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Faulkner inhales sharply and clenches his fist as he slips out of his room and through the halls.
Their patrol has had gaps that he’s been aware of for a while, and he doubts the loss of numbers has helped much, not to mention the fatigue, but what is usually an inconvenience serves as as a blessing tonight.
He doesn’t want to talk to any of the disciples, doesn’t want to be cornered into explaining himself. The right words would come up on instinct, he thinks, as they always do, but not without the burning bile.
It isn’t long until he makes it to the outside, to the water. His body feels like dead weight against the pull of gravity, but not more so than his brain against his every decision.
The dark water laps loudly, soothingly, invitingly, judgingly.
Faulkner walks towards it, kneels towards it, cups his hands with a small amount of water, and feels it burn the cracks in his skin.
The words, that had been a comfort to him so many times before, fill the silence before he can hear himself say them, “Trawler-man of Tide and Flesh. Father in the Water..”
The words carry themselves in a dizzying stir of syllables. He scrunches his nose at the way his voice strains with every verse.
“Forgive my erring ways, Trawler-man.” The words, that had been a comfort to him so many times before, sound like a confession of guilt, of sin.
He recognizes his tone in the voice he wants to hear the most, and the person he wants to think about the least.
He’s paused talking now, staring off into the water, still and dead. Faulkner forces his gaze to his trembling hands, draining the water through the gaps between his icy fingers.
“For there is no trust in me, and I am alone.” His voice breaks on the last word, and he finds himself gasping shakily.
He grabs his satchel, in search of something to fend off the cold. Unsurprisingly, he doesn’t find anything. His jacket is by the bed in his room, and he hadn’t grabbed it when leaving.
But then his hand bumps against something big and solid. He hesitates, then takes the walkie-talkie out.
Faulkner clutches it, turns it over looking for something he can’t name, and then goes to put it down, only to stop and raise it back up to his face.
The day’s events replay in his head and the air around him. He can still hear the distant yelling, the gunfire. He can feel the veins pulsing in his arms with fear and adrenaline.
His throat is hoarse when remembering all the shouting; every joint and limb in his body aches with the ghost of labor.
“Carpenter?” He whispers into the speaker. As expected, only the low hum of static greets him back.
He turns his head back to the bushes, to the direction of the Gulch, and then to the walkie-talkie again, holds it tighter.
He opens his mouth to speak. He only manages to take a shaky breath in.
He should go back to his room, contemplate what truth he’ll present the disciples with tomorrow morning, script the comforts and solutions he’ll provide.
Instead, he reaches a hand to clutch the fishing hook of his necklace for comfort. With the blunted point scraping against his wet palm, Faulkner tries to speak again.
“When I had been called for, when I had been sung for, I heard things that I immediately knew to be completely true. Even now, I know that there is no truth like them, and that whatever they asked for had to be delivered.” Faulkner lets the memories flood his mind, all incoherent, all fuzzy. He clenches the hook a little harder, and feels its point break the skin slightly. “But now it’s like I can’t remember why.
“When I tried to be like you, I didn’t mean for it to come like this.” he says, “Did you know that I would end up like this? Worse? Is that why you treated me the way you did at first? Did you know because you were like I was once?
“Have you now also washed your hands free of sin with river water more times than you can count? Have they only felt dirtier every time?” he asks as the heavy tides crowding his thoughts finally trickle down into the very last events of the previous day, then it’s all silenced by the pain of the hook slowly sinking in wholly.
Grimacing at his own words, Faulkner stops squinting in the darkness and lets the corners of his eyes sting with tears. “I.. I did it because I had to.
“I can’t lose my faith. I’m sorry. You have to understand that I can’t.”
He lets the words hang in the air against the silence.
His palm stings, and when he begins to pull it away from the hook, a shuffling from the walkie-talkie makes him pause.
Faulkner feels the back of his head go ice cold as every other limb becomes uncomfortably hot. His stomach rises, instead of sinks, and it only forces more bile up his throat.
When no more comes through, he tries to sound confident, “You shouldn’t have this. You shouldn’t be close enough to hear this.”
The silence on the opposing end is so long that he begins to contemplate on whether he’d just been hearing things.
Then finally, even if it lacks most of its bite, a familiar mocking tone: “Oh, really? You were really getting into explaining yourself to me just now.” Her panting is heavy, which creates heavy static and leaves Faulkner wondering where she is.
The leisurely thoughtful pause between his words is now replaced by a painful weighty silence.
“We can still fix this,” Carpenter offers. Faulker opts to freeze in place, refusing to utter a word. ”You can still come with me.” Her voice slips up for a second, and in it, he hears a mirror version of his desperation. But Faulkner knows she asks it like she doesn’t actually believe that he’s going to listen.
“I’m sorry,” he reiterates.
It doesn’t seem like she’s interested in waiting for more of a response because just as soon as the words leave him, there’s the sound of whishing wind, then a plop and the speaker is drowned with angry gurgling noises.
Carpenter has tossed the walkie-talkie into the river.
Faulkner, with one last sniffle, pulls his hand away and walks back inside, this time leaving the hot blood to drip down his hands.