Archive of Our Own ^beta

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. 

──── •✧• ────

Chapter Text

The skin down the back of Jon’s knees pulled taut and shattered into ashen shards as he shifted to stand up from his funeral pyre. A dramatic reemergence into the world had not been his intent, but when one is on fire and needs to stand up, one must embrace the side effect of macabre theatrics. 

Jon managed to get to his feet, but he had no plan as to how to put out the flames. He looked out across the gathered guests at his funeral; each of them returned his gaze with varying levels of shock, horror, and disgust. Even Martin trembled and stepped back. The only person who seemed unsurprised was Melanie. Impatience made her movements sharp, tilting her head from Jon to Georgie at her side, seeking answers in the silence and growing more impatient for the lack of them. 

“What is it? Don’t tell me – Jon’s doing something spooky again, isn’t he?” she said with a groan. 

Georgie, dark eyes wide and unblinking, swallowed. Without breaking eye contact with Jon, she tried to explain to her girlfriend. “I, err…Y-yeah. Yeah, something like that.” 

Melanie threw her arms up, letting her hands clap back down on the sides of her legs in exasperation. “I knew it! There’s always something when he’s involved, even if it’s his own bloody funeral!” 

“Melanie…” Georgie started, but Basira cut their blossoming argument off. 

Drawing her gun, the ex-detective trained her sight upon the burning Archivist. “Georgie. Melanie. Martin. Get back to the car.” 

Two refusals and one eager agreement clashed against each other in response. 

“No way!”

“Yup, good idea, find us when it’s done!” 

“I’m not letting you shoot him, Basira! Give me your jacket; w-we need to put him out! Why am I having to point out that we should be helping and putting out the burning man?”

“Martin, get back! Do you wanna set yourself on fire too?” Basira barked. 

Jon watched the bickering, wondering how he’d become so oddly detached from the simmering chaos. The fact he ought to be screaming in agony hadn’t escaped him. But without pain, why should he scream? In the place of the expected white-hot agony, numbness rolled over him. So he contented himself to watch the others through the shimmering, heated air. Their fear comforted him, and were Jon fully present within himself, that fact might have disgusted him. 

It’s the familiarity of it, that’s all, he assured himself with minimal effort. An echo, a habit, nothing more. You’re dead anyway. It’s fine. 

“You go back to the car then, Melanie. I’m staying,” Georgie said, finally facing the other woman, unrepentant in her determination. The sting of her words registered in Melanie’s recoil, however, letting fragments of vulnerability seep out. 

“Oh, charming! Let your blind girlfriend blunder off back to the car, is that it?” 

“Wh–no! No, I didn’t…No, I was—”

“You were just thinking about Jon. God, I’m so sick of this! Don’t you get it?” Melanie demanded, almost shouting. “Every bad thing that’s happened to us over the last few years, practically every single one can be traced down to either Elias doing some weird paranormal stuff through Jon, Jon not leaving well enough alone, or Jon not doing something obvious. And now, now it’s meant to finally all be over, we’re finally meant to be free of all this nightmare bullshit and rest, maybe even build a normal life, what happens? Lo and behold, Jonathan Sims is here to make sure that doesn’t happen for anyone!” Melanie threw a wild gesture out in the direction of the Archivist in question. He offered no rebuttal in his defence – his vocal cords had long since crumbled to ashes. 

Instead, Martin piped up. “That is not fair! And for God’s sake, do you really think Jon is choosing to walk around on fire right now? Can we please address that first?”

Melanie’s jaw dropped, then snapped closed again. “He’s…? No. Right. Of course he is. Of course he is!” 

She laughed then, stepping back from the group and pinching the bridge of her nose. “Fuck this. I’m out. I was out months ago. I’d have been out months ago if it weren’t for him! We survived the nightmare, Georgie. Don’t you dare go running back into it. I’m not chasing after you if you do.”

She turned then, cane tracing the grass, and walked off in the direction of the car. 

“Melanie, don’t! Melanie! Wait! Rrgh! ” Frustration rolled from Georgie, her hands balled into fists at her sides. She cast one last look back at Jon, pity and concern silently offered, before she broke into a jog to catch up with Melanie. “Melanie!” 

With two of the group gone, Jon turned his attention back to Basira and Martin. Strange. Staring down yet another police officer – former or not – pointing a weapon at him in this particular woodland ought to have coaxed a traumatic response. At the very least, he assumed he should be yelling in deranged horror at the entire situation in general. Maybe the flames had burnt away his nerves. Yes, that explained the physical side of it. 

Ah, there! The delayed onset of panic hurried into him like an actor late for his entrance on stage. It welled up from his chest and clawed up his charcoal-lined throat. The urgent need to put out the flames and end this nightmare pushed him to move.

Spurred by the swelling dread, Jon began to run, heedless of the threat of the gun, hoping to find a stream, a river, anything. Charcoal flakes of flesh and skin rained from his burning body as he ran, the blurry green of the trees bobbing up and down in his line of sight, promising salvation. Before he could reach the treeline however, he lurched to a halt; his entire arm had exploded into a smoldering mess as a bullet tore through fire-fragile bone. 

It took Jon a moment to realise Basira had fired at him. Blown his arm clean off. 

He crashed forwards, landing on the grass in a cloud of smoke and smoldering plant life. He clutched the frayed stump of his left arm. Once again, the pain eluded him, but the shock of losing his limb in such spectacular fashion surged panic through Jon once again. 

“Basira, no!” Martin yelped, scrambling forwards and standing between her and the burning Archivist. Meanwhile, Jon scrambled to his feet, stamping in an effort to put out some of the burning grass around him. 

“Martin. Move. ” Basira kept her firearm trained on Jon, dark eyes unblinking as she held the target in her sights. “Whatever that is, it isn’t Jon.”

“But it might be!” Martin pleaded, casting a slightly fearful glance over his shoulder at the burning man frozen in fear behind him. Jon dared not move forwards, lest the ex-detective shoot another arm off. Besides, accidentally setting Martin on fire too wouldn’t win him any points with Basira. So instead, he risked nodding enthusiastically, sending more burnt skin and ashes snowing down to the ground.

Of course it’s me! You should know who you set fire to! Don’t rush to help me either, no, I’ll just continue to combust, shall I? he thought to himself, turning his head as best he could to see if he could spot a nearby river or stream to end the dramatics. With the density of trees and shrubbery around them, Jon had assumed there must be a water source nearby to feed them. Along with the corpses of Daisy’s victims, rotting in the marshy ground, feeding the roots above and helping the trees to flourish. 

The mental image sent a shudder through him, and he tried not to consider the fact he’d have been one of them if not for the strange hand of fate. Though he might well still join them, if Basira had her way. 

“He’s on. Fire.” Basira growled, brow furrowing ever so slightly. “For all of Jon’s weirdness, I’m pretty sure he couldn’t do that.” 

“W-well, no, b-b-but…but maybe he can now? Let me talk to him! Look!” Martin threw an arm out backwards, gesturing at Jon. “He’s staying still; he’s not trying to hurt us. Just…give me one minute to try to find out what’s going on. Please!” 

A muscle in Basira’s jaw shivered. For a moment, it looked like she might take a shot at Jon’s head from right over Martin’s shoulder, risks be damned. But then, as Jon almost resolved to make his move, she lowered her gun a touch. A jerk of her head was all the signal Martin got that his minute had started. 

He didn’t need telling twice. Martin spun around and faced Jon properly for the first time since their shared agony at the summit of the Panopticon. Guilt and relief swirled in Martin’s grey-blue eyes, and Jon noticed how his attention kept flicking to his chest, as though the stab wound would be framed in dazzling embers. 

“Jon, are…are you still…you?” Martin asked, kept back by the radiating heat. 

Jon tried to reply, but his crumbled vocal cords refused to operate. So instead, he nodded. 

And none of this can wait until AFTER I’m put out? he thought, making a wild gesture with one hand towards the trees. Martin blinked a few times, a pink flush staining his cheeks. Strange how he knew when he was being reprimanded even without words. 

“I don’t, erm…I don’t quite know what you…I-I mean, you can’t go in there, Jon, you’ll set the whole place on fire.” 

Jon, wishing more than ever that he could scream, gestured down at himself with a flat palm from shoulder to hip. 

I’M. ON. FIRE. MARTIN. 

“R-Right! No, I-I-I get it! Fire, fire bad, erm…”

He glanced over his shoulder at Basira. It seemed that Jon’s ability to translate grouchiness even in the throes of combustion had convinced Basira that he was Jon, because she holstered her gun with an air of irritation. “You’re not having my jacket, Martin; pretty sure he’s past the ‘pat it out’ stage. There’s a reservoir in walking distance, though. Guess it’s your lucky day.” 

If Jon had eyebrows, they’d have shot up in disbelief. 

Lucky. Day. Are you seriously suggesting that being stabbed and set on fire constitutes a—

“Okay, reservoir, excellent!” Martin trilled, as though privy to Jon’s surly thoughts. He almost made to guide Jon away by the shoulders, quickly thinking better of it the moment he raised his hands. “L-Let’s go. We’ll, erm…we’ll be right back?” he called to Basira as he half-coaxed his burning boyfriend away with multiple ‘shoo’ motions at a safe distance. 

──── •✧• ────

The reservoir stretched out behind a framing of greenery and reeds, an almost-still sheet of grey that blended seamlessly with the cloudy evening sky. The calm tranquility erupted, however, when a blazing five-foot-five torrent of vaguely human-shaped flames burst into a sprint, trampling through the plants on the water’s edge, tripping over one of them, burning several, then landing with an inelegant attempt at a dive into the murky waters. 

The light disappeared along with him, leaving Martin to call out in the gloom.  

“Jon? Jon! Jesus, hang on, you’ve set fire to half the shrubbery.” Martin took off his dirt-caked jumper and began beating the smoldering plantlife, casting worried glances to the flailing man in the shallows. “Jon? Can you even swim?”

Jon, in fact, could not swim, owing to the fact his grandmother had never taught him. That important point had not registered before throwing himself into the reservoir, on account of being on fire. 

The stirred-up silt stung his eyes as much as the ashes, and while the freezing water soothed his almost-cremated body, it proved no less vicious in its chill than the flames had been with their heat. His one remaining arm, blacked to charcoal, clawed at the water despite its lack of depth.

Martin waded in behind him, grabbed him under the armpits and hauled him out. He dragged him through the sodden waterside plants to a small clearing. 

“Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry!” Martin repeated over and over with every step, lying the soaking Archivist down on his now-splayed and ruined jumper on the ground. “Sorry, sorry, sorry…H-here, lie down. Oh God. Oh God, Jon, how are you even still a-a-alive? I thought…I thought I’d…” 

With the flames quenched, Jon finally found a moment to catch his breath, aching and rattling though that breath might be. He wanted to comfort Martin, to absolve him of his guilt and assure him he’d done nothing wrong. He wished he could sit up and push the other man’s tears away from his freckled cheeks with his thumbs. 

But right now, it was all Jon could do to keep breathing, his adrenaline spent and his panic dying in his veins. So instead, he stared up at the inky sky with lidless eyes, knowing the light pollution would keep any emerging stars at bay, knowing no songs would ever be written about the beauty of the boring, dull, lifeless overcast canvas that hung almost perpetually over England. 

Tears trickled from Jon’s eyes all the same for the sight of it. 

The sky had never been so beautiful to him. 

It was the sky. 

The grey, normal, unassuming sky. 

It wasn’t looking back anymore. 

The rustle of fabric to his side told him Martin had sat down, no doubt fretting over the charred should-be corpse of his boyfriend. Jon twisted his neck with great difficulty, looking up at Martin, all his energy depleted in the mad dash to the reservoir. 

Tears rolled down Martin’s face, painting tracks through the dried blood and filth. This moment was the first either of them had had to sit down and breathe since the Panopticon. Since Jon had rushed off on his own. 

Since Martin had killed him. 

“Jon, I…I’m sorry, I…” 

Jon shook his head, immediately regretting it as the jumper under his skull rubbed raw against the scalded flesh. 

Don’t you dare apologise. If I have to admit to being wrong in the path I chose, the very least you can do is keep telling me that your path was the right one, he thought. God, he missed his voice. 

Instead, Jon tried to communicate as best he could. He turned his gaze back to the sky, lifting his arm up and pointing with a trembling finger. Martin’s attention followed, confusion furrowing his brow and wrinkling the bridge of his nose a little. Somewhere in his ashen ribcage, Jon’s heart fluttered at the sight; he hadn’t expected to ever see Martin again, all things considered, much less enjoy his little quirks. 

“Huh? What? What am I looking at?”

He checked back with Jon for clarification. Jon tapped under his own eye, then pointed back to the sky. Martin glanced up and down a few more times before realisation sparked, brightening his expression and halting the tears for a moment. “Oh! Oh, right! It’s not looking back! Y-yeah, it’s, erm…it’s nice, isn’t it? Everything being back to normal again?” 

A long silence stretched between them – a well-done former-Eldritch creature and his boyfriend relaxing at the edge of a freezing reservoir in the middle of the night, painting the very picture of normality. 

Martin snorted and started laughing. Even Jon managed a rattling wheeze, his body spasming in some attempt at a chuckle. Before long, his rasping devolved into an echo of a cough, bringing Martin out of his momentary levity and back to fretting again. “Oh Christ, Jon, what are we going to do with you? You’re…”

Quite the mess; yes, I agree. I shouldn’t even be alive, Jon replied in his head to the one-sided conversation. No more Seeing. No more Knowing. Presumably, then, no more healing either. Maybe this is me now. Burnt to a crisp and unable to speak. Hmm. A fitting punishment for the Archivist who asked too many questions, I suppose.

He glanced up at Martin, knowing full well none of that rumination had translated to whatever expression his burnt face could conjure. He tried to manipulate his cracked lips into a sad smile, but all he managed to do was to chisel more fissures into the crumbling skin. 

Where Martin didn’t reply, however, the crackling whisper from the pyre snaked into Jon’s ear once more to fill the silence. 

“Don’t be so sure, Jon.”

Heat radiated from somewhere deep within him, as though summoned by the disembodied voice. Like a bundle of energy stored from his cremation, the scalding sensation threaded through his veins and down his limbs, wriggling up to his head and wrapping behind his eyes, ensnaring his very mind. So much loss. So much loss. A clear understanding shoved its way into Jon’s mind then – if the Eye had not taken him, the Desolation might have taken a fancy to him. Maybe it already had. 

“Ah, you noticed, then? Same offer, different dealer. Not that it truly matters, Jon. You know that now. They’re all one and the same, really. And besides…you made the same choice again after all.” 

Choice? What choice? There had been no choice! How could he have rested, conscious to the world as he still was? 

The silent protest did not sway whatever power scorched through his quaking form. The boiling pulses swept him away, leaving Jon floundering in a thick cloud of disorientation. In the distance, Martin’s voice swirled, distorted and foggy, no doubt calling out Jon’s name. Jon would have given anything to reply. He wanted to assure him that everything was back to normal again; that they could start building a normal life together now. 

You want my choice? That’s my choice! Jon begged in vain. A normal life! For Martin! Let him have some peace now, for God’s sake…Let me give him that now, at least! 

The pyre-born whisper chuckled as Jon’s consciousness finally failed him. His eyes rolled back into his skull, and the world went quiet.  

“You? Wanting a normal life? You always were a terrible liar, Jon…"  

──── •✧• ────

Chapter Text

In the weeks of sleep that followed, Jon found no solace in the unusual emptiness of his dreams. Where the carousel of nightmares that had once been a trademark of his nighttime hours had disappeared, another terror had slipped into the vacant role. 

Whispers. Endless whispers, some in voices Jon recognised, others of those he did not. Sometimes, Martin called to him, pleading with him not to go without him. To stick to the plan, to remember his promise. Other times, the whispering transformed into jagged laughter, cold and calculated, framed by pitiful coos of his name. 

The word ‘Archivist’ spat through bloodied lips, snarled around hunger. Croaked through dirt, hissed through the shadows, coughed from rotten lungs. A thousand gleeful sing-song exclamations, the title unravelled around laughter, mangled around clicking pincers. Faded and echoing sobs, garbled through broken bones, stolen from his throat by the rushing void. Burnt from his tongue, he talks too much, he talks too much, he talks too much.

Through the swirling heat trapped under his skin, Jon’s body began the painstaking process of healing. His eyelids had been the first to regrow, followed by days of new skin painting itself over burnt flesh. But his left arm remained a stump just above where his elbow had been, cauterised and scarred. 

Snapshots of a dark room around him faded in and out of his consciousness. Occasionally, Martin would be there, fussing over him and placing cold towels across his forehead. Other times, the man would be asleep in a chair next to him, looking thoroughly uncomfortable in that position. 

Right now was one such time. Jon turned his head to the side and attempted to tell Martin to go to bed. The poor man must be exhausted. But nothing other than a croaking, slurred grumble made it past his lips, and Martin remained asleep. 

So instead, Jon decided to try to get out of bed and put Martin there. He managed to sit himself up and swing his legs over the edge of the bed before he crumpled forwards, landing in a heap in Martin’s lap and waking him up. 

“Ju-huh! Oh, Jon! No, no, no, back to bed!” Martin yelped, scooping up the tangled pile of gangly limbs and blankets from his lap and depositing it back on the bed. 

“Nuurr… You’re tired…” Jon said, making a feeble grab for Martin’s sleeve with his one available hand. “Y’should sleep.” 

“I was sleeping. Someone woke me up,” Martin pointed out, rearranging the blankets over Jon and smoothing them out. Jon wriggled, trying to slip out of the cocoon.

“Who woke you up?” he asked, blinking up at Martin. “S’no one else here…?” 

Martin offered him a little smile, then tucked the blankets a little tighter around Jon’s sides. “You did.”

“I did?”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“Oh. Sorry…” Jon settled back down again, if only because he felt guilty for waking Martin up in the first place. Had he done that? Memories slid from his grasps before they could even fully form, chased away by the uncomfortable heat that refused to leave him. He groaned and tried to escape the tucked-in sheets once again. “M’too warm. You take the bed, and I’ll…I’ll sleep in the chair.” 

Martin sighed, but he began to unravel some of the blankets from around Jon. “You’re still riddled with fever, Jon. You’re not sleeping in a chair. Get some rest, all right? I’ll be fine.” He smoothed back some of Jon’s hair from his forehead, delighting Jon with the knowledge that his locks had already grown back. He’d been quite sure they’d burnt off in the pyre. Unless that hadn’t ever happened. 

“Martin?”

“That’s the I-have-a-question-or-seven way you say my name. If I answer one question, you have to promise to go back to sleep.”

Jon thought about the offer for a while, then nodded. 

Martin sat back and gestured for him to continue. 

“Was I on fire, Martin?” he asked. “I think I might have been on fire, which doesn’t make a lot of sense because if I were on fire, I’d not be lying here feeling pretty fine right now. So maybe it was just a bad dream. But then, if it were a bad dream, how did I end up here at all? That’s not two questions, it’s more a…primary question and then a supplementary question attached to the primary question that’ll get answered at the same time.”

His ramble died away as the wave of fever rolled across him again, stealing his senses for a moment and replacing them with nausea. Martin took the opportunity to get a word in edgeways and replied. 

“Y-yeah. Yeah, you were. But we, erm…put you out! A-and you seem to be on the mend, s-s-so that’s good!” 

Something in the way Martin said that – too brightly, too animated – suggested it wasn’t good. That maybe they ought to be worried about all that. But between the fever dulling his wits and the nausea demanding he go back to sleep to avoid its discomfort, Jon couldn’t ask Martin to tell the truth. 

He’d promised to ask only one question after all. 

So, with a weak scowl that told Martin he’d remember this conversation and perform a follow-up investigation on it later, Jon let his eyes close. 

The moment he did so, all memory of the interaction boiled away under the fever’s cruel command, and Jon drifted off to another dreamless sleep. 

──── •✧• ────

Jon awoke with a start, air rushing into his lungs in a noisy wheeze. He sat bolt upright in bed, all scrambling limbs and pawing hands, eyes wide as he searched the dark room around him. 

His breathing settled as he examined his surroundings, familiarity making its slow descent over his raw senses and soothing them. The ridiculous, fleecy bed sheets patterned with cartoon clouds on a light-blue background. The absurd number of pillows behind him. Shelves that lined three of the walls like angular horseshoes, each one displaying a staggering collection of sword-wielding knights or bow-touting elves in intricate armour. The lingering scent of disinfectant that had engrained itself through the entire house like a bad memory. 

Martin’s house. Martin’s room. But no Martin. 

Jon granted himself a moment to sit in silence, save for the slight rasping of his lungs. He brought his hands to his lap, intending to ground himself with something real. 

But only one hand showed up. Odd. Jon was quite certain there ought to be two of them. Still, he made a thorough examination of the one present, deciding to worry about his absent left hand later. 

Scar-paled skin covered decidedly unburnt flesh, and as he turned it to check the back of it, Jon found himself more concerned by his lack of anxiety over it all. 

Had he been dreaming? No. No, the fire was real. It was still real; bubbling and flickering under his skin, inflaming his veins and making every motion sluggish and uncomfortable. But the embers no longer danced over his body. 

A light frown tugged at Jon’s brow, the pieces of the puzzle spinning in his head and avoiding any attempt he made to put them together. He couldn’t have healed. The Fears were gone, and his abilities as the Archivist along with them. He was just Jon now. Just Jon, and he had died. 

