Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

iii. 

Martin is dreaming.

The dream is staticky and incoherent: a normal day at work. An earthquake. Jon, torn in two. Prentiss. Impossible corridors. A monster that defies description that makes his heart ache for something he cannot obtain. A hospital room. A flooded wasteland. A damp fog settling into his bones. A sea of corpses.

Martin is having a nightmare.

Martin wakes up.

It takes him a moment to catch his breath, and then he is bending over, vomiting into the undergrowth. It takes him a moment of retching and spitting to realise that there is undergrowth , which means he did not fall asleep in a bed. He snaps to attention and takes in his surroundings.

He’s in a jungle. Rich, lucious, and green, but it smells vaguely of rot and blood, and there are splotches of bone-white and mould-black on some of the leaves. The air is humid and warm and he can already feel sweat beading against his skin. He is lying in what appears to be the large, split open bud of a flower– nothing delicate, but instead tough and springy. It makes him think of carnivorous plants, or carrion flowers, and he wishes he hadn’t thought that almost as soon as it crosses his mind. There are strange rusted metal beams sticking up around the flower, like the posts of a canopy bed, tangled with vines. The sky above is blocked out by the leaves of the trees high above, the light streaming down a sickly-yellow green.

A low, pulsing sound echoes through the trees, rattling Martin’s brain inside his skull. He blinks and sits very still, counting his breaths, until the last of the technicolour spots dancing behind his eyelids fade away.

There are two other people here, curled up inside this flower. Children, he realises suddenly, and scrambles to his feet, panicking. Oh god, why are there children in a jungle. Why is he with children in a jungle? He’s not fit to be in charge of children in the best of circumstances, let alone in weird jungles! 

He scrambles over anyway, because the only thing worse than being unexpectedly left in charge of children in a jungle is abandoning children in a jungle. The first one he reaches is a girl– dark skin, unruly, curly hair, a smattering of freckles across her nose. Maybe eight or nine, she’s wearing big, thick round glasses, a cardigan and pleated skirt– she looks like she just got out of school for the day and decided to take a nap without changing out of her uniform. Martin hopes, ridiculously, that her parents won’t be too angry at her for rumpling her school clothes– and then feels quite stupid and hopes instead that her parents are still alive.

He shakes her awake. “Hey,” he whispers, voice coming out high and thready with anxiety. “Hey, um, excuse me, are you okay?”

The girl scrunches up her nose and blinks open her eyes. She frowns at him in confusion. “Who are you?” she asks. 

“Ah, um, my name is Martin, and–”

The girl sits up suddenly at that, rubbing at her eyes. “Wait, Martin?”

Martin is confused now. “Yes?”

“But you’re young!” the girl exclaims. Martin glances down at himself and– huh. Huh . He’s maybe fifteen or sixteen, he’d reckon, nearly full-grown and large enough to pass as an adult, even without the final growth spurt he’d had at seventeen. He’s even got the beginnings of some beard scruff beginning to form, though it’ll be a decade before it’s able to grow into anything decent. He’s wearing some old ratty jeans and a threadbare hoodie. His shoes have soles in the bottom that he can feel the moisture soaking through.

“Wait, who are you?” he asks, suddenly.

“Sasha?” the girl says, one eyebrow raised, like it’s obvious. And yeah, in retrospect, it absolutely is. 

“You’re a kid!” he says, and she looks down at herself in a mimicry of his own reaction seconds prior.

“Well,” she says, “this one’s new.” Then she looks up and around them. “Where are we?”

Martin shrugs. “No idea. What’s the last thing you remember?”
Sasha frowns, screwing up her face in concentration. “That’s funny,” she says. “I remember two things, and I’m certain both of them were the last thing I was doing, though they can’t both have been right.”

“What were they?” Martin asks, heart pounding.

“Well,” says Sasha, “I was in artefact storage, running from the worms, and there was… someone there? Something to do with that weird table. I don’t–” She shakes her head, wincing. “And then, in the other memory, I was in the Panopticon of Milbank prison, and we were fighting Jonah Magnus–”

“–and an army of Jons,” Martin finishes for her.

She nods. “Right! So that was the real one, then?”

Martin frowns. “I mean– I don’t– It definitely happened, I think. Or it was a dream? Maybe we’re still dreaming. But we’re having the same dream.”

“Right,” Sasha says, and Martin thinks she’d be doubtful, except she’s remembering it, too, that moment of connection, of togetherness, of you have fought this battle in a thousand lifetimes and you will fight it in a thousand more and you will win because you fight as one. “And the other one…?”

“I remember it,” Martin says, swallowing. “I remember, um. You… died. In artefact storage. During the Prentiss attack.”

Sasha sits back, stunned, hand subconsciously reaching up to touch her throat. “I didn’t– I remember it hurt,” she says. “And then I thought I must be misremembering, because that much pain must mean I died.”

“You did,” Martin tells her.

“How long has it been?” 

“Two years. And a couple months.” Martin shrugs. Sasha is looking at him with wide, sad, thoughtful eyes. She has braces, Martin realises, with bright pink and yellow bands. 

“You’ve changed,” she says. 

“We all have,” Martin says, and then his eyes widen as he remembers the other child in the flower. “Tim!” He scrambles over to the slumbering figure, Sasha hurrying after him. A few rough shakes are enough to have Tim shooting to his feet, staggering and dizzy and wild, before he takes in his surroundings and takes a deep breath. Tim is maybe a little older than Sasha, ten or eleven, tall and lanky for his age with a gap in his teeth and cropped short hair. He’s wearing jeans and a football tee and scuffed-up trainers. There’s still the ghost of a scar splitting his face in two, pockmarks where worms buried into his skin. Martin swallows at the sight of them.

“What the,” he wheezes, “Martin? Sasha?”

Martin blinked at him. “You recognise us?”

Tim rolls his eyes. “You haven’t changed that much,” he says snidely, then freezes, gaze flicking over to Sasha. “Sasha?” he breathes. 

“Hi, Tim,” Sasha says, quiet and sad. “I guess you remember that other timeline too, huh?”

“Sasha.” And then Tim is clinging to Sasha, sobbing quietly, and Sasha just wraps her arms around him and melts into his embrace, shoulders shaking. Martin hovers awkwardly, feeling awfully like an intruder. He averts his eyes, crossing his arms across his chest and rocking back on his heels until he hears the two of them part and can rejoin the interaction, ignoring their red eyes and noses even as they wipe at them. 

“Sorry,” Sasha says to Martin. Martin just smiles.

“It’s fine,” he says. “It’s, um, nice. To see the two of you again.”

Tim’s smile turns plastic. Sasha’s gaze turns sharp.

“You didn’t,” she says to Tim. “You didn’t die, you idiot, you didn’t–”
“Sorry, Sash,” Tim says, and his voice is hard and his face closed off again, like it always was in those last few months. “It was… Things happened. Things went wrong.” He turns to Martin. “I won though, right? Those bastards are dead?”

“Yeah,” Martin whispers. “Yeah, they’re gone.” And so are you, he doesn’t say, though every part of him is screaming to. And so was Jon. And then it was just me. You left me alone, you bastard, how could you? 

A thousand lifetimes, fighting side by side, winning every battle and yet in theirs they had abandoned him to fight alone. To lose alone.

“Good,” Tim says, angry and vindictive. Then, changing track, “So what bullshit is happening now?”

