after the Quest's Grand Finale — was enough to have him in tears, with no real way to put into words why he was in tears.

He'd written a letter, the next evening; had asked Alfred to deliver it to Izkierka, or her person, and had had his brother confirm that he had in fact done so; and when he went to sleep, it was with a sense of some sort of accomplishment, touched vaguely with hope — the idea that maybe he could start sorting through the events of the past ~~two hundred years~~ few days, all the better to put them behind him and go back to how things had always been.

When he wakes up, there's something wrong with the room, but he can't place it at first. Maybe it's the sunlight — seems he forgot to draw the curtains all the way, or perhaps Alfred wanted to sneak out through the window in the middle of the night; either way, there's too much of it streaming into the room. He squints, eyes screwing shut tight, and reaches up blindly to rub sleep from them as he sits up. He's already grabbed his waterglass from the bedside table and taken a sip before he opens them again, still squinting from the light. He is, in fact, glaring at the window a bit as he sets the glass down without looking to see what he's doing — why would he bother, when he already knows where the table is, and can feel whether or not his glass is on it before he lets go?

It isn't until he's standing in front of the window, reaching for the curtains to close them the rest of the way — hand outstretched, so it can block away the sun as he reaches — that he realizes what was wrong, what is wrong — as the sun continues to blind him with great good late-May cheer.

He can feel his hand, and it feels perfectly normal. But he can't see it, although he can see the loose shirt and trousers he slept in — can't see either hand, as he brings them up and presses them into each other just in front of his face, as he blows on them and can feel each touch, the passage of air —

The room looks wrong, he realizes, because he literally can't see the nose on his face, bordering his vision, or his eyebrows for that matter as he feels them drawing low in dismay. He can't see his feet, when he looks down at the floor, and the cuffs of his pants. There's a mirror in the room, he knows — and he has existed in this body, and only this body, just as it is, for over ten thousand years — and never mind a set of jangled memories telling him that he's spent most of those in a different body, because he knows those are lies, told to him by a failing piece of magic that didn't want to die. He can walk, without issue, if he doesn't think about having trouble walking — if he doesn't try to focus on where he's putting his feet, and instead just puts them where he wants them. He doesn't trip on his rug. This is fine.

The view in the mirror is... strange, to put it mildly; watching a shirt and pants drape around a body's form, with no evidence of the body itself, is actually quite a lot more disconcerting than he would have thought, given the way clothing manufacture and sales have changed over the millennia — but perhaps the issue is not that the clothing is being modeled in three dimensions, but rather that his body is missing from the image.

(He would joke about vampires, at least to Alfred, if he was missing only from the mirror.)

Augustine closes his eyes, and takes a deep breath, and lets himself settle. This is... not great; he's not going to pretend it is; that doesn't mean he has to freak out, any more than he would have if he'd looked in the mirror and discovered his hair had sprouted teal feathers overnight, surely!

(Of course Alfred hasn't been given a reply to his letter yet; why would he have been? This was a terrible example to tell himself.)

This will be fine, he tells himself. Nobody's trying to murder you right now, and even if they were, it would hardly be insurmountable. He picks up the glass of water again, and thoughtfully carries it over to the mirror. That's visible, then, just as much as his clothing —

And so is Alfred, who looks particularly concerned, as he watches Augustine; and he doesn't know if it's some sort of emotional/empathic psychic bond or if he's actually learned to read taipan body language, in knowing that, but either way he's damned if he's going to sit and worry about it instead of just... getting dressed.

(It's much easier to do if he closes his eyes, he finds.)

«I don't like that I can't see you,» Alfred tells him, glumly, and — well, that doesn't really answer the question about body language either way, but it does pose some interesting questions about just how thoroughly he's been erased, if even his own brothersoul can't see him.

"Can you at least hear me?" Augustine asks, and then scowls at the level of apprehension audible in his voice — audible, though; his voice sounds perfectly normal, as far as he can tell. That should be a good sign... shouldn't it?

«Well...» Alfred turns his head, plainly looking Away, the tip of his tail twitching a little — embarrassment? Seriously? «I don't know,» he admits. «I don't think snakes really hear, the way humans do, anyway. I can feel you talking!» he adds hastily, tail twitching more. «If that helps. It feels... the same as normal?» And, still incapable of shrugging his shoulders — what with not having any — he gives a sort of scale-ripple down the top of his entire length.

"So for now," Augustine says, slowly and carefully, testing his words to see if they'll hold weight before committing to them, "it would appear that I am simply... invisible?"

He holds up his hand, in front of his face — wonders, profoundly, how he's able to see that he can't see it, when his eyes are just as invisible, when Alfred can see through them, and so how can they be filtering or focusing or warping or reflecting light in the first place? how can they make note of the pattern of light splashing on his retinas, when it passes through unhindered instead? — and then pivots hard on his heel, to the dresser, to find the — yes, good, all right, there's that pair of leather gloves, and they fit splendidly, and he feels ridiculous wearing skintight black leather gloves — in general, much less indoors — but at least now the anxiousness clamoring in the back of his mind has lessened, now that he can see where his hands are.

When he's finished dressing, he glances in the mirror, to confirm that everything is where it should be, that everything looks good together — and it's troubling, to see the inside of his own collar, to remain unable to see the frown he feels growing across his face — and then there's a noise on his table, and he turns to see Alfred uncoiling, having somehow carried in a few things from elsewhere in the house —

The greasepaint and sunglasses, he can guess the origins of; or — no, these aren't Gideon's aviators, mirrored or otherwise, but something that looks more like it's meant to be worn over other glasses, or possibly by someone trying to hide from paparazzi or a jealous husband's investigations — they're huge. There's also a wool beanie that is going to make all the greasepaint sweat right off, in this weather, but at least it's capable of covering up his hair.