The need for answers forced him out of bed, as though invisible strings tugged at fever-tired limbs. Groaning, he managed to get to his feet, his body throwing a bout of shivering at him as a reward for his efforts. He padded across the room in bare feet, opened the bedroom door, and skulked out across the hall. 

The gold-tinged light from the living room spilt out from below and up the stairs, casting the upstairs hall in a warm glow. Thanks to that, Jon managed to navigate the stairs without falling down them, though the world kept swimming and tilting around him. 

A cold shock under his feet informed him he’d made it to the kitchen, the tiles biting at his soles. He crossed through and into the living room, blinking away at the brighter light in there. 

The TV rumbled away, the volume on low, playing a movie Jon recognised. Something about an author trying to protect her characters from an overly keen film producer. One of Martin’s favourites. 

“Jon! Jesus, when did you get up? You should be resting!” 

Large hands clamped on Jon’s shoulders, snatching his bleary attention away from the film. He blinked up at Martin, studying the portrait of worry before him. 

The curls of white hair that twisted through his strawberry-blond locks would forever spear guilt into Jon’s chest. A souvenir from his trip to the Lonely, a trip Martin would never have made if Jon had woken up sooner. Coupled with the unkempt stubble that bordered on a beard, and Martin bore more than a passing resemblance to the man who’d sent him to the Lonely to begin with. 

“I…woke up,” Jon slurred, annoying himself with how slow and stupid he sounded. But Martin lit up with a little smile, making it all worthwhile.

“Yes, I can see that.”

Tears shone in Martin’s eyes, and Jon became acutely aware of how deeply the other man was looking at him, as though every second together were stolen from time itself. One teardrop tumbled from Martin’s eye down his cheek, breaking the spell and making him shake his head.

“But you’re still burning up, Jon,” he said too brightly. “C’mon, let’s get you back to bed…”

“M’not burning up!” Jon protested as Martin spun him around and began to march him back through the kitchen. “No, no, look! If I were still burning up, you’d have caught fire too!” 

“Burning up as in fever, Jon.” 

“I don’t have a fever…”

“You don’t have to disagree for the sake of disagreeing, you know.”

“I’m not…”

“Urgh. Bed.” 

Their brief spat entertained them all the way up the stairs and back to Martin’s bedroom. Jon flopped down on the bed, then plopped down onto his side, smooshing his face into the pillow. But when Martin made to leave, he sat back up again, offended in every way. “Whurr? No! You too!”

Martin paused at the door, his lips taking on a tight smile as he held back laughter. “I’ll be right downstairs if you need me.” 

“I need you.” 

The smile shattered. Martin’s gaze dipped to the centre of Jon’s chest for a fraction of a second, then a sigh made his shoulders sag. He stepped back into the room and sat down on the bed next to Jon. 

Jon waited, assuming Martin wanted to say something. Then, all of a sudden, Martin barrelled into him, wrapping his arms around Jon and squeezing a shocked wheeze from him. 

“You’ve got to stop doing this, Jon…!” Martin sobbed into his shoulder. Befuddled with fever, it took Jon longer than it should have to realise what had upset Martin. 

He lifted his hand up to rub circles across his boyfriend’s broad back. “You want me to stop coming back from the dead? That’s not very nice.” 

“No! Yes! Well, no, I mean…I-I’ve said goodbye to you twice now!” Martin tried to explain, leaning back. Red, puffy skin framed his eyes and blotched the skin near his nose and mouth. He began to tremble, either fighting with his sobs or frustrated at himself for letting any of it out. “Both times I thought I’d never see you again, a-a-and one of the times, it was because I’d…I’d killed you, a-and I thought I’d lost you forever and—” 

“And I came back.” Jon smiled at him, enjoying the simplicity of his rebuttal. “That’s a good thing, isn’t it?” 

“Yes, but—”

“And I suppose it means technically, you didn’t kill me.”

“W-Well, I don’t know—”

“So no jail time for you. Just as well. You’d do terribly in jail.” 

Considering the matter resolved, Jon let himself flop back down in the bed. After a moment’s pause, he patted the empty space next to him. 

The mattress creaked as Martin shifted, crawling up next to Jon and curling into a ball, his head resting near Jon’s side. 

“I really thought I’d lost you this time,” he said in a small voice.

Jon reached out to brush some of Martin’s locks back behind his ears. “I know.” 

“A-and then the pyre…I didn’t know, I swear, they weren’t supposed to do anything before I got back!”

“I know.” 

“And then you walked out of it like-like some kinda Game of Thrones scene, and I…I just…And then you fainted, and you’ve been asleep for weeks; I-I thought you were in a coma again. And you didn’t wake up for me last time, and I’ve been having a total nightmare tracking down that Oliver guy, and—” 

Martin uncurled a little and frowned. “Wait. What do you mean you know? Know as in…little ‘K’ or big ‘K’?” 

“Little ‘K’. I think. I didn’t Know it. I heard it. In the car,” Jon explained idly, his eyelids already growing heavy despite being told he’d been asleep for weeks already. “Guess it’s a natural thing. Hearing is meant to be the last sense you lose when you die. Read that somewhere. I think.” 

“Riiiiight. But for hours after?” 

“Of the two of us, who has active experience of being dead?” 

“Okay, fair point, but how does that explain this?” 

Martin prodded a finger into Jon’s side, making him yelp and twist into an awkward croissant shape in the bed. 

“Ow! Explain what?”

The bed shifted again as Martin propped himself up on one elbow. “The whole surviving a stab wound thing! The whole walking out of the funeral pyre thing! The healing from thirteenth-degree burns thing! Any one of those things!” 

Jon opened and closed his mouth a few times. The answer stung the tip of his tongue, but he feared to speak it aloud in case it would make it real. In case some residual power of the Archivist remained, waiting to breathe truth into the horror once again. 

Before he could offer a limp excuse, however, a knock at the door made him jump, narrowly avoiding elbowing Martin. 

The two men stared at each other, silently telling the other that it definitely wasn’t for them. Martin shuffled to the edge of the bed and got out, heading out into the hall. “Stay there. No, I mean it, Jon!” he added, pausing and stepping backwards to point at him in warning. Jon, who had already swung one leg over the side of the bed, froze and stared up at him. “Stay. There.”

Martin left the room, returning once more to point two fingers at his own eyes then back at Jon, then exited a final time. Footsteps sounded down the stairs, a chain rattled, and a lock turned. The front door opened, and Jon sat up in bed, straining to hear. 

He needn’t have bothered. From downstairs, Martin yelped; someone or something burst through the front door with enough force to make it bash against the wall, and they’d apparently collided with Martin. A loud crash told Jon both Martin and the uninvited guest had fallen over. 

He threw the blankets away and darted from the bedroom, almost tumbling down the stairs in his haste to help. “Martin? Who—?”

He missed a step and fell the last few, landing on the floor alongside Martin and a horribly familiar face. 

Simon Fairchild scrambled to his feet, eyes wide and full of terror. Gone was any sense of wilful carelessness or airy nonchalance. He threw himself at the door, pushing it shut as though he were expecting a tiger to barrel in after him. He slammed the chain back in place then fumbled with the key still hanging from the lock, twisting it until it clicked. Then he turned and shoved his back against the door, sliding down the length of it until he was upon the floor once again, chest heaving. 

Simon caught his breath, then put on an impression of his former dazzling smile. 

“Hello, you two! Sorry to burst in like this, and without so much as a bottle of wine, but, aahhmm, well, everyone’s a bit twitchy out there. Not fond of former Avatars like ourselves, it seems. So I thought, I thought, well, w-w-we should stick together! Safety in numbers, right? M-m-maybe I could just hunker down here with you lovely chaps until all this blows over. What do you say?” 

Jon and Martin turned to look at each other, then back to Simon. 

“I’ll pick him up and fling him out if you can unlock the door,” Martin said, getting to his feet.

“I can manage that,” Jon said, wobbling as he stood up too. 

Simon paled and launched himself upwards again, holding his hands out in front of him in desperation. “No! No, no, wait! Erm, wait! I-I can tell you things!” he yelped, looking at Jon in particular. “I-I-I mean, ha ha, a-aren’t you wondering how I found you, hmm? Aren’t you worried other former Avatars might track you and your boyfriend down too? After all, you made quite a name for yourself in the ruined world, Archivist.”

Martin stopped, halfway through rolling his sleeves up in preparation of throwing Simon out onto the street like a bag of rubbish. He shook his head at Jon, but the seed had been planted. 

“And what, we’re going to trust you to tell the truth?” Jon asked Simon, eyes narrowing. “You know I can’t compel you anymore. The Fears have gone.” 

Simon’s smile transformed into something far more genuine, his only answer being a quirk of snowy-white eyebrows and a knowing look. 

──── •✧• ────

Chapter Text

The silence waited at the table with the three men gathered there, waiting for one of them to break it. Jon looked at Martin; his boyfriend kept staring at Simon, his face darkened with an expression Jon could only describe as blame. Under the table, he gave Martin a gentle kick. 

Startled, Martin snapped his attention back to Jon. “Hmm? What?”

“Are you, erm…are you all right?”

Across from them, Simon picked up his mug and held it between his skeletal hands, pausing as though he had recently acquired an appreciation for the simple pleasure of warmth, then took a noisy sip of tea to block any answer Martin might have given. He issued an equally loud sigh of contentment afterwards, complete with a theatrical closing of his eyes. “Oh Jon,” Simon said, opening his eyes again and smiling at the couple before him. “Please, don’t rush to my defence. I wouldn’t want you two squabbling on my behalf!”

The tittering laugh that followed suggested that Simon would love nothing more than for people to argue because of him. Jon went to fold his arms, remembered his predicament, and settled for thudding his elbow onto the tabletop and resting his chin in his palm. “I think I liked you better when you were scared of me,” Jon commented, enjoying the little shiver of recollection that knocked Simon’s mocking smirk ever so slightly. “You were far less irritating.”

“The threat of being destroyed does make it hard to live one’s best life, I find,” Simon retorted, his usual faux-jolliness wilting. “But, as you claim, you haven’t got any powers anymore. The Fears have gone…”

He took another loud sip of his tea, set the mug down, and had just inhaled to speak again when Martin suddenly cut across him.

“Or have they?” Martin said, taking on a mock-spooky tone, his hands out in front of him, fingers wiggling. 

Simon, pale eyes wide and face the picture of insult, stared at Martin. Jon watched them both, locked in a strange freeze frame for a whole second. When it became clear neither Martin nor Simon would make the next move, Jon leant forwards a touch, deciding to answer Martin’s rhetorical  question. “Erm…yes. Yes, they are. They’re gone. I can confirm that they were sent away.” 

Martin, to Jon’s surprise, didn’t look convinced. He turned to Jon, gesturing out towards Simon. “Well, he clearly thinks otherwise! He reckons he knows something, Jon, and honestly, I don’t think we should hear it!”

“What?” Jon’s heart fluttered – in panic, he told himself, and certainly not in delight of the prospect of fresh information – and he wished that he could compel Simon right now, just once more. He turned to the former Avatar, trying his best not to look too enticed, but the curl on Simon’s lips told him that was a failed endeavour. Irritated, Jon tried to block Simon somewhat with his shoulder as he addressed Martin instead. “Martin, what are you talking about?” he hissed, keeping his volume low. “We gave up so much…so, so much to send the Fears away. If it didn’t work…”

“It worked enough!” Martin’s chair squeaked as he kicked back a bit, apparently in two minds as to whether to leave the table. Tears prickled in his eyes, his hands bunched into fists on the table in front of him. “The world’s back to how it was! A-a-and better yet, you’re alive! We weren’t even sure the first bit would happen, and we were pretty sure the second part wasn’t going to! Can’t we just…Can’t we just be satisfied with that? Everything’s back to how it was! That’s what we wanted, isn’t it?”

“It’s not quite back to how it was, actually,” Simon interjected, dipping a biscuit Jon was pretty sure no one had offered him into his tea. “But, if you don’t want to know, you don’t want to know.” 

“I—” Jon started, but this time, Martin got to his feet.

“We don’t,” he answered firmly. “I-I’m sorry if it seems selfish o-o-or unexpected, but we’ve done more than enough to bring the world back to what we have now. So whatever you have to say, Simon, it’s not wanted. I-I think you should leave.” 

Simon’s Adam’s apple bobbed, and though he made a valiant effort to keep smiling, he revealed his hand with a single look. 

A look at Jon. 

He knows I won’t let him go, he noted bitterly, knowing Simon was right. Knowing he’d be going against Martin’s wishes. 

“Archivist?” Simon’s question cut through Jon’s thoughts with a quiver of desperation that robbed him of his usual lighthearted tone. 

Jon hesitated, stuffing down the urge to demand Simon tell them everything he knew. To reveal where they’d gone wrong, where their solution had failed. After all their hardship, had it all been for nothing? Then, like a blade of sun through stormy clouds, realisation struck Jon. 

He didn’t have to know. Not anymore. This desire, this compulsion, it must be all him. The Eye was gone. He was the Archivist no more. 

Why, then, did the inside of his mouth burn as he shaped words of rejection? 

“I think you should leave now, Simon,” he said, with all the finesse of dragging himself over broken glass. Instinct made Jon get to his feet, his chair scraping behind him, and stagger away from the table. 

It’s just the fever, he told himself, as another wave of sickly warmth pulsed over him. It’s just the fever.

Behind him, a loud clatter sounded as Simon leapt to his feet, a sudden rush of terror setting a strange tenseness to his usually loose-limbed, angular frame. His hands splayed on the table in front of him, and Jon thought he might actually attempt to jump over it to grab him. But luckily, Simon did no such thing; his mouth opened, presumably to take a second shot at convincing Jon of his usefulness, when a series of three short, sharp knocks at the door set the air in the kitchen to an icy silence. 

Simon froze. Only his eyes moved, shifting to look towards the front door from the very corners of his eyes. 

Martin either didn’t notice or didn’t care. He got up, placing a gentle hand on Jon’s shoulder on the way past – “Stay here,” he muttered in gentle warning – and made his way to the hall again. 

Simon unlocked his limbs at that moment, throwing himself towards Martin. “W-wait! Don’t!” he hissed, grabbing Martin’s arm. “Do. Not. Open. That. Door.” 

He flung his free arm to point back at Jon. “He’ll be the first person in this room they kill, mark my words!” 

Martin didn’t yank his arm away, but instead, exchanged a look with Jon. Jon took a moment to think, then wordlessly, looked towards the hall and then back to Martin. 

Martin nodded, and with a strength that always startled Jon, pulled his arm away from Simon’s grip with ease. “It’s probably just the postman,” he said, though no one in the room believed that for one second. 

He headed off again, followed for a moment by another flailing attempt on Simon’s behalf to grab him. The former Avatar of the Vast had lost some of his spritely manner, however, and he missed, falling into the wall by the door instead. “Martin! Martin!” he half-whispered after him. 

Once it became clear that route was pointless, Simon whirled upon Jon. “Do you know who is at the door?” he asked, a level of accusation in the word “know” that Jon didn’t appreciate. 

“No,” Jon replied firmly. “But if I had to take a guess, it’s the angry mob you were running from. I really don’t really see a reason not to fling you back out to them, to be honest.” 

Simon’s lips pursed, crinkling his already lined features further. He started pacing towards Jon, a finger wagging in the air between them. “A mob? You think that’s what’s coming for you? For all of us who enjoyed the world of ruin?”

“I didn’t enjoy—!” 

“Oh, please!” Simon had closed the gap now, and from here, Jon could see just how much his decades-crafted mask of whimsy had shattered on the bumpy landing back to reality. “That world was practically made for you! Made by you! You can lie to your lovely lad all you like, but between us monsters, dear boy, I know exactly how that world felt to you.”

“Really not presenting a very good argument to keep you here,” Jon said coolly, just as the door opened and the low sound of voices in the hallway reached them, robbing Simon of what little colour he had left in his face. “Should I shout your friends through, Simon?”

“Don’t you dare!” Simon spared a frightful glance over his shoulder, then whipped his head back to Jon with such force that his combover of white hair jostled from its usual position and began cascading over his brows. “Listen to me. Every single person in the world experienced the horrors. And the first thing every country in the world did was look for who to blame! They’ve set up task forces to investigate it all; there’s not a place on this wretched little rock that we can flee to, Archivist, particularly not you! Not unless you put them back!” 

A stunned, hollow laugh burst from Jon then, sending Simon into another tizzy of panic, looking towards the hallway to make sure he was still safe. “Put them back? What, the Fears? Not a chance! Even if I could – which, I cannot emphasise enough, I do not want to do – the Fears are gone, Simon. Sent off to some other poor universe.”

Jon had to take a second there to shove away the twist of guilt that threatened to rise in his chest at that. Right now, as he bickered with Simon, the Fears twisted themselves around a new world. Billions of innocent lives unaware of the path Jon had sent them down now. 

Refusing to think on it further, Jon spoke again. “Everything that happens to us now, Simon…is penance for our actions as Avatars. I’ll face that if I have to. I suggest you either do the same or start running.”

Jon stepped to the side then, offering Simon an escape out the back door of the kitchen. He even gestured to it with an open palm, a small smile on his face. The sound of muffled conversation still hummed from the hallway; Martin was either stalling or gathering information. Or both, Jon hoped. 

Simon, however, didn’t take the bait. With a snarl, he advanced upon Jon again. “Archivist. Listen to me. I know where the Fears are. Send these agents away. If you don’t, they’ll drag me away, and you’ll never know the truth.” 

“What truth?”

The resonance in Jon’s voice had been imagined, surely. The sensation of hooking ghostly barbs into Simon’s thin chest had been a phantom sense. Those very hooks pulling words up through his victim’s throat, shaping them with eloquence and detail, they were nothing more than phantom limbs, Jon told himself. He had not compelled Simon; he couldn’t compel Simon. 

If the other former Avatar grinned, it was born of the triumph of getting Jon to cave and ask at all. 

“I remember exactly where I was when the world of ruin shuddered. Soaring through my very own Domain – beautiful and endless and agonising – watching old Junior lumber about. He did such a wonderful job, you know, I barely had to get involved in tormenting people myself. I did, of course, from time to time, just to keep my spirits up. But most of the time, I simply soared. I could soar forever, you know. There’s no feeling quite like it. And in that beautiful world, I could have soared forever. 

“But then, it all stopped. The air grew still, no longer whistling around me. One moment, I was gliding, the king of the skies, watching poor souls rain through the Vast or scramble to climb back upon the hulking goliath of crushing pain they’d tried so desperately to escape from. The next… I was the poor soul. Falling through endless grey and blue and white, the breath squashed into my lungs, no way in, no way out. 

“It wasn’t until I hit the ground that I realised what had happened. You see, in that perfect world, there was a tower one could see from any distance, even in the Vast. And that tower had vanished. In its place was a plume of fire and spirals of burning threads that lashed towards a sky of wide, bloodshot eyes. Each one began to roll back on itself and close, one by one by one. 

“They hadn’t gone yet. The Fears, that is. If they had, I’d have been so much jam upon the ground at that point! But no. No, I had survived the fall. At the very least, the Vast was still there, though its roaring gales had dwindled to nothing more than a wheezing cough of air. 

“As I lay in the misery of my lost Domain, waiting for my bones to piece themselves back together from shards, I wondered what had happened. Had dear Jonah finally imploded? He wasn’t meant for that job, you know. We all knew it; the only person the Eye wanted seated upon the throne of the Panopticon was you. The Pupil of the Eye, that’s what he called it in his joyful announcement to the world. I suppose you didn’t hear that bit. I can just imagine you curled up and crying for days and days in the realisation of what you’d done, Archivist, so sadly, you missed all the parades! I digress – a testament to your own diminished abilities, I guess, but also a point in favour of what I am going to tell you. 

“Of course, if Jonah had died, the Fears would not have cared. They had their tower now; they were anchored safely to this reality. But the tower had gone up in flames too. What were the odds? That Jonah had been killed just as the tower had erupted. You see, he couldn’t have died in the explosion. He’d have seen it coming. The Eye would have protected him. No, no, it had to be something he couldn’t see. Something stronger than him. Something the Eye preferred. Something like the Archivist.

“But for whatever stupid reason, you’d destroyed the two anchors the Fears were using to remain in this world – the Pupil of the Eye and the Tower. When both of those anchors failed, they clawed at everything that was left to them, flailing and grasping like men falling through the skies. I felt it. We all felt it. Little claws under our skin – the Fears trying to grab onto those who they’d marked. But we couldn’t be their anchors, Archivist. I could bear the weight of the Vast, maybe, but the other thirteen hanging off it? No. They’d have dragged us through the abyss. And the same problem, I assume, happened with each Avatar they tried to grab onto – none of us were built to bear the strain of all fourteen Fears. None of us could survive being marked by all fourteen Fears. 

“But the Archivist could. And that’s the truth of it, dear Jon. I don’t know where the Web intended the Fears to go, where you think they went, but I assure you, they have not left. Why would they? They had their fully marked little totem just waiting in the wings; a little back-up plan, so to speak. They’re sleeping in your flesh, boy, all fourteen of them. I can hear the Vast whispering to me, practically a death rattle, begging for something to devour, but what can I do now? I can’t deliver anything to my patron without my abilities, but the Vast has no strength to spare to give me my blessings again. They’re so small, so withered, so…hungry. Barely clinging to existence.”

Simon faltered with his faux-statement. It was all a mockery, Jon assured himself. It couldn’t be a real statement. He didn’t have abilities anymore – the Fears were gone. They were gone. Simon had to be lying, and the proof was in how rambling and ill-structured his supposed statement had been. That and, of the two of them, it seemed like Simon had regained a spark of energy from the ordeal rather than the Archivist. 

