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... I had hoped we were past this... I thought we were past this kind of thing. Some part of me still hopes he's just stupidly making some big show cause he's upset but will come to his senses on things and leave the three of you alone.

I'll be alright. [She takes a deep breath and smiles.] I know all three of you can handle yourselves, but you also... shouldn't have to, you know?

Don't suppose you've got any idea as to how he managed to break his curse without actually working for it, do you?

[ If it's a technicality he'll be irritated but that's better than there being some other magic user out there who broke it on Maul's behalf. The thought had crossed his mind. ]

I had too, love. When we first got here I thought he was showing actual progress and now---He's not going to let this go. It's not who he is.

You shouldn't have to shoulder this but it's harder when---we can't help the people we love. I've been there before. [ He knows that smile. The brave in the face of look. He's sad all he can offer is the flicker of one back. ] I know.

But I'm not willing to drag anyone else into this. We know what we did and why we did it. We knew the risks. This day was always a possibility.

Actually... I might. But I don't really understand it or what IT even was.

One morning I woke up and this... pink, Maulberry Milkshake version of him had broken into my kitchen.

He was super sweet and caring but didn't want me out of his sight, like he got super scary possessive. [She's mentioned this to NO ONE cause Usagi tends to do that. Maul also has no idea how deeply that version of him hit very specific triggers for her. Because it wasn't him, or rather, it wasn't all of him. She won't blame him for such a thing.]

When I managed to escape my house, I was heading to Maul's home to see if that might answer what was going on, like if this was some Trench thing. I mean, he had strawberries where his horns should have been! That's weird even for this place!

On the way there, I saw ANOTHER him, but this one all in red and this one... well if you thought the threats he made just now were bad, this one was all of his... anger and rage. He was attacking literally everyone in sight, he attacked me pretty much immediately when I refused to get out of his way.

I killed that version of him and was left with this red crystal.

[Is Usagi downplaying having to kill one of her best friends and being trapped in her own home? Yes, cause that's not the point right now and it's not like it matters that she got electrocuted and stabbed with a lightsaber cause she's healed and fine and dear lord does she put up with a lot of her own volition.]

Maybe... maybe the answer is somewhere in that? I'm sorry, I'm not... I wish I were smarter to help figure it out. He told me how he was supposed to break the curse, the remorse thing...

And honestly, I do understand why you all did it.

I told him as much that he can't keep making very real threats and whether or not he acts on them and people not defending themselves from it, from him.

[ Despite the very real threats and danger of what's going down. What Usagi is telling him is disturbing on multiple levels. Not just the idea of some strange version of Maul reminiscent of some old school doll for kids (which is a cursed image all its own, thanks) but the fact that she didn't seem to mention this to anyone. His eyebrows go up towards his hair and he shakes his head. ]

Have you told anyone this outside of me?

[ His mouth purses a bit. ]

Don't put yourself down, love. There's enough of that going around without adding more to the fire. If there's more than one of him--- [ He's thinking. He can't imagine a version of Maul that feels any sort of remorse. Unless it was the tot he looked after a bit way back in Deerington. He's not even sure it matters anymore. With everyone having access to some level of blood magic here, he's not sure that a curse would even hold here.

It took all three of them and drained Constantine terribly. They'd nearly had to stop the spell. ]

You can tell him all you want, love. It won't make him suddenly change. If the curse didn't remotely help I'm not sure there's anything that can. I'd hoped---I tried the curse cause I didn't think resorting to other options then was the way to go about it. I didn't think it would help anything.

Willow and Luna, Obi-Wan... He didn't know what was going on either. [She should she have said something? She bites her lip and takes a deep breath, feeling like an idiot. Her concern had been to just stop him from hurting others. She hadn't even thought of his curse.]

Again, I'm sorry. The curse didn't even enter my mind while dealing with either version. [Considering one was keeping her trapped in her house and the other was trying to murder her, she can be forgiven for not immediately thinking this was some way to break his curse.]

He... He was doing better. But... [She rubs her face and lets out another slow breath.] But his rage is more important to him than anything else, I guess.

This place and it's bloody stupid excuse for magic messing with all of our lives, I'd wager. [ Possibly. Too late to worry on that now. Won't change anything. They've all of them got to go on from here. ]

Usagi. [ Said on a very tired and mildly frustrated exhale as he stops what he's doing and braces his hands on the table he's near. John takes a moment to count a few numbers up in his head. ]

It's not enough, don't you see that? It's not enough that he was doing better. You could love him brighter than the sun shines and it wouldn't be enough because at the end of the day he's the one that has to want to change. You can't do his changing for him. It doesn't work like that.

[ A weighted pause. ]

If I were you, any of you, I'd get as far away from him as I could manage. It won't end well.

[When he says her name like that, she flinches, not because he is particularly harsh (though his next words are), but because she knows how she sounds. She knows that what she experiences with Maul does NOT make up for the nonsense he pulls. She knows how it must seem, that she be the one insisting and insisting "no, please, listen, he's getting better." But what Maul shows and does for her is NOT what he shows and does for everyone else.