Given that he's already wearing the gloves — and they're leather — he's quite reluctant to stick his fingers straight into the paint, but it seems as though there's a small wedge of sponge jammed into the tin already anyway, saving him from the issue — and the paint itself is the color of aged bone, which will undoubtedly look sallow as all hell on him, but at least it isn't invisible — he can always buy better makeup once he can go outside without causing comment, he reminds himself, and scoops up a bit of paint on the sponge gingerly, then smears it along his cheek awkwardly, cringing at the particular (cold, overly-lubricated, clinging sensation, and glances in the mirror to see how it looks.

There's nothing there.

He can feel it, still; when he reaches up with a handkerchief to scrape the makeup back off, so at least he won't have to feel it, it promptly stains the white linen to a yellowed ivory. It's just ... invisible after all, it seems, if he's wearing it on his skin.

"Fuck," he says tiredly, and closes the makeup tin again, so Alfred can sneak it back to Harrowhark's stash as it suits him.

«I guess maybe we can find you a scarf, to go with the beanie and sunglasses, or one of those allergy-respirators,» Alfred suggests, sounding dubious.

But it isn't like either of them has a better idea.

So it turns out that there are shops in Trench that sell full-head masks that are not, it turns out, specifically intended for kinky sex, but rather intended to satisfy the most hardline Practical Citizen in their demands for clothing and accessories that not only will keep any of their blood from being spilled, but even prevent the uncontrolled loss of skin cells, lest some Beast or other (possibly an ex-lover...?) track them down.

It is, however, not apparently The Season for such masks; when he finds a shop that has them, he's informed (with the greatest regrets) that they only have a handful in stock at the moment; would he like to place an order for something bespoke? Perhaps looking at the small selection available will help clarify his desires?

He looks; most of them are... exactly as appallingly unbearable as expected, dehumanizing in a profoundly unpleasant way; there's one, though, that looks enough like a fencer's mask that his fingers itch for it. It's when he picks it up (and sees that it's full-face, but not full-head-covering), that he sees —

He's not sure, actually, if it's meant to be a Plague Doctor mask (and he has seen people wearing those, around Trench, whether bearing ravens like a falconer might or otherwise), but it's similar enough to make him think of them; it also reminds him of an owl, or a —

SHRIKE, says the label on the tag, and he's already made his purchase before he realizes he's dropped the fencer's mask back on the pile.

The end result doesn't look a thing like Augustine himself — but at least he can keep walking around town without anyone's attention picking him out of the crowd as anything remarkable, especially when there are so many more-Beast-like people picking their way through the crowds with profound care, trying not to get killed. (It's something to do with being May, and Bausphomette's beliefs, is the best he can gather.)

The fact he doesn't look like himself — and isn't at all sure he wants to explain the mask — means he's keeping quieter than usual on his walk, even if he's automatically following his usual path, nodding to the shopkeepers and acquaintances he usually sees — and feeling his heart, or gut, or emotional-state-in-general give a little lurch each time someone he knows shows no sign of knowing him, their gazes skipping right past him.

He rolls a cigarette, goes to light it, and — realizes the mask doesn't actually have a gap over his mouth, that might allow him to drink (through a straw or otherwise) or smoke, just the little beak.

"Fuck," he mutters sharply, staring down at the now-useless cigarette, and wants to kick something.

"First day with the mask?"

There's a woman strolling by in a longcoat that looks like it's seen better days, and underneath it, she's wearing tattered jeans and a faded shirt with a message whose letters look like they spell FALL OUT BOY, whatever that could mean. She's grinning just a little from behind the collar, and the eyepatch behind her just slightly dirty white hair is really completing the look.

"Trying to avoid the blood pollution, or are you just dodging people?" she asks like those are the only two reasons someone would be wearing a mask. "Either way, could probably grab a smoke in the alley or something if you wanted." She flips a worn pack with a reddened needle taped to it out of her coat pocket. "Mind if I join you?"

"Worrying I might have made an expensive mistake," he answers automatically, eyes stuck on the shirt's lettering — and then blinking, not that she can see that, as he focuses in on the rest of her words, and then his gaze is also sticking on the — needle? — on her pack. (His own cigarettes came out of a case, whenever he gets around to rolling them in advance — or buying them pre-rolled, or stuffed into a filter sleeve, hadn't had one of those in a few thousand years — a case made out of something very similar to ivory, depending on how one defines 'ivory', carved to look a good bit like the Tarot 'Hanged Man' card, although the man's face is obscured by those black leather gloves.) "Half the blood around me is glitter," which is more of a grousing, really. "Wouldn't you want to avoid having blood-related craft herpes getting everywhere around you?" There's no actual bite to any of this, of course; it's just ... mild-mannered, matter-of-fact, reflexive grousing.

He's hesitating, torn — he really is about ready to kill for a smoke, and ducking into an alley and hiding is definitely going to cause less trouble in the short-, medium-, and long-term — but the prospect of someone joining him is mostly what he'd wanted to avoid, with masking up — she might see that she isn't seeing, after all.

But also: she has a good point, and he's never seen her before, so what harm could there really be in her seeing a secret that has no real meaning to it, as far as she's concerned, anyway?

"So I suppose my question for you is — what are you planning to do with that needle?"

Oh, that gets a bit of a laugh out of her, and it's dry like she's been doing this whole thing for a while. The smoking and the music references both. "Well, maybe if you stopped wearing black, you wouldn't have to worry about the craft herpes so much." She doesn't know who this guy is, but clearly he has good taste already. (Careful, Amaranth, that's gotten you in trouble before.)

She takes the needle off the pack and pricks her finger, getting just one or two drops of blood. With a snap, she starts a small flame going. "Way easier than a lighter," she says, looking down at the flicker before snuffing it out with another snap as a tiny amount of blood and ash smears along her matte black fingertips.

"Trust me, dude, I might look threatening but I ain't no Jack the Ripper for knockoff superheroes." She also doesn't look particularly threatening, but she doesn't have her far bigger weapon with her, so that probably helps. "Name's Anna, if it helps."

