"Why do we joke, Peter? Why do we joke about this, why do we joke? Why do we do it if it can't keep it from happening?"
He can't answer that, god, an answer to that doesn't exist, no consciousness in the universe knows the right thing to say now. Words aren't right right now, nothing is, nothings right, it isn't right to be alive.
His hands are dumb and clumsy, he can't feel them as he slaps at Egon's wrists, grabs them upon their instinctive release and yanks them away. He shouts some familiar nick-name to try and tear his attention, or at least his eyes, away from what he had dropped. But he won't, he won't even blink.
He wants to make him look away, turn away, but he can't let go of the hands, because then they'll return to it. He can't let them return to it, he can't let this be that real.
"Maybe its not- maybe its not-" Where has his breath gone? Has he lost the ability to breath as well as think?
"Its his fucking head Peter!" The words, screamed, so full of venom and grief and self-loathing seem echoed in every respect by a single drop of blood as it fell from Egon's hands, his shaking fingers once so sure.
He could feel reality diverging into two separate universes as he watched those hands shake. In one, Egon never touched a screwdriver, or any other tool, ever again, too consumed with the fact that he had, however unintentionally, killed someone.
No, not just someone, but someone in whom he had faith, in whom he found as much faith and twice the affection. And, in the backseat, lingered the knowledge that Peter could never look at him the same, that Peter could never be the same either. Or Winston. And oh, god, Janine... Every individual aspect of Egon's world that had just been destroyed was falling in on him now, and this first universe seemed more likely.
But the second, any possibility of the second, made Peter shake, troubled him somewhere deep in his gut, made the blood on those hands fear for his life. Because when this joke became reality, what stopped the others? What stopped the idea that there was, inside Egon, someone evil, someone terrible, waiting to get out?
"I'm very excited for you, really. Just please don't blow up the house, or yourselves... or anything else."
"Well, that has never been our intent."
"I dunno, Egon, I think there's an evil overlord somewhere deep down inside you."
"Then let me rephrase: it has never been our intent to blow ourselves up." Egon smirked.
"Does 'ourselves' include me?" overlapped with Ray's "Aww, but if you became an evil overlord I'd have to stop you."
"Of course it does. Unless you anger me. And for your sake, Ray, I'll give up my designs on malevolent monarchy."
"That's just not fair. You'll destroy me if I make you mad, but you'll give up world domination for him?"
"It was a joke, Peter. And beside, you may have my body and mind but Ray has my heart."
The entire conversation seemed so, so long ago, but was now twisted in a malevolent light. Was Egon's heart destroyed, too? Was that it for the world?
Egon's eyes ripped away from the disembodied head - it barely looked like a head anymore, oh, god - and nothing on his face yet justified any of Peter's fears, but - he felt like he should know Egon well enough to know which would happen, but he just didn't know anything anymore.
Peter released the wrists of those shaking hands - now with the white imprints of fingers - and made sure to pin them as he squeezed their two bodies together in more fumbling, desperate gestures, desperate for this be over in whatever sense grace would grant it to be.
It was just uncomfortable warmth, blood from at least two sources, and sweat, though, no comfort, no need.
Only distantly Peter was aware of Winston dragging each of them in turn, limp as corpses - he felt like a corpse - away from the physical horror of the scene that would haunt them all for the rest of their days, in varying degrees.
Fate was such a cruel bitch, such a cruel bitch... it hadn't even been the explosion, it had been, he had fallen back on something, some device, some instrument, and his head, his head had just, and it was just over, just over...
They should be surrounded by rubble, fading away themselves, but no, no, here they were surrounded by the familiar things, with just one collapsed wall hiding the rest of him...
Questions welled up in his mind when Winston finally had him out of the room. But he couldn't ask them, he couldn't do that to Egon... was it doing it to or for? He didn't even know.
And in a coarse voice, Egon summed all these feelings into a nice, neat package that seemed to bring everything back into focus. "What have I done?"