Chapter Text
Jonathan Sims had died, and that suited him just fine.
After all, he had expected to, even if it hadn’t happened quite the way he’d envisioned. Still, one way or another, he had accepted that the moment he ascended the god-forsaken tower alone, everything that made him human – all that remained that made him Jonathan Sims – would die at its peak. An Eldritch monster would emerge from his carcass; a necessary evil with the ability to enact a mercy killing upon the entire suffering world. To bring the endless nightmare to an end. He had long since made his peace with that.
In the interest of honesty, then, Jon had been more prepared for a metaphorical death. He hadn’t accounted for a hero to ascend the tower after him. For that hero to be his own boyfriend, Martin.
And what do heroes do to monsters skulking at the top of ominous towers?
A car door opened somewhere at Jon’s side, and a flurry of panicked voices circled him.
“Jesus Christ, what happened up there?”
“O-Oh my God…Jon?”
“Martin, what the fuck?”
“J-just drive! Drive, please!”
“I’m not driving until you tell us what is going on! Is Jon—”
“He’s…He’s…! I…I…I…! He asked me to! I-I-I didn’t want to do it, but…Basira, he was going to…”
Martin’s voice shattered around sobs, as he’d carried all his grief and despair down from the tower’s peak too.
What sort of hero carried the monster’s carcass out of the tower to weep over?
The display moved whoever sat in the driver’s seat, however, as the screech of wheels told Jon that they’d finally made a move.
“What do you mean, he asked you to kill him? Wh-what about Elias? Is he dead too?” Basira prompted.
Elias. Elias wasn’t the monster, Basira, Jon thought. That was me. What he made me. He was Doctor Frankenstein, killed by his own creation. Nothing more.
A wayward speed bump sent Jon – and a number of empty energy drink cans on the floor – jostling, knocking him out of his rumination.
Wait.
He shouldn’t be ruminating at all. Jonathan Sims was dead.
So why was he thinking? Why could he hear the rumbling of tarmac under speeding wheels, the panicked voices around him? Why could he feel the crusty wool of a knitted jumper under his cheek, the warmth of an arm supporting his cradled form?
Martin sniffed, managing to answer Basira after a moment to gather himself. “Y-yeah, Elias is gone. Jon, erm…Jon killed him and, erm…took his place. I-I was too late. If I’d been a bit quicker, i-if I’d set off sooner, I might’ve—”
“I can’t believe you brought him down with you,” a familiar voice said from somewhere in front of him, cutting across Martin’s lament. “What were you thinking?”
“I-I couldn’t just leave him there, Melanie!”
“Pfft. I could have…”
“Right, no, I’m sorry, you know what, Melanie? I appreciate you’ve had a pretty rubbish time of it, I really do, but we all have. A-and I’ve…I’ve killed my boyfriend, and I know you don’t like him, but for once, could you…could you…”
Oh, Martin, Jon thought, his heart cracking at the same moment Martin’s voice did. That tightness in Martin’s tone only showed up when he tried to hold back tears. Whenever he got frustrated at himself for their prickling presence.
“Martin,” Basira warned, her steady, calmer voice momentarily taking command. But Martin wouldn’t back down this time.
“No! No! I-I…I’m not going to apologise for not leaving him there to b-burn, Basira! I’m not! It wasn’t his fault! He was…He was doing what he thought was right! H-He wasn’t trying to replace Elias, I swear! He doesn’t deserve…”
“I’m not arguing with you on that, Martin. You weren’t the only one to lose your…your partner in all this. I get it, all right? Just shut up and look outside for a second.”
Silence settled over them, save for the continued rumbling of the speeding car. Jon, still prone against Martin’s chest, pretended he didn’t notice the flash of green behind his eyelids forming a bizarre monochrome painting of London as he tried to pinpoint what Basira was referring to.
He was dead. He wasn’t breathing. He certainly wasn’t Seeing. They were gone. The Dread Powers, Elias’ macabre guests with all their gifts, had been vanquished atop the towering Panopticon, exiled to other realities. Jon had died in the knowledge that he’d damned other worlds to the Fears, swayed from his stubborn stance to keep them locked in this world by one simple, human desire.
The idea of the world viewing him as a monster brought nothing but indifference to Jon these days. But for a brief moment, back at the tower, Martin’s eyes had shone with true horror when he looked up at Jon. For one awful second, the man he loved had looked at him and seen a monster too.