"Oh, well, you know how it goes, easier to hide bloodstains if you're wearing the darkest of colors," is really just sort of a nattering in the background, right up until — her blood catches on fire, because apparently Craft Herpes Blood is not the only thing going on around here. Of course it isn't. Why would it be.

He pulls out a Zippo that is, in fact, approximately ten thousand years old, give or take a quarter-century — mostly a matte brass in color, with only the faintest of silver-tone steel still showing, as far away as possible from the long-since-rounded-off edges. "I've never found this one to be particularly difficult to manage," he says mildly. (It is, in fact, the shittiest-looking Zippo ever for one that is still functional — but again, see the whole 'been looking after and constantly using it for ten thousand freaking years' part of the argument.)

"Nice to meet you, though, Anna," he says, because watching her fingers is making his itch, and again, if he doesn't actually smoke a cigarette soon...

Maybe he'll be able to make it look casual, trying to keep her from looking at his lack-of-a-face. Maybe he'll give up on caring, sooner or later. Who knows. He should probably give her a name, though, shouldn't he...? "Gus."

Why not.

"Well, it also makes the girls in the bars think that I'm cool as hell, but I'm not exactly advertising, that, Gus." She gives him a casual smirk and tilts her head towards a nearby alleyway.

"Come on, dude. We don't even have to go that far in, if you're still worried about me killing you and trying to steal the world's oldest lighter for myself." If nothing else, that lighter probably has Uno, which is a benefit. She takes a couple steps in between two nearby buildings and leans against the wall, then pierces her finger again and flicks up another flame. "Though if you're trying to hide bloodstains, maybe I'm the one who should be worried, huh?"

With one hand, she pulls out a cigarette, lights it, and puts it between her lips. He can come over whether he wants to or not, but she needs the smoke.

"One might think I should have reason to be concerned about having your blood, in particular, staining my clothing," 'Gus' points out, even as he trails after her, even as he keeps his eyes peeled (... as best he can, in hood and mask) and Lyctoral radar sweeping for signs of anyone he knows, who might recognize his voice — if not his new face — and might wander close to say hello. "Given a distinct lack of wanting to catch fire, on the average day, as it were."

And, well. Here he is, tucked away in an alleyway that's really just more of a crevice between buildings where trash goes to hide from the wind~~; isn't that what smokers are, anyway, at least to nonsmokers?~~ — fuck it, he thinks, somewhere between miserable furious and coldly resigned.

The mask doesn't come off — he isn't stupid, thanks — but given that he's also not particularly keen on even a stranger in a Fall Out Boy shirt staring at his, mmmm, very receding chin, he's also popping a wall squat even while he's unhooking the mask just enough to get a cigarette to his mouth. First the Zippo, then his hand, cupped around his chin, cigarette in between two fingers — sure, this is all perfectly normal smoking behavior. Right?

(Slightly more of his jaw is exposed than he realizes, but MAYBE she won't actually be at the right angle to notice. Unless she drops something, but why would she want to do that, somewhere the cobblestones are so sticky?)

All Anna notices through this whole process is how fuckin' weird Gus is being about his smokes, but, like. That's fine. Some people take it particular. For one reason or another, he doesn't wanna be looked at while he smokes, or at least that's the vibe Anna's getting—so she doesn't. Her eye stays focused on either the wall in front of them or the parts of his body that are still covered when it does deign to wander.

"Relax, dude, I can control it. It'll only ignite if I want it to, and I only use fire for smoking these days anyway." She looks down at a puddle that she's edging a foot into and pulls her sneaker out of it. "I use lightning when I wanna fuck something up, and I left my sword at home."

But okay. She can't let it sit for too much longer, because if Gus is doing a bit he sure isn't letting it up anytime soon, and she's... well, Anna is no stranger to being rude to new people. (It's how she bonds.) "Seriously, though, are you worried I'm gonna, like, judge you for smoking wrong? You're handling that thing about as well as I did when I was 18."

She probably isn't expecting him to laugh, at that; even if she was, it's the odds-on favorite she wouldn't expect a laugh like this — the sort of laugh that exists when it's not socially acceptable to sob, or scream, or shout; the sort of laugh that says there's nothing actually funny going on, here, just the sort of actual irony that nobody has ever written a song about.

"Oh heavens, chick, I'm not worried about the smokes," he says, after most of a very unsettling minute, and then — tugs the mask down again, first, before switching his cigarette to his offhand, holding out his right, stretching it out, flexing back and forth, demonstrating all the ways it's a fine and functional right hand in a black leather glove, and then —

Peels off the glove, revealing nothing at all.

When he switches the cig back to his right hand, resting neatly between index and middle fingers, it hovers in the air a few inches away from the hollowed-out cuff of an apparently-empty sleeve.

"Let's just say it's been a hell of a weird month, hmmm?"

They could leave it at that.

(They could leave it at that, but... that would depend on neither of them being the sort of person who'd rather indulge their curiosity than leave well enough alone... and Augustine, at least, is going to fail that test.)

Edited 2022-06-06 07:09 (UTC)

They could, but they absolutely won't. Anna watches the display expressionlessly for a long moment, sharing at least part of the discomfort as she tries piecing together a few different things about Gus just from the way he's holding himself and talking. She doesn't get very far before he reveals—or rather doesn't reveal himself to her, and that's when her expression changes. Her eyebrows go up, though her one is hidden behind the eyepatch, and she tugs at the collar of her tee.

Not out of discomfort, though. She just wants to make sure that the thin black seam running along her neck is visible. "Dude, I'm a robot," she says as plainly as she can. "Everything from the neck down is wires and metal. I definitely get weird body shit." She won't say, or at least not yet, whether the robot transformation is temporary or permanent.