Martin shrugs, feeling himself drift further away from the two of them. Tim, so angry and vengeful and hurt that he had left without a second thought, taking everything last vestige of Martin’s normal life with him. Sasha, gone too soon, unfamiliar with the terrors they had all faced.

Martin, alone, Lonely, the last one standing.

“I don’t know,” Sasha says. “I think it’s a continuation what was happening before, with the, uh, the apocalypse?”

Tim groans. “And defeating Magnus wasn’t enough to wake us up?”

“Apparently not.”

“God I hate this job,” he mutters. “What horrifying eldritch terrors do we have to deal with this time?”

Sasha seemed caught off-guard by the bitterness in Tim’s voice, blinking at him confusedly. “We could try and get a vantage point and see what’s around us?”
“Sure,” Tim says. “I’ll climb up. See what I can see.” He stomps over to one of the rusted metal beams and begins to clamber up it. Sasha takes several steps back, until she’s standing beside Martin.

“What happened to him?” she asks.

It takes Martin a moment to realise she’s talking to him. He blinks hard, peering through the fog, tries to pull himself into the present moment. It’s growing harder and harder these days.

“You died,” he says quietly, watching Tim haul himself up, face creased in concentration. “Jon… lost it, a little. Tim lost it, a little. He got angry, and bitter, and withdrawn, and then one day he went out, and he came back in a bodybag.”

She sucks in a harsh breath. “Martin?” she calls, voice soft. “Are you… okay?” 

Martin laughs at that, harsh and painful in his chest. He doesn’t remember the last time he laughed. It hurts, skin cracking at the edges of his lips. “No,” he admits, shocking himself with his truthfulness. “I haven’t been okay in a long time, Sasha.”

She looks between the two of them, frustration and heartbreak in her eyes. “How do I fix this?” she demands. 

Martin shrugs. “You can’t.”

“What?”
“You can’t help everyone, Sasha. You’ll just end up destroying yourself. Best to save your energy.”

Her mouth settles into a hard, thin line. “I don’t want to help everyone,” she says. “I want to help you two.”

“The thing that killed you,” Martin says, taking her by surprise. “We call it the Not-Them. It steals its victim’s identity, replaces all memories of them with memories of it. We don’t remember you, Sasha, not really. The only Sasha we have ever known was a terrible monster that killed our coworker and tried to kill us. So stop trying to be our friend. You won’t get anything out of it. We never knew you. Just the idea of you, and you can’t exactly be friends with an idea.”

The next thing Martin knows, he’s on the ground, cheek and nose smarting, ears ringing, neck snapped to the side with the force of Sasha’s punch. Above them on the beam, Tim has frozen, staring down with wide eyes. 

“Fuck you, Martin Blackwood,” she seethes, breathing hard, tears pricking her eyes. “Don’t you dare say that shit to me. What happened to you?” 

“I grew up,” Martin finds himself saying numbly. They’re not his words. The anger in them is empty emotional calories and they’re making him sick. There’s fog in his lungs and in his throat and it’s swallowing the words he wants to say. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it. I care about you. Please, I’m scared. Help me. 

“Growing up isn’t being a dick,” Sasha snaps. “And if you’d actually grown up, you’d know that.”

She turns and stomps away from him. Martin raises a shaky hand to his face, wipes away the blood dripping from his nose. What’s happening to me? he wonders, desperately, and doesn’t get an answer.

Tim climbs back down from the beam. “There are two more of these flower things,” he says, pointing in directions triangular to them. He seems more subdued now, glancing between Sasha and Martin, eyes wide. “Do I… What happened?” 

“He was being an arsehole,” Sasha mutters. 

Tim looks bewildered. “Martin?” He looks over at Martin. Martin doesn’t meet his gaze, pulling himself up from the floor instead. Tim’s expression is hesitant, almost concerned. “What… happened?” he asks Martin. “After I died. What happened to you.”

“I was alone.” Martin sighs heavily. “I was alone, and I was so, so Lonely.”

Tim’s eyes widen with realisation. “Fuck,” he swears. “Fuck, it didn’t– you too?” Martin gives him a dead-eyed look. Tim shudders. “I hate this fucking job,” Tim says again. 

“I thought you hated me,” Martin says.

Tim freezes. “No,” he says. “No, I didn’t, I just– I hated everything, okay! I hated the Archives and the Institute and Elias and that damn Circus and Jon and– and I hated you too, maybe, but not because of anything you did, but because you were there.” He scowls. “You were there, and you were trying so hard , and you want to play nice, a-and you still had hope, and I was just so angry and I wanted to burn everything I had, the good and the bad both.”

He’s breathing heavy now. “I didn’t hate you,” he says again, voice quiet.

Martin tries to smile. He’s not sure it comes across. His face is numb. “I’m sorry,” he forces out. “I don’t want to be like this, I don’t think. Or at least, I didn’t use to. I’m… I’m so cold.” His voice is barely a whisper now. “And far away. And I don’t… It doesn’t hurt here. It used to hurt so much, and now… I’m free. Isn’t that a good thing?”

“It’s turning you into a monster,” Tim says, voice cold and hard. “Like it did Jon. We lost him, remember? Don’t make us lose you too.”

Martin wants to laugh. I’ve lost all of you , he wants to say. I lost all of you, and you want me to feel that all over again? 

“I’m not going to pretend I know what’s going on,” Sasha speaks up, voice hard and determined, “And I know neither of you are the same person that I knew. It’s clear that something has gone horribly wrong in the real world.” She lets out a shaky breath. “But if this is some kind of dream, or nightmare, or– or second chance, then let’s not– we don’t have to be the worst versions of ourselves.” She glances between the two of them. “How about a clean slate. Let’s forgive each other for whatever we did wrong. And let’s find a way to fix this.”

She holds a hand out. Tim lets out a sigh and cracks a smile, a real, genuine smile, the first one Martin’s seen in years, and it makes something warm flare within him. Tim reaches out and places his hand on top of Sasha’s. “Sure,” he says. “I died. Now I’m here. Even if I don’t deserve a second chance, I’ve got one, and… I’m not going to throw it away the same way I did the first one.”

“Martin?” Sasha asks, quiet, hopeful, and something inside Martin breaks.

It takes him a moment to realise that he’s crying, cold tears spilling down his face. Trembling, hitching desperate breaths, he throws himself forward and wraps his arms around his two (friends? Coworkers? Teammates? Party members?), now so much smaller than him, and sobs.

“I’m sorry,” he gasps. “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Sasha says, “we’re here now.”

“We’ve got you,” Tim murmurs. “You never have to be alone again.”

And Martin breaks down under the weight of all his grief and heartbreak and loneliness, feeling it as acutely as the first time he heard the news, and for once he feels like maybe it will all be okay.

Quite some time (and a lot of explanations for Sasha’s benefit) later they arrive at one of the other flowers, and that strange pulsing hits them again as they cross the threshold, echoing through the trees. Tim groans.

“I’m going to be hearing that in my dreams for the rest of my life,” he mutters grouchily. 

It’s… weird. That Tim might have a life to have dreams for the rest of. But a good weird. Martin can’t help the small smile that tugs at his lips when he thinks the thought. Tim and Sasha, alive again. Against all odds.

It’s a miracle. It’s too good to be true. And Martin has no doubt that if it turns out to be a trick, the Lonely will take him for good.

But maybe it’s worth the risk, just to have them for this short time.