Jon’s heart twisted cold with shame at the idea of releasing the Fears upon other worlds. But the idea of Martin considering him a monster made it lash out against his ribs in utter despair.
So he’d done the only thing he could do. Jon had told Martin to slay the beast atop the tower. To save the world. Be the hero.
After all that, surely they had to be finally free of the Fears. Basira was right; his death acted as the last brick in a long road to a bittersweet victory, but many more stretched out behind him. Gerry. Tim. Sasha. Daisy…
“Basira…Those people watching us. Who are they?” Martin asked.
“No idea. But I’ve seen three of those suited weirdos since we left the Magnus Institute. All with the same lanyard round their necks, did you see? Look, push him out of sight, would you? I’ll get us out of the city.”
If he could move, Jon might have protested at the notion of being shoved away like cumbersome luggage. But in Martin’s defence, he didn’t push him as Basira suggested. Instead, he maneuvered Jon with careful hands so that he was lying horizontally across the back seats of the car. Someone’s legs pressed up under his calves, and the denim of Martin’s jeans rubbed against his cheek – no one would be able to see him from outside unless they pressed their faces against the windows.
Unless they can See, Jon thought. But that would be impossible, even for him.
No more Seeing.
No more Knowing.
No more ungodly powers of any form for anyone.
──── •✧• ────
How long they drove for, Jon couldn’t say. Enough time had passed for Martin to finally break down crying, then ebb away into sniffles and sobs several times over. His fallen tears dried on Jon’s cold cheek, but he couldn’t do anything that might have soothed the poor man of his guilt.
How could he? He was, as Jon kept repeating to himself like a mantra, dead. He’d died once before. All the signs were present and correct. The creeping cold sliding into the miniscule space between his muscles and his skin; the agonisingly locked senses, save for his hearing, strangely enough. And this time, no nightmares on rotation plagued him.
The Eye has gone, Jon assured himself. This is proof. I should be drowning in nightmares right now, but there’s nothing. They’re gone…They’re gone…It worked, Martin. Please don’t cry…
The creak of faux leather caught his attention then. Melanie had evidently leant forwards to turn the volume up on the radio, because soon the air was filled with the booming voice of an RP-accented newsreader who sounded, in Jon’s opinion, like he was on the verge of tears or laughter. Perhaps both. The poor bloke probably hadn’t been trained on how to deliver the news after the apocalypse.
“Christ, how’d they get back on the air so quickly? It’s been, what, two hours?” Melanie scoffed, voicing Jon’s own view on the matter. “Guess nothing keeps a proper journalist from a good news story. Or a bad news story.”
“Maybe he was stuck in a Domain that happened to be his workplace? Woke up and got back on with his job,” Basira retorted. Jon couldn’t tell if she was joking; he’d never been very good at that. With her often deadpan and even-keeled tone coupled with his own lack of skill with reading social cues, Jon found himself blundering with Basira more often than not.
“Shh! He said something about weird goings-on,” Georgie piped up by Jon’s feet, her voice having taken on a strangely raw tone. Had she been crying? And God, had he been half-lying on his ex-girlfriend for the last few hours?
Might explain Melanie’s bad mood, Jon thought. World might be saved, I’m dead, but somehow, I still manage to make Melanie grumpy.
“—conference hosted by the Ministry of Defence in the last few minutes. The MOD has confirmed the existence of what it is calling ‘visual reflections’ in some parts of the country where the nightmare zones were strongest.”
“Nightmare zones? That’s what they’re calling the Domains?” Melanie commented with a tut of disapproval. “Well, at least they’re not pretending it didn’t happen.”
“Hard to pull off a cover-up for something the entire world experienced. Besides, they’re probably calling the Domains a thousand different things around the world,” Basira said. “We’re going to be hearing about the ruined world for years in a bunch of different ways. Better get used to it.”
“That’s what you’re getting from this? Didn’t you hear what he said? ‘Visual reflections’ of the Domains…” Georgie’s comment trailed off, and Jon pretended he wasn’t watching her through the green mist dancing behind his closed eyelids. She looked out of the window, as though she might spot such a dreadful echo manifesting right by the car.
“We can dig into it more after we’ve dealt with Jon,” Basira remarked, bringing the car to a sudden stop. “Speaking of which…this’ll do.”