"And turning invisible ain't even the worst one I've, uh, not seen this month. Met a dude at a friend's fireworks party who was straight up a devil, plus one of my other friends was a centaur and his boyfriend was a giant bird." And also Alexander the Great, but things are weird enough as is. She lets her hand fall back to her side. "If it works like the rest of this stuff, you'll be fixed by the turn of the month." And if he's not? Well, he can figure that out later, probably.

"That help the anxiety at all?" she asks genuinely despite her choice of words.

"A robot who smokes and bleeds fire," he says dryly, and — well, again: fuck it, she apparently doesn't give a flying shit that he's invisible, or care about how fucking weird and unsettling it looks, not the way he does — not the way John is going to, because he just knows, deeply and depressingly, that John is going to take this as a personal affront to him from the Pthumerians, that they would fuck with His First Saint.

Not that it's an affront to Augustine, no. To John.

But no. Focusing on the fuck-it, not on John; focusing on the fact that cigarettes burn down whether or not they're actively being smoked, and the only thing worse than not smoking one is using it like a goddamn incense stick when craving the momentary relief and peace it brings instead; he tugs the mask up over his chin and mouth once more, and brings the cigarette up (in his invisible hand), and takes a drag (with his invisible mouth), as the cherry at the end glows and the smoke plumes and honestly he's quite glad that there isn't a mirror, here, because he doesn't even want to know what it looks like.

"I think I might have been at that party, briefly," he says absently, finally exhaling. He hadn't really talked to people, so much as wandered around with a bunch of alcohol to let people test their own tolerances, but whatever. "Definitely saw a centaur, anyway. They're a bit... large." He shrugs, nicely visible thanks to all the clothing.

"Anxiety is... one way to put it," he settles on, after another drag. "Another would be, well, not really wanting to deal with the fallout."

Damn. Wild to think that she might have run into this guy already and she wouldn't have known because she has no idea what he looks like. The display she's watching is definitely something special, seeing someone smoke without actually having a face to smoke from. But she's not... wildly bothered by it, or at least she's got the grace not to show it if she is.

"Smokes, bleeds fire. Drinks, plays live music, engages in a little casual counter-piracy on the side," she says with a sidelong look and a smirk. "I'm vast. I contain multitudes." Quotes Walt Whitman, too. She's kind of a lot, as other people have described her, and from the way she's grinning right before it falls from her face, she seems to take a lot of pride in it.

"What about fallout?" she asks, dropping another casual little music reference that she doesn't expect him to get. This one isn't written right on her chest, after all. "Seems like a dick move to act like it's your fault you got turned invisible. Not like any of us can control what the gods do or anything."

"Doesn't that depends on your relationship with —" God "— the gods?" Gus counters, fast and playful, the hesitation so subtle that someone would have to be able to record what he said, when he said it, and play it back with a bunch of audio-processing software in order to be certain — and in order to do that during the middle of a conversation, you'd have to be a robot or something, wouldn't you...? ~~Shit.~~

"Not," he as with a little more care, "that I've heard of anyone entering into kinky relationships with any of the Pthumerians, as such. No idea at all if anyone humanoid," which, once upon a time — a few months ago, before spending a few centuries as an elf over the course of forty-eight hours — would have just been human, "would properly even recognize if they were kinky — nev— let's just forget that," with an abrupt second cover, as saying nevermind might, in fact, not be what he's wanting to do, here. His still-gloved hand makes a gesture of ball-it-up-and-throw-it-away, for emphasis.

"Just — have you ever wanted to disappear?" he asks, pressing back on the bruise of the subject. "Not just take off, missing-persons style, run away —" and maybe join a monastery, why not, "but vanish, get swallowed up by the floor right then and there, turn invisible so no one will ever find you again if you don't want them to?" Another invisible drag on a visible cigarette; as he begins talking again, the smoke curls back into existence, clearly far enough away from his nose and mouth that they can't press their shape into it and be defined that way. Weird. "In my experience, that's not a permanent desire, see — it's a dream of escaping, still. Getting away from the problem, in a way where it can't catch you and forced to to deal with its consequences. But you'll still end up wanting control — to be able to decide when you're playing with your new superpower, and when you're going to be as bland and boring as any old Midwestern newspaper reporter."

As a completely random example.

"It's what it all boils down to, anyway, isn't it? Control? For yourself, for the people you know — whether it's you wanting to control what they go through, or them getting furious when it's you..." The cigarette floats away from his head, sleeve following, as he taps ash out onto the pavement. "This fellow I know, my..." Shit, how can he even describe that relationship? "We've known each other forever, anyway. Longer and more thoroughly than anyone else ever has, ever could — and he's been here, what, half a year? It's like nothing ever happened in between us — even though the last time we saw each other, out there," vague gloved-hand wave in the direction of Mariana's ocean, not Trench, "things had gotten to the point of very earnestly trying to kill each other." He pulls out another cigarette as he talks, and chain-lights it. "He succeeded a bit better than I did," dryly, as if discussing nothing of greater weight than, say, signing a record deal, "then fished me up on the shore and brought me home with him, and acts like anything that happens to me is a personal affront to him," and seriously why is he just opening up and spilling all these beans to her?

(Presumably because it's been an incredibly stressful year-slash-myriad, and if Trench has any psychiatrists of sufficiently high skill levels to cope with him, well, they're probably fully booked and not taking new patients at this time.)

He is picking up and returning a suspiciously high amount of what she's putting down, and Anna is not going to make that mistake a second time. Not when she thinks she might know the man he's warring with, no matter how... complicated their relationship seems to be with each other. See, she may not have the presence of mind to pore over every word like that, especially when she's being given so many, but she doesn't need to speculate quite so much when she's got the firsthand experience.

Instead, while he has a realtime breakdown of his history with a man who would be god, she leans there looking at her own hand. Watching the way her fingers fold around the cigarette while she listens very carefully as a human would. Here she is, doing everything she can, holding on to what she has, and he's talking about Superman. Astounding.