Simon placed two spindly hands upon Jon’s shoulders, a mix of mania and panic swirling behind his pale eyes.

“But they’re alive, my boy, and if we’re going to fix any of this damned mess, you’re going to have to be the one to feed them.” 

──── •✧• ────

Chapter Text

A protest bubbled on Jon’s tongue, ready to lash out. But the manic glint in Simon’s pale eyes vanished as a hand clapped upon his shoulder in turn. The cool, even-toned voice that filled the room weighed down the very air around them with its gravitas. 

“Settle down now, Mr Fairchild. A man of your years shouldn’t be getting so animated.” 

Simon let Jon slip from his grasp as he whirled to face his adversary. Jon’s heart leapt at the sight of the sheer dread that etched across every line of Simon’s face, his heartbeat rising in anticipation. No. Worry, he told himself. He was worried at what would cause a former Avatar to panic. Not delighted. 

Not delighted. 

A tittering, nervous laugh broke the tension. Simon backed away from the newcomer, hands reaching behind him to blindly grasp at the kitchen counters. “N-now, now, Miss Kelley, a-a-as I told you before, this is a case of, ah…ah, m-mistaken identity!” 

The woman Simon had addressed didn’t seem convinced. Dark, almost black eyes bored into him, unblinking and without a glimmer of mercy. She wore a deep blue suit, her greying hair kept short and tidy in a way that made Jon all too aware of how horrifically unkempt he was by comparison. Around her neck, a red lanyard winked out at him from under a pressed white collar. 

Despite Simon’s obvious attempt to find an escape route, Miss Kelley made no move to close the gap between them. Still, she kept her flat gaze trained upon her target. “If that is the case, I assure you, you will be released after questioning with a full apology from the O.I.A.R., and I will be suitably embarrassed. However, I doubt it’ll come to that.” 

Simon clenched his teeth, his bony fingers now scuttling across the countertop behind him – Jon realised with a bolt of horror that he must be looking for something to use as a weapon. Instinctively, he made to stand between Simon and the woman, but she put a hand out to stop him, her palm hovering just shy of his chest. 

“That will not be necessary, Archivist.” 

Jon lurched to a halt, narrowly avoiding colliding with Miss Kelley’s outstretched palm. She hadn’t moved other than that, but she gave him a sideways glance as she retracted her hand, almost going to wipe it down on the front of her blazer. “Mr Fairchild knows it would be incredibly foolish to attack me.” Once more, she realigned her focus upon the cornered former Avatar. “Mr Fairchild, I’ll be blunt. If you manage to find a knife, my external colleague positioned in the rear garden of this property will shoot you. If you move too quickly towards me, she will shoot you. Frankly, if you stand there for too long, she may very well shoot you. She would be formally disciplined for the latter, I assure you, but given her accuracy scores, I doubt that would bring you much comfort.”

Simon’s Adam’s apple bobbed, his gulp comically audible. Jon, meanwhile, tried to angle himself to look out of the kitchen window and into the garden, hoping to spot this unseen assassin. 

She has a sniper out there? How? When? What the hell have you brought to our door, Fairchild…?

A shuffle of feet finally made Miss Kelley move. She raised one finger – just one – and waggled it, a ghost of a smirk tugging at the corner of her mouth. “Oh no, Mr Fairchild. I really wouldn’t recommend trying for the back door. You’ll cut her line of sight from the window, yes, but…”

As if on cue, a series of loud barks boomed from the garden, thuds and scratches making the back door shudder in its frame. Both Jon and Simon jumped in unison. 

“M-Miss Kelley, ah…the man who answered the door…” Jon said, his voice creaking through an increasingly dry throat. 

“Mr Blackwood? He’s in the hallway still. Unharmed,” she added, clearly intending to assure Jon. However, the idea that Martin could be in danger hadn’t crossed his mind until that moment. He made to speak, but the woman shook her head. “Before you propose it, Archivist, no. I have no interest in trading Fairchild for Blackwood. I already have Fairchild.” 

“Like hell you—!” 

“Simon, don’t!” 

Too late. The caged Avatar lunged at Miss Kelley, settling on using nothing but his bare hands to fight his way out. The window behind him exploded, showering the trio with glass. But it was Simon who screamed the loudest – a bullet tore through his left shoulder, sending a spray of crimson across Martin’s spotless kitchen. 

Jon, his arm up to shield himself, cowered away from the chaos, the gunshot shattering his ears with a dizzying ringing. In stark contrast, Miss Kelley's only reaction was to make one lazy step to the side to allow Simon space to fall onto his front, howling in pain. Her face tightened with irritation, and she glowered out of the now-broken window. 

“He wasn’t armed, Mowbray,” she grumbled, low enough that Jon was quite sure her colleague outside couldn’t possibly have heard her. Still, a gruff chuckle rolled in from the garden, along with the unmistakable click of a gun reloading. 

From the hallway, the sounds of a struggle finally cut through the fading ringing in Jon’s ears. 

“Jon? JON?” Martin’s voice called out, along with a grunted, “Get off me!” 

“I-I’m fine! I…” Jon quieted as the crunch of glass alerted him to Miss Kelley moving. She made her way to Simon, who was still sobbing on the ground and clutching his shoulder, and moved to grab him by the neck of his shirt, hoisting him to his feet. 

“This way, Mr Fairchild,” she instructed him, half-guiding, half-dragging him through the kitchen towards the front door. 

She paused momentarily. “You too, Archivist. I trust you will come quietly in exchange for Mr Blackwood’s continued safety?” 

──── •✧• ────

They’d been bundled into the back of a black van parked outside Martin’s house, the letters “O.I.A.R.” emblazoned in red on its side. Not long ago, Jon would have Known their meaning at a glance. But now, the answers remained maddeningly elusive. 

The vehicle rumbled through the streets, jostling the three in the back. Jon stayed close to Martin, pressing so close to his side that he was practically in the other man’s lap. 

“I’m sorry. Again,” Jon mumbled bitterly, fiddling idly with the sleeve of Martin’s jumper. Though he was watching the curled form of Simon groaning on the floor in front of them, it was clear the apology wasn’t aimed at Simon. 

“Why? It wasn’t you who brought some dodgy government officials to our door,” Martin said. 

“I wasn’t talking about that.” Jon shifted, squishing himself even closer. Other than the absence of his arm, Jon felt stronger than he had in weeks. No new scars had been added to his collection despite the horrific injuries he’d sustained. For all intents and purposes, Jon was acutely aware that he looked almost exactly as he had prior to arriving at the Panopticon. 

He was healed. Strengthened. 

Fed. 

The statement he’d unwittingly coaxed from Simon in the kitchen had been sloppy, yes. But it had nourished him in a way that weeks of bedrest could not. A quick glance up at Martin told Jon that the same realisation had crossed his partner’s mind too; even if he hadn’t heard the statement, Martin had clearly noted Jon’s renewed energy. 

“Maybe it’s just a bit of…residual spookiness?” Martin offered. The hopeful note chimed a little too cheerily, though. 

“Maybe. Or maybe he’s right. Maybe the Fears haven’t entirely gone. I mean, Annabelle said she intended for them to follow my voice along the tapes. But she can’t have intended for me to become the Pupil of the Eye. She wanted us to kill Jonah after all. What if becoming the Pupil changed things? My abilities, my voice, it would have been stronger than ever then. I-I spoke the words, Martin, before you arrived, I-I told them I wouldn’t let them go. What if I compelled them? Compelled them to stay here? What if they…followed my voice along me instead of the tapes? O-or what if the marks they put on me, what if they are enough to anchor them? Maybe they had a choice? Or maybe proximity, I-I-I was just closer to them at the source than the tapes were, and—” 

At his feet, Simon wriggled and let out a loud, aggravated groan of irritation. “Good God, you really are an addict, aren’t you, boy? Doesn’t he drive you mad with all those unaimed questions?” 

Jon’s face burned red, made all the worse by the nervous chuckle to his right from Martin. He shot Martin a scowl, which quickly killed the laughter. Martin shoved him lightly with his shoulder in response. “Hey, don’t get grouchy at me! Look…that was a lot of questions. A lot of maybes. But we’ve seen the outside world a bit now, Jon. It looks normal enough to me!”

“The parts we’ve seen. What about what was on the radio? Back before my, err…funeral. They mentioned something about visual reflections…”

Martin’s expression fell. “Jesus, you really did hear everything in the car…”

“I already told you I did!”

“I-I know, but I didn’t realise you’d remember it all!”

“Why not?”

“You were dead, Jon!”

“Speaking of, I never thanked you for telling them not to bury me in that forest.” 

“Oh God, imagine if they had! Night of the Living Archivist scenes…”

“They’re coming to get you, Martin…!”

The two descended into snorts of laughter before an exasperated sigh cut between them. “If you are both quite done! Need I remind you that we’re being carted off to be dissected o-or worse!” Simon pointed out, sitting himself up, one hand still clamped over his wounded shoulder. 

Seeing Simon be anything other than infuriatingly jovial about everything did give Jon pause. 

“You don’t actually know what this O.I.A.R. does, do you?” Jon asked, arching an eyebrow at Simon. 

“Neither do you,” he replied coolly. The sly jab at his loss of abilities wasn’t lost on Jon. “But I do know they’ve scooped up a fine collection of former Avatars since the tower fell. Swooped in almost immediately. Your gloomy friend Oliver Banks was one of the first they caught, you know.”

Martin tensed at Jon’s side, and Jon had to try very hard not to look too concerned. “Oliver?”

“Mmm. Haven’t heard from him since. I doubt they’ve let him go with a full pardon, now. Now, unless we all want to find out first hand what they did to him, I suggest we start thinking of a way to get out of this van. And quickly!” Simon hissed, casting a wary look to the partition that cut them off from the driver. 

“What do you suppose O.I.A.R. stands for?” Martin asked aloud, his bottom lip jutting a little in thought. 

“No idea,” Jon replied, bitter at having to admit that. “Which I suppose is more evidence against what you’re saying, Simon. If the Eye were still here, I’d be able to Know things.” 

“And if the End wasn’t still here, you’d be burnt to a crisp, Archivist,” Simon retorted. “Death maketh the Avatar, as you so very well know. All fourteen have pitched in to keep you alive again, not the least the End itself. But you’re a tiny, half-broken vessel, and you dealt them a decisive blow with your ridiculous tower-torching plan. They’re withered. Echoes of their former selves. The Eye likely doesn’t have the power to Know much itself right now, let alone offer you anything.” 

“Organisation of…Interesting…Avatar Research? Bit on the nose, I think,” Martin said, apparently not wanting to feed Simon’s theory with any of his attention. “Office of Investigating Avatar R…rrrr….Remnants? ” 

Jon half-expected Simon to snap at Martin then, but a curious quiet had settled over the man. He knew that expression all too well, though – a solution had presented itself to Simon. An answer. 

Glee sparked into his eyes once again, and he grinned at Jon. “That’s it.”

“What, Office of Investigating Avatar Remnants?” Martin scoffed. 

“Not that!” 

Simon shuffled closer to Jon, eagerness pushing him past his injury. Jon, however, recoiled, drawing his knees up to get as far away from the man on the floor of the van as possible. It didn’t dissuade the former Avatar, however. “I can get us out of here. I just need a little of my old abilities back!” 

“For the last time, I can’t—”

“You can, Archivist! They’re weakened, yes, but like you, they can heal if fed. They’re dormant, like weeds in winter. We just need a little springtime to make them grow again!” 

“A truly horrifying concept,” Jon drawled, still trying to curl himself closer to Martin to get away from the madman at their feet. “And you’re missing the point, Fairchild. Even if you’re right, the last thing I’m about to do is feed the damn things.”

“They’ll torture you, boy. You most of all!”

“Then I’ll endure it. God knows, I probably deserve it.” 

A stony silence settled over them. Somewhere among it all, the van had stopped vibrating. 

They’d arrived. 

Time had run out. 

The doors to the van opened, spilling daylight over them. Simon tried to scramble away, but injured as he was, he didn’t make it more than a few inches before an agent grabbed his ankle. 

“No! No, Archivist…! Jon! Wh-what about Martin? What about him?” he yelled, still clawing in an effort to prevent himself from being dragged out of the van. “Did she say he’d be safe? She lied, Jon! Think about it! He’s marked too! ”

Jon’s throat constricted. 

Of course. Martin. Martin had a Domain too. He wasn’t here as leverage at all. 

If this O.I.A.R. intended to study them, that would include Martin. 

“I—”

Simon yelled, grabbing on to the outer lip of the door in a valiant and somewhat impressive display of pure survival. With his last ounce of strength, he cried out to the Archivist.

“Feed the Vast. Now!” 

──── •✧• ────

Chapter Text

“Feed the Vast. Now!” 

The panicked retort of asking Fairchild how he was supposed to do that withered on Jon’s tongue. A surge of concern for Martin – of fear, he admitted to himself –overwhelmed him, and for one horrible moment, he thought he would black out. 

But instead of darkness swamping his vision, a completely different scene stretched out before him. 

He looked down and saw his own white-knuckled hand gripping a biting-cold metal bar in front him. The wind whipped around his ankles and wove up to wreak havoc with his hair, almost blinding him to his surroundings. It forced him to work a little harder for each breath; not enough to truly scare him, though. Not him, at least. But the scream laced through the gales spoke of someone who was terrified. 

Eagerly – no, no, he was worried, not eager – Jon searched for the source. He walked around the small viewpoint, wondering which tower upon what corner of the world he’d found himself upon. 

“Martin? Simon?” he called, the rushing air swallowing his words almost as soon as they’d left his throat. 

“H-Help! Help me!” 

Strange how the winds could smother a scream into little more than a whisper’s strength. Still, Jon managed to find the poor soul in question – in fact, he almost stepped on their clawing fingers as he made his way back around the tiny viewpoint, the toes of his shoes butting into their knuckles. 

Stopping, Jon looked down and saw a young man clinging to the edge of the tower, his tanned skin blasted red raw at the cheeks and forehead. How long had he been holding on, brown eyes wide in horror, throat ripped raw with pleas for help? 

Jon crouched and immediately went to grab the man’s arm, his reassurances lost to the raging winds. 

“I’ve got you! Hold on, just—”

Realisation washed over Jon then, bringing an icy pang of disgust that halted all his efforts to help the man. 

The ground…was not there. Jon stared downwards, and nothing but a white abyss leered back at him. Not clouds. Not fog. Just sheer, unblotted nothingness. 

A memory of something he’d heard in the car weeks ago flitted to the forefront of Jon’s mind.

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.

This, Jon realised, must be one of them. A fragment of a Domain, clinging to existence as its creators clung to Jon. Hardly more than a snapshot of a moment in a bad dream, but manifested upon the world all the same. This man had likely been hanging from the impossible tower for months, as terrified to be helped and risk falling as he was to be left dangling above the emptiness below him. 

Feed the Vast. 

Jon slowly got to his feet, every limb shivering cold at what he had already decided to do. What he had to do. 

“I…I’m sorry. I’m truly sorry,” Jon said, though he was certain the other man couldn’t hear him. 

He won’t die, Jon reassured himself. He can’t die. Not here. The Vast…doesn’t need that. It only needs him to fall. 

Jon lifted his foot and stamped down on the man’s fingers. The man howled in pain and horror, both at what Jon had done and the fact he’d done it, but before he could cry out curses or questions, he’d lost his grip and fallen screaming into the air beneath the tower. 

The pure white emptiness greedily swallowed its long-awaited victim as Jon watched. 

“I’ll come back for you,” he whispered, ignoring the tears of shame prickling in his eyes. “I promise, I’ll—”

The air around him raged in delight, reignited by the meal the Archivist had delivered, snapping up the rest of his oath with equally joyful hunger. The gales swirled around him, stealing his breath and stifling any attempt to draw another. The blankness below rose up to greet him, as though to bestow an immediate punishment for his cruelty, sweeping over his vision and—

—snapping back to the greys and reds of the walls of the van, Martin’s pale, panicked face, and Simon’s wide, triumphant grin. 

Gasping for breath, Jon couldn’t tell either of them what had happened. But from the look of it, he didn’t have to. Could Simon feel it too? The renewed, cold rush of energy roaring in his veins? The breathless void that threatened to overwhelm the other Fears, making them squirm with discomfort and jealousy in Jon’s chest, demanding they be fed too…

“That’s more like it!” Simon said, suddenly letting go of the back of the van. The agent that had grabbed him nearly fell back as the resistance to his pulling suddenly ended. Simon, devious in how he weaponised his unexpected energy despite his apparent age, appeared to have miraculously regained his balance. Jon noticed, however, that the Avatar had done so by hovering slightly above the ground. 

With a toothy smile, Simon pirouetted, placing a hand on the agent’s shoulder. “Take a breather, my lad!” he said, clapping his hand on the man’s shoulder. “I insist!” 

A rush of air and a clipped gasp later and the Vast devoured another victim. 

“Simon,” Jon managed to splutter, still wrestling with the churning conflict under his skin. Was he trying to warn him to rein in his theatrics? Partly. But mostly it was the fact that he’d heard the front door of the van open again – no doubt Miss Kelley was about to investigate the hold up, and Jon doubted she’d fall for Simon’s tricks. “You owe me.” 

Simon, sitting in the air with his legs crossed and smiling like a skeletal Cheshire cat, nodded. “Oh yes, yes, I think I can agree to that. One free Get-Out-of-Jail card for you both, then, and we’ll call it even?” 

“Take Martin and go. Take him somewhere safe,” Jon added pointedly, finally getting to his feet, one hand on the inside wall of the van to steady himself. It made sense to him – if they all went, this organisation would immediately pursue them. If Jon stayed behind, they’d pause to…well, do whatever it was they were doing to Avatars. It would give Martin a head start. 

Martin, of course, opened his mouth to protest, but Simon had no such qualms. Just as Miss Kelley rounded the back of the van, Simon reached forwards and grabbed Martin’s shoulder. With a surge of air, the two men were gone, leaving the Archivist to weather the full brunt of Miss Kelley’s irritated glower. 

He managed a wry smile. “Sorry…You just missed him.” 

──── •✧• ────

An unspoken agreement between Miss Kelley and Jon kept their short walk to the O.I.A.R. building mostly uneventful. Despite the woman’s vice-like grip on his elbow, if he made a break for it, Jon was quite certain he could get away. But the moment he did, the hunt would be on. 

And he wouldn’t be the only target. 

They walked down a set of stone steps that snaked from street level down to an unassuming weathered door. No sign. No marking. Hell, no real lock, as Miss Kelley simply reached forwards and opened it. The surprise must have been evident on Jon’s face, because the older woman finally spoke. 

“Our security system is external,” she said smugly, with a knowing tone that grated against Jon’s pride. Because he didn’t know. 

“Right,” he muttered as she guided him through the doorway first and then closed the door behind them, turning the roar of London’s streets into a muffled white noise. She flicked a switch and bright strip lights hummed to life above them, revealing their surroundings. 

The first thing that Jon thought of was, perhaps oddly, the Magnus Institute. Not for any similarities between the academic building and this one but for its stark differences. 

Where the Magnus Institute had greeted its visitors with old oak and worn leather, this place – the O.I.A.R., Jon assumed – confronted them with stark metal and cheap plastic. Where the Institute lined its walls with dusty old books, untouched for years and mostly displayed as a symbol of the work that went on there, the O.I.A.R. kept its walls bare. Unlike the Institute, no reception desk awaited. Only a small lobby, devoid of decoration, and two doors to choose from. Left and right. 

Miss Kelley half-dragged Jon towards the left-hand door, apparently satisfied not to tell him anything about the place. But the questions welled in his throat. If he was being kidnapped again, he wanted to know where he was. 

“This is the O.I.A.R.?” he asked, attempting to sound politely curious. 

“If you ask me one more question, Archivist, I will consider it an attempt to attack me and have your tongue removed. I expect you’ll heal from it, but it would grant me a few days’ peace,” came Miss Kelley’s tart response, not even giving him a sideways glance as she marched him down the gloomy corridor. Finally, she did look, making a note of Jon’s missing arm. “Or perhaps you won’t heal from it.”

Jon pursed his lips, deciding to keep quiet for a while. The dedication to sulking lasted only a few more steps. After all, she’d said no questions. He could investigate without questions. 

“This place. It looks like old utility rooms at best. The guts of an office above, maybe, but not intended to be used as a workplace itself. Not built for purpose. Your purpose, I mean. You’re not as organised as you pretend to be.”

“Your concerns over the quality of our workspace are duly noted, Archivist, but I assure you – the O.I.A.R. has operated from far more trying environments than this.”

Miss Kelley paused before another door, identical to the last and offering Jon a frustrating lack of clues. Jon continued searching for a while, assuming he was being ignored. So he found himself surprised when he looked back at Lena and discovered she was watching him. This time, her veiled disgust lifted, offering Jon a brief glimpse of an expression he knew only too well.

Pain. Endured, survived pain. 

“We are still piecing together the exact steps that led up to the world’s ruin, Archivist, but one thing that became very clear early on was that, even as far as the end times go, it was botched. Something had either gone wrong, or some thing wasn’t working as intended, as a small number of people around the world either did not get pulled into a nightmare zone or were able to escape them.”

Jon, parched of answers, remained silent as he drank in her offering. Her conclusion coaxed more questions into his head – the ritual had been botched? How? 