A heavy silence squashed its way into the already overly packed car. In a small voice that might have killed Jon on the spot were his heart still beating, Martin asked, “What’ll do? Where are we?”
Basira opened her door and headed out of the car. A few seconds passed, then the door at Martin’s side above Jon’s head opened, letting a blast of cold air and the scent of wet grass and soil surge in.
“Daisy used to use this place for…sorting this kind of thing out,” Basira finally answered him. Two hands gripped under Jon’s armpits then, but two larger hands grabbed his shoulders and kept him in place.
“Wh—no! We’re not…We’re not burying him in the woods, Basira! What the…no! Why would you even think that—”
“Martin, listen to me! Jon is gone. He’s gone, and I know it hurts, but…but people saw him. People know him. And eventually, someone’s gonna figure out who caused all of that before.”
“It wasn’t his fault! H-he didn’t do it on purpose; Elias made hi—”
“It doesn’t matter, Martin! Not to them! People will want answers. They will look for someone to blame. Is that what you want? For the whole world to remember Jon as a monster? To drag his corpse to every laboratory across the world to be picked apart and studied? For him to be cut to bits a-a-and auctioned off as relics of the Antichrist to morbid collectors or some shit like that? Or do you want him to rest?”
Cold splashes found their way to Jon’s cheek once again. The truth of Basira’s words struck colder though. Would that fate be worse than what she proposed? Probably. But then again, being buried in the woods – these woods in particular – among his fellow monsters, still able to hear, able to think. No. No, that would stop eventually, Jon assured himself. Surely it would stop eventually.
“I…That’s…Look, not here. He hated what happened here. Said he’d never felt as helpless as that day with Daisy. I can’t…I can’t bury him here.”
“It’s a good spot. No one will dig him up, Martin," Basira assured him. "I promise you.”
“I don’t care! He’d hate it!” Martin snapped, hysteria threading into his words. The muscles in his thighs tensed under Jon’s cheek, as though he’d debated standing up before remembering where he was. “He’d hate being shoved here of all places, a-a-and being buried! No, I…We’re not burying him!”
“Fine,” Basira snapped, drawing her hands away from Jon. “Then we cremate him. I’ll take us somewhere people won’t see the flames, and—”
“N-no, no, no, no burning either! He’d hate that too!”
“Martin, we don’t have a lot of options,” Georgie tried to convince him, taking a softer approach. “I mean, he’d hate a burial at sea too, right?”
Martin sniffed. “Yeah…Too cold and…Lukas-y.”
“Exactly. It has to be your choice, Martin, of course it does. But we have to do something for him. Jon deserves to rest, doesn’t he?”
Another sniff. Fingers found their way to Jon’s hair, brushing above his ear. Then, after a long time of pondering, Martin spoke again. “I…I need to think. I need to figure it out. What’s best for him, you know?”
“I get it. You’ve been dragged through hell and back, more than the rest of us. You need some breathing room. Listen, why don’t you leave Jon with me for a bit and go clear your head? Maybe a little walk, a bit of fresh air? I’ll keep an eye on him, I promise.” A rustle of fabric overhead told Jon that Georgie had moved to place a hand on Martin’s shoulder, but something about her offer set Jon’s teeth on edge. Martin must have sensed it too, because he didn’t relax; his muscles remained bunched under Jon’s cheek and torso. But, for lack of a better resolution, or simple buckling under the emotional exhaustion of it all, Martin relented.
“Y-yeah…All right, that…that might help. I’ll…I’ll be ten minutes. Erm…Yeah, give me a second to think…”
Martin lifted Jon up as he got out of the car, and Georgie scooted over into his seat so that Jon’s head would rest in her lap instead. No footsteps sounded, and Jon pretended the green haze behind his eyelids didn’t paint a picture of Martin hesitating at the side of the car, hands twisting together with nervous energy as he lingered there.
Georgie leant forward and patted his elbow. “It’s all right, Martin. Go on.”
Finally, footsteps padding across grass and fading sniffs heralded Martin’s departure. Quiet descended on the car once again; guilty looks exchanged across the three women, no doubt.
Basira confirmed the plan with three words. “Ten minutes, then?”
“Still got the lighter, Georgie?” Melanie asked.