The first thing they notice upon entering the constrains of the flower is the child. Or– well. The corpse. It’s hard to make out any distinguishing features on it, wrapped in thick spider-silk as it is, the few limbs they can see sticking out of the spun web twisted and broken. Martin swallows hard, and tears his gaze away.

He gets the feeling he knows who that corpse is, and he’d rather think of anything but that, thank you very much. 

Luckily, he also recognises the two other kids in this clearing. The smallest one is about four or five, he would reckon, short with a flushed round face and stringy blonde hair cut in a short bob. She’s wearing shorts and a t-shirt, and has peeling plasters on her knees. The other is a little older, more around Sasha’s apparent age, dressed in a neat pinafore dress. Her hair is long and dark and it’s the first time Martin has ever seen Basira’s hair uncovered; he averts his eyes, not wanting to look, and goes to wake Daisy instead.

Daisy comes to with a snarl and Martin finds himself with tiny hands wrapped around his throat. He’s almost intimidated, before he remembers just how small Daisy is, and grabs her by her sides, pushing her away from him and back down onto the ground. That startles her into awareness, and she stares up at him blankly.

“Martin?” she mumbles. “You look… young.”

“So do you,” Martin returns hesitantly. She blinks down at herself, examining her small hands and skinned knees, and frowns. 

“What happened?”

“No idea,” Martin sighs. “Things are… weird. We’re all younger.” Daisy glances over his shoulder, presumably at Tim and Sasha and the newly-roused Basira, whose voice he can hear behind him. 

“They’re backwards,” Daisy says. 

“What?” Martin asks. 

“Our ages. Normally, I’m the eldest. You’re the youngest. It’s backwards.”

She’s right, Martin realises. “Any idea what that means?”
“Any idea why we’re children?”

Daisy shakes her head. She’s tucked her thumb into her mouth, he realises suddenly, sucking on it thoughtfully as her gaze flicks over their surroundings. He tries very hard not to find it adorable.

Daisy is an adult and a cop and a monster and a murderer . 

...Daisy is four years old and has a face like butterscotch.

Martin turns away before she can read his thoughts on his face. Across the clearing, it looks like Sasha has given Basira her cardigan to cover her hair in a makeshift hijab, and she and Tim are filling Basira in on the situation. Basira looks up and narrows her eyes at Martin, before her gaze lands on Daisy, and her expression softens, just a little. Daisy gets up and heads over to the others, still somehow managing the graceful stalk of a predator on tiny legs. Martin sits where he is and thinks.

It’s weird, now that he’s aware of it, the three separate minds in his head: the Martin who is assistant to Peter Lukas, Lonely and half-lost, almost an Avatar even as he resists it; the Martin who hadn’t yet realised that the Archives was not quite a normal job before everything went to shit yesterday morning and the world ended; and the Martin who is sixteen and miserable and anxious and spends his evenings looking over their finances even as his grades plummet. There’s a part of him, even now, who worries about his mum yelling at him for being late home. 

His mum is dead. He’s twenty-eight – thirty – sixteen years old and he’s in some kind of post-apocalyptic jungle and he has no idea what is happening.

Well. At least there’s no way this situation can get any weirder. 

His attention is drawn by a flicker of movement in his periphery and as he turns towards it he is suddenly bowled over by something large and furry and drooling and winded he looks up into the face of what he can can only describe as the most fucked-up looking big cat he’s ever seen in his life. It has patchy, reddish fur, strange curled ears, and a smushed-looking snout containing a maw full of razor-sharp teeth. Martin can feel claws cutting into his shoulders, holding him in place, and lets out a terrified wheeze as the cat’s foul-smelling breath clouds his nostrils. 

Daisy is the first to react, letting out a snarl and diving for the cat, jumping onto its back and yanking at its ears. She’s nowhere near strong enough to pull it away from him, but it’s distracted from its goal of gnawing through Martin’s trachea, yowling with pain and annoyance. Sasha is next, flinging out her hand and throwing a bolt of fire in the cat’s direction. It soars wide, hitting some nearby foliage and causing it to go up in flame. Panicked by the heat washing over him, Martin pushes up and throws the cat off of him, Daisy managing to roll off as Martin’s shove pushes the cat into the flames. It wails, and Martin grabs Daisy and runs with her across the clearing to where the others are standing, ready to attack.

“Let’s go,” Martin gasps. Tim nods and takes the lead, sprinting in the direction where he’d seen the other flower. Martin finds himself lagging behind– curse his lack of stamina– but Daisy stays with him the whole time, keeping pace. Martin can’t tell if it’s out of solidarity or if she just can’t run as fast now that her legs are so short. 

“You were a little bit of an arse,” Daisy says between gasps, “last time we spoke.”

Martin glares at her. “Is now really the time?” he pants.

“It’s not after us,” Daisy said with a shrug. “I can usually feel that sort of thing. At this point, we’re just running for the adrenaline. So.”

Martin allows himself to slow down a little at that, catching his breath as best he can in the stifling humidity. “I’m sorry,” he says, after a long moment of silence. “I was– I was rude, you’re right. I realised that Peter was watching us, and I didn’t…” He lets out a long breath. “I didn’t want him to vanish you.”

Daisy nods. “Alright,” she says. “I forgive you.”

“I– what?”

“I forgive you.” Daisy shrugs. “You were rude, sure, but you probably saved my life. God knows I’ve been worse while saving people’s lives.” 

“Right,” Martin says, a little caught off guard. “Thank you?”

“Don’t mention it.” Ahead of them, the others have reached the flower. “Come on,” Daisy says, picking up the pace. “Let’s go see who else is here.” The two of them jog to catch up. 

This flower, unlike the other two, is still closed, trapping whoever’s here inside. Tim and Sasha are attempting to leverage it open with a branch torn from a nearby tree. 

“Come help us with this,” Tim calls as they approach. “We’ve almost got it, I think, but we’re not quite tall enough.” 

Martin steps forward and takes the branch from them and yanks down hard on it, creating a space large enough for Basira, waiting just below them, to slip through. Martin holds the stick in place as Daisy wriggles through after, and he begins to hear rousing murmurs from inside, followed by, 

“What the fuck is going on?” 

“Melanie?” Tim calls through the gap.

“Wait, is that– who the fuck is that?” 

“Look, just come outside, it’ll be easier to explain–”

“Daisy?” 

“Yes. Come on .”

“No, no, I said I was done. I quit. Why the fuck am I here.”

“I don’t know ,” Daisy huffs. “We’re trying to figure it out.”

“Melanie,” another voice, one Martin knows, if only vaguely. Georgie. Huh. “Come on, let’s just do what they say and figure out what’s going on.”

“Okay,” Melanie mutters, resigned, and the two of them make their way out through the gap, squeezing through, followed by Basira and Daisy who are both smaller and can do so much more easily. When they’re all through, Martin drops the stick, arms shaking with the effort of holding the flower apart for so long. 

Melanie, he sees now, is about the same age as him, maybe a little younger– fifteen, perhaps? She’s wearing a flannel and ripped jeans and stompy boots, arms crossed over her chest and scowling. Her hair isn’t dyed yet, still its natural brown, and she’s wearing dark sunglasses over her eyes that Martin can just barely see the scars behind.