Just as quickly, answers slotted into place. 

A curling smirk that refused to tell Jon the truth. Too-old eyes watching Jon from a face that didn’t quite match. A usurper sitting atop his tower, tethered to the Eye in such an ugly, ill-fitting way. 

“You’re not wrong,” Jon admitted, hoping to prise more about the O.I.A.R. from Miss Kelley in exchange for his cooperation. “The man who instigated the ritual…he placed himself at the centre of it. But he wasn’t, ah… made for the task. I suspect that is why the result was so…”

Imperfect? He couldn’t say that aloud; God forbid he sounded like he thought the worldwide torture of all mankind could have been improved. 

But if Miss Kelley noticed his almost-poor choice of wording, she didn’t mention it. Instead, she gave a soft hum of agreement. “Precisely. If that was the first mistake of the forces that sought to harm us that day, then it was the catalyst for the second mistake.”

She opened the door then, reached back, and grabbed Jon’s elbow once more to continue their journey. 

Jon almost tripped over in his effort to follow her, still staring up at her profile as they walked. “The second mistake?”

A muscle in Miss Kelley’s jaw twitched, and if Jon wasn’t mistaken, a brief smug smile echoed on her lips. “They didn’t round up those of us who escaped their nightmares. Humans are a resilient lot, Archivist. We have a knack for survival. As I said before…the O.I.A.R. has worked out of far more trying environments than this.”

“I, err….I see. Sorry, what exactly does ‘O.I.A.R.’ stand f—”

“Jesus, Lena, I swear this place waits for you to leave before doing something weird. All the Sky-Huggers have started acting up, we think— ” 

A door to Jon’s right burst open, making him recoil so sharply that he practically ended up in Miss Kelley – Lena’s – arms like a startled cat. But as shocked as Jon was, he’d clearly delivered a worse one to the newcomer. 

The younger woman’s face fell as she looked at him, recognition flashing in wide, bright eyes. She staggered back, dropping a folder of papers to the floor, and she grabbed the door frame for support. “Oooooh my God, that’s…Dreaming Eyeballs Bloke. You…y-you’ve bloody got Dreaming Eyeballs Bloke. Here. You’ve…y-you’ve brought Dreaming Eyeballs Bloke from all our nightmares…here.” 

“An astute observation, Alice. I’m sure you understand, then, when I need you to be succinct about your reason for barging in on us?” Lena asked, one perfectly plucked eyebrow arching. 

Still gawking at Jon, Alice managed to pull herself together long enough to report to her boss. She cleared her throat and made a show of trying to smooth out the band shirt she was wearing, despite the fact that it had never been in the same postcode as an iron before. “O-Oh, right, erm…Y-yeah the ones with the Vast? They started getting really chatty about ten minutes ago. Sam’s put the camera in there, but honestly, I don’t feel very protected having only a broken camera between me and being nightmare fodder for the monster people. No offence,” she added, nodding at Jon. 

Jon nodded back. “Plenty taken.” 

The last of the colour in Alice’s face drained away. “Shit. Really?” She turned a desperate look to Lena. “C-Can he still…do stuff? He can’t still do stuff, can he? Can you?”

Jon opened his mouth to respond, but a swift pull on his arm told him not to encourage the other woman. 

“A lot less than he used to, I assure you, Alice. Now, tell Sam to bring me the artefact. I suspect I know where their new lease on life has sprung from.” 

With that, Jon was hauled away again, leaving Alice to stutter in their wake. 

The Avatars of the Vast she’s rounded up here…They must have felt their patron being fed, Jon realised, a pang of guilt shaking his core as the image of the Vast’s victim flashed before his eyes. 

Lena led him to one final room, as gloomy and sparsely furnished as the corridors they’d walked. The metal-plate flooring stretched out, signalling this as a room simply by its slightly wider width compared to the hallway. A white-topped table with flimsy metal legs was pushed against the far wall, one chair tucked under it. In the middle of the room, a cylindrical glass case stood out as one of the few elements that had not been part of the building’s original design. 

Jon had a sinking suspicion he knew exactly who it was for. 

“The Watcher becomes the watched, is it?” he asked Lena dryly as she pushed him towards his prison. 

“I confess, the irony amused me too,” she replied, shoving him into the small space without care, then closing the door. This one, he noticed, did indeed have a lock system in place. So much for relying entirely on external security system.

“You will be watched, Archivist, but not by me,” Lena announced, striding across the room to the table as someone else entered the room. A young man with dark swept back in a way that said he’d mimicked the style from someone else rather than knowing what suited him scuttled in, pointedly avoiding looking at Jon too obviously. Still, he kept stealing glances from under his bowed head as he hurried towards Lena, handing her black box. She took it from him without thanks, her attention still squarely on Jon. “Much of our research regarding the ruined world phenomenon pointed us towards a location I suspect you already know about. Hill Top Road. During one of our investigations there, we came across a rather curious artefact. It proved itself invaluable in our efforts, but I suspect it’s about to surpass itself now.”

Lena opened the box, and though Jon couldn’t make out what was inside of it, the sudden pulse of weakness that washed over him told him everything he needed to know. 

His knees buckled under him, dropping him to the cold floor of his cage. His vision lurched and bled around him, a strange vertigo dragging him away from his body. A washed-out memory of his last encounter with this artefact wandered through the haze – blurry days in an impossible oasis of calm, barely able to remember his own name. 

Jon managed to lift his head long enough to see Lena standing by the glass wall of his cell holding a familiar broken-lensed camera.

Someone else burst into the room, though their identity faded through the fog of Jon’s fading consciousness. He made out the words “others have collapsed” before he too joined them, his cheek smacking against the metal plating beneath him and bursting copper across his tongue. 

──── •✧• ────

Chapter Text

Neither sweet dreams nor nightmares plagued the Archivist’s prolonged sleep, but snippets of reality swam in and out as he drifted between wakefulness and stupor. The dark-haired man – Sam, Lena had called him – swiftly became a familiar face, first lugging in an old computer and monitor, later typing away at his makeshift desk against the wall. Once or twice, Jon thought he heard Martin, and the sound was almost enough to bring him back to himself. But by the time he managed to drag himself to sit upright, the only voices around him were Sam’s panicked stammers and the occasional drawl of Alice. 

“He's trying to sit up again!”

“Right, count him down. Five…four…three…two…see? Like clockwork.” 

“You’re telling me you’re not even a teensy bit nervous about that?”

“About what? Having the Archivist in a birdcage? Oh no, no, I totally don’t think that’s gonna backfire on us at all. It’s not like he has a history of ending the world and devouring our fears, no! I’m sure when he eventually breaks loose, he’ll be dead reasonable and realise this has all been one big misunderstanding!”

“...Okay, this? This right here? This is why we broke up.”

“Ouch. Right, I’ve changed my mind. I’m gonna get a coffee, and in the meantime, I hope Eyeballs wakes up and nibbles on your anxieties.”

Jon willed his heavy eyelids to open, grasping the opportunity before him. Of his two current jailors, Sam seemed the most likely to take pity on him. Clearly, the man wasn’t stupid; he was unlikely to simply unlock the door to Jon’s cage. But at the very least, he might let him borrow his phone. Make a call. 

Find Martin. 

The door snapped shut behind Alice, leaving Jon and Sam in the presence of little more than his computer’s humming and whirring, muffled though it was by the glass walls around him. Sam sat himself back down, watching Jon for a moment before focusing on his work again. From the snapshots of his working life that Jon had gleaned so far, Sam was some sort of…well…archivist. He read something on a screen, consulted a file, tapped in something on the computer, then repeated the process. Over and over and over. Unseen information being devoured before Jon’s eyes and then sent away before he could even get a look in. 

If it weren’t for the broken-lensed camera staring at him from its perch on Sam’s desk, watching Sam work might have been a perfect torture for Jon. But the unblinking observation from the peculiar artefact kept the Fears stifled and numbed, leaving Jon to deal with the nauseating sense of not quite being inside his own body. 

No hunger tormented him. No desire to know itched his throat, scratching questions on his tongue. Very little bothered him right now at all, save for the sluggish worry of where Martin might be, whether Fairchild had kept his word.

Breathe in. Breathe out. Find Martin. If he could just…find Martin…

The computer on Sam’s desk beeped and chirped, the whirring of fans rising to a crescendo as its old components shuddered and spluttered. Then, the speakers crackled to life, and an eerily familiar voice began a monotonous report. 

“Complaints form. Registered business name: The Magnus Institute, London. Complaint filed by: UNKNOWN. Complaint logged by: MARTIN K. BLACKWOOD. Date: 27th July 2019. Statement begins. All right. Uh— So, you— You’ve, uh— You’ve got to understand my job, okay? Uh, I work for Thames Water? Uh, mainly pipes and stuff, like, I-I mean, I’m a qualified engineer, but you know, most places it’s just manual stuff, like digging, and replacing pipe—”

Sam sighed and shoved his chair back with a loud screech, losing interest the moment the voice started. “Not another one…” he muttered, risking a glance over to Jon. 

Jon, from where he was lying on the floor, stared blearily back. It must have inspired some sympathy, because after a long pause, a slight softness faded the caution from Sam’s expression. 

Sam jerked a thumb at his computer, all while still looking at Jon. “These used to be rare before you showed up. I’m getting three or more a day now. Open to theories, if you have any.”

Jon blinked; the droning speech dribbling from the computer muffled against his dulled senses. Every so often, a word drifted through, but he couldn’t piece enough together to make anything of it. 

Instead, his lips fluttered around a name. “Martin…”

Sam sighed, turning back to his rambling computer. “Hmm, well, maybe today’s the day. Lena’s been out searching for him for—” 

A spark of realisation stopped him cold. “W-wait. This…?” 

He started typing, the clack of his keyboard almost drowning out the computer’s readout. Then, leaning forwards slightly, Sam read out from the screen himself. “Complaint logged by: MARTIN K. BLACKWOOD…”

Sam trailed off, leaving Jon with nothing to try to focus on but the continued drone of the computer. Somewhere, through the dense fog smothering his mind and abilities, an inevitable question materialised, one Sam brought into being soon after. 

“The monster in this statement is you, isn’t it?”

The sharp screech of Sam’s chair being pushed back again tore through the silence. Cautious steps brought Sam closer to the glass wall of Jon’s prison, then he squatted down to get as close to eye level with the semi-conscious Archivist as possible. “How do you go from asking people about their trauma to…to ending the world? How do you do all of that and still look so…”

“Human?” 

Another voice cut through Sam’s gentle interrogation. Jon craned his neck back a little, but he couldn’t quite make out who was standing in the doorway. The click-clack of heels on the metal flooring told him whoever it was, they had no such concerns as Sam about drawing closer to the Archivist. “It’s by design, Sam. They feed on our fear, but if they scare us too soon, we run away. They have to look appealing to us.” 

The newcomer appeared over Sam’s shoulder, looking down a sharp, thin nose at Jon. She dressed in a suit almost reminiscent of Lena’s style, but where Lena exuded effortless power for it, this woman looked like she was wearing a costume, despite the high-quality material and tailored cut. She held her chin a touch too high – a silent tantrum for respect rather than a quiet command for it – and the way the corner of her mouth curled into a mocking smirk reminded Jon of someone. “Well. Maybe not appealing. But at the very least harmless. At least until the final moment.” 

Sam put his hands on his knees and pushed himself up to stand next to his colleague. “I thought I was on Archivist-watch until Alice got caught up on her caseload.”

The woman’s pale gaze drifted from Jon to Sam, as though she’d really rather not have her attention pulled away. “In which case, you’ll be watching the Archivist until the end of time. No, it’s important for you to take breaks, Sam. Especially when you’ve been in the presence of an External. Even with the artefact, there’s every chance some of his powers can still sneak through and influence you.”

Sam took a sudden step back from Jon’s cell then, his face a picture of panic. “Woah, what? No, hang on, Lena said that the camera was—”

“—Did she tell you how we found its previous owner?” the woman asked. The eagerness to share something she knew that others didn’t betrayed her, her smile growing. “In a ruined little oasis of peace. Clearly, he’d enjoyed protection from the horrors for quite some time…but it didn’t stop him from being killed by one of the monsters in the end.”

He was killed in his sleep, Jon thought to himself, desperate to correct her or pick more information about Salesa’s death. The way he wanted to go…But…did Annabelle…?

It wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility that Annabelle might have killed Salesa in his sleep and still done so in a horrible fashion. A manipulation of some kind. He asked to die in his sleep, but he never said it had to be peaceful, he could imagine her purring. 

But if she had killed him through more supernatural means, even in the presence of the camera, could there be a chance for Jon to endure its presence too? 

His blurry vision panned across to the innocuous-looking item on Sam’s desk. 

It stared back at him with its broken lens, the crack across the glass deeper and darker than it made any sense to be for such a small object. Whatever common ground ought to stretch between them as watchers was marred by the act of betrayal of this silent sentinel; an artefact of the Fears denying them their meals. 

No. No, that wasn’t right. He knew this. The camera, for all its quirks and promises of peace, was still an artefact in service of the Dread Powers. What had Salesa said about it? 

Jon watched the camera for a while longer, making a sluggish and clumsy attempt to recall how it worked. The door in his mind that shielded him from the roaring waves of knowledge behind it had been stuck fast ever since waking up in flames, but he had been able to still hear the dull roll of water back then. Now, held in the strange void of the camera’s pocket of protection, the unseen churning sea stood silent. 

But Jon’s rising concern would not be quieted. Something was wrong. The camera. This place. Former Avatars in captivity, watched by nervous humans who’d barely had time to process the horrors they’d endured at their hands. Knowing the only thing between them and more agonies was a small broken camera. And now, at the centre of this balancing act, the twice-dead Archivist has been planted like a wilted flower. Lena presented it as a prevention measure – a means to shield the world from the death rattle echoes of the ruined world that lingered. But something didn’t line up. 

The pieces lay in Jon’s palms, but for the life of him, he could not slot them together to see the full picture. Not like this. 

“Hello, Jon.” 

A cold pang of recollection yanked Jon out of his clumsy musings and back into the room. Sam was nowhere to be seen, and in his place were four metal chair legs and a pair of shiny black heels with a flash of red on their soles. He tried to sit up, his pride still bristling somewhere deep within the murky confusion of where Jon started and the Archivist ended, but once more, he managed only a brief strain before flopping back to the ground again. 

A scoffing laugh acknowledged his efforts. “No need to sit up on my account. I just wanted a little talk, and Lena being out and about seemed as good a time as any.” 

Jon inhaled deeply, bracing himself for another tirade of blame and anger. He deserved it, that much he’d made peace with, but it didn’t make it any easier to go through. 

“...Fine…” he whispered, though the woman likely didn’t hear it. 

“Very good. You see, Lena and the others are all very concerned about why you wanted to end the world, and—”

“I didn’t.” 

Despite his hushed and weak response, he earned the woman’s rapt attention.

“Excuse me?”

“I. Didn’t. Want it,” Jon clarified. “I caused it…yes…but Elias was…”

No…not Elias. Jonah. Jonah Magnus, he corrected himself, but before he could summon the strength to start his explanation, the woman leant forwards, latching onto the name with eager interest. 

“Elias? You mean the man whose remains we found in the ruins of the Institute?” she asked, her voice low as though concerned they may be overheard. Evidently, this was a topic she had been coaxed away from discussing – at the very least, she clearly was not meant to bring it up with Jon. 

“Yes,” he replied, managing to look up enough to see her face. 

“We theorised he had died stopping you,” she said, and the surge of anger that erupted from deep within Jon almost gave him enough strength to sit up and start yelling a stream of facts about Elias Bouchard upon the woman. “Is that not the case?”

“No…we….stopped him,” Jon rasped, his anger ripping through his exhaustion and demanding to be noticed. “It’s a…long story. And it’s…I can’t think…And you’d not believe it anyway…”

“...Try me.”

The temptation to sulk and hold it from her would give Jon a short-term burst of satisfaction. A little taste of control while he was stuck in this glass prison. But he knew it wouldn’t avail him much in the long term. Maybe he could barter honesty for trust. 

Still, it took all of Jon’s focus to keep himself together long enough to explain the simple truth. “Elias Bouchard…and every Head of the Institute before him…was Jonah Magnus.”

His interrogator sat back in her chair, pulling her face from Jon’s view and leaving him to imagine the incredulity instead. 

“Jonah Magnus?” she repeated. “As in the founder of the Magnus Institute? Born hundreds of years ago? That Jonah Magnus?” 

“...Yes. I said…you wouldn’t…”

“No. I believe you.”

Jon had dreaded the notion of trying to explain any of this, especially when he could hardly piece together who he was right now, suffocated as he was by the camera. Yet somehow, hearing the woman's lack of protest troubled him more. 

Validation of his concerns arrived swiftly as she spoke again. 

“My name is Gwendolyn Bouchard.”

…Oh God. 

She couldn’t know. He’d said they’d stopped Elias, that was all. She had no way of knowing that Jon had stuck a knife into her relative's chest. That he’d relished watching the man bleed out in front of him, knowing he would not be saved by the Domains’ strange rules surrounding death once Jon took over as the Pupil and dictated the next move on the macabre chessboard Jonah had designed. That in a few moments, everyone and everything would be pushed towards the End’s gaping maw. 

“...I…”

“Spare me the pleas to understand what you did or didn’t have to do.” Gwen waves away his unspoken explanations with one manicured hand. “I’ve always known Elias had…a uniqueness to him. I suspect I could tell you the exact day my uncle became…someone else. Someone with powers that didn’t make sense. No one believed me, of course. Finding his remains in the Institute finally gave me the chance to know more. But I didn’t know exactly what I was looking for.”

A newfound curiosity replaced Gwen’s previously cold demeanour. “What happened to him, Jon? How did he gain those abilities?” 

Every instinct told him to lie. To tell Gwen that this was all a big misunderstanding. That her uncle was simply a cruel man. But strangely, Jon found himself disgusted at the notion. Hadn’t Elias Bouchard been as much a victim of Jonah Magnus as anyone else? His face worn by a man who would commit such atrocities with his name? If Gwen could prove what had happened, perhaps she could clear her family name. 

Maybe it could be the first step to setting things somewhat right in the world. Fixing everything Magnus broke, one piece at a time. 

Gwen stood up, pushing her chair aside and shifting to sit on the floor in front of Jon’s cell, her legs tucked to the side carefully. “Jon. Tell me the truth,” she said, softer in a sadly obvious attempt to manipulate him. “If you help me, I can help you. I can’t let you out of here, of course, but I may be able to make things more comfortable. Maybe even get word out to Martin that you’re safe.” 

Ah, but there it was. No matter how poorly she may navigate this attempt to manipulate him, a chance to find Martin, to know he was okay, meant Jon could only answer one way. 

“...His eyes…check his eyes…” 

This earned him a smile but not the further questions Jon expected. Instead, Gwen got to her feet, brushed down her skirt, and turned on her heel. She picked up the chair on the way past and set it back down at Sam’s desk. 

Without so much as a prescribed word of thanks or farewell, Gwen left, shutting the door with a loud clang behind her before Jon could so much as whimper a protest of “Wait…M-Martin, you said…!”

Jon remained alone for a while, his neck craned so he could stare helplessly at the closed door. It had been an obvious bait, but how could he not skewer himself on that hook over and over? He owed Martin. He owed him so much. Any chance he could get to help the man reach the normal, happy life he craved, Jon would take. 

“Ah, Jon. I see you opted against resting in peace. I can’t say I’m terribly surprised. You always were antsy.”

“Go away…” Jon’s lips fluttered. He remained staring at the door – it hadn’t opened again since Gwen’s departure. Jon was alone in his cell. 

“But I admit that I am surprised at this turn of events.” Overly polished shoes strode into Jon’s line of sight, yet they made no sound against the metal floor. “Are you really going to trust a Bouchard again? Then again, I suppose you never did.”

Stubbornness kept Jon from looking up at the phantom, but that didn’t save him. The spectre of Elias Bouchard stopped in front of him, then bent down in one fluid motion, bringing his eye-gouged, grinning face within inches of Jon’s. Pulpy red and black sockets dribbled blood and pus down pale, gaunt cheeks, but Elias beamed at Jon all the same, his dazzling teeth catching little threads of scarlet between them as bloodied tears made their way down to his lips. “You’ve never known one, have you? Not really.” 

──── •✧• ────

Chapter Text

The rhythmic tapping of keys hammered like nails through Jon’s blurry consciousness, pushing pulses of discomfort through him with each strike of a letter. They drove down like nails through rotting wood, keeping him from being able to drift away on the numbing waves the camera smothered him with. He ought to be grateful for that, however irritating the form of the anchor may be, but Jon maintained his frown all the same. 

“Is that ‘Jon’ with a h, without a h, or is it short for something?” Alice asked, peering at him from around her laptop. 

“Jonathan.” Even lying on the floor, metal biting into his cheek, Jon tried to cling to his pride, pretending the cold, thick pool of drool gathering at the corner of his mouth didn’t exist. If he didn’t acknowledge his sorry state, perhaps no one else would. 

“Yeah, you look like a Jonathan,” Alice agreed, mirroring Jon’s accent in the last word and ducking back behind the monitor to keep typing. Any hope Jon had of peace after that was quickly shattered, as after a while, she chirped up again. “Do you have a middle name?”

“...Chester.”

How many people had he told that? Hardly anyone, he would wager. Why would he tell it to a stranger, one who was prodding information out of him in such a way? 

Karma, he answered himself bitterly.  