A suddenly very sick feeling creeps in and she inhales sharply as her mind puts Prince Saphir side-by-side with herself, asking her to forgive horrible actions the same way he did. Maul is not Diamond, she is not Saphir. She lets the thought go, closing her eyes and quickly wipes at them. She has no right to cry when it's John and Willow and Luna's lives on the line while she sits pretty and safe. ]

I know it doesn't work like that. [She whispers, she sounds... tired. She suddenly feels all of the thousands of years her memories actually are. Beryl, Wiseman, Nehellenia, Pharaoh 90... Chaos loving them to be better was never an option. But if someone had loved them, what would have been different, if anything? She had embraced Chaos in the end, opened her arms to him.

Maul was not Chaos. Maul was not Beryl, or Wiseman, or Nehellenia, or any one else from home.]

It... [It is better that John is not her. But... he is also not entirely wrong.] This one he has to do on his own, that is true.

[ It's hard to say it. It's harder to be the one going through it. John doesn't know from that side of experience but he remembers the faces of all the people he's hurt. He can still remember the feeling of Natalie shoving him away from her door so many years ago: Damn you, John Constantine! Of Herc's face when he tried to tell him he'd used a spell and everything between them was a lie. Pushing away from the kids for weeks cause he was a coward. ]

Take---[ His jaw tenses when he sees her wipe at her eyes and he finally musters his energy again to start gathering his supplies to put in his bag. What comes next is not said lightly at all. It isn't a plea for someone to try and expound upon how different John is from Maul. It's just fact. ]---take it from someone with similar life experience if you still have trouble seeing him for what he is.

[ He stops and levels his gaze on her. ]

I've hurt so many people, Usagi. I've wrecked the lives of my best mates. Their families. Some have found it in their hearts to forgive me for it, and I don't deserve that still. Others told me they'd kill me if they ever saw me again. Back home the only thing I've got waiting for me at the end of it all is Hell. Actual, literal Hell because I have done terrible things. [ His jaw works and he finds it harder to look at her now having bared so very much. He picks up another bottle of herbs and shoves it in his pack. ] Being back in Deerington and here now in Trench is the first time people thought---I thought--- that I could do something more.

And I've made mistakes here too. I've still hurt people. Each time I try to do better and be better. Not just because the people who care about me deserving it. It's cause---cause for the first time I think maybe I deserve it too. But that doesn't mean I don't have to bloody work for it.

Maul, he doesn't see it that way. He thinks he's owed it. There's a hole right through the center of him and he's got to make the whole Universe hurt for it cause it's all he knows and he refuses to think there can be anything but that no matter what you show him. I know the only thing I am owed is an eternity of horrors and I made my peace with that a long time ago. Being here is the closest I am ever getting to Heaven.

[She looks at John and lets out a breath. He's not entirely wrong. Maul does a lot of things where he thinks he's owed it. She's yelled at him plenty of times for relishing playing the monster and then being shocked when people call him one. Maul constantly tried to take the short and easy path when it suited him, and redemption was neither short nor easy.

But she had no clue Hell, literal Hell awaited John, and that idea sounded... so desperately, deeply sad.

Why did he deserve that for all eternity? Why did anyone ever deserve that for eternity? Even Chaos, even Galaxia beings who had killed and destroyed the lives of trillions merely found themselves in the Cauldron once more, maybe one day being reborn, maybe never being reborn. Eventually, one day, someone who was their literal opposite would find herself in the same fate.

She wishes she were there beside him, to hold his hand, to stand by him in silence, to... something if only to offer him more support than just what the Omni can give him. But she also doubts her being there would offer him any sort of comfort.

Softly, and much more importantly in her mind, she says:]

I know it may not mean much, but I don't think you deserve literal Hell when all is said and done here or back home.

[She's not TRYING to change the subject. She's not trying to make this about John instead of Maul, she just legitimately feels John does not deserve the fate that awaits him.]

I know that hole, the one you mentioned inside of Maul. I've seen that hole many times, I've seen people just like him, people, as you suggest, like you too, who would see the whole universe completely destroyed because maybe the power they gain or the destruction they cause will fill that hole.

And we both know, it can't and doesn't.

[ It's less about being right and more drawing from his own experience. How many times did he rush headlong into something because he had something to prove? How many times did he disregard strong advice because he was right? For all the times he's had to make those calls that no one else was willing to make there are a hundred other times he should've stood down. Shelved his ego. It might've saved more lives.

It smarts, what she says. Yes, back home he has his soul firmly back in his hands and he might be able to change things. There's still the very real possibility that he will find some way of mucking it up. ]

Celestial wankers in charge don't see it the same way, love.

[ Not that he puts a lot of stock in those sorts anyway. Hell has made itself more real to him than any other. His experience with any form of the Almighty was in an Angel jerking him around by his own chain for his own means. Dangling the prospect of salvation in front of him and just out of reach. ]

No, it doesn't. Redemption might not fill it either at the end of the day but it's better than ruining every last good thing there is.

[She wonders if her world is lucky or not, there are the senshi and there is the Galaxy Cauldron. Goddess and defenders of their planets. But there are still other religions and gods, Rei was a Shinto Maiden and could perform all sorts of abilities attached to it. Rei also went to a Catholic school.

She doesn't know if there is a heaven or a hell. She's pretty sure wouldn't be seeing it anyway if there was.]

I agree, it is better than ruining every last good thing there is. I've done as much as I can to protect the very last good things there are.

Waiting for me is an eternity of defending it.

Edited 2022-03-20 22:54 (UTC)

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