"I know life never makes it easy," she says casually. "It's easier to disappear. But I don't know, dude, I've lived like that before. Never gets much better, hiding yourself away like that from everyone and everything." Not the point, though. Barely the point in the first place. She takes a slow drag and blows the smoke out away from them.

"Sure, you got the control of deciding when you do it, but you gotta decide who you're disappearing for anyway, right? Like that guy, I don't know, let's call him John," she says with the exact wafer-thin weight that it shouldn't have, "Let's say John picked you up and saved your life or whatever. Let's ignore that he killed you in the first place. So John's got what he thinks is a claim to you now, yeah? Just 'cause he's like 'oh, I brought you into this world, I can take you out of it' or whatever doesn't make him right."

Maybe she's drawing bad comparisons here. Maybe it's been on her mind lately. Hard to tell. She rolls her shoulders, looks up towards the sky and just gets an eyeful of brick. "So are you disappearing because you want to do it, or are you doing it because he made you feel like it's the only choice you've got, is the question, yeah? So even the whole... idea that you're choosing to do something is still dripping in his control." She looks back over, turning more of her head this time.

"He sounds like a shitty dad who can't handle that his kids aren't following him like toy soldiers anymore." And that statement weighs like lead in her gut, beyond the heavy metal that's already in there. She blinks (or maybe it's a wink) once or twice, then turns her head back and touches the end of the cigarette to her lips. "But if you take all your serious relationship opinions from dykes you've known for five minutes then you've got more problems than I can solve."

If anyone had asked, a minute or two ago, with interstitial camera-interview footage cut into their conversation, Augustine would have absolutely laughed his ass off at the idea that he was talking about himself, describing someone who wanted the power to disappear.

By the time she hits him with that carefully-featherweighted John, the injury barely registers. His mouth has already fallen open, his cigarette only held steady (and not dropped into his lap) because of the padding and friction of the leather gloves; he would, in fact, look a gape-mouthed idiot, staring at her, if anyone could actually see his expression. Maybe — maybe — she merely means the universal You; maybe she thinks, well, HE kept saying 'you', why shouldn't I? —

But it sounds like she's flipping it around and pinning it on him — and he isn't the one who chose this for himself! ~~Was he...?~~

Are you disappearing because you want to do it, or are you doing it because he made you feel like it's the only choice you've got?

No, he wants to say; no, that's, that's not it —

No, he wants to say, and Alfred, take her down —

"John is such a terrible name to try to take seriously," is what actually comes out of his mouth, once words are willing again to be found inside it. "You could have picked nearly anything else — calling him John makes it sound like you think we met while he was soliciting prostitutes," he adds reasonably, because it isn't like he, Alfred, Ulysses, Gideon and Pyrrha, at least, hadn't all aired that little issue more than once, when discussing which pre-Resurrection literature artifacts ought to be actively preserved, right? "I know it's the world's oldest profession, but that is not how we met, dear madam!" He gives it a beat, to let it be playful — it has to be playful — and adds, "I am a professional, of course, but it isn't that one — I've always been more of a slut than a whore."

He's never been ashamed to be a slut, either, and had never seen shame as a corequisite for sex work, for that matter — but let's just keep on deflecting, shall we?

"Can't help but wonder what it says about you, though," he adds more quietly — which is not, at all, the same as saying it's softer — "that you went after some of those conclusions so hard, you weren't jumping to them so much as you were... oh, constructing elaborate structures to help you reach them more effectively." At least one of those two cigs survived the shock of Anna's darts; he takes another very-much-needed drag, watching her with a great deal of care.

(Somewhere, in the wall of piled-up bricks above her head, a long, dark ribbon of death coils, silent and alert, echoing his brother's attention.)

"Other than, of course, that the mere fact of dykehood is hardly a good explanation for immediately assuming quite an abusive relationship out of a single brief, frustrated complaint."

(However accurate she might or might not be, with that particular assumption, in this particular myriadic case.)

Whether she's right or not, there's a hint of a chill running through her. It's not the deflection that gets her, leading her to a path that might otherwise be the definition of protesting too much. (Testing, testing, he's just protesting that this talk might not be the best thing.) No, the chill comes from the unbearable ordeal of being seen. It's astounding what invisible eyes can notice when she's—let's say accidentally laid herself so bare before them. She lets the chill pass through her as she takes a long-awaited drag.

"Sorry," she says instead. It's simple, but sincere. She doesn't turn her head upward to blow the smoke in that direction, up towards the bricks blocking her view of the sky. "We got this holiday back home for our dads, and it's coming up again. Couple weeks, probably, even if this place doesn't give a shit about Earth holidays. But, like, me and my dad, we got in the shit with each other constantly," and she's glossing over a handful of years of altercations that are now entering their second decade living rent free in Anna's head.

"I guess I get a little weird about stuff like this every year around this time. 's been on my mind lately, is all." And while yes, she's trying to deflect herself, because she's still not sure how far into the heart of danger she's walked or if she's accidentally ended up on a different expedition entirely, that leaden weight inside her comes out on every word. "But you grow up trained to be your daddy's perfect little lockstep toy soldier and tell me if that shit leaves you easy, yeah?"

She's made all of this about herself, her own misery. Taken control of the conversation after taking too many assumptions as truth. Or maybe Gus is the one who can still guide it however he wants, or maybe they can both just walk away once they're done smoking. "Anyway, sorry, dude. I really did just kind of rub my ass on all of that for no reason. And not in a slutty way, either. There's probably nicer ways to find out my tragic backstory." That's something else that has to be a joke.

Earth holidays, she says, casually dropping that into the conversation, just the cherry on top of her shirt, and the same game ~~fucking~~ John ~~fucking Gaius~~ is always so prone to playing, that he's automatically fallen into, too — and after ten thousand years, does he remember how not to keep it going?

(He's so tired of John's endless bullshit.)