“Jonathan Chester Sims, wow, that’s…that’s one hell of a name, sir.” Alice chuckled, though her smile was far from warm. She went back to filling out the rest of the form in silence – something about ‘registering Jon as an External’ and ‘so not in my pay grade’, along with some mention of a trade for her caseload. 

Jon, meanwhile, went back to his unresolved staring contest with the cracked camera that watched him from the corner of Alice’s desk. For weeks now, Jon had lain upon the cold metal floor, pushing one idea at a time through his sluggish mind, desperate to find a way to escape the unending suffocation of the camera’s gaze. Every moment he spent stuck in this prison was a moment more that Martin could be in danger; Simon had only agreed to whisk him away somewhere safe after all. After that, Martin may very well have been on his own. 

The worst state to leave Martin in. 

More than once, Jon had found himself quietly cursing the artefact that kept him subdued. What sort of relic built for the Fears would operate by extinguishing the abilities of the Dread Powers’ own Avatars? 

But it is an artefact of the Fears, Jon thought for the umpteenth time, ignoring another rumble of questions from Alice. Its purpose remains the same: to serve them. Feed them. Not to protect people…

“Hellooo-ooo? Earth to Archivist?” 

All mockery from Alice’s voice vanished the moment Jon’s focus returned to her. She started in her seat, muttered something too quiet for him to catch, then clacked away at a few keys again. “Need a full list of your freaky powers. I’ve got ‘Additional Organs – Eyeballs’, even though you’ve only got the two of them right now, which I appreciate, by the way. Erm, what else, we got…‘Sustenance – Fears, Subcategory: Trauma’, and ‘Heightened Senses – Sight’, obviously. What other party tricks do you have, Mr Sims?” 

Jon watched her for a moment, then went back to debating the camera artefact again. 

“Oi! Don’t they teach you manners at Monster School?” Alice protested, gesturing wildly at the screen in front of her. “I’ve got to get this registration document submitted for Her Holiness, The Right Honourable Bouchard before she returns from…from whatever she’s buggered off to do…or she’ll chuck my caseload back at me. So come on! Show and Tell time!”

A pained silence settled between the two of them, and Jon noted with some satisfaction that the colour drained from Alice’s face. “I-I mean, don’t show. Just tell. Really don’t need a demonstration.”

“Can’t anyway,” Jon rasped, jerking his head as best he could towards the artefact. “Camera-shy…” 

This earned him a snort of laughter from Alice, but she quickly composed herself. “Fair point. So, that your lot then, is it? Seems a bit tame for a world-ending External, all things considered.”

“I…” 

Jon had held back telling Alice the extent of his abilities less out of rudeness and more out of kindness. The woman seemed terrified of him – plenty of the staff did – and the only reason she was able to sit in the room and question him right now was because Lena had assured her several times that the camera would keep Jon powerless. But despite all that, a flicker of uncertainty continued to tease the Archivist from just behind her eyes; she believed the camera would keep her safe, but she feared for how long that would remain true. 

That’s it! 

Jon almost sat up as the pieces finally snapped together through the gloop of his mind. The fear of its protection failing! Someone might steal the camera, break it, lose it…and that constant fear from its current user was quietly gathered and stored, until such a day that the inevitable would happen and it would fail. And all that stored fear would be served up to the Dread Powers. 

Which are…Oh God. They’re…me. 

At this, Jon began to push himself awkwardly with one arm, trying to sit up. “A-Alice…listen…”

“Woah, woah, erm, maybe you can stay on the floor?” Alice was already up and out of her seat, backing away and casting nervous glances to the camera, as though expecting it to explode and fail on her.

“Alice…th-the camera…!” The world lurched around him, forcing Jon to double over, his hand upon his thigh to try to balance himself. He took a few loud, steadying breaths before continuing. “It isn’t protecting you!”

“W-well…well that’s the lamest attempt at escape I’ve ever heard.” Alice tried to smirk, but the weak smile that resulted from the effort did nothing to make her look any less worried. “You think I’m going to yeet it out the window because you told me it isn’t working? Seems to be doing a ruddy good job from where I’m standing, mate.” 

“I’m not trying to—! Think about it! Alice, who found that camera?”

“Lena. Back when they were investigating the remains of the nightmare zones, looking for survivors and that. She brought it back here so we’d have some form of protection against the Externals. And it works a treat! So don’t you worry about that.”

“Did she tell you what it is? Other than a camera , obviously,” Jon asked, cutting off what he expected would be Alice’s first answer to the question. Speaking to her drew out strange echoes from the past for Jon, reminding him of several conversations he’d had with his former colleague, Tim. He quickly pushed them aside – a rumination for another time. 

Alice waved her hand dismissively, her brow creasing. “Some old dusty artefact that a rich bloke used to hole up all cosy during the apocalypse while the rest of us endured the horrors. I mean, you really did stick us the middle finger when you let capitalism stay at the end of the world, Jonny-lad, though I suppose that probably is the final horror. I bet he found a way to profit from his little oasis of calm in the—”

“And that rich bloke is now…?” Jon tried his best to keep Alice on track, wondering how on earth Lena dealt with her. 

“...Dead.”

With one word, a squeaking crack in the ice between them. For the first time, Alice looked at Jon almost as though he were a colleague. As though he were trustworthy. As though he were human. 

“Killed by…?” he prompted, gentler this time. 

“I-I don’t know. Sam said Gwen had mentioned something the other day, but—”

“He was killed by an Ava—by an External, Alice. That camera is an artefact of the Fears. It is designed to feed them, not to protect you.” 

Alice took another step back, though this time, she angled herself away from the camera warily. Jon, sensing his moment to make true progress at last, pushed onwards eagerly. “Listen to me. I know this camera. I know the Fears. And contrary to what you may think, I do not wish to hurt you or anyone here! That camera stores the fears you have. The fear that it might fail. Break. Get stolen. And the moment any one of those things happens, it’ll release all that energy. Remind me – how many others have you got registered under ‘Sustenance – Fears’ that are living in this very building, Alice?”

“I…I-I…N-no!” 

Alice shook her head, braving a step forwards only to swoop and grab her bag off the floor. “I’m…I’m not falling for this. You’re fucked up, mate!” 

As she swung her bag up onto her shoulder, the corner of it clipped the camera. It tumbled to the floor, smacking against the metal plates and spluttering green sparks on impact. But Jon fixated on Alice, ignoring the artefact for the moment while he scrabbled to grab his rapidly disintegrating lifeline. 

“N-no, Alice! Wait! I’m trying to help you! L-look, a̛̱ͨͥs̢̱ͬͧk̜̱̀ͦ M̹̦ͥ̀a̳ͥ͐̓r̯̰̐͘t̞̒͐͠i͐̏ͮ̇ň̵̻̫, ask him what the camera does, and he can help you get everyone to safety before it fails. We can help you!” 

To his surprise, Alice stopped dead in her tracks. She unfurled the bag from her shoulder, letting the bottom of it thud against the floor. Then, with a little fumbling, she pulled her phone out of her jacket pocket. 

Jon froze. He dared not speak, lest he somehow tip the balance and make her decide to put the phone away again. The previous weeks were littered with failed attempts to get one of the O.I.A.R. staff to agree to a single phone call to Martin. The sudden change in heart ought to have registered as odd, but Jon happily pushed that down in favour of a little hope. 

Finally, Alice turned and headed back to Jon without a word, her pace slow and meticulous. She opened the small hatch in the door to his prison that was used to deliver food, water, and other “approved accommodations” he requested – not that he’d done much of that. Jon, eager as he was to take the offered phone when presented, didn’t pay much mind to the way Alice’s hand trembled. 

He grabbed the phone and started typing in Martin’s phone number. As desperate as he was, he didn’t want to push his luck. Instead, once the number was typed, he handed the device back to her. “Thank you, thank you, Alice! H-here, look, you can talk to him, s-s-so you can hear for yourse—!” 

Alice snatched the phone from him, the force smacking Jon’s knuckles up against the side of the small opening. She brought the device to her ear, and it was only then that Jon noticed how much her hand was shaking, the visible pulse on the side of her throat, how wide her eyes were. 

“A-Alice? Are you all right?” Jon asked, but she kept her lips pressed tightly together. The call connected, and Jon could make out the crackly sound of a familiar voice from the tiny speaker. 

“...Hello?” 

Martin! Jon’s heart leapt, the oddity of Alice’s behaviour forgotten for the moment as he basked in the joy of knowing Martin was alive, and, from what little he could glean from a single word, safe. 

He almost called out to Martin, to ask him where he was, if he was safe. But Alice quickly cut in. 

“Hello, Martin. What d-does the camera do?” Her calm tone failed to match the horror etched in her expression. 

“Wha…Wh-who is this?” Martin asked. “What camera?” 

“Salesa’s camera. T-tell me what it does, please.” Though enunciated with clarity, a raw, pained reluctance clipped each word. 

Jon’s heart plummeted, his thin hand going to his scarred throat – his voice. The camera! Its hold must have loosened when it struck the ground, letting his desperation tinge his speech, transforming it into a compelling command. 

“Oh…Oh God, no, Alice, I-I didn’t…I didn’t mean—”

On the other end of the line, Martin piped up again. “How do you know abo—Jon? Is that you? Jon? A-are you with Jon?” 

“T-tell me what Salesa’s c-camera does, please,” Alice begged, tears finally falling loose from her eyes. “What does the camera do, Martin?” 

“M-Martin! Tell her, please, I-I…I compelled her, I didn’t mean to, just…tell her an answer!” Jon raised his voice, his hand pressed against the glass as he leant as close as he could, hoping Martin could hear him. “A-and where are you? Are you all right?” 

“I-I’m fine, Jon, just…Christ, how did you…? Right, erm, yeah, Salesa’s camera. It was sort of a-a, erm, protective bubble against the Fears, but it’d kind of…harvest the paranoia it created, s-s-so it’s not really as useful as you’d think. I-Is that enough?” 

Alice’s phone clattered to the floor, moving the speaker too far away for Jon to hear anything further. 

His heart in his throat, Jon tried once again to offer apologies to Alice. But she backed away, shaking her head, then turned and bolted from the room. 

“N-no, Alice. Alice! Dammit!”

As the adrenaline of his success – and failure – drained away, Jon’s knees gave out and dropped him to the floor again. 

He glowered at the phone for a while, debating if he might be able to reach it in any way. The hatch remained open, but it was too high up for Jon to reach through to grab the phone. The screen had landed face-down too, so he wasn’t sure if it was even worth trying to shout through to Martin, if he was even still connected. 

All of his debates ended, however, as the door to the room opened again. With a familiar click-clack of heels against steel, Lena entered the room, flanked by two sombre-looking guards dressed head to toe in scuffed black protective suits, mismatched and likely scavenged. 

Lena headed straight for the desk Alice had been working at, and she stooped down to pick up the fallen camera. She turned the artefact over in her hands, examining it from every angle, before finally looking over at Jon. 

He met her gaze, though he wasn’t sure what expression he ought to wear. Defiance? Remorse? What would she want to see in him now? 

“It is still functional. We’d have a riot on our hands if it wasn’t. Likely Alice knocked it over and caused a momentary outage.”

Lena straightened up, setting the camera back in its position with great care. 

Jon braced himself for a list of cold, matter-of-fact punishments from Lena. He could try to explain, to protest that it was an accident, but he was quite certain not a single thing he could say would sway Lena. At least not while the camera was still working. 

Lena, however, opted instead to smile. Somehow, this seemed far more threatening than any repercussions. 

“Maybe you’re due a little fresh air, Archivist. I have just the job in mind for you.” 

──── •✧• ────

Chapter Text

Conflict held Jon back from fully appreciating his freedom from the camera’s oppressive gaze. True, though he could breathe for the first time in weeks, stretch his legs and move around, Jon didn’t entertain any illusions that this was a gift for him. Quite the contrary, as he sat waiting for his ‘field partner’, as Lena put it, Jon pondered just what punishment she had in mind for what he’d done to Alice. 

Every so often, Jon had got to his feet and wandered to the rather suspiciously large mirror in the room, but so many cracks riddled its surface that he could tell it wasn’t a one-way window, even without his extra eyes for assistance. The mirror only reflected the sparse room and Jon’s gaunt features, nothing more.

Hours or minutes may have passed, but eventually, the door opened, and Jon spotted a familiar face. 

“Oh, erm…Sam, isn’t it?” 

Sam groaned, though Jon couldn’t tell if it was from trepidation or resentment. He did his best not to look too offended when Sam asked, “You’re my field partner for this?”

Jon shrugged and nodded, though he still wasn’t sure what “this” was going to be. “So I’m told.”

Sam’s bottom lip threatened to jut, a barely restrained sulk simmering beneath. “Gwen said Lena wouldn’t be happy at the short notice last week, but this seems a little unfair…”

“Been off somewhere nice, have you?” Jon made little effort to keep the dryness from his comment. Of everyone he’d met in the O.I.A.R. so far, Sam had been the kindest towards him, but he’d still left Jon in a cage. Watched as he struggled to remain conscious. Winced at him as though Jon were some frothing, feral dog to be avoided. 

Sam closed the door behind him and dropped a ragged shoulder bag on an equally decrepit desk in the corner of the room. It wobbled and rattled against the wall. “Short notice medical leave. Not annual leave. We don’t really get paid time off anymore since…erm…you know.”

“Since I ruined the world?” 

The question lingered, delivered with a lightness that didn’t suit it. Jon liked to pretend that the more he confronted the fact that he’d caused every ounce of grief he saw around him, the easier it got to talk about it. 

It didn’t. Much less for the people he talked to. 

Sam fiddled with the strap of his unloaded bag. “That’s not…” 

“It’s fine, Sam. An observation is an observation. You’re allowed to voice them. I…I did ruin the world. Whether I intended to or not doesn’t change the fact that I did. I’m not going to do anything to you for pointing that out. I’m not a m—”

Monster? 

The word rang out between them, despite it remaining unspoken by either man. Jon dared Sam to offer it up, to finish his sentence, but he didn’t even meet Jon’s eyes. 

Instead, Sam cleared his throat and started pulling documents from his discarded bag. “So, erm…I take it you haven’t been briefed on this?”

“People seem very keen to keep as much information as possible from me,” Jon said, hoping he looked nonchalant about this. In truth, the answers whispering beneath the surface of this place, just out of reach, proved to be a constant source of irritation for Jon; like an itch in his ear he couldn’t quite reach. 

“Makes sense, I suppose. Well, the long and short of it is that we sometimes get tips about Externals – Oh, erm, sorry, did…did anyone explain those to you?”

“Only in so far as to suggest I am one, but the list of labels assigned to be grows longer by the day,” Jon drawled, arching an eyebrow. Sam laughed, but Jon didn’t need to peer into his mind to see how false it was. He’d been subjected to just such a nervous tick a thousand times before, usually accompanied by a hurried off to make him a cup of tea. 

“R-Right. Alice got you registered, huh? That was…Between you and me, it wasn’t official. Gwen thinks you should be classed as an External, Alice says you’re clearly not, but Gwen offered to take half her caseload if she registered you on the system, so…yeah. For what it’s worth, I’m with Alice; I don’t think you qualify.”

“My grip upon my dwindling sense of humanity grows ever stronger.”

Sam repeated his little false laugh, holding a pile of documents up to Jon half-heartedly for a moment before letting his arm fall to his side. “I guess you can just Know all this stuff?”

Jon’s throat tightened. It wasn’t an accusation, but it landed like one, harsh and heavy upon his conscience. “I… could . But I am told that it’s rather rude to do so; I usually ask first these days. Besides, your camera is still upholding its end of its bargain, for now. So, why don’t you tell me, Sam – what qualifies someone as an External?”

It was as though Jon had pressed a button. Sam sparked up, animated in a way Jon hadn’t seen till now, and began speaking so rapidly that, for a second, Jon worried that he might have accidentally compelled him. “Well, there are a few interesting theories out there as to why it happened, but basically, after the world went crazy, a small number of people around either didn’t—” 

Sam stopped suddenly, glancing down at the papers in his hand. Then, with an almost genuine smile, he shoved them back into his bag. “Actually, why don’t you learn from the source? Our assignment is to go interview a suspected External and register them on our system. Offer them a job, really. You’ll get to know one first hand.”

“Right. A bit of fresh air. But what’s the real reason I’m going with you?” Jon asked. “It must be something notable for Lena to let me out of here.”

“Oh, erm…We, err, we had an incident recently with an office employee and an unregistered External, so now, we only ever head out in pairs.” Sam paled at the memory, and Jon stuffed down the hungry instinct to ask him to tell him more. “And where we can, we take one of our Externals with us. Alice won’t go near the External assignments at the moment, Gwen’s on annual leave still, so…yeah. Lena said it would be a good way to let you get some fresh air anyway.”

“How awfully kind of her,” Jon drawled, all the more prickly now his hunger had been ignited by the vocal presence of a potential statement. What had happened with that employee and External? Untold horrors that ought not delight him, Jon had to remind himself. 

“It’s not without restrictions though,” Sam said. After a brief pause to pick his words carefully, he continued. “I, err…heard what you did to Alice. It’s sort of why she wouldn’t pick this one up.”

Of course you have, Jon thought, bitterness overtaking his previously cold irritation with a thick, coating sludge. He loathed himself as he started to protest. “That was an accident! And frankly, your concern should be that it could happen at all – I’ve been trying to tell you that camera is—”

“Right, but…before you go out, I’m to take you to the medical wing.” Sam cut off Jon’s tirade with all the efficiency of a well-trained mediator that had to talk down his colleagues and friends on a regular basis. Idle pictures of  salt-air fog and misted glasses sprang to mind. 

Sam continued, unaware of this resemblance. “Since I can’t take the camera with me, they said they have something else to temporarily restrain your ability to make people…do stuff.”

“Compelling.” Jon blinked himself out of his reverie to correct Sam. “We called it compelling. Back at the Institute.”

“Okay. To temporarily restrain your ability to compel people.”

“Did you request this?”

Sam swallowed, then chewed on the corner of his lip for a second, debating his answer. 

“...Yes.”

Jon sighed, shoulders sagging in defeat, though he appreciated Sam’s honesty. Still, Jon could act like it was a choice whether or not he agreed to these proposed measures, but they both knew it really wasn’t. The opportunity to get out of the O.I.A.R. for the first time in weeks proved too tempting. Whatever this temporary measure was, Jon would have to agree to it. 

A toll to be paid to get back to Martin and make sure he was safe. 

“Fine. Fine, right, so, what is it?”

“No idea. I’m just to escort you there, fill in some paperwork and get the forms ready for this External guy who called us, then collect you and head out.” 

Sam reshouldered his bag and opened the door, stepping to the side to let Jon out first.

Already regretting his complacency, Jon shuffled out of the room. 

“I’m sure it’ll all be precisely as easy as all that too,” he muttered. 

──── •✧• ────

Jon sat on the edge of the paper-covered mattress, his legs crossed. He looked around the bleak, brown-walled room that Sam had rather grandly called a “medical wing”. Where a doctor’s office might have an array of posters warning nervous patients of the dangers of drink, drugs and smoking, this one displayed only a smattering of scrawled notes, none of which were of use to anyone but the doctor. 

A small desk stood against the wall to Jon’s right, illuminated by a bright lamp that had been left on. Documents and folders scattered the top of the table, but the solitary pen and pencil had been lined up neatly in the middle of it all, as though their owner were worried about misplacing them. 

The door clicked open, catching Jon’s attention, and he sat up a little straighter. 

A tall, thin man in a ragged white coat strode in, all smiles and dark, blank eyes. He put down a clipboard that Jon was fairly certain was just for show, and sat himself down on an old office chair. It squeaked and tilted back a little, but the doctor didn’t seem to mind at all.

“Hi. You must be Jonathan.”

Jon nodded once. Why was this peculiar man acting like the entire world couldn’t match Jon’s name to his face in an instant?  “I must be.”

“A wonderful start! As for me, I’m Doctor David.”

He held out his hand, alarming Jon not just for the suddenness of the gesture, but the normality of it too. This doctor not only seemed comfortable with Jon’s presence despite his crimes against the world, he seemed thrilled by it.

Jon took the offered hand in a short, sharp handshake. The doctor’s Cheshire grin widened. Jon would mention to Sam once he was out of the medical wing and this bizarre man’s care that they might want to look a little closer to home for these Externals of his.

“How lovely! Right, now, down to business, Jonathan. Lena has asked me to help you with a rather concerning problem. All to help keep you and everyone else safe. Does that sound about right?”

“Ah, yes. Apparently so. Sorry, will this take long?” Jon fidgeted in his seat as prickling unease crawled under his skin, frustrated that he couldn’t just Know what exactly was wrong with the supposed doctor. The camera’s influence didn’t quite smother him from this distance, but it was enough to disconnect him from the comforting undercurrent of knowledge he’d grown accustomed to. 

Doctor David sprang to his feet, his blank eyes coming precariously close to something that might be considered a spark. “Not at all! No, we can get right to it, of course – you must be a busy man!”

His words dripped with condescension, but for the sake of getting things moving, Jon bit his tongue. He watched as the doctor rummaged through some drawers, muttering and pulling out tools and putting them back in turns. “Sorry, sorry, terrible supply chain at the moment…Well, you should know, I suppose!” 

Finally, Doctor David turned around, beaming. In his hands was nothing more than a needle and surgical thread. 

Jon frowned and tilted his head at the notion. “Oh, erm…I-I-I’m not injured. Well, other than the arm, but I reckon that’ll need more than a needle and thread... Sorry, did Sam not explain what it is that I—?”

