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[enarms]

un: j. watson.

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[priorly]

No, no I know how it sounds but there is an angel. There really-

She visited me, before all this. She... speaks to me? Inside my head... I thought - I thought I was imagining it starting again. I thought I was paranoid but she's here.

[enarms]

Prior. Honestly, I've lived through weirder shit in the last three days than the possibility that angels are real. Let alone the last three months. So I can give you the benefit of the doubt there. But hearing voices in your head is going to put any doctor on edge, and I'm not any different.

[ so... we're at an impasse. John isn't even sure what he's asking for here, just - putting it out there that he's on the cusp of something and not quite sure which way he's going to go. ]

[priorly]

[Nothing for a minute except the rain getting louder, and then a shriek]

No, No! For gods fucking sake will you leave me the fuck alone. Don't come in I don't want you in here.

[And into the phone]

Just keep talking to me, please keep talking. Think I'm crazy if you want, that's fine, but don't leave me alone now.

[enarms]

[ jesus fuck. okay. okay, John. whatever it is, something is happening over there. ]

I'm not going anywhere. [ except maybe to find something to stop him from drowning on his way over there. ] I'm going to come to you, okay? I'm going to stay on the phone, I'm not going anywhere, but whatever's going on, I'd rather you weren't on your own.

[priorly]

I don't know if you can reach me. I don't know what she'll do if she gets here first. I'm scared, John, I think she's angry.

[enarms]

[ and then there's the dilemma of going outside - will it make it impossible to talk him through it over the phone? John sinks down to perch on the edge of a table near the door, undecided. shit. ]

— Okay. Alright, Prior. Prior? You're alright.

[priorly]

[Even crazy, he recognises bullshit.]

I am not alright I'm being stalked by a heavenly body and any minute now she's going to come through the roof.

[enarms]

[ and he’s entirely too far away to even bother to protest that ]

Listen. Listen to me. There’s fuck all I can do about that, yeah? But you asked me to talk. I’m talking. Fuck your angel for a second and listen. How’s the hard on?

[priorly]

I've already fucked her once, you'd think that would be enough. How's my... painful, that's how it is.

[enarms]

[ a horny... angel? who prior has...? just push on through here John. ]

Good. Focus on that. — What did you - do. Today?

[ it’s really hard to try to convincingly engage in small talk when you’re not a fan of the stuff in the first place and you’re currently using it as a pathetic distraction tactic to take someone’s mind off what is either a potential fit of hallucinatory mania or an impending heavenly interaction, but he’s making a valiant effort to keep the steady authority in his voice. ]

[priorly]

[Some part of Prior can tell it's supposed to be comforting: a steady voice guiding him through the wilds of his own mind. But it doesn't work, doesn't and won't while he's not trapped in insanity but an actual living nightmare. What did he do today?]

I didn't just get back from school John, for pity's sake. I'm here, alone in the... the dark... in the... [A scream that could be Prior's voice but horribly twisted cuts off his words.]

[enarms]

[ dear god. he's good neither at a) this sort of thing, b) being helpless to help and stuck a sprint through a storm away from that being any different. and then Prior's scream, some wretched splintered thing, and John's not perching anymore.

he's not leaving either, standing suspended, the rain a barely-there barrier but one he doesn't know whether or not to breach. ]

Prior!

[priorly]

[Prior isn't here right now. Or if he is his voice is one of a mix of many, deep and inhuman.]

In the dark, in the dark, the recording Angel opens its hundred eyes, and cracks the spine on the book

the book

the book

the book.

You forget yourself, Prophet but we do not forget you.

[enarms]

[ — jesus fucking Christ.




he is, finally, left speechless at the end of the line. ]

[priorly]

You were warned of the consequences and see what has come to pass. America falls. I I I I spread my wings across Olympia now. Be not complacent, Prophet, your work begins. And not before time.

[There's a gasp and a whimper after this but it's all too human.]

[enarms]

[ there's a prolonged, stunned quiet even after it's clear that Prior's there - either still there or returned, God knows John doesn't have a clue. but he can't speak, not straight away. and when he can, after a swallowed breath or two, it's - ]

Fuck.

[priorly]

[Breathing, still labored. Finally:]

Not this time.

[enarms]

[ there's not a lot to say to that. until he finds something that comes out of his mouth before it's been run past his filter. ]

—So much for a voice in your head.

[priorly]

It was a voice. [Stating the obvious, Prior, but he sounds thoroughly shaken. It came from him somehow.] Do you think that's what people mean by speaking in tongues?

[enarms]

Maybe. [ jesus. ] That was you then?

[priorly]

Well it came out of my mouth. [A laugh, anxious - terrified - and maybe he's covering his mouth with his hand now.] I must sound crazy.

[enarms]

Not as crazy as you might've done five minutes ago.

[ this is crazy, it's absolutely mental. but Prior? well. if Prior's got voices in his head, John's heard them now. ]

[priorly]

That's something, I guess. [His voice still sounds on the edge of cracking - like he's on the edge of cracking up.] So anyway, I'm a prophet... while we're on the subject of crazy.

[enarms]

Yeah. I, uh— Heard. About that.

[ and because he can't work out what a normal reaction to this ought to be, isn't sure he's ready yet to learn more immediately, at least until he's had time to process the magnitude of the past few moments: ]

Listen, do you need company?

[ after... that. the urgency seems to have bled away somehow, but that doesn't mean the aftermath's pleasant. ]

[priorly]

I'd be very grateful. [Theres no doubt how earnest that is. But he pauses. Coughs.] Although I remain in something of an indelicate situation.