His voice is as hollow as his sleeve and mask as he says, smoke forming the shape of his words, "The sort of shit that piles up into a tragic backstory will never leave anyone easily."

(— well, it isn't forming the shape of his words literally, to be fair, even if that would be pretty sweet, wouldn't it?)

He adds, deadpan: "Of course, that's probably why you're finding yourself rubbing your ass on things — to relieve the discomfort." Because of course bathroom humor is a great way of defusing the situation, right? Implications of butt-scooching? A careful, practiced flick of invisible fingers leaves all the loose ash floating away from his still-floating cigarette; between the earlier intonation, the smoke-effects, and the ash-scattering, it's all just terribly oracular — which, he supposes, might be a decent side hustle, if this clear-skin situation doesn't clear up soon, itself.

Butt also — idly questioning, because of course it doesn't matter what her answer might be — "Was that him, then? Your old man? The brought-you-into-this-world/taking-you-out-of-it part? Seems like a predictable threat, for someone pissed off that his kids are stealing his toy soldiers, even if that's his kids themselves — yourself — one of those if-he-can't-have-you,-no-one-can situations, maybe?"

Gus eyes her, speculatively; she looks... shaken, more than stirred up; close enough. He reaches into his vest, pulling out a small leather-bound flask of mostly-vodka, and tosses it at her — perfect aim, less because of Alfred's skills and more because of being able to direct the leather's path through the air. (And, well, everything attached to it, as a result.)

"It doesn't matter, you know," which actually is a little softer, not just quieter. He looks down at his hands — one black glove, one empty cuff and floating cigarette; the entire situation is just so fucking absurd, and he hates it, and he hates how much he hates it — how he can't just laugh it off. "Whoever they are, whatever they've done, it's the past, and it can't be changed — doesn't mean it's good, doesn't mean it doesn't still have an effect," he interrupts himself, before she can. "But you don't really need me to sit here in an alleyway sharpening my claws on all your old pain, any more than I particularly want you to on mine. Have a drink, if you'd like," which is also sort of a peace offering, if it's necessary.

"Some nights..." One last drag, on that second cigarette, before he flicks it off toward the dead-end wall (and it flies so fast, without him even really noticing, that it's already extinguished by the time it leaves a divot in one of the bricks thirty-forty feet away). "I wish that this all would end," as he flicks his (gloved, visible) fingers toward himself. Unclear antecedent alert: invisibility? presence in Trench? absence from Hell? relative state of life? tendency to define himself through the lens of John's attention?

"But." He shakes his head, and pulls his mask back down, and pulls his other glove on, fidgeting it into place with all the finickiness necessary to give her plenty of time to drink, or decide not to drink, and put the cap back on and offer him back his flask. "I suppose, in the meantime, I could use some friends, for a change. Who the fuck wants to die alone, in a place as madcap as this? Even if you are just as likely to make a squidward return to the Farthest Shores."  And Gus holds out his hand to her — maybe for the flask; maybe for her own hand, and an actual offer of friendship. He's not always the clearest person to read, even if his current motives are entirely transparent.

Lots of things to notice, to listen to here. She's picking up on a few things, one of which is absolutely something she's noticed a few times before, and, well. Holding off on that for the immediate moment. The second is that he really does seem to like the sound of his own voice, but it's in a way that doesn't really strike her as... pompous or anything. More like he has a lot of thoughts that are all colliding all at once and if he doesn't get them all out then he may explode.

She's familiar with the sensation.

Instead of commenting on it, though, she makes little more than "mm" every so often until he offers her the flask. She grabs it out of the air with reflexes that seem just as unnatural as the throw, but she's already revealed her own little secret so that's less of a big deal. Before opening it, she frees up her own hand by flicking her cigarette across the alley with a little less strength behind it and watches the red extinguish into a tiny trail of smoke as it hits the damp ground.

There's a moment there like she's debating whether she wants to drink something that someone else's lips have been on, but that's more a learned response from the past couple years at home than anything else. Deciding it can't be a bigger risk than anything else here, she opens the flask and takes a respectable drink from it. She handles it like a pro, frankly, not that that's something to be particularly proud of. Vodka has never been her poison of choice, but she supposes that asking someone who's offering free alcohol if he can turn it into Jack is a little presumptuous.

She finishes, caps the flask, and hands it back, then finally speaks up. "Thanks. And you know, there's something on my mind that I think I can ask you. Now that we're friends and all." She doesn't wait for a reply, but, like, why would she. She pushes off the wall only long enough to rotate her body so her arm is pressing against the brick instead. "So my big question is this—and it's, like, more of a question to me, I guess. But it's the kind of question that has its own answer."

From this position, it might be easier to see a few silver lines etched along the metal of her arm, but if he recognized it as the melody to a heart-crushing A Day to Remember song by the piano roll alone, she'd be shocked. "Just how much of the Fueled by Ramen discography are you planning on quoting to me before I stop letting you get away with it, Gus?"

Gus is supposed to laugh here, of course; a hah! you got me! moment, chuckle and shake his head and admire the ink on her arm, and then she'll know that he's from an Earth not that far away from hers, and a point in time not so very far away from something like the 21st Century's beginning —

There's nothing to show that his expression is blankly shocked, befuddled, baffled, bewildered — the mask, after all, isn't a second skin, or it would be just as invisible as the first, just like the stolen greasepaint was — she can't even see the way his mouth has fallen open in sheer overwhelmed confusion, as the flask wilts in his hand until it's fully at risk of being dropped, and all he can think to say is:

"... who?"

(To be fair to the flask, as concerns its contents: this vodka is both cheap and strong enough to cope with the metabolism of a Lyctor with night terrors, which may mean it's only vodka by technicality.)

Anna blinks.

This time she's sure of it. She can feel her other eye closing. If there's anything like shock, surprise, anything like that on Gus' face, she's certain she's reflecting it let's fucking say sevenfold, sure! If she still had her cigarette it would have fallen out of her mouth by now. Instead, she pushes back off the wall and stares at him. Well, best she can, at least.