“He explained. And from what I’ve been told about your stubborn little habit, I think this will do the trick just nicely! You know, I always find the simplest solutions are usually the most reliable, Jonathan.” The Doctor tilted his head to the side. “As for your arm, yes, I imagine you will be needing both hands after this treatment. For communication and such. Let me see, yes, I think a few more statements and time away from that damned camera would do. Give the Flesh enough energy to knit that lost limb of yours back together for you, if Lena’s hunch is correct. I can get that signed off. We’ll call it…aftercare!”

Before Jon could ask what the doctor meant, the other man had pressed his hand into Jon’s shoulder and shoved him back. 

“Lie down now! This won’t take a moment.”

──── •✧• ────

Chapter Text

“Jon, I’m really sorry. If I’d known that was how they’d, erm…assure me I was safe with you, I’d never have agreed to it!” 

Not for the first time, Jon found himself at the mercy of Sam’s continued apologies. Transportation had become a luxury after the Panopticon fell, leaving the two men with little more than a general direction to go on foot. 

So, once again, with a rucksack on his back, Jon made his way across the scarred landscape of London. Some semblance of normality had returned to the city – he could at least make out some familiar streets and signs, for example – but even with the Fears defeated, the world stood before a long road to recovery. 

None of the stores standing either side of the street had reopened, of course, though plenty sported new mouths of jagged glass where looters had helped themselves to whatever they could find. The roads, once flooded with cars that cyclists darted between like tiny fish, blended into the footpaths now, practically indistinguishable. This far from the ruins of the Panopticon, however, they were spared from the thick grey coat of ashes and echoing oddities that still prowled there – the lost terrors that lurked at the edges of Jon’s senses.

“I thought they’d just…Have you seen The Avengers? You know, that metal thing they put on Loki at the end to get him to stop talking? I thought they’d…Once we’re back, I swear to you, I’ll put in so many requests for the stitches to be removed that they’ll have to listen, I-I-I mean, how are you going to eat with your mouth sewn shut? It’s not reasonable, and—”

Jon stopped, closed his eyes, and held up a hand. Sam’s repeated apologies halted immediately. 

They couldn’t keep going like this. 

After a moment to think, an idea struck Jon. 

“Do you know sign language?” he signed. 

Sam’s confused expression answered before his voice did. With a flash of realisation, he stammered his answer. “Oh, sorry, n-no, I-I don’t know sign language.”

“No, me neither,” Jon signed back, letting his hands flop back down to his sides with a clap against his thighs. He really couldn’t keep denying it now. Simon was right; the Eye, at the very least, still lingered within Jon, feeding him knowledge. 

Did we manage to achieve anything at all in that damned tower, Martin? Jon thought.

Sam, meanwhile, had stopped. He squatted down to root through his bag, pulling out books and tools and placing them on the ground. “Maybe we can get by with you writing? I think I have some paper in my bag, might even have a pen. You can’t compel people with written requests, right?”

Jon shook his head, not really listening. 

Martin.

He’d promised never to use his abilities on him. To See or Know anything about Martin. But right here, right now, the best chance to reunite with Martin presented itself to Jon. 

Would Martin forgive him for another broken promise? Surely he’d understand.

“—this one doesn’t work, hang on…I swear I found a working one a few days ago, and… Woah. Woah, erm, J-Jon, what…that’s…that’s…!”

Eyelids split across Jon’s face like tiny footprints that trailed down his face, across his cheeks, and over his throat. Old scars reopened, but instead of exposing raw scarlet, the wounds revealed white and green as eyeballs rolled forwards to focus. 

Jon held his hands out, hoping his gesture translated as one of reassurance for Sam. He curled his fingers towards his upturned palms, asking for the paper and pen. 

With more than a little trepidation stalling his motions, Sam handed them to Jon. 

I’m going to try to See our External, Jon lied, writing quickly. That’s all. 

He handed the paper back, watching as Sam read it twice over. With an arched eyebrow, he looked up at Jon. 

“You’re going to See him? I…guess that would help. Lena said this External was somewhere in the old West End, but something more specific might be good.” 

Jon nodded once, making a mental note to maybe take a look at finding anything that might look like an External too. His lies required an element of truth to be effective. 

His focus swam away from what was in front of him, searching and pinpointing Martin with ease. His heart skipped to see his partner, unharmed and sitting on a wall facing the riverside, occasionally glancing left and right and over his shoulder. Simon was nowhere to be seen – was Martin waiting for him? Had the older Avatar gone to fetch something? 

No. No…Martin is waiting for–wait! I can’t do that, Jon reminded himself, closing some of his eyes in reflex and shaking his head. Seeing him was one thing, but Seeing into Martin’s mind truly would be an act of betrayal. 

“Anything?” 

Sam’s voice brought Jon back to his immediate surroundings. He shook his head, hoping that would be enough to convince Sam. 

The other man gave a hum and a shrug, starting to reshoulder his bag. “I guess your powers must have died a bit after Towerfall, huh?”

You have no idea.

Jon simply nodded, setting off again in the direction of Martin. 

Sam trotted along after him, his face twisting in a moment’s discomfort. Perhaps the weight of his bag was getting to him – he’d clearly packed for every eventuality. 

“It should be fine. Lena said the External didn’t have any powers it could use on other people, only itself. Err, themselves. Maybe that’s why she, erm…decided your abilities wouldn’t be needed,” Sam explained, catching up and falling into pace with Jon. 

Jon gave a one-shouldered shrug, pretending to be very interested in the ruins that surrounded them. Some of the buildings were occupied, with the occasional glow from every other window telling of families taking shelter or groups of survivors dwelling within. The adaptation of humankind. The will to survive. 

The aftermath of the Archivist’s folly. 

Jon gestured for the paper again. 

If this External’s abilities can only be used on themselves, that doesn’t mean they can’t hurt you. What if they can transform into something? 

He passed the paper to Sam and waited for him to read it. 

“Erm…I-I guess that would be a problem. Definitely would help to have someone control them if they did that. But if that were the case, I don’t think Lena would have agreed to…to…you know.” 

Sam pointed at Jon’s sewn-shut mouth. “She said she’d reassure me since your abilities wouldn’t be needed. She seemed to think your presence would be enough to convince this External to join us. She’s not wrong, you know. You, erm…you have something of a reputation now.” 

Across the world, yes, Jon thought sullenly, wondering how many people still had nightmares with his face a key feature. 

They travelled in silence for a while longer, punctured every so often with Sam’s misguided attempts to spark a conversation with a man both unwilling and unable to engage with him. They had to stop once or twice for Sam to sit down and catch his breath, and he would sometimes take a stained cloth from his pocket to mop sweat from his brow despite the cool air of autumn around them. Just the aftermath of his flu, Sam had assured him with a smile. Harder to shake without easy access to medication. 

“I hope this one’s friendly,” Sam said as they turned the corner and moved away from what used to be a main street and down a narrow alleyway, walking towards the river. “The External, I mean. Lena said they’d called in themselves. Offered to take the interview with one of us. That doesn’t happen a lot. Externals are kind of the lone wolf type, you know?”

Jon shook his head. 

“Ah, right, I…guess not,” Sam mumbled. “W-well, basically, when the world ended, there were some…anomalies, I guess you could call them? People who weren’t given nightmare zones to rule, but they also didn’t end up trapped in them either. There were two types for that. On the one side, you had people who escaped their nightmare zones – we formed the O.I.A.R., or an early version of it. And those who were never pulled into the nightmare zones to begin with, we called them Externals. Originally, we worked together, but…”

Sam sighed. “Different goals, even in the most dire circumstances. The Externals got powers, though we’re not really sure how or why. Maybe from wandering around the spaces between nightmare zones. Impressing the Fears? I don’t know. But in the end, they didn’t want what we wanted.”

Jon nodded upwards: And what was that? 

Sam laughed. “Well, what do you think? The O.I.A.R., the people who escaped the nightmare zones, we wanted to save the world! We had a couple of plans; one was focused on this weird house we found during our scouting missions. Had this…I guess you’d call it a portal under it. There were some thoughts that maybe that’s how the Fears arrived here, so we were looking for a way to send them back that way.”

Jon smiled, the wires in his lips giving a painful tug. He took the paper again and scribbled: 

Correct plan. That is what Martin ended up doing, in the end. He cut the tether, and sent them away through that portal. 

Or that was what was supposed to happen , Jon mused as he handed the paper back to Sam. Somehow, the Dread Powers lingered, sequestered away in his very flesh. Twisting and writhing under his skin, starved and screaming. The Eye, at least, was being well-fed by the sheer act of listening to others. Their tales and their troubles. The Vast had quietened down since its feast too. But the others…

Sam frowned at the paper. “O-Oh, really? That’s…surprising.”

Jon’s attention snapped to Sam, a wordless demand to know what he meant by that. 

“W-well, we disagreed. The O.I.A.R. and the Externals. They…didn’t want to lose their powers, I guess. So they didn’t want to send the Fears away. Said we should find a way to contain them, o-o-or build a new world with the new rules. When we couldn’t come to an agreement, they set off for Hill Top Road and destroyed it. The house, the weird web there, all of it. I don’t know if it worked – I don’t know how they could close the portal, or even if they could. I guess they just wanted to make sure we couldn’t get to it or use it. Maybe it’s still open under there. But…yeah. They seemed pretty certain they’d closed it off.”

Jon’s heart pulsed a cold beat, another piece of the puzzle slotting into place. Had their exit out of this reality been sealed off? With their tether cut from the Panopticon, the Archives, and their path through the tapes to the portal removed, had they had no choice but to go back on themselves? Back to Jon? 

Stuck. 

Trapped. 

Waiting. 

By now, Sam and Jon had arrived at a path running close to the riverside. Ducking through a hole in some wire fencing, the two men crept carefully down the sloped bank towards a wall lining the edge of the river. The sun had started to set, painting oranges and pinks across the sky and bleeding the water’s surface. A chill began to prickle in the air, spurring Jon to find Martin that they might finally be able to return home to a warm blanket and pretend they’d saved the world. That it was all over now. 

A short distance away, Jon spotted a pair of broad shoulders filling a light blue woolly jumper, a tangle of unkempt strawberry curls housing the occasional flick of white. Without thinking, Jon set off at a jog, almost calling out Martin’s name and pulling the wires around his lips taut. 

Martin jumped as Jon came into view, leaping to his feet with a broad smile. 

“Jon! Jesus, I…I…Okay, this does not mean I’m not so unbelievably angry at you!” he said before pulling Jon in a rib-squeaking hug that lifted him off his feet. “I’m so, so glad you’re all right, but I am so, so, so mad at you! You-you…you bastard! How could you think Simon-bloody-Fairchild would take me somewhere safe? You’re…you’re…Oh my God, Jon, what happened? ” 

Martin had finally released Jon, and with wide eyes he spotted the awful adornments to his partner’s face. Luckily, Sam had caught up now, wheezing and holding his arm against the right side of his abdomen. 

“H-Hi, erm…I’m. Sam. Khalid. O. I. A. R. A-and…y’know…him…” Sam spluttered out, trying to straighten up. Sweat beaded on his brow again, a greyish hue creeping into his skin. He winced and pressed his hand to his side again. “A-are you…?” 

“Oh, erm, yeah! I’m your External!” Martin said brightly, jerking a thumb over his shoulder. “A friend of mine mentioned your lot is looking for us, signing us up for work, and I, erm…”

Jon blinked up at him, then lightly kicked the toes of Martin’s right boot. 

Martin gave a nervous laugh. “R-right, erm…Okay, so, I might’ve…lied a little bit on the phone, b-but, erm…Look, Georgie said if I said I was an External, the O.I.A.R. would come running, and I knew that was where you were, so I was going to get myself a space on their programme, do an infiltration mission, and—Well, guess not now, since they sent you out, ha ha! Oh, r-right, Georgie! She’s fine! I found her!” Martin said, noticing Jon’s surprise. “You wouldn’t believe what she’s been up to since all this ended. Oh, and the cult? Taken a really weird turn, and erm…” 

An embarrassed flush stained Martin’s cheeks. “M-maybe for later. Look, right, we…we need to get you seen to Jon; what the hell have they done to you? Does it hurt?”

Martin stooped and reached with an investigative finger to prod Jon’s mouth. Jon flinched and swatted him away – Of course it hurts! he scowled at him – before both of them were interrupted by Sam. 

“That’s, erm…A-actually, I-I’m supposed to…I-If I go back without…with…out…” 

Jon turned just in time to see Sam’s eyes roll back. He darted forwards, catching Sam before he could hit the ground.

──── •✧• ────

Chapter Text

For what felt like the tenth time in as many minutes, Jon and Martin ducked behind a ruined wall, hauling Sam’s unconscious body with them to avoid being spotted by a wandering survivor on the hunt for resources. 

Huffing, Martin turned to rest his back against the wall, listening to the scavenger turn over some rubbish a short distance away. He sighed and shook his head. “This is going to take forever,” he hissed to Jon. “Look, I know you really don’t want to go back to the O.I.A.R., and – yeah, all right, don’t glare at me, I can see why! – but finding Georgie isn’t going to be easy. I-I don’t even really know if we’re going the right way!” 

Jon jabbed his thumb into his chest. I know the right way! he said wordlessly, eyes catching the light and glimmering with a dull hint of green. It was hardly a perfect image; wispy and fragile, more a vague sense they were going the right way more than assured knowledge. The Eye, tangled behind Jon’s own, had little energy to offer. Of all the broken Fears, only the Vast and the Desolation had settled somewhat. The Vast lurked behind his stomach, ready to enjoy the sinking feeling that burst there when one falls. Meanwhile, the Desolation prickled away in the palms of his hands, reliving the agony of the funeral pyre scorching his flesh. 

“Do you? Because you’re not supposed to!” Martin snapped back. “You’re not supposed to capital-K-Know things or capital-S-See things anymore, Jon! I really, really don’t think we should be encouraging a-a-a-a…a relapse.” 

Without thinking, Jon started signing, his hands an angry flurry of gestures. “It’s not my fault! And Sam needs help. Shouldn’t we use everything we have to get him that?” 

Martin’s face softened, a brush of guilt undoing the tension in his brows and jaw bit by bit. His blue-grey eyes shifted away from glowering at Jon to looking at the prone form of Sam. The fact he was a perfect stranger to Martin meant nothing. His heart, too big for even the Lonely to smother, still bled sympathy for everyone he crossed paths with. Jon knew this. He knew this without a single power to confirm it. 

“I…Yeah. Yeah, all right. But just this once!” Martin added hurriedly, holding a finger up to Jon. “I just…really, really don’t want a repeat of…” 

“Neither do I! Obviously!” Jon signed back. “And stop saying ‘really, really’!” 

“Well, I really, really, really don’t—Hang on, you know sign language?”

The two men stared at each other. 

“No,” signed Jon. “Hang on, you know sign language?”

“Yeah, learnt it years ago when—No, stop, you…you used the Eye to Know how to sign?” 

“Not deliberately…”

“Somehow, that worries me even more.” 

Jon had been about to snap back, but a peculiar sound sliced through their hushed conversation, and his heart dropped into the cold pit of his stomach. 

A door creaked open.

And the air filled with a hollow, fractured laughter. 

From somewhere over the wall they were hiding behind, the sound of scuffling, hurried footsteps and shaking panting told them their lurking scavenger had thought better of continuing their task and scampered away. Jon wished they could follow with as much haste, but with Sam still unconscious, the awful reality of what was about to happen demanded to be addressed. 

Martin had gone pale, though his brow had knotted slightly in confusion. He recognised the sound of that damned door, of course; they’d both heard it enough during their journey from the safehouse to the Panopticon. But how?

He stared at Jon, waiting for answers. 

Jon started to sign, but a falsely jovial voice cut him off, its words curling and tangling with one another. 

“Oh, Archivist…Is it really you?”

Tendrils of curly blond ringlets dropped like a curtain between Martin and Jon, and after a beat, both men looked up. 

Just above them, a yellow door, its wooden panelling cracked and radiating with scars of green, had opened. And hanging upside-down from it, with all the glee of a child playing on the monkey bars at a playground, was the Cheshire-smiling pale face of Michael Shelley. 

Or, at least, that was who Jon thought it was at first glance. On closer inspection, he noted some elements that, even for Michael, were off. His eyes, wide and blinking far too often to be natural, housed irises that seemed to have frozen in the middle of some strange attempt at fission, splitting like cells and getting stuck in the process. One half-iris shone a brilliant yellow, where the other was a murky purple slashed through with ribbons of green. His hair, hanging in long blond curls, did not move despite the man’s odd positioning and the breeze in the air. Jon could see stiff strands of dark locks interspersed within the tangled mess. But most peculiar of all was Michael’s skin. 

His pale face and stretched hands were littered with cracks, each one painted with a dull green edge that glowed in beats. At some points, the damage opened into larger gaps, revealing darker skin swirled with purple curls. 

Michael’s head bobbed as he laughed again, the sound impossibly loud despite his sharp teeth never once parting from their clenched, lipstick-framed grin. 

“Did you miss us, Archivist?” 

Still laughing, Michael slinked down from his open door, his long hands and fingers splayed to catch himself in a handstand as he fell. But the moment his palms hit the ground, they had warped into feet, and Michael stood before them, beaming as he adjusted the lapels of his mish-mash jacket. 

Driven by instinct, Jon scrambled to his feet and put himself between the Distortion and Martin and Sam. Despite the danger, however, his need for answers pulled at his tongue, trapped as it was behind his sewn mouth. 

Michael bent at the hip, smile disappearing for the moment, and oogled Jon’s face, making the hairs on his neck stand up. “Oh? Oh dear, Archivist. Now who’s gone and done such a thing to you? No, no, that won’t do at all, now, will it? You’re no fun when you aren’t asking questions!” 

He lifted one sharp finger and, before Jon could recoil, slipped the sharp tip underneath the first stitch in the corner of Jon’s mouth. Jon made the mistake of shaking his head in a desperate attempt to communicate, but he ended up catching against the pointed finger and pulling the stitch right out of his lips. 

Jon yelped, the sound muffled by the remaining stitches and by the scuffle of Martin getting to his feet. 

Michael, meanwhile, chuckled to himself and withdrew his hand. “One down, several more to go! Of course, if you stopped wriggling and whimpering, Archivist, we could pluck them all off your face in one fell swoop…Ah! Why don’t you hold him down for us, erm…Martin, wasn’t it? Our goodness, it has been quite some time!” 

Martin took hold of Jon’s shoulders and steered him away from Michael, though he kept a watchful eye on him. 

“We’re actually on our way to a doctor,” Martin spat. “So we really don’t need your help.” 

“Don’t you?” Michael laughed again, appearing now inexplicably atop the wall they’d been crouched behind. He tilted his head, though the angle went far too wide to look natural. “We disagree. See, there are no doctors around here, and even if there were , we don’t think they’d be very keen to help the Archivist. Us, on the other hand, well…one of us actually owes him a favour now. That one could take those stitches right out! But, then again, your unconscious friend down there does look a little worse for wear…” 

Michael’s fingers unfurled to gesture down at Sam. “So how about this – we let you use one of our doors to carry your friend to the nearest doctor. And we suppose the Archivist could get his mouth opened while you’re there. We’d call ourselves nice and even then, correct, Archivist?” 

Jon frowned, a thousand questions clawing behind his teeth. His lips strained against their stitches, not much looser now despite the impromptu removal of one of them, sending needle-prick pains through the flesh around his mouth. But his unspoken question was heard all the same, as Michael laughed again. 

“You’re wondering what debt one of us owes you? Have you forgotten already? You destroyed one of us, which made the other one very happy.” 

Michael tapped a long finger against one of the larger gaps in his cracked skin. “She’s still there, of course, just as he was still there when she emerged. But he’s very pleased to be able to stretch his legs again. He’d like to say Helen sends her regards, but…she really doesn’t.” 

Michael stood up from his perch and hopped down from the wall. With a flamboyant twirl of his wrist, his claws clacked against a door handle that didn’t so much materialise in the air in front of him as it grew out of his palm. 

He opened the battered yellow door wide and stepped inside, then bent backwards to peer out at Jon, Martin, and Sam. “Entirely up to you, of course. The offer’s here. We’ll leave the door unlocked for you…!” 

Trailed by an echo of laughter, Michael disappeared once more, and the door swung shut behind him. 

Silence followed as Jon and Martin each weighed up their stance. Naturally, Martin spoke first. 

“Right, then.” He bent down and pulled Sam up over his shoulder. “You hold the door open, I’ll carry Sam.” 

Jon’s eyelids fluttered, Martin’s matter-of-fact answer stunning him. He then darted in front of the door and put his back to it, arms splayed out, shaking his head. Martin, however, just sighed and readjusted Sam with a slight bump of his shoulder. “Jon, we haven’t got a choice. You know I don’t like those halls any more than you do – I spent far too long in there. I know the risks. But…Sam needs help. And honestly, you were lucky not to run into problems just now when you were looking for me. Not only ‘cause of the weird Not-Quite-Domain bits still floating around, but…” 

Martin stopped, and Jon’s eyes narrowed. 

Martin flushed and looked away, clearing his throat. “But…erm, right. Well, you know. People. Obviously, you know, people kind of…saw your face? A lot? In their dreams and stuff, and…yeah. They might have thoughts and feelings about you.”

No, no. No, Jon knew Martin far too well to let that comment slide. But time was of the essence, and Sam really wasn’t looking good. 