Georgie, like Sasha and Basira, seems to be wearing her school uniform, a tartan skirt and blue blazer and tie tied just a little too loose, her hair unbraided in two high pigtails. She’s younger than Melanie but older than Tim– twelve, maybe, or thirteen, if Martin had to hazard a guess. She, at least, seems to have figured out the true weirdness of the situation, glancing around all of them and taking them all in. 

“So?” Melanie demands. “Is someone going to explain what’s going on?”

“We’ve all woken up in a weird jungle somewhere, sometime after the end of the world, and we’re all children,” Basira says, straight to the point as always. 

“Excuse me?”

“You’re like, fifteen,” Georgie says to Melanie. “I’m younger. I’m shorter than you now, see?” She leans into Melanie’s side. Melanie’s mouth opens and closes like a fish.

“What,” she says, “the fuck.”

“Yeah, that’s been the theme of the day I think,” Tim says.

“Oh, and also Tim and Sasha are here,” Basira adds belatedly.

Melanie’s face scrunches up in an inscrutable way. “Wait, seriously? The real Sasha?”

“From what we can tell,” Daisy says. 

“And– Tim?”
“Hi, Melanie,” Tim says. 

“Shit, it really is you,” Melanie mutters. “And you’re– alive?”

“Alive and, like, ten.”

“Gross.”

“Uhuh.” An awkward pause, and then, “What happened to your eyes?”

“Oh,” Melanie says, sounding caught off-guard by the question. “I, uh, gouged out my eyes.”

Tim blinks at her, staring. “You… Okay . That’s… wow. Any reason why, or?”

“Fun, mostly,” Melanie says, and her nonexistent eye-roll is heard in her tone. “No, we um. Jon found out that there is a way to quit the institute, after all. And I wanted out.”

“You have to gouge your eyes out,” Tim says, voice quiet and half-dead.

“Yeah.”

“Fuck.” Tim rubs a hand across his face.

“That was about the extent of our reactions too,” Basira says wryly. She glances at Martin, who nods in confirmation.

“I think my exact words to Jon were ‘fuck off’ ,” he agrees. 

“Aren’t those your words to everyone these days?” Melanie mutters, just a tinge of bitterness in her voice. Martin winces. Tim whistles.

“Wow,” he says, “you really went for the full-arsehole turn, huh?” 

“Look, I’m not exactly, exactly proud of the things I did and the… the person I am these days. Okay? And for what it’s worth, I’m sorry I treated you all so coldly.”

“But you don’t regret it,” Daisy says, her eyes sharp and keen.

“No,” Martin says, letting out a fog-laden breath. “Peter’s dangerous. By working with him, I’m keeping his attention focused on me , and away from all of you. I’m keeping you safe. I don’t regret that at all.”

“Are you even still human?” Basira questions, blunt and harsh. 

Martin shrugs. “Not fully,” he says. “But I’m not… I’m not too far gone either, I don’t think.” I hope .

Basira sniffs. “I’m keeping an eye on you.”

Martin nods, meeting her gaze despite the uncomfortable prickle on the back of his neck. There’s something hungry in her eyes. “Go ahead,” he says, and wonders somewhere in the back of his mind just how human she is these days. 

“So now we’ve established Martin’s not evil and just kind of a dick,” Tim says, “what’s the plan?”

“I still don’t really know what’s going on,” Melanie huffs frustratedly. 

“I guess we could take some time to just lay out everything we know,” Sasha says, chewing on her lip. “We don’t really have any idea of where to go from here, and I know I’m still missing– well, a lot of stuff. Tim and Martin filled me in on some of this Entity stuff, but I’m still a little lost.”

They all exchange glances. “Sure,” Basira says, sounding far too tired for a girl who just woke up twenty minutes ago. “Things will probably be easier with us all on the same page.”

It takes them a while, but eventually they’re all mostly up to speed. Melanie seems placated, if still frustrated at being stuck with them all again after getting out, which Martin supposes is fair. Georgie is on edge, glaring at them all suspiciously and clinging on to Melanie’s hand, which is also probably fair. Basira is grilling him, Tim, and Sasha on their strange adventure in the other nightmare when Daisy bolts upright where she’s sitting, suddenly on high alert, and they all freeze in place.

“There’s more,” she whispers, reaching down and grabbing a length of severed vine lying near her on the floor. Martin rises to his feet, heart pounding in his chest. Tim raises his fists ready for a fight, and Sasha falls back, already reaching into her pocket and pulling out something that Martin can’t quite see. Melanie grabs a handful of rocks from the ground, and Georgie just grits her teeth. Basira grabs the branch that Martin had dropped earlier and steps forward, glaring in the same direction as Daisy as five more of those fucked-up cats emerge from the undergrowth, patchy and skinny and dripping saliva as they look up with hungry yellow eyes. 

There’s a moment of stillness where Martin hopes that they’ll decide there are too many of them and simply leave.

And then the cats spring into action.

Basira swings the branch out in a wide arc, pushing a cat back with a solid thwack to the head. Daisy takes advantage of it’s distraction and dives at it, wrapping the vine around its neck and pulling, the cat beginning to scrabble at the ground as it chokes. Melanie, Georgie whispering guidance in her ear, is able to throw a stone at one of the other cats, taking its eye out. It howls in rage, and then drops to the ground as, with a thrust out hand and a soft, sing-song call from Georgie’s lips, the sky opens up and fire rains down from above it. That leaves three, and already Sasha is sending bolts of flame at one, burning its fur away to a soundtrack of anguished caterwauls, and Tim is straight up wrestling with a second, biting into its ear and tearing with his teeth, blood smearing across his mouth. 

The third is stalking towards Martin, a hungry look in its eye. Martin jolts into action, and finds himself reciting the words before he even has a chance to think.

“ Sleepless, I watch this wretched creature dream / Heartless, I listen to it scream .” And scream it does, wailing as the staticky buzzing words dance around its ears. It then snarls, leaping forward and pushing Martin to the ground; Martin shoves a hand out, and instead of biting through his throat it instead gouges into his hand, and Martin lets out a shout of pain. Grimacing, he bites out, “ I say, I do not feel your teeth / I say, you will not pull me beneath. ” Another yowl of pain, and Martin snatches his hand out of its jaw, but the cat, fast as a snake, presses its claws deep into his chest and Martin feels all the air leave him at once as it punctures a hole in his lungs, a needle through a balloon.

He’s certain he’s about to die, the last thing he’ll ever see a fucked up cat’s fucked up teeth, when the cat is knocked aside by the sweep of a branch and then Basira and Daisy are there, Daisy choking the life out of this thing and Basira leaning over Martin as he chokes on his own blood.

“Oh dear,” she says, laying her hands against the bloody, bubbling wounds on his torso, and there is a flash of light and heat against Martin’s skin and suddenly he is whole again, breathing air like he never forgot how to.

“Thanks,” Martin wheezes.

“No problem,” she says with a nod, pulling him to his feet. He turns to survey the battle, but it’s already over– Tim, covered in blood but grinning, Sasha with bleeding welts on her legs and a grim satisfaction on her face, Daisy red-faced but otherwise unbothered and unhurt, Georgie patching up a wound on Melanie’s knee with her own healing magic.

For a moment, it hits him how ridiculous this whole scene is– seven worn out, beaten-up kids, somewhere far from home, fighting monsters like– like some kind of fantasy novel! A laugh tears itself out of his throat, and the others all look at him in various stages of disturbed shock as he attempts to compose himself.