"You're fucking with me, right?" she asks, since that's the only option she has. "That was just, like, the entire chorus of 'Some Nights' by fun. We traded like six different Marianas Trench songs back and forth." She's not, like, sputtering in her incredulity, but she doesn't really know how else to react to what she's hearing. She grabs the collar of her own shirt and tugs it forward far enough to expose the matte black metal below her collarbone, where the skin looks like it's coming away in cleanly divided patches. Like it was laid on top of a chassis, which would make an enormous amount of sense.

"We started with fucking Fall Out Boy? One of the biggest pop punk bands Earth's ever seen?" She lets go of her shirt with the frustration a little more evident on her face and in the way she almost throws her hand back down to her side. "Unbelievable. You're telling me it was a coincidence? All of this? Bullshit."

It would be very easy, here, just to say, Letting people down is my thing — but maybe it's for the best that that impulse is buried under another.

"What? No, I know all that," Gus says, impatient and bewildered in equal measure, dismissive hand gestures and everything.

"Those names all entered the liturgy — I documented them myself, we played all the albums until they distorted to make certain we all agreed on the lyrics the few times there wasn't a divine mandate — what are you talking about?"

He's... incredulous, maybe, that could be the tone — except there's also a sort of sick/grief layer to it. (Maybe it's just as well that he's invisible, that he's masked — the weight of every year he's ever slipped out from under is all just sitting there, in his eyes, where she can't see it.)

There's a quiet hissing sound, just above her head, that's been growing louder and louder as he speaks, even as his own voice has raised — but it's definitely audible when he stops speaking, and a very fast-moving dark smoke-brown string of lethality falls from the sky —

— falls? Swims? Behaves in a fashion a mortal snake definitely can't? That last part is certain; despite the gravity-assisted speed in launching from above, the snake in question never actually touches the ground — he hovers between the two of them in midair, head raised high and swaying, mouth open, fangs on display — and while a coastal taipan doesn't have a hood to spread, unlike some of its cousins, this one does end up with Gus's spread hand framing his head, like a hood or a halo.

"Stop, Alfred," he says, very softly — as one would, to a younger brother, rather than as one would command an attack dog to stand down.

(The snake lets more of its — his — body down, to whatever invisible surface is supporting the rest of his weight; his mouth closes... halfway. The look he gives Anna says a very clear I've still got my eyes on you, though.)

Hearing the hissing, realizing that something is coming for her, sends her hand to her hip. She's going for a blade that isn't there, but barely reflects the fear on her face when she realizes that no, she has no way to defend herself. And then the snake does something decidedly unsnakely, until the silhouette it cuts in Gus' hands reminds her very strongly of something else that she knows is dangerous. Of course, she's still got a neutral face on; it's never good to let your enemy know your fear, even if your enemy isn't ready to attack anymore.

"Your omen's got soul," she mutters. It's not appropriate right now, not after she'd almost been attacked by it—after she'd done something to almost get attacked by it. But it's all she can think to say, because if everything else hasn't made it completely clear just who and what she's dealing with, then this has definitely said outright what the previous 77 musical references were only implying.

"I'm not gonna fight anyone. Don't shake, 'cause I've never even rattled." She needs to stop. Her eye moves up, quite suddenly, to the mask, and to where she's expecting his eyes to be underneath it. It's time for her to make a choice, and she doesn't know if she likes where it's going to land her. She only has to say a handful of things, a simple sentence that she's learned the context of from someone else. She knows how important the words are, and hopes very, very desperately, once again, that this will not mean war.

"Let's try this again, Gus." Her tone is firm, insistent, but still brimming with the disbelief that caused her to push herself into danger in the first place. Her back straightens; in fact, she almost leans a little further away, hooking a thumb into the pocket of her jeans so she doesn't seem quite as threatening. She's not sure it's working. "My name's Anna Amarande." Former teenage dirtbag. Freak of the week for months running. Forever the sickest kid. "And I'm from before the Resurrection."

There's a queer sort of look on his face — on the snake's face, given that Gus's face is twice unreadable; perhaps it's the same expression either way: relief, mixed with guilt, mixed with that remnant disbelief.

Point one:

«Of course I've got soul. It was mine to begin with, long before I ever gave it to him — why wouldn't I just take it back, when I finally needed it again?» says the ... snake? Right into her head, too.

Point two:

"I'm dreadfully sorry, then," Gus says, sounding quite thoroughly somber about it, if maybe not quite all the way to funereal. "I mean, not that we aren't, too, but I suspect your phrasing is meant to indicate that you did not, personally, experience the Resurrection — did you? I hope you didn't try to sleep through the end of the world, either way."

(That might be a lie, if taken on its face — but then again, does he even know if he did?)

Point three:

Now that the apology part is out of the way, that featherweighted John is coming back to nag at the edges of his mind. "Of course," Augustine continues a bit more... slowly, a bit more cautiously, tasting his words as he goes (maybe checking them for poison? hard to say if he's for or against its presence, here), "I am left to wonder, a bit, how you would know you're from before something like that — along with wondering how you ended up a robot."

«If she slept for days, well... I don't know. I wouldn't make the same mistake.»

"Oh don't you start, or we'll be stuck like that for the rest of the day!" Gus snaps at his Omen(—beloved—brother—martyr), one hand coming up to — brush against his mask, at the bridge between those two glittering, mirrored lenses, where he can't pinch the bridge of his nose in irritation.

«Pleased to meet you, anyway, Anna, now that you're not freaking him out,» adds Alfred, quite cheerfully, even though he's a little disappointed that his brother has already ruined his chance to add Can you guess my name? at the end.

Well, she certainly doesn't have that sort of connection with Vier, she knows that much. So hearing an Omen speak directly inside her head is a bit of a surprise, but then again, all of this has been a little surprising, hasn't it? It's an assault on two fronts, then, but it's a reasonable enough one that she ends up—not comforted, exactly, but definitely less on edge for a moment near the end of it.