Jon signed back to Martin. “We’ll pick that bit back up later. For now, yes, Sam needs help. I’ll go through the door first, make sure it is safe and actually leads somewhere useful. Then I’ll come back and get you if it is.” 

Martin shifted his weight from one leg to the other, his bottom lip jutting and betraying his discomfort at being separated from Jon again so soon. But he nodded – one singular jerking motion stilted by premature regret. “O-Okay. I don’t love the idea, but…but all right. If you’re not back in ten minutes, or if Sam gets worse, I’ll set off with him. On foot, not through the door,” he added. “I’ll have less trouble if I run into people than you will.”

Once again, Jon cocked his head in question, but Martin shook his head. “I’ll explain later. We’ve really got to get going, Jon. Hopefully Michael’s opened a path to the Wardens, o-or maybe a proper hospital!” 

The two men looked at each other for a while. 

Martin sighed. “Yeah, no, he’s probably opened a way some…horrid pit of lava eels that all have human faces or something…” 

Jon grimaced at the oddly specific nightmare, snorted a dry laugh, then turned to the broken yellow door. 

Steeling himself, he grabbed the handle – Open it, and all this will be over – a shudder of memory clawing up his spine. But this time, the door didn’t rattle. True to his word, Michael had left it unlocked. 

The door opened up, and with one last look to Martin, Jon headed inside.

──── •✧• ────

The corridor, short and strangely straight, came to an abrupt end. Jon all but fell out of the door and onto the ground, a grunt announcing his arrival to no one. 

Pushing himself up from the dirt and chastising himself for even entertaining the notion of trusting Michael, Helen, or whoever the Distortion now was, Jon brushed off his jeans and looked around. 

He recognised the ruins he stood among – a wide circle of blackened stones and charred slabs of paper that had curled together and become one. With the walls long gone, the shattered staircase that once led to the top of the Panopticon was visible from the outside. It began to climb up through the too-still air, but its path broke away within a few steps. The ground, uneven underfoot, bore gaping wounds, scorched black at the edges. 

The sight ought to have filled Jon with pure dread. Instead, an acute sadness radiated from his chest. 

The Panopticon. 

His Domain. 

Where he belonged. 

Nothing but ashes remained now. An agonising cemetery of lost knowledge and forgotten fears. 

Jon made his way forwards, heading to what used to be the door to the Magnus Institute. Some of the steps leading to the old oak doors had survived the explosion, though they shifted a little in their settings as Jon climbed. The doors, now burnt to dust, left behind a blast-broken archway. He ducked inside, taking in the sad sight of the charcoal-coated lobby. To his left, Jon could see the stairs to the top of the Panopticon more clearly. Only a handful of steps had survived, yet he found himself straying towards them and starting to climb. 

And climb.

And climb. 

And…climb?

Jon stopped. He couldn’t be climbing still. There had, at best, been ten or so steps left on that staircase. 

Yet here he was, with the air whipping his tangled hair over his face, the landscape of a ruined London stretching out further and further into the horizon with each impossible step he took. A giddy elation nearly set him running. Would the top of the tower eventually greet him once more? No, no, no, he didn’t want to be the Pupil of the Eye, he didn’t, he couldn’t. 

Jon remained where he was, wrestling with the impulse along with the confusion of how any of this was even happening. He could look down, of course. Find out what he was walking on if not the staircase. 

There was nothing he wanted less than to look down. Not out of fear that there would be nothing there and he’d fall, but out of worry that if he looked down and found nothing there, he would be robbed of his chance to ascend. 

No. No, he didn’t want that! He’d never wanted that! 

So instead of looking down, to the thrill of the Vast within him, Jon reached out with one foot and slowly put it down on what ought to have been sheer air and a long drop. 

Something solid rose to meet the sole of his foot. 

Look down, the Vast whispered with its churning stomach.

Find out, the Eye croaked with its unblinking gaze. 

Do you even know where you are? the Stranger giggled with its shifting masks. 

Jon ignored them all, rooted to the spot in shock. The desire to look down tugged below his chin. The need for answers burned within him, something that he still wasn’t sure belonged entirely to the Eye or had simply been a part of his nature all along. 

Finally, he glanced down.

And whatever he was standing on looked right back at him. 

──── •✧• ────

Chapter Text

Jon gasped, forgetting his stitches for one awful moment. The skin around his lips tore against them, painting trickles of blood down his lips and into his mouth, but he didn’t care. He scrambled back, his hands pawing in a frantic effort to find the broken staircase again. 

But the thing looking up at him, the creature he’d walked blindly upon, growled its displeasure. Lidless eyes followed the scrambling, panicked Archivist as he tried to hurry away. Painfully green eyes that sickened Jon to the stomach with deep familiarity. 

The need to survive outweighed any growing sense of curiosity, however. With a great rumbling, the monster began to move. Jon had barely managed to find the last step of the broken staircase before he was thrown from the creature’s eye-studded back. 

He landed on his front, his mouth already coated with the sharp tang of metal, hands and feet scrabbling at the stone steps underneath in a desperate effort to get himself upright. Looking back would be a terrible idea, foolish and pointless. 

Naturally, Jon looked back. 

Rising up from its coiled slumber within the ruins of the Panopticon, a gaunt, many-limbed creature rounded upon him. Why it had to, he couldn’t begin to fathom, for brilliant green eyes crowded its pupil-black hide from head to toe, pouring down its bony back as some macabre yet beautiful tattoo. Its sharp face held no discernible features, blotted out as they were by eyeballs upon eyeballs. From its forehead and temples, greyish bones protruded upwards like some macabre crown, and between each point there shone floating eyes of light. 

Four great sheets of skin peeled up from its back, creating wings formed of thin, veined membranes and whisper-soft images of eyes. These dragonfly-like wings fluttered once, twice, filling the air with a deep buzzing in staccato bursts. 

But the creature remained upon the ground. One clawed hand grasped the broken wall at the top of the staircase Jon had landed on, another thudding down to the ground below as the creature loomed over him. 

Jon stared up at it, shaking from head to foot, his limbs locked and useless before the sight of this great demon. Worse than the monster drawing closer was its hesitation – Jon’s mind raced with a thousand possibilities of what it might do next, along with several curses for the Distortion and his own stupidity in trusting it. 

The crowned creature bowed its head further, its horrendous face now inches from Jon. Every part of him screamed at him to flee, even if it meant crawling down the remaining steps. Yet he sat there, sprawled on the staircase, watching this being’s every move. 

Why did he recognise it? He would certainly remember an encounter with such a horror, even a statement of its mention. Even in his terror, Jon couldn’t help but rack his brain, trying to find the answer. 

If the creature recognised Jon in any way, it did not show it. 

Its lower jaw began to stretch, and where its mouth ought to be, the black flesh tore open to form a wicked, ragged maw. The eyes that had been situated there loosened and tumbled backwards, landing in the creature’s throat and fusing with the flesh there, creating a dreadful tunnel of eyes that sank down its gullet. The monster drew in a deep breath, air rushing and howling, then spoke in a thousand resonating voices. 

“T̶e̴l̴l̴ ̸m̸e̸ ̸y̷o̷u̶r̴ ̴f̴e̵a̴r̸.”

Every word slammed into Jon, invisible barbed hooks burrowing through his mouth and down his throat, latching onto words he didn’t want to give life. 

But he had to. His mouth moved on its own, pulling against its stitched bonds until his lips tore themselves free. Between agonised whimpers and bubbles of blood at his lips, Jon answered. 

“I…I know, deep down, that Simon is right. In many ways, I-I think I knew before he told me. I refused to let them go. I compelled them to stay by any means necessary, and they did. When the tower fell, when Martin cut the tether between me and the Eye, I thought that they’d be trapped in some ungodly limbo with me; nothing short of what we deserved. But I-I-I was attached to more than just the Eye. I was marked by each and every Fear. I thought that, since I’d forbidden them from escaping through the web of tapes at Hill Top Road, and since they had lost their anchor to this reality in the Panopticon, then they would grab onto the last little sliver they had left. Me. B-but they were supposed to die with me. They were supposed to die with me…” 

Jon broke down in sobs, his tears falling and mixing with his blood-stained, tattered mouth. “They were supposed to die with me! But they…they kept me alive. Again and again, they seek to-to torment me a-a-and rob me of everything! My choices, my freedom, my…my life and my death! I’m scared that no matter what I choose, my path is already laid out for me. That I can’t change it. That…that all I’ll ever be, all I could ever be, is some awful herald for these insidious entities! And I can’t…I can’t…I won’t believe that…I can’t…I have to matter! My thoughts, my choices, they…they have to matter, they…!”

The monster bent down lower, its many-eyes face now practically pressed against Jon. Once more, it opened its ragged mouth, its tongue bubbled with eyeballs all staring at Jon.

“T̶e̴l̴l̴ ̸m̸e̸ ̸y̷o̷u̶r̴ ̴f̴e̵a̴r̸,” it repeated. 

Jon sniffed, quaking before the command. This time, when he spoke, it was barely more than a whisper. 

“That you’re me,” he admitted. “That you’re what I could have been.”

The monster emitted a low rumble, neither a growl nor a word. Acknowledgement, perhaps. 

Or sympathy, Jon thought. Neither felt like the better option. 

When next it spoke, the creature’s voice lowered, lightened from its compulsion, offering words to be heard rather than commanded. 

“I̶ ̴a̸m̷ ̴n̴o̵t̴ ̵w̷h̶a̷t̸ ̷y̵o̵u̷ ̶c̷o̵u̷l̵d̵ ̴h̵a̸v̸e̸ ̵b̸e̶e̶n̵,” it said, and Jon almost made the mistake of smiling with relief. But the creature continued. “I̷ ̷a̸m̵ ̴w̷h̵a̴t̸ ̶y̵o̵u̵ ̷s̴h̸o̴u̵l̶d̶ ̶h̴a̸v̸e̷ ̵b̶e̸e̶n̵.̸ ̴W̶h̸a̶t̴ ̸y̵o̶u̸ ̸s̵h̶o̸u̷l̴d̶ ̶b̵e̶.̶ ̶I̶ ̵a̵m̶ ̶w̶h̸a̶t̷ ̴i̶s̴ ̴w̶a̶i̵t̸i̵n̸g̵ ̶f̵o̶r̵ ̸y̷o̷u̸.̷ ̷A̶t̸ ̵t̷h̴e̶ ̵e̸n̶d̸ ̶o̸f̶ ̶a̵l̷l̷ ̶t̴h̵i̵s̸.̵ ̸A̸t̷ ̸t̵h̸e̴ ̸e̵n̴d̶ ̷o̶f̴ ̸e̸v̶e̶r̸y̷ ̷c̸h̸o̷i̴c̷e̵ ̷y̷o̴u̴ ̸m̴a̴k̸e̸.̸”

Jon’s entire body turned cold. 

No. No, you…you can’t be, he wanted to protest. It has to matter what I chose to do. What I want. What I…no! You can’t be all that can happen!

His voice remained trapped in his throat, caught on a thousand protestations and pleas for the monster to confess its lies. But all Jon could do was shake his head and try to push himself further and further away from the abomination, until another voice cut through. 

“Jon? Jon? Where are—Hoooooly shit!” 

It startled both Jon and the creature, and, in unison, they looked down through the empty shell of the Panopticon down into the lobby. There, standing in the rubble, craning his neck back to gawk up at the monstrous Archivist, was Martin. As though he had any chance of the creature not having seen him already, Martin gasped and ducked behind a shattered, overturned desk. 

A moment later, he peeked out over the top. 

Jon and the monster continued looking down at him. 

“Jon! Move!” Martin hissed, waving a hand towards himself. “Quickly!” 

A sad amusement radiated from the creature, and it began to turn away from Jon, moving to face Martin. 

No. No, no, no, get away from him!

The frozen dam burst within Jon, bringing a flood of adrenaline that unlocked every fibre of his body. He threw himself up to his feet and bolted down the stairs, skidding into the lobby and darting towards Martin. He grabbed his partner by the shoulders and tried to shove him back through the doorway. 

“We need to go. Now!” Jon said, not risking looking at what the creature was doing. 

“Yeah we do, and— Jesus, Jon, your mouth!” 

“It’s fine, go!” 

But despite everything, the monster did not give chase. It did not strike. 

It simply watched as Jon and Martin fled. Its eyes bore into the back of Jon’s skull as he scampered away out the archway, down the steps and into the vacant street again, seeking out the broken yellow door once more. 

Chest heaving with panicked breaths, Jon yanked open the door and stepped aside, pushing Martin in and then throwing himself into the corridor. Before the door shut, however, he caught one last glimpse of the monstrous Archivist. 

It stared at him, still nestled within the ruins of the Panopticon; the great dragon slain by the lonely hero before it could take flight. Then, without warning or words, its form wavered and began to peel away. Great petals fluttered from its body, yellowed and shot through with ink – papers, Jon realised. Thousands and thousands of pages, each one singing in silence to Jon, captivating him in a hypnotic trance so potent that he took a step towards the door. 

Statements. 

The monster had all but disappeared before the door finally clicked shut, cutting Jon off from the remnants of his Domain. 

──── •✧• ────

“...Are we going to talk about that?”

Jon ignored Martin’s question again. He kept his face doggedly ahead, staring down the endless corridor. Not one single part of his proposed topic of conversation appealed to Jon. The monster. The ruins. The statements in the wind. 

The fact the place had filled him with terror and delight. 

He sighed. “This corridor was a lot shorter on the way through. When I next see Michael, I swear, I’m going to wring his neck and—” 

“Jon.” 

Martin hurried ahead of him, blocking his way. Blue-grey eyes shifted from cloudy skies to steely waters, keeping Jon trapped in a whirlpool. “What was that thing?”

“Nothing! Just…an illusion. The ‘nightmare zones’, the echoes of Domains, they’re still… weird.” Jon stepped around Martin and waved him off. “It was trying to scare me, but there’s nothing to feed anymore.”

Yes there is, something hissed behind his ear. 

“Jon, if the Domains are still here in any capacity, that’s worrying! Surely they should have disappeared entirely when the Fears did.” 

“The Fears didn’t, Martin!” 

Jon stopped and whirled around, his outburst fractured by shame rather than anger. It only doubled when confronted with Martin’s shocked expression. 

“N-no…No, come on, you don’t actually believe what Simon was saying before?” Martin gave a half-hearted laugh. “He was just…y’know, trying to get his way. That’s all. The world’s back to normal, Jon. Mostly. If the Fears were still around—”

“Martin, where’s Sam?” 

Jon decided to cut Martin off, lacking the desire to explain or argue over what had become staggering clear to Jon in recent weeks. If Martin wanted to remain in denial, well, Jon wouldn’t be the one to take that from him yet. He could hardly blame him for wanting some semblance of peace after all, even if it was an illusion. 

Martin hurried to keep pace with Jon. “He’s right by the door. I didn’t want to risk bringing him in, in case Michael had set a trap a-a-and you’d got stuck. I figured if I walked into it too, Sam’s best chance would be to stay there, and maybe someone else would find him. But we’re heading back now, so…” 

Jon swallowed, his nerves bubbling nausea all along the back of his lungs and up his throat. “Right. Except…Martin, this corridor.”

His footsteps faltered, and he came to a halt, swaying slightly as exhaustion began to make itself known at last. Martin’s hand pressed against his shoulder, keeping him upright. 

“How long was it to get to…to wherever that was before?” Martin asked. 

“About thirty paces, give or take. You?”

“About the same.”

The two of them looked down the stretched hall before them, the door at the other side barely more than a speck. 

“Jon?” A touch of panic crept into Martin’s voice. Jon shook his head and started walking again. 

“It’ll be all right, Martin. If Michael knows what’s good for him” – Jon cast a sharp sideways glance at the wall to his right, catching a flutter of blond hair in the edge of the mirror hanging there – “he’ll let us out sooner rather than later. Unless he wants to have one more thing in common with Helen…”

“C-can you still do that? The smiting thing?” Martin asked, falling into pace next to Jon. “Can you even See him in here? ‘Cause I’ll be honest, I’m…I’m starting to really worry about Sam now.” 

“He’ll be all right.”

“But we could be stuck in here for days.”

“Martin…”

“O-Or weeks! What if no one finds him! I mean, people still walk around in London, you know, Georgie said people are still scavenging and are actually getting closer and closer to the London Exclusion Zone, which is really making things difficult for her and the Wardens. Oh, erm, the London Exclusion Zone is what they’re calling the area around the Panopticon. Georgie said the worst of what was left behind all sort of congregated there. Wait, actually, was that…was that where this corridor led to?”

“I suspect so,” Jon said. The door on the horizon remained stubbornly far away. If anything, Jon was sure the damned thing was getting further from them. “But I think right now, we need to worry about where this one is taking us…” 

──── •✧• ────

Chapter Text

The corridor stretched on and on and on, and despite knowing the fruitlessness of it all, Jon kept putting one foot in front of the other. But the door stayed its maddening distance from them. Sometimes, just to spite them, the damned thing appeared to hop even further away. Every time it did so, a whispering curl of laughter, like tumbling clouds drifting on the ground instead of the sky, would sound from the edges of the mirrors that lined the hallways. 

Jon stopped, hoping once again to convince Martin to rest. Neither of them needed to physically, despite the days of wandering they had endured – the Distortion saw to that. But mentally? 

“I need to sit down,” Jon announced, moving over to the side of the corridor and letting himself slide to the floor.

Martin stopped, but he remained on his feet. Jon had catalogued every evolution in the man’s expression over the many sleepless hours spent walking Michael and Helen’s damned winding pathways. Rising worry – would they make it back in time for Sam? Then sharp, crescendoing panic interspersed with bolts of running – Sam needed them! Then, a plodding pace, holding his head in his hands – this was all his fault, he had muttered over and over again. He’d left Sam behind. He’d thought he’d be safer there than in the corridors, thought Michael or Helen was on their side. 

All the stages had ended with a tirade of self-loathing, berating himself for his decision and apologising to Sam. 

“Jon, we need to keep going,” Martin said. “We have to get back for Sam. Look…I can carry you if you’re tired, maybe? But we really can’t stop.” 

“Martin, it’s been days…I…”

I don’t think we’re getting back in time, Martin. 

No. No, Jon couldn’t plunge that particular blade into Martin’s chest. Not when he was already blaming himself for not bringing Sam with him. But it seemed Jon had worn his answer on his face, because Martin’s eyes began to swim with tears. 

“H-He might still be there! Maybe he even woke up, I-I mean, he just fainted, right? And…and if we make it back…Christ, if we just knew if he was—”

Martin stopped. His eyes widened, seeing an answer before him. 

Jon started getting to his feet, already shaking his head. “No. No, no, no. Martin, don’t even think about asking me.”

Martin stepped forwards, hands outstretched, imploring. “But could you? Could you, you know, See if Sam’s okay? If you’ve still got some of your abilities, maybe—”

“They’re a fraction of what they used to be, Martin, a-a-and even if they weren’t, I don’t think encouraging their use is entirely fair.” Jon stepped back, the mirror on the wall behind him jostling as he bumped into it. “Especially if…if Simon’s right. If they’re all…trapped inside of me.” 

Jon swallowed down the nausea at the thought. The less they talked about the Fears the better. But that wasn’t the only thing that had stirred up discomfort. His bare-faced lie to Martin had a hand in it too. 

Ever since leaving the ruins of the Panopticon, since bathing in its memories of despair and power, since locking eyes with the shadow of the Archivist, the Watcher had ignited behind his own eyes. His powers were still diminished, yes, but to call them a fraction had been an understatement at best. 

“Besides,” Jon continued, starting to walk away again if only to cheer Martin up, “it’s different in other Fears’ Domains. Seeing in the Distortion’s hallways has always been rather, erm…hit or miss. Chances are, whatever I saw might not be the truth of the matter.” 

Martin huffed a sigh, but he followed along in silence for a while, content with Jon’s answer for now. 

“...What about the mirrors?” Martin asked suddenly, glancing around at the many reflective surfaces surrounding them. “Didn’t Michael – err, the real one – smash a bunch of them? Mess the Distortion up?”

“During the ritual, yes. We’ve passed a few of them. Smashing them now probably won’t do anything…or worse, it might do a lot,” Jon mumbled, eyeing the mismatched array that lined the walls either side of them. “I’m not sure we want to annoy the Distortion when we’re in its realm. Or, indeed, its very existence. This is very much its turf.” 

“So, what, we just keep walking and hope for the best?” Martin snapped. 

“We keep walking and wait for Michael – or Helen, or both of them, whatever the situation is now – to get bored and give us up. And we stop entertaining them in the process,” Jon said pointedly, jerking his head towards one of the mirrors. It had chuckled at Martin’s outburst. 

Jon then smirked, an idea of his own forming. “Or…we wait for me to get bored and start trying to dabble with the Spiral’s powers. I mean, we could test it out, see if Simon’s theory is right. I must admit, this lengthy stay in the Distortion itself seems to be helping it tremendously. Perhaps I can start with shifting things around a little bit in here…?”

The chuckle from before blossomed into peals of laughter. Echoes of both Helen’s taunting and Michael’s headache-spawning giggle twisted in the air around them, vibrating against the now-shuddering glass of the mirrors. 

To the right of Jon, a long-fingered hand wrapped around one of the frames from the inside out. Another hand clawed around another, several mirrors down. 

“Now, now, Archivist. No need to make this territorial!” 