“Sorry,” he croaks, grinning stupidly. “It’s just– don’t you feel like the protagonist of some children’s adventure novel right now?”

Sasha smiles back at him, and Georgie of all people even huffs a laugh. “Or some weird coming of age film,” she says. 

“What coming of age, I’m thirty,” Melanie huffs, but there’s a resigned fondness to her tone. 

“Not right now, you’re not,” Daisy points out dryly. Melanie opens her mouth to respond, but is cut off when that horn sounds again, echoing out over the trees, and all of them have to stop to catch their breaths in the nauseating aftermath. They lapse into an awkward, aggrieved silence.

“I didn’t have friends when I was this age,” Martin says suddenly, breaking it. “It’s– kind of nice, you know?”

“Yeah,” Tim says. “I– well. My brother was always the cool, popular one.” 

“I didn’t meet my friends until I was a little older,” Daisy admits. “I used to get in trouble a lot at this age for biting the other kids, so nobody wanted to be around me.” A laugh ripples through the group at that one.

“I used to do other kids’ homework for them and then they’d say ‘thank you’,” Sasha says, self-despairingly. 

“I was in science club,” Basira offers, which, of course she was.

“I was telling the other kids spooky stories,” Georgie says thoughtfully. “And then they all thought I was a witch.”

“God, you’re all a bunch of nerds,” Melanie says, and Martin wonders how she manages to make her tone both so obviously so derogatory and affectionate at the same time.

“So what were you doing at this age, Melanie?” he asks, a hint of challenge in his tone.

“Covering for my friends’ drug habits,” she says with a shrugs.

Ah. “Yikes,” he says.

“Yup,” she agrees. “Part of me wants to say this is basically the same thing, but…” She trails off.

“I would have liked to be friends with you guys at this age, I think,” Martin offers. He ignores that they’re all technically different ages, and it would have been weird for him to be friends with Tim and Sasha, let alone Daisy , as a teenager. 

“It would never have happened.” Basira snorts, but there’s something soft and thoughtful in her eyes when she looks at him.

“No,” Martin agrees. “But it’s nice to pretend.”

They’re walking aimlessly through the jungle some time later when Melanie stops. “Hey,” she says, “do you hear that?”
They all pause, straining to hear, and then Daisy says, “There,” pointing. Martin turns to see someone– and old man, he thinks, with silver hair in an old green coat– shambling through the trees. They all exchange a glance, and, as one, turn to run after him.

“Hey!” Tim calls. “Wait up! Hey!” The old man only increases his pace, vanishing into the undergrowth. Daisy streaks off ahead, beelining after him, and Martin gets the answer he was wondering about earlier. He’s not sure how he feels about it.

And then, as one, they burst out of the trees, onto a shore. That low, echoing noise rumbles through the air before Martin has much of a chance to look around, and when his eyes and ears pop, he’s standing knee-deep in saltwater, looking out at an endless ocean. Rubbing at his eyes, he turns around, and wishes he hadn’t.

There, standing before them, are a line of creatures that make Martin’s eyes smart and his head pound. They are terrible and awful and nightmarish, and all of them so utterly beyond comprehension that Martin feels something break in him to perceive him. One is so big that in cannot possibly fit in the space it is occupying, and yet it does, and yet it doesn’t, and the swirling void within it makes him want to lie down and never ever move again. One is broad and misty and smells of sea salt and smoke and a hundred thousand broken hearts mouldering in their empty chests. One is crushing and awful and feels like every terrible thing in his life has just come crashing down on him all at once. One is shifting, ever changing, a tangle of limbs and not-limbs and faces, always faces, changing and shifting and yet always his own, never his own, always familiar never recognisable never recognisable always familiar– 

One is– One is– colours burst behind his eyelids and is he standing upright or upside down and is he wet or dry is he both yes but no but how but– 

One is animalistic and snarling and out for blood, a hunger radiating off of it with every breath it takes and he knows– 

One is bloody and viscera and twisted rotting meat– 

One is pure pitch and radiates evil– 

One is sharp and malicious and another is burning hot hot hot–

One makes his skin squirm with a thousand bites, a thousand legs, a thousand bodies beating in time to his and get them out– 

One is inevitable and unending and he looks at it and he knows that the moment he dies will feel exactly the same as this one.

One is… the one he saw before. The Harbinger of the End of the World. Except… no. It’s wrong. This thing has no love in its gaze for him, just something cold and cruel and objectifying. And Martin most certainly does not love it back.

There is one more, hovering above the rest, bristling and many-legged, puppeteering the rest of them like marionettes. 

And above them, so large and inconceivable that it cannot be perceived, only known, only felt, only struck deep into his heart, scarring so deep that it will never truly leave him, is the Thing That Is Fear Itself.

Martin stares at the shore and knows he is looking at the Dread Powers in full, true, awful form, and something in him starts screaming, and screaming, and he knows that as long as he lives it will never stop. 

ii.

Georgie takes a deep, ragged breath and stares out into the Archives. Her heart is beating still in her chest, she can feel it, and yet she knows, with utmost certainty, that she has just died. Back there, on that beach, staring up at the Dread Powers– Georgie felt no fear. Could feel no fear. But she had seen how it had frozen the others, paralysed them, left them vulnerable to be absolutely annihilated. 

Georgie had not been vulnerable in that way. She had still died. No matter how at peace you were with it, Death still came for everyone.

Around her, the others are rousing, in various states of shock and panic. Tim, Sasha, Martin, and Melanie are all sat at their old desks, Basira and Daisy, much like Georgie herself, propped up against the shelves, piles of statements beside them. They’re all, Georgie notices, still children, wearing a mockery of adult’s business formal. It all feels a little Bugsy Malone, to be honest.

There are tears running down her face. Huh. Georgie reaches up to wipe them away, and realises that the fear she can see in the others, the ashen faces and trembling hands and gritted teeth and manic smiles, has been reflected on her as a profound sense of grief almost too deep to name. It curls around her heart, sharp and blanketing, and she lets herself sink into the pain of it for just a moment more.

The door to the Archives opens, and in walks a woman Georgie recognises briefly from reception on all the times she’s been here to pick up Melanie– Rosie, she thinks?– startling her out of her reverie.

“Good afternoon,” she greets breezily, smiling at all of them, “Mr. Bouchard wanted me to stop by and remind you all that your performance reviews are tomorrow, so be sure to be here bright and early! Oh, and I also need to drop off some paperwork for Jon?”

“He’s out,” Tim says, voice sounding wrecked even as he smiles. “Just leave them on the shelf by his office door, we’ll let him know when he gets back.”

“Oh! Alright, then.” Rosie places the files down on the indicated shelf and begins to head back to the door when Sasha calls out after her.

“Rosie! Can I, can I ask a question?”
“Sure,” Rosie says, with a pleasant smile, turning back to them. She has a dead look in her eye, Georgie notices all of a sudden. Like a dead fish at the supermarket. 

“How old am I?”

Rosie hisses in through her teeth. “Oh, Sasha, I don’t know if I can answer this, this feels like a trap.”

Sasha laughs, a little too high and hysterical to be comforting. “No, no, I won’t be offended, honestly.”

Rosie hems and haws and then says, “Thirty five?”

Sasha grins. “That’s it exactly! Thank you Rosie!”

“Oh, thank goodness,” Rosie says, letting out a sigh of relief. “I was very afraid for a second there, you know.” And then she turns and leaves, the archives door clunking shut behind her.