A click of metal near Jon’s head sounded. “Yeah. Yeah, still got the lighter…” Georgie said, her words weighed down with clear discomfort.
“It’s for the best, Georgie. You know Martin won’t agree one way or another. Come on. Nine minutes – and you bet he’ll be back on the dot.”
──── •✧• ────
Which was worse? The flames growing under his back, starting to lick at his clothes and skin? Or knowing that Martin wasn’t there to say goodbye?
Because surely, surely the pyre would end this strange limbo Jon found himself in. He prayed it would. When the fire purged everything from him – his scars, his marks, his mistakes, his archive, his brain – surely then his consciousness would leave. He would rest.
He and Martin had said their goodbyes, he supposed. Back up in the Panopticon. As far as Martin was concerned, Jon had left him then. He didn’t know that he’d heard everything since.
It’s just me, Jon thought. I suppose I…would rather you were here, is all. You’ve made me sentimental.
Georgie had swiftly taken the ring off Jon’s right middle finger before Basira had hauled him atop the haphazard, makeshift pyre of whatever thin pile of branches and twigs they could find within five minutes. Jon could only hope that she planned to give it to Martin, though Martin deserved a much more symbolic memento than Jon’s ring. Martin had bought him it as a gift after all – a plain black band – and told him he should wear it on his right middle finger. Something about pride. About acceptance.
The conversation had been so long ago. It had been the one Jon had always had to have with his partners at some stage in their relationship. The one that usually sounded the death knell on said relationship. Usually, after telling his partner that he didn’t have any desire to engage in bedroom activities, they grew steadily more distant with each passing day. Until it was finally time to hear ‘It’s not you, it’s me, honest’ and ‘No, no, it’s not because of that’ all over again.
Not Martin, though. No. No, Martin Blackwood had gone out and bought him a little present for it all. Of course he had. He was Martin.
The fire rose to Jon’s sides, coiling around his shoulders and snapping at his ears. Strange. The heat radiated all around him, as expected. Darkness took the place of the fire’s light, as his eyes were still shut. But the pain never arrived. He ought to be in silent agony, but instead, Jon almost enjoyed the sensation of this warm cocoon enveloping him.
Lightless heat, wrapping around him and scorching away his shackles. Nothing hurt. His blazing god, roaring in the darkness, scorching the earth without so much as a sparkle of comforting light, would keep him safe so long as everyone else burnt. Nothing would ever hurt again if he stayed here in the dark desola—
No!
But it was too late. Something in Jon’s chest stirred.
Thud. Thud. Thud-thud. Thud-thud. Thud-thud.
The green mist behind his eyelids bled, pouring down the vague picture like lava. The heat of the fire wormed into his melting skin, into his boiling muscles, into his burning heart. No, not heat.
Power.
“Stay here," the fire hissed in Jon’s ear. “Stay here and die in the warmth, in the comfort. Rest now, Archivist, and maybe we’ll all wake up and drag ourselves from your ashes.”
Despite the heat suffocating him from every angle, Jon’s heart pulsed cold. Still, the whispers continued, resonant and tripping over itself in its glee.
“We who crawl and choke and blind and fall and twist and leave and hide and weave and burn and hunt and rip and bleed and die. We’ll awaken and claw our way out of your sad, broken body, but that’s all right. Hush now. You’ll be resting.”
The voice tangled and mutated, becoming something eerily familiar. Becoming someone’s particular drawl that Jon had hoped never to hear again.
“It won’t be your problem any more, Jon. All you have to do is let them go. You’ve done it once already, with my help. It shouldn’t be so difficult to do it again.”
The choice appeared before Jon once again, though this time, it travelled on black flames that crawled up his body and blinded his eyes.
Wake up…or stay asleep.
Somewhere behind the hissing voices, the undercurrent of wicked laughter, and his hammering heart, someone screamed. It shattered through the burning air with ice-cold proficiency, slamming straight into Jon as though it had burst from his own throat.
“No! Jon! What are you doing? You promised! You said…! Jon! JON!”
Martin’s desperate pleas faded as the whispering returned, curling around his ears with a tempting offer of peace.
“Come now, Jon. Don’t you deserve your rest?”
It had to be more than a stubborn desire to run contrary to anything Elias Bouchard might say that caused Jon to open his eyes and behold the soaring inferno he lay within.
But it certainly helped.
──── •✧• ────