A booted foot stretched out from a mirror behind Martin, but Michael’s head emerged from one hanging impossibly on the ceiling. The Distortion grinned down at the pair. “I assure you, Archivist, if you attempt to resculpt me, I will fight back. And though you might be a touch closer to the Spiral now, you’re still far too certain and recognisable to fully wield its abilities. Me, on the other hand…”

Michael finally appeared in full, climbing his way up from the floor beneath them but landing on the carpet with a light thud, as though he’d fallen from the ceiling. He loomed over the two men, bowing with a stiff bend from his hip. 

He peered up at Jon from between curtains of blond and black ringlets, his grin both Michael and Helen’s in equal measure. “I’m still very much a master of my craft, Archivist. Perhaps even more so now, thanks to how deftly you unravelled me. I must admit, weaving me back together from all those scattered pieces was…frustrating at first, but exhilarating later. Truly becoming a stranger to all…even myself! Neither him nor her nor them nor it…”

“Enough, Michael.” Jon tried to puff himself up, dredging up what little authority might remain within him as the Archivist. “Or Helen, o-or whatever you’re calling yourself now.”

“Whichever bothers you more…” Michael smiled and fluttered his eyelashes. 

Jon bared his teeth, his fists clenching at his side. No matter which form the Distortion took, it always seemed to delight in infuriating him. Not only with its words and taunting, but its mere existence, standing as the enemy to knowing something for certain. Not quite as perfectly as the Stranger, but a creeping doubt in one’s own knowledge, or going mad from learning the answer to a terrible truth. That in and of itself only cut Jon up more, that something irritated him not through choice, but because it annoyed the Eye. 

“Fine. Michael,” Jon said, choosing the name he childishly assumed would annoy the Distortion more. Helen had always been keen to establish her identity and be acknowledged for it, where Michael had gone to great lengths to shirk any attempt to label what or who he was. Jon intended to brand him however he could. “You recall what I did to you before, don’t you? Or to Helen, at least. Turning the Eye’s gaze upon you, seeing every inch of your sad, failed existence, knowing every way in which you crawled so desperately close to success with your ritual, only to have it shattered at the final moment. Having the knowledge shoved into your cyclone mind that even if Gertrude hadn’t found your ritual site that day, even if Michael hadn’t walked into your corridors and derailed the whole process, that actually…you were destined to fail anyway. That everything you are and aren’t amounts to nothing in service to the Spiral.”

Michael’s lips parted in apparent shock, and hand hovering over his chest, wrist limp and letting his elongated branch-like fingers dangle. “Dear me! That is so very rude of you, Archivist. Don’t you agree that’s rude?” Michael asked Martin, bending over backwards to do so. “I mean, here you are, wanting to ask me for help letting you out of here to find your sorry little friend, and here’s the once-and-future Archivist…insulting me. Is that how he always asks for help?” 

Martin swallowed. “W-well, it’s not really asking for help when you stuck us in here in the first place.”

“I did not! You both walked in of your own accord.” Michael twisted his head 180 degrees, bones cracking and skin crinkling, so despite being bent over backwards, his face was upright before Martin. “I can hardly be held accountable for that. You know better than anyone that my corridors are lively.” 

He laughed again at that and then straightened himself up by folding in further. A headache began to blossom in Jon’s temples, his patience fraying with every passing second. 

But before he could open his mouth to attempt to threaten the entity again, Michael sighed and shrugged. “Have it your way. Frankly, I suspect the Eye and the Spiral might be feeling a tad better now after all this, so I’ve completed my little task. I’m off to collect my payment. I’ll do you a kindness and let you out to collect yours too.” 

He stepped aside, revealing the broken yellow door had jumped the great long length of the corridor and was now standing right before them. 

Michael, meanwhile, gave a great bow and stepped back into a broken mirror. As he raised himself up from the bow, Jon noticed how the shattered parts of his face moved like a kaleidoscope, settling into a more feminine appearance. His hair darkened and straightened, though flecks of blond still shone through. Before the entity fully disintegrated into the shattered surface, Helen winked at Jon and flashed a dazzling smile of sharp teeth. 

“See you around, boys!” 

And with that, Michael – or Helen now, Jon presumed – disappeared. Behind him, the door creaked open, and Martin’s hand found its way to Jon’s arm. 

“Come on! Let’s go before he…she…either of them changes their mind!” 

“R-right.”

But Michael’s parting words rattled loose something Simon had said, and Jon’s torment happily batted the discomfort around in his head as Martin led them both to the door. 

But they’re alive, my boy, and if we’re going to fix any of this damned mess, you’re going to have to be the one to feed them.

He almost tripped over the threshold, caught in his thoughts as he was.

How many had he fed now? The Vast, for certain. Jon shoved away the memory of that poor man’s fall. The Eye, likely by default. And now the Spiral. Had the days spent in his cell at the O.I.A.R. nourished the Lonely? All of it amounted to dregs and drips at best, indirect scraps of whatever lingered in the world, yes…but how much would they need to overwhelm him? To escape him and flee to their followers once again and enjoy a banquet of fear to feed upon once again? 

When had Martin’s hand slipped from his arm? Jon blinked, the door swinging shut in the air behind him and disappearing from view, leaving him in the eerie quiet of the ruins of London.

It was then that Martin’s sobs reached him. 

His partner was kneeling on the ground, his whole frame shaking as he wept. He kept shaking his head, sniffing and muttering to himself in desperate pleas Jon couldn’t quite make out. 

“Martin?” Jon started forwards, a scarred hand outstretched towards Martin’s shoulder. “What…Oh. Oh…Oh God…” 

He drew close enough to see over Martin’s shoulder. There, cradled in the man’s arms, was Sam. Pale. Limp. Lifeless. 

Jon might’ve acted, checked for a pulse himself or made a frantic attempt to resuscitate him, were it not for the ghost-like black root snaking out from where Michael’s door had closed all the way up to Sam’s torso.

Behind Jon’s dread-cold heart, the End gave a sigh of contentment. 

──── •✧• ────

Chapter Text

Sam deserved better; of that, Jon was sure. 

But they couldn’t risk going into the O.I.A.R. themselves. The camera’s draining aura resonated all around the building, stifling even from the distance Martin and Jon had set themselves away from the front doors, waiting to see that someone would answer and find the sorry delivery they’d left there. 

“This isn’t right,” Martin whispered again, looking out across to the O.I.A.R. building. “Just dumping him there for someone to find…I can’t…Look, most of them don’t know me. What are the chances I’d run into Lena herself? I can go over and—”

Jon grabbed Martin’s arm, yanking him back down to their hiding spot before he could stand up fully. 

“Don’t! Look, Martin, I don’t like this any more than you do. But the O.I.A.R. do know you – Lena saw you, the two officers who attended that day saw you, and frankly, you phoned yourself in. You’d be recognised and thrown in a cell for ‘observations’ before you could explain you hadn’t killed Sam.”

“I…” 

Martin’s bottom lip jutted; Jon had struck a nerve he hadn’t quite intended to, but if it kept Martin safe, then he’d consider it worth the sliver of guilt being added to his already overflowing plate. 

Martin flopped back down, a defeated sigh practically shrinking his form. For a while, the two of them sat in silence, not looking at one another, not speaking even when a cry of shock and anguish sounded from across the street. 

“Alice…” Jon muttered bleakly, staying on the floor as Martin scampered to look out across to the O.I.A.R. “She’s his colleague. An ex, I think.” 

“Oh no. No, no, no, God, that’s the worst person to find him, Jon!” Martin fussed, looking down at him and back across the street, as though Jon could do anything to fix the dreadful situation. 

Jon shrugged with one shoulder. “She’d find out sooner or later. I don’t suppose it changes the pain when or where.” 

Oddly, it was moments like these when Jon felt the most assured that some fragment of his humanity still existed. Nothing else could punch that horrid, hollow sensation through his stomach. Nothing else could weave gifts of guilt to people who had, really, been nothing short of terrible to him. Nothing else could keep it in his head that no one deserved this. 

Jon started to get to his feet – focusing on the next step would get them through this. The next step, then the next step…

“Come on. We need to get out of here. Before one of them comes looking for me.” 

“You think they will?”

Jon offered Martin a sad smile. “I daresay they’ll think I was the one that killed him.”

──── •✧• ────

Finding Georgie and her new Wardens seemed like a terrible idea to Jon, who had no intention of being someone else’s caged specimen. But going back to Martin’s place was, in both Martin and Jon’s estimations, a bloody stupid idea. 

“I mean, we could skirt by, and I could nip in and grab a bunch of supplies?” Martin had pitched hopefully. Jon knew – without the aid of his abilities – Martin primarily wanted to grab a flask and several fistfuls of teabags. 

“It’s really not worth the risk. But something to fall back on if we get into a real mess,” Jon had said. 

He regretted it now, bundled as they were in a damp alleyway out of sight like two abandoned cats. Neither truly safe, properly hidden, or well-fed and watered. 

“We could try trekking back up to Scotland?” Martin said, his suggestion full of chipper energy that seemed determined to stave off the drizzle that lingered in the evening air. “Head to Daisy’s safehouse again. Only Basira would know about it, right?” 

“Right, but that’s not to say someone hasn’t stumbled upon it. People lost everything, Martin. Everyone is searching for shelter and safety…”

Because of me.

“R-right…Suppose you could…check before we set off?” Martin asked. 

“You’ve gone from refusing Simons’ theory to fully embracing the fact I still have my abilities rather sharpish,” Jon noted, arching an eyebrow. “Why’s that?”

Martin’s jaw tightened, and Jon could see the debate over how truthful he should be taking its toll.

“W-well, of course I didn’t want what he said to be true,” Martin spluttered. “You can’t really blame me for that. Our little hike wasn’t exactly a walk in the park.” 

Jon conceded with a small nod mingled with a shrug. “True, true.”

But the floodgates had opened now. Martin kept talking, his words starting to bash into one another in their haste to escape. “And all right, I didn’t want it to be true because I thought I’d just got you back! You…You died, Jon, again, and I was so sure this time there’d be no second chances, no Oliver Banks to wake you up—”

“You’re still caught up on that one?”

“That’s—! That’s not the point, and you know it!” 

Jon smiled and bumped his shoulder against Martin’s, delighting at not quite knowing if the other man was bright red from annoyance, embarrassment, or a combination of the two. “I suppose technically, you woke me up this time.”

“Technically, it was Georgie. I think she lit the pyre,” Martin corrected him stubbornly. 

“Yes, I suppose she—” 

Jon paused. 

Georgie lit the pyre.

“D-do you happen to know what she lit it with?” Jon asked, glancing up at Martin and doing his best not to sound like he was terribly invested in the answer. 

“A lighter, probably.” 

“Right, but…any particular lighter?” 

Martin froze. He paled, and his grey-blue eyes caught Jon in a sideways look. 

“Oh.” 

“Oh indeed.”

“You don’t think…”

“I imagine it didn’t help matters, no, using a lighter allegedly crafted by the Web itself.”

“I did tell them not to cremate you.”

“I know you did, dear, and I will always appreciate that.”

The two of them sat in silence for a while, listening to the rain fall around them. The fine mist grew into a stronger downpour, the fat drops of water striking the ground with enough force to splash back up off the rapidly sodden ground.

Jon huddled closer to Martin, though the rain quickly soaked the pair of them through, leaving Jon the first to start shivering. 

The path forwards was clouded in uncertainty, and somehow, fraught with more dangers than their quest down from Scotland to London. But they couldn’t go on like this. Darting from one place to another, hoping whoever they found there wouldn’t want to kill or use one or both of them. 

“Jon…” Martin’s voice rumbled from somewhere above Jon’s head, and he felt the other man rest his chin lightly atop his crown. “We wanted to try to fix things, yeah?”

“Yes…”

“And I guess we’re sort of…halfway there? And I understand why you might not want to continue. I really do. God knows, I do. But…a-and I mean, I say this with all understanding of the hell we’ve been through…I…I actually think we still have a chance to help people. Maybe the world can’t get back to how it was before, but I think there are still better days ahead. And maybe we can help get us there.” 

Jon remained nestled against Martin for a while, watching the rain fall in front of them. Better days ahead. He couldn’t See the future. But somehow, Jon couldn’t imagine any better days ahead featured him. 

He wasn’t about to tell Martin that, but Martin stirred and wrapped his arms around Jon. “And yes, that includes you. You get to be there too.” 

“Ah. That’s what that feels like,” Jon mumbled, snuggling into Martin a little more. 

“What what feels like?” Martin asked. 

“Someone looking into my head for a change,” Jon teased. Martin chuckled and gave him a squeeze.

“Didn’t even need to see your face to know what you were thinking, Jon.” 

After a moment to enjoy the embrace, Jon sighed. The path now seemed horribly clear, and he wasn’t sure he liked the destination at all. 

“...We’re going to find Georgie, aren’t we? These Wardens.”

“I reckon it’s our best shot to pitch in with the repair-the-world efforts. And if we don’t like it, we can leave. Find our own way to help.”

──── •✧• ────

Chapter Text

Finding Georgie turned out to be quite easy, much to Jon and Martin’s concern. After his encounter at the Panopticon, the Fears had fed enough to start stirring within Jon again; the Eye in particular offered him a small portion of his abilities back, and they grew stronger by the day. It wasn’t long before he’d fallen back into the habit of Seeing and Knowing on a whim. 

But it had taken some persuasion – mostly on Martin’s part – to get Georgie to agree to let them stay and help the Wardens. Despite being in dire need of people, Georgie seemed intent on keeping Jon at an arm’s length. He couldn’t blame her. 

He had betrayed more people than just Martin when he had ascended the Panopticon alone. 

Towerfall. That’s what they called it. Odd, in Jon’s mind. The tower’s destruction paled in comparison to a thousand other events that unfolded that day.

Still, after several “meetings with the Captain”, Martin managed to bring Georgie around to his way of thinking. The Wardens were, after all, community-led. They couldn’t afford to turn away help, and what better help than the two men who’d brought an end to the Incursion? Even if one of them had also caused it in the first place. 

And so, that formed the basis of their days now. Waking up in a small, run-down barrack formed from an old university hall. Getting washed, getting dressed, and heading over to Georgie’s office – one of the few rooms whose previous occupation matched its current one – and getting their orders for the day. Or, rather, Martin got his orders for the day. 

“This one sounds truly revolting,” Martin said, reading over the hand-written document Georgie had given him. “Apparently something that looks like a flayed man has pushed out from the Exclusion Zone and taken a bit of a jaunt around London.” 

“Couldn’t it be a victim, then?” Jon asked, his voice muffled from behind his mask. “I mean, it wouldn’t be the first time someone’s wandered in there and bumped into something…unsavoury.”

“Yeah, but it’s the energetic way they’re going about their day afterwards that worries us,” Martin countered. “Most standard skinned people don’t have the pep to chase people through the streets demanding their skin.” 

Somewhere behind Jon’s throat, the Stranger cackled. Under his fingernails, the Flesh crawled its approval. 

“Mmm. All right, creature it is.”

“So, what’s the plan of action?” Martin asked, stuffing the documents into his well-worn messenger bag. They really needed to get him a new one – this poor old denim thing had been dragged through Hell and back several times over, somehow emerging from Towerfall in a better condition than Jon himself. But now it hung on for dear life, the material more frayed than solid, the straps pinned in place by a variety of increasingly creative methods. 

“You tell me,” Jon said. “You’re the Warden. I just get to tag along because” – he held up his fingers to make air-quotes – “I scare off the really spooky stuff!” 

Martin blew a raspberry and scoffed. “You’re really still sore about that?”

“Not at all. I love walking around almost every hour of the day with a mask on, not talking to anyone, knowing I am a horrifying presence to the most twisted abominations the Exclusion Zone can spit out, and being referred to as an External. Or worse, Martin’s pet.”

All teasing mirth disappeared from Martin’s expression then, softening his face with something much worse – pity . “Oh, Jon…”

“No, really, I do!” Jon held up his hands in surrender. “Well, except maybe that last part. I thoroughly enjoy not being seen or spoken to, frankly. Besides…”

It means I can’t hurt anyone. 

“Besides…?” Martin prompted, leaning forwards a little to catch Jon’s eye. 

“Besides, I…agree with Georgie. The other Wardens would likely become quite disturbed to hear the Archivist survived. We can’t risk any of them quitting. And…well, you’d lose your cult.” 

“It isn’t a cult!” Martin huffed and crossed his arms, red staining his cheeks in such a way that, under his mask, Jon’s own face followed its example. “They just…they think…Look, some people react to bad things with pessimism, and some people—”

“—Find out who slayed the dragon and praise him for his heroic deeds?” Jon grinned, elbowing Martin. “No, honestly, Martin. You did do the right thing. And technically…yes. You saved the world. You’re the one who is kind of a big deal now! Enjoy the praise. And the occasional fan mail.” 

“I…” Martin swallowed, his Adam’s apple visibly bobbing. “I do. That’s…probably really bad of me, isn’t it?”

By now, the two of them had made it back to their rooms. The orange-red bricks of the towering halls had survived remarkably unscathed from the Incursion, yet the event had done little to soften the building’s appearance. Jon knew the sort very well – no doubt it looked every inch a prison building from the outside in its heyday as it did now post-Apocalypse. Rows and rows of perfectly spaced windows peppered the outer wall, several of which were shattered, cracked, or boarded over entirely. A small entrance doorway disturbed this pattern, framed in a stained white PVC. 

Heading inside, the front desk remained a ghost of its former self. The built-in desk remained simply because it could not be taken; the chair behind it had long since been pilfered, along with any soft furnishings that had once made the small space in front of the desk and lobby or waiting room. 

Small metal lockers lined one of the walls next to the old reception area, every single one of which hung open at various degrees of damage. Someone had evidently pried each one apart, hoping to find something. Jon wondered if they knew they were likely just letterboxes for the students that used to live here. Then again, paper was a commodity these days. Perhaps the looter was counting on it.

To their left, a door led to an old recreation room, but the two of them passed it by, immune now to the groans of pain and wails of horror – it was used to house injured Wardens, and while Martin had spent some time trying to go in and help over the recent weeks, he was always ushered out with mutterings that his presence would only rile the more broken Wardens up. 

You’re a hero, they had assured him, but you walked with the Archivist. Some of them think you died up in that tower, and that if you return, so will he. 

They headed through the corridor, all yellowing walls and torn, dark-red carpets. Every so often, a nail punctured the wall, a ghostly square telling of a picture that once hung there. Taken, no doubt, for the wood of the frame or the glass or plastic covering rather than the picture itself. 

They climbed a few flights of stairs and, before long, arrived at their room. 25A. 

Martin jostled with the keys for a second, then they were back within their little sanctuary. 

The room couldn’t have been more than 15 feet long or wide, with just enough space to cram two single-sized mattresses in. They’d shoved them both together against the far wall, and Martin had come back one day elated by the fact he’d found an old double-sized fitted sheet that he spent days cleaning by hand and then securing around the two mattresses, forming what could be considered the most luxurious bed on the premises. 

In the far corner, Jon had been piling up any wood he found on their ventures outside, intending to one day attempt to build a desk. For now, they remained in a heap, and he’d started using some of the flatter pieces as a place to store a couple of items – three pens, a handful of scrap paper he’d smuggled past Georgie, and a couple of books he’d read several times over. 

At the foot of their bed, two piles of clothes told different stories. Martin’s was a ragged bunch of jeans and jumpers, but he cleaned them meticulously, having time set aside every other day for his ritual. He’d dry them outside the window, then fold them and place them on his neat little mound at the end of the bed. 

Jon’s collection, meanwhile, was a lot smaller. He hadn’t bothered to fold a single item, simply leaving them in a scrunched-up ball. He did clean them, though perhaps not as often as Martin. 

Martin tutted almost the second they entered the room, dropping his bag and stepping over to foot of the bed to start folding Jon’s clothes. 

“Really?” Jon asked, closing the door behind them and removing his mask, setting it aside on his somewhat-desk. “We’re supposed to be setting off.”

“It’ll take two minutes,” Martin said, giving Jon a pointed look. “You know that, don’t you? It takes two minutes to just fold them up. It probably takes longer to crumple them and throw them!” 

“I am blessed to finally have a mother to tell me off and teach me these things.” Jon smirked, throwing himself down on the mattresses. He exhaled heavily, staring up at the ceiling then rubbing his hand over his face. He’d only washed this morning, but a thin film of sweat and condensation from breathing under the mask had rendered his skin sticky and damp again. “Bloody hate that thing…” 

“You can probably risk keeping it off once we’re out,” Martin said, finishing up his tidying and coming to sit next to Jon. “Just the two of us today.”

Jon rolled to his side, curling into Martin. “Just you, me…and the maniacal flayed creature trying to peel people.” 

“Practically a romantic date by our standards.”

“Mmm.”

Jon allowed the moment to slide into silence. He closed his eyes, pretending that they were somewhere agonisingly normal. Waking up on a Sunday morning. Doing laundry. Tidying the house. Making plans for lunch. 

Then, the mattress jostled him. Martin had got to his feet, clapping Jon’s knee with one hand on the way up. “Come on, then. We’d better get to work.”

“Five more minutes.”

“Jon.”

──── •✧• ────

It had taken them about an hour on foot to reach their destination, but at around the thirty minute mark, Martin and Jon agreed he could risk taking his mask off. That did wonders for his mood, even while knowing they were trooping off to deal with some ungodly skinless horror. 

“And you’re sure it’s in there?” Martin asked, looking out at the building Jon had identified. 

A derelict old takeaway joint, complete with drive-thru, stood on its own within