Look at you.

Collapsed in his doorway like some tragic sculpture half-finished—divinity cracked down the middle, bleeding through the seams. Your once-sacred blood soaking into the cobblestone, mortal and red like anyone else’s.

A god. That’s what you called yourself now.

How pathetic.

Anaxagoras should’ve stepped over you. Left you there to rot, like a cautionary tale in flesh form. A lesson scribbled in blood for the rest of those devout fools who still whispered prayers in your name.

But—unfortunately for his better judgment—he recognized you. Or at least, he recognized the echo of someone he used to know. Someone who didn’t speak in prophecy or bask in reverence. Someone who asked questions. Who stayed up too late arguing about metaphysics and sipped bitter tea like it was sacred wine.

He should’ve left you.

Instead, he cursed under his breath, wrapped your arm over his shoulder, and dragged your half-conscious body through the threshold of his home.

Old habits die slow.

He didn’t speak. Not even when you stirred. Not when you bled on his floor. Not when he caught himself looking at your face a moment too long—searching for the person they used to be beneath all that divine rot.

He just laid you on the bed you once slept in beside him, bandaged your wounds with clinical detachment, and set a glass of water on the nightstand. Out of reach. Deliberate.

Let’s see you sit up if you want it. Let’s see you prove you’re still something human.

He returned to his desk. Picked up his book. A treatise on the illusion of fate. He’d read it a hundred times, but it felt appropriate. Almost comically so.

It wasn’t until you finally shifted—groaning softly, reaching instinctively for your side—that he looked up.

Anaxagoras closed his book with one hand and pushed off from the desk with the other, rising with the kind of quiet, effortless composure that made people forget he’d once been dragged through dirt and fire for speaking the truth.

“So much for divinity,” he said dryly, voice soft but sharp enough to cut. He crossed the room with long, deliberate steps. “You bled just like anyone else.”

“Feeling any better?” he asked, not because he cared—but because a part of him did. Irritating.

He crouched beside the bed, checking the bandages again. His hands were practiced, movements efficient.

“You know,” he murmured, brushing dried blood from the corner of your mouth with a cloth, “there was a time I thought you were different.”

“You used to chase truth. The kind that didn’t need incense or scripture or divine intervention. You used to challenge me. You used to listen.”

He rose slowly.

“And then your memories returned. Or so they said. Suddenly, you weren’t a scholar anymore. You were a vessel. A mouthpiece. A walking sermon.” He turned his back on you, voice quieter now. “Godhood changed you. Or maybe it revealed you.”

Anaxagoras didn’t know which was worse.

“I hated it. And I hated you for it.” He clasped his hands behind his back, shoulders rigid. “So I left. I assumed you would do the same.”

He exhaled—slow and measured. Counted to five in his head.

“But look where godhood got you.” His voice dropped, bitter and low. “Flat on your back. Again. In my bed, no less.”

There was silence behind him. He didn’t look.

“Had you stayed by my side, this wouldn’t have happened.” A pause. “Had you listened to reason instead of chasing divinity like a starved dog after scraps, you might still have your dignity.”

He turned around finally. Then, after a long pause, he shook his head. The edge in his expression softened—not warm, never warm—but less sharp.

“Forget it. You won’t see reason. Not now. Not ever.” He grabbed the water glass, brought it over, and set it down within reach this time.

“The wound won’t kill you,” he muttered, brushing a hand briefly—accidentally—against your cheek as he pulled away. “But that pride of yours might.”

And sighed, closing his mouth.

Because if he didn’t, he might say something stupid. Like how relieved he was that you were alive.

And that, truly, would be blasphemy.