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[oldhound]

spoiler warning: John Constantine has never been the bigger person in his life. Ever.

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[lightthedarkness]

[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.

[oldhound]

[ 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.

[lightthedarkness]

[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.

[oldhound]

[ 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.

[lightthedarkness]

[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.