“The fuck,” Melanie breathes. “The Archives again? Seriously?”

“What do we do now?” Tim asks. 

“Work?” Daisy suggests. At everyone else’s incredulous looks, she shrugs. “Not like we can do much else. Maybe it’s like before, when Tim, Sasha, and Martin first woke up in this nightmare. You have to let the dream run its course.”

“I don’t work here, though,” Georgie says, frowning. 

“Maybe you’re here to give a statement?” Sasha suggests. 

Georgie frowns. “Really? Do you think that’s a good idea?”

Sasha shrugs. “Jon isn’t here to make it weird. Really, it’s just us and whatever this fake reality is. Worst case scenario, we break something.”

“Alright,” Georgie agrees. “Sure.” She’s beginning to think that breaking this dream might be the best case scenario. End the nightmare. Wake up . She’s sick of this place.

“I’m not sure about this,” Melanie objects. 

“Have any better ideas?” Daisy asks. Melanie, reluctant, shakes her head.

“I just don’t like it,” she mutters.

“I’ll be fine,” Georgie says, forcing a smile into her voice that she doesn’t quite feel capable of just yet. 

A tape recorder appears on the desk, innocuous in its monstrosity. All of them stare at it like it might explode as they gather around Sasha’s desk, and the tape begins running.

“Statement of Georgie Barker,” Georgie says, “regarding Jonathan Sims, the Archivist.”

Jon and I met in uni. I’d taken a gap year, after an encounter with the End that left me horrifically depressed, and so we ended up in the same year. I thought he was a little pompous, a little stuck up, and, of course, horrifically awkward. We mostly just hung out at first because we had mutual friends? But then he started to relax a little bit, and I realised what a massive loser he was. I say that with the utmost love, of course. He was my best friend for quite some time. My boyfriend for slightly less. He’s still very dear to me, even after all this time. I don’t have romantic feelings for him anymore, of course, but those aren’t the only bonds that matter.

When he came to me, last year, frantic and desperate and asking for a place to stay, I didn’t ask questions. I just let him in, let him have the couch, hell, let him have my old clothes. He was a good roommate. Tidy. Quiet. Cleaned up and made food. But he was… I knew he was hiding something. He wouldn’t have come to me if things weren’t really bad. But I didn’t want to push. I thought it might be some kind of abusive stalker ex, and then later that maybe he’d gotten involved in some kind of cult, but it wasn’t until he came home looking like absolute hell that I put my foot down and demanded an explanation.

The explanation didn’t surprise me, I don’t think. I knew monsters were real. I’d seen them. I’d felt that fear in my heart. Had that fear carved out of my heart. That my– that Jon was becoming a monster? Sure, that was a little alarming, but he was still Jon. Still that same dorky kid I met in uni.

Jon and I were not romantically compatible, for a lot of reasons. The absolute state of our collective mental health during our relationship definitely didn’t help. I… got help, after. Went to therapy. Did work on myself. Got better. I hoped maybe he’d do the same. But then, in those months before the Unknowing, and again after the coma… I don’t know. All I could see was someone who was too caught up in all of their own pain that they were just going to destroy themselves. And everyone around them. I didn’t want to be caught up in all of that, so I left.

I regret it now, I think. I mean, it’s like Melanie said, I didn’t do anything wrong– but I didn’t do anything right, either. I didn’t do anything. I could have tried to help him. I could have– I don’t know. I don’t know if I could have stopped what happened. But I didn’t even try. That’s what messes with me. What keeps me up at night.

I was right, when I said Jon was going to destroy everyone around him. But I didn’t realise that everyone meant literally everyone. How could I have? I’ve known Jon for such a long time. I know him. Or, at least I feel like I do. 

How could I have known that he’d literally end the world?

The moment the words leave her mouth the room goes silent, everyone staring at her, and she can see it now in their eyes too, the dawning horror, the lack of understanding in Sasha and Tim’s faces, the recollection in everyone else’s. She remembers it now, all of it– the Apocalypse, the tunnels, the cult, their plan, the lighter, fire surging up and running and waiting and watching the tower fall and hoping they got out before–

Around them, reality splinters and cracks and crumbles, and Georgie is standing atop a burning tower, every age and every version of herself she has ever been all at once, and standing in front of her is Jon, ethereal and eldritch and transcendent, smiling at her a sorrow in his eyes so intense it takes her breath away.

“Hello again,” he says.

i. 

Martin can feel the blood on his hands again, sticky and hot and awful, and his breath rattles in his chest as he fights back a sob. He’s here, again, at the end of the world, with Jon atop the panopticon, fire and debris falling all around them as reality unspools. 

But Jon isn’t dead, now, limp in his arms; he’s standing, a thousand fragmented versions of himself, so far beyond anything he’s ever been and crackling with static, bound in place by magnetic cassette tape. And Martin isn’t alone now, suffocating under the weight of his grief; there’s Sasha and Tim stood by his sides, and Daisy and Basira and Georgie and Melanie, and in their confusion and devastation and infiniteness they are united here, a solid chain holding fast.

“Jon,” he calls, voice shaking, “what’s happening?”

Jon’s face is sad and beautiful and Martin wants nothing more than to hug him, but some force is compelling him, he can’t move. “I’m dying, I think,” he says. “I’m dying, and everything in the universe is flowing through me, and I don’t want to let go.”

“Let go of what?” Basira asks.

“Everything,” Jon says. “This world. Me. You all. I don’t… want to lose you.” He takes a deep breath. Martin can see the gaping wound on his chest, the blood bubbling out of it. Feels the blood on his hands. “I know I have not always been… the best person. To know. To be around. I know I have treated you all terribly. But as it stands… you all are the closest thing I ever had to friends. Family. Loved ones .” There’s a wry twist to his mouth. “I don’t want to let you go.”

“Idiot,” Melanie snaps. “If you’d just followed the plan, you wouldn’t have to!”

“I don’t think I could have lived with myself if I didn’t at least try to do it my way.”

“God, you don’t– you never– you bastard, don’t you ever think of anyone beside your own goddamn self–!” She cuts herself off, breathing hard, her yell echoing around them. Martin notices that everything is moving so, so slowly, almost imperceptibly, like they’re frozen in time.

“This is exactly what I mean,” Jon says, nodding towards Melanie. “I don’t expect any of you to hold much fondness for me, after all I’ve done, but I wanted–”

“You idiot,” Daisy interrupts. “Maybe we care about you, you ever think of that? Nobody likes watching someone they love self-destruct, unable to help. That’s what hurts. You should know that.” She aims a pointed look at Tim, who shuffles uncomfortably. Jon’s eyes go soft.

“Oh,” he says. “I hadn’t… considered that angle.”

“Of course you hadn’t,” Georgie says through tears. “Have you ever considered an outcome that didn’t end with you suffering?”

“I don’t think I’ve ever experienced one.” Jon’s voice is sad, and he seems to curl in on himself as much as he is capable of now.

“Oh, Jon ,” Martin whispers, and his heart is already so broken, what’s one more crack?

“Everything has just– these last few years, hell, my entire life , it’s all been some power play by evil forces to cause nothing but– but pain , and suffering , and fear , and– and it’s my fault . And I feel it, you know? Their pain, their fear, their bone-rattling screams. I don’t want them to suffer anymore. I don’t want to suffer anymore . And I– I know that doing this, letting them go, just means that… It’s going to happen again. There’ll be another Archivist. Another apocalypse. And that person will have to shoulder all of that misery too. I can’t– I can’t let that happen. And I know that’s unfair, and selfish, but… I don’t think I’m strong enough to do anything else.”

There’s a long, long moment of silence, and then Tim speaks up. “I have no idea what’s going on,” he announces, “but that sounds the exact opposite of selfish to me.”

Jon jerks in surprise, eyes widening as he looks at Tim; Martin has to admit that he’s a little shocked too, to hear Tim support Jon in anything. He glances to the side, and Tim’s cheeks are a little pink as everyone stares. 

“What? Maybe it’s the complete lack of context I have, but– not wanting other people to get hurt? Not wanting to put people in danger, even if it means betraying the people you care about? That’s pretty damn selfless.”

“He was going to kill us all,” Melanie says. “That’s the context. Everyone– our entire world– dies, or we send the Fears to another world, saving our own , and then it’s someone else’s problem. And if they manage, by chance, to end their world the same way we ended ours, then that’s their own fault.”

Tim’s expression does several complicated emotional somersaults that Martin can’t follow. Daisy says, “Is it, though?”

“What?” Melanie asks.

“Is it their own fault? I mean, I’m missing some context here, but Jon, you just said– well, implied – that the Fears have been manipulating you your whole life.”

Jon’s expression sours. “I– I had an encounter with the Web. I was eight.”

Daisy’s expression is dark. “So, you spend your entire life being puppeteered by the Web, and then you spend three years being tormented by Elias, and then–”

“You’re tricked,” Martin says with dull realisation, “into ending the world.”

Jon’s face contorts. “You’re missing the point,” he says, a little desperately. “I still did it.”

“But you didn’t want to. If you could have stopped it, I’m sure you would have.” Jon’s silence in damning. Daisy continues, “And you’re worried that if the Fears end up somewhere else, the exact same thing will happen there, to someone else. Someone who will be just as much of a victim as you are.”

“I’m not a vi–”

“But you are though, aren’t you?” Georgie asks. There’s something so sad in her voice, and it sends shivers down Martin’s spine.

“But I– what I’ve done–”

“We all did fucked up things,” Tim interrupts. “We all fucked up. Because we were hurt. And we can’t– we can’t pretend like we’re not somewhat responsible for those things. But we also can’t pretend that there were circumstances that led to them, that made them understandable, if not excusable.”

“Your choice makes sense,” Daisy says, concluding her initial line of thought. “With that context– sure, humans enabled it, but the Web is manipulation itself. If it wanted this to happen, it would have happened, with or without you. You were just the unlucky bastard who happened to get caught in the middle of it. And, if it wants it to happen again, it will, regardless of what those people in those other worlds do.”

“You’ve been put in an impossible situation,” Sasha says, speaking up for the first time since they’ve arrived here, voice soft. Jon is crying now, staticky, bloody tears rolling down his face. “Forced to make an impossible choice. The choice you made was– evil, yes, but so was every choice you could have made. You don’t have to– to punish yourself for it.”

“It’s not like it matters, now,” Jon whispers. “I– Martin cut the tether. The Fears are leaving this world. I’ve doomed somewhere else, and– well. There’s nothing any of us can do about it anymore.” His face crumples. “And now we’re here.”

“Where is here?” Basira asks, looking around.

“When is here, is the more apt question,” Jon replies. “This is it. The final moment. My last breath. The last foothold the Fears have in this world.”

“How long can it last?”

“As long as I need it to.”

“And what was–” Tim waves his arms around– “all of this?”

“This was…” Jon flails, for a moment, looking for the words. “It was… wish fulfilment.”

“Wish fulfilment,” Sasha echoed, blankly.

“It… didn’t go quite right. I wanted– something else. A different world, where all those terrible things never happened. Where Sasha and Tim got to live. Where we all could have found each other earlier, and built a friendship that was normal, and not predicated on– on trauma and terror.” And Martin remembers his own words, just hours ago, though it now feels like days: Face it, John, it took almost two years of crisis and trauma to even make us compatible . 

“And the, uh, eldritch horrors?” Melanie asks.

“The Dread Powers are currently using my soul as a conduit for their existence in this reality,” Jon says pointedly. He reaches up to wipe his tears away, and leaves a ruddy smear across his face. “Things got a little chaotic somewhere in there.”

“And the, uh, the whole Dungeons and Dragons thing?” Martin asks, flushing red as Melanie hisses, “Nerd,” from down the line. Jon also flushes, averting his gaze.

“I, um, I read a lot of the manuals, when I was a-a teenager. Never played. Never had anyone to play with. It was, ah, it was something I always wanted to do.”  

“What about all the– the yous! The ones that were all dead, and, and wrong, and–” Tim’s voice is high and distressed, and Jon flinches. 

“There’s some part of me that thinks you’d all be better off without me.”
“Well that’s bullshit,” Georgie says.

“Seconded,” Martin agrees.

“Thirded.”

“Fourthed!”
“Fi– ah, you know what, I just agree, fuck it.”

“Me too.”

“And me.”

Jon’s tears are beginning to subside now, his eyes still bloodshot and red, and he smiles at all of them. “I… You are all so amazing, you know that? And not– I know things haven’t always been great. As much as I’ve hurt all of you, you’ve hurt me, too. And I-I won’t pretend that that’s okay, but– I care for you all so much. Daisy, the will you had, after the Coffin, to cut yourself off from the Hunt, even knowing it would kill you– the quiet strength that took always– always struck me. And you would always keep me company, pull me out of my head when it got too much. And I– I’d do the same for you, too, of course, but it… It meant a lot to me. Especially then. After you fell, after you died… I didn’t miss the monster. But I did miss you, the you I knew, the friend I had.”

Daisy’s smile is soft and sad, a mirror of Jon’s own. Jon meets her gaze for a moment, and then turns his head to continue.

“And Basira… You tried your hardest. Things got messy, there, at the end, after everything, but– you were on my side, for a while. You helped me, even when everyone else thought I was insane, a-and then you saved me from one of the worst experiences of my life. You saved my life. Even if you regretted it later. And I did enjoy working with you. A lot. And I missed you, when we weren’t getting on. You’re intensely clever, and funny, a-and… And you’re someone I want on my side, if I can have you.”

Basira lets out a heavy sigh. “Look,” she says, “I-I’m sorry, for what it’s worth. I don’t know if I– I wanted some control. I wanted to keep things safe. And I couldn’t do either with you. I don’t know if it was the wrong call. In hindsight– I don’t know. Maybe I could have listened. Could have helped. And I… I missed you too.” Jon meets her gaze, and in unison, they both nod, curtly. Basira curls into herself, uncomfortable, and Martin wonders when the last time she had been so emotionally vulnerable was. Jon moves on.

“Melanie. I know we haven’t always seen eye-to-eye–” a snort from both parties– “but I do… I do like to think that, in other circumstances, we could have been friends, if we had both had slightly less to prove, and slightly less overwhelming pressure on us to prove it. I will always admire you for escaping– and envy you for it, too. I wish that option was open for me. I’d have followed you in a heartbeat, had things worked out. I’m so, so happy for you, that you got out, a-and I’m sorry I dragged you back into it.”

“Jon, you’re a right prick and I still see your face in my nightmares,” Melanie announces, startling everyone. “But you’re my friend. Are my friend, you hear me? Not could have been . For better or for worse, I’m stuck with you, and… you’re stuck with me.” She grins. “No returns, no take-backsies.” Jon’s smile is tentative and hopeful, his eyes shining with something other than tears. He swallows hard, wipes at his face again, and then turns to the next person in line.

“Georgie. I… I don’t know if there are words to express how grateful I am for what you did to me. I– I heard your statement just now. And I know, I agree, that we weren’t always… the best. But for what it’s worth, you’re my best friend, and I’m glad you’re still here, even now, at the end, after everything.”
Georgie sniffles, wiping away a tear. “Ride or die, idiot,” she mutters. Her tone makes Martin think it must be an old inside joke, and the quirk of Jon’s lips seems to confirm that suspicion. “I guess we’re dying.”

“I guess we are,” Jon agrees, sad. “Tim– I am so, so sorry. I never expect you to forgive me– would never ask you too, but– I will always regret that I let things get so bad between us. I will always regret not trying harder to fix things– not being able to save you. I don’t think I’ll ever get over that. How much I missed you.” He swallows. “I don’t want to miss you again.”

“God, you’re a bloody arsehole, you know that?” Tim mutters. “God. You can’t– you can’t fix a bridge from just one end, Jon. Both people need to try. And I wasn’t. And you couldn’t save me because I didn’t want to be saved . I don’t blame you for that. I won’t– I don’t forgive you for the whole– the whole stalking thing. But it’s not your fault I died.”

Jon’s weeping again as he turns his head, sparking static down his cheeks. “Sasha. Poor, clever, brave Sasha. Gone too soon. I guess we never really did know you, did we? Just– casual friends. Coworkers. And then everything that we could have had of you was erased and replaced. I guess, for so long, you were just– just a concept. A representation of happier times. When things were easier. And it wasn’t– it wasn’t perfect, back then. And you weren’t perfect, despite how we might have held you up as it in our collective memories. You’re not a saint. You’re human. And I wish so desperately I could get to know the real you.

‘Martin.” Martin jumps at the sound of his name. “Martin, I…” He trails off, voice wavering. Martin meets his eyes, swallows his sob, and nods.

“I know, Jon,” he says, voice soft, “me too.”

“I’m sorry I ruined our happy ending,” Jon says. “I know you wanted it.”

“You wanted it too,” Martin sighs. “And… You wouldn’t have been happy, with the plan. I understand that now. Though, I guess it is still the plan, so… This is the best case scenario, right? We die together?” No more guilt and grief and pain. Just– oblivion. Or maybe Hell, but Martin’s marched through one hell with Jon already– he knows they’ll be fine, braving another.

“Right,” Jon says, voice shaking. “You deserved better.”

“We both did.”

Bittersweet silent understanding falls down between them.

“So what happens now?” Basira asks. “You die? We all die?”

“I suppose,” Jon says.

An idea occurs to Martin, and his heart flutters in his chest, newfound possibility colliding against the bars of cold certainty that have been constructed around his heart. “Is there still…” he trails off, almost afraid to be hopeful, and then realises everyone is staring at him. “Is there still a chance we could– end up somewhere else. With the Fears?”

Jon shrugs. “I mean– maybe? It’s a possibility. I don’t know how likely.”

“Just you and me?” Martin presses. “Or, if all of us are here now…” 

“I mean– I suppose? I could try. I don’t really… know what I’m doing. You might not even be real! I could be imagining you. This might all be some– some dying dream, a last-ditch attempt to have– something. I don’t know! I’m panicking a little. I’m kind of dying.”

“Right,” Martin agrees tearfully. He pushes away the cold lick of fear that comes from Jon’s theorising– he’s real. He has to be. He can feel the fire in his lungs, now, choking and hot. “Me too.” (There’s every chance the fire could be in Jon’s lungs, too, that the real Martin is still– no, no, don’t think that way. He’s real. And even if he isn’t, he’s here for a reason. Because Jon wanted him here. This matters. He matters. He has to.) 

“I think you should,” Georgie says, taking Melanie’s hand in hers. “A new world, a better world… A fresh start? I don’t think any of us would be opposed.”

“I can’t promise better,” Jon warns.

“Well, if it’s another hell, we’ve been there, done that,” Tim says. “This time we’ll be able to stand together against it, instead of falling apart.” He takes Georgie’s hand in one of his, and Martin’s in the other. Martin squeezes tight.

“There’s a better future to be written, for all of us,” Sasha agrees, taking Basira and Martin’s hands in her own. 

“Give it a shot,” Daisy says, taking Basira’s hand, taking Jon’s. 

Melanie, the last link in the chain, reaches out a hand towards Jon. “We’re just going to let this happen? Okay.” She cracks a small smile. “You guys are the only bitches who are ever going to understand me anyway. What would I do without you?”

Jon and Melanie join hands, the last link in an unbreakable chain, and Martin feels all their hearts beat together in time.

They’ve done this before. They’ll do this a thousand times more. There are a thousand other versions of them, doing this right now.

The moment ends, the second shatters, Jon’s last breath rushes out of him and the flames sweep in to claim them all.

0.

“Martin!” Martin jolts awake, heart pounding– he’s alive, he’s not dead, that means it worked, right, it must have– 

“Earth to Martin,” a teasing voice calls, and he looks up to see Tim grinning at him. “C’mon, I thought you were excited about this.”

“I, uh, I am,” Martin stutters. “Uh, what’s this again?”

“Our first official D&D night, of course!” Tim says, rolling his eyes. “C’mon, you and Jon were badgering us all about this for weeks, don’t tell me you’ve forgotten?”

“No,” Martin says with a shake of his head. “Of course not. Sorry, just, ah, a little tired.”

“You should sleep more,” Daisy says, fixing him with a stern gaze from across the table. 

Next to her, beside Georgie, Melanie snorts. “Yeah, don’t go nodding off on us when the only reason I’m here is to please you nerds .”

“We’re all nerds, Melanie,” Basira says, with a long-suffering sigh. She’s at the end of the table, opposite to the GM screen, her dice and pencils all laid out in neat rows before her. Martin’s next to her, and on his other side are Tim and Sasha, who are sliding into place along with the last few bowls of snacks.

“Where,” Tim says, with exaggerated impatience, “is our DM?”
“I’m coming, I’m coming,” a familiar voice grumbles from a room Martin supposes is the kitchen of this small-but-cozy flat, and Jon walks out. Martin’s breath catches in his throat upon seeing him: he’s dressed Jon-casual (which, as opposed to Jon-crisis, is still slightly more formal than most of them bother with), his long greying hair tucked up into a bun, green eyes bright with warmth and mirth and, when his gaze meets Martin’s, love . 

There’s an engagement ring on his finger. It’s pretty. Martin congratulates himself for picking it, even if he doesn’t remember proposing.

As Jon skirts the table he leans down to plant a kiss on Martin’s forehead before heading to his chair, and Martin watches him with confused eyes; Jon catches him, smiles, and winks. 

Martin relaxes into his seat. Everything’s going to be okay. He glances down at his character sheet, hurriedly trying to familiarise himself with a character he doesn’t remember building, as Jon settles into his chair, organises his papers, and leans forward on his elbows, a small smile tugging at the corners of his lips.

“Well then,” he says. “We’re all here. Shall we begin?”