Then he asks a barb of a question and it's always a guessing game with these sorts of things. Is it safer to leave it inside her or tear it out? She may have thought the latter before, but there's already too much blood on this metaphorical dance floor and she'd rather not spill any more if she can get away with it. Because she knows it will only be hers. She answers, then, in just as careful a tone, no flowers for her armor but steel and fiberglass.

"You," she starts, and her eye moves, "And Alfred aren't the first representatives of the Nine Houses I've met. You're not gonna be the last, either, at this rate. And given what you're actually picking up from all the bullshit I'm putting down... you'd be from the First." It's almost a question, but she has the strangest feeling that she's exactly correct.

"All you need to know about the robot thing is that I didn't start off this way." That, she thinks, is more than enough to share while she's still feeling things out. "I've always been a bit of a special case when it comes to The House That Would Be First, or whatever a cool, mysterious way of talking about it is." She has so much more that she could tell, right now, but there's no way she plans on tipping her hand. Not now, and not to Gus until she's damn sure.

"It still hasn't happened when I'm from. Lots of things that are building to an apocalypse," she adds just ever-so-cheerfully, "But nothing that's tipped the scales yet. Imagine my surprise when I found out about what my own future holds."

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."

Probably for the best she can't hear him too clearly, or pick up on that inaudible "bitch", because she would have quite a bit to say to him. After all, she's the one who actually remembers things directly. Which is a fun little tidbit that Anna was not aware of.

"Losing time?" She leans back, stretches one arm up above her head, raps her knuckles on the wall behind her. It's as casual as she can make something look when inside, she's feeling extremely smug. Or, okay, no, the smugness isn't overwhelming, but she's pretty sure it's going to bleed out into her words in a second. And she's equally pretty sure that she can use it to avoid answering the question at hand, too.

"'Fraid I don't know what you mean, Gus. I left home in September 2021, and I got here in September 2021. No lag at all." She does have two missing months back in summer 2018, but if she were to answer the questions he's asking about that, she does know what happened—in broad strokes. Broad, lesbian flag-colored strokes. That can be a story for later, she decides. Her arms drop to her sides and she stops pretending to stretch.

"Now who's the one making an awful lot of leaps? See, my Earth's still alive and kicking, at least for another couple generations." She recognizes, as the sentence forms itself in her head, that she is about to say what could only be described as some fuck shit, given who she is and how little she actually comprehends. But she's got the pieces and she's gonna keep putting them together into sentences until she finds out what happens. "We ain't all gotta dip our toes in the River and face down its horrible beast to end up here."

Augustine's expression goes on a journey of epic proportions that no man, woman, child, or Omen will ever truly appreciate or comprehend, here, and in the end he does something that Anna is proooooobably not expecting:

A golf clap.

"Charming," he says, as if he means the word as an approving compliment; he... doesn't, mostly. "And quite clever, too, I grant you. Congratulations on not getting iced in the process of being quite a few generations too early for what I meant, as well — and I am just terribly sorry for you that you missed out on all the rest of Mister Stump's music, at least so far as hearing it live is concerned."

(The phrase he wants, here, is "attending concerts", but it's not as if he has any memory of attending an Earth-based punk-pop-rock concert to draw from; alas.)

"The next time you'd like to show off your cleverness, however, I'd advise you to do a bit more research into the confluence of rivers and beasts, capitalized or otherwise — although I will grant you that I've always felt quite lucky that I never had to deal with being attacked by a hippopotamus."

Are they done here? They might be done. He's straightened up, standing ready to turn and walk away from her, at any rate — but he's stopping to adjust his gloves, keeping a wary eye on her; something about that stretch, and the way she was knocking on the brick wall, just isn't sitting right with him.

(Alfred coils around his shoulders, both comfortable and alert to any possible danger sneaking up from behind — terribly useful trait, in a place like Trench.)

Anna has no desire to threaten Gus, though she recognizes that her penchant for throwing words together like a great gnostic mad lib may have ended this conversation prematurely. Still, she got out of it without having to talk about Teacher quite so readily, and specifically her relationship with him, and she will—for the moment, at least—count that as a win.

"I'd clap with you, but only one of us has a ticket to the end of the world," she says, her body turned so her arm is pressing up against the wall again. She's not making any moves one way or another, but inside, she idly wonders if maybe he's trying to threaten her. Of course, she could always just go back to her own source on the beast in the River, provided that she can track him down again. Hopefully, Ortus made it off that boat after all.

"Look me up," she offers instead. "If you have any questions about what it was like. Since you're missing time and all." Another thing to add to her litany of suspicion, she guesses. "Glad we got to have this talk, Gus. Hope the next one you have goes well." And, again, though her voice is calm, there is a godawful, shitty feeling of dread in her fission bomb heart. Because she's not the only one who talks with God, and she has a lot more to lose if a talk goes bad.

"I'm going to choose to believe that we're equally likely to encounter the end of the world from here," Gus observes, still mild as yellow cake — a little bit sweet, a little bit deadly, as it were. "Besides — I never said I was missing time, either, even if I made a mistake in thinking you might have been, had you been from a point in time as late as it seemed."

Technically speaking, one has to assume he was just as dead as everyone else, when the world ended, whether or not he got the chance to beat the rush, right? Now it's just him and his brotherly plus-one in this very strange afterlife.

"I'll keep an eye out for you," he concludes — a promise, a warning, a threat, all of the above no doubt — and then he steps out of the alleyway.

And, well.

Disappears.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

May 2022: Augustine the First catch-all

1. What a Blessed Day (cw: oh hell, darkblood bugs)

(cw: strong chance terminal illness will be mentioned in the thread in general!)

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(not-here: a weird morning in later May)

pay no attention to the man behind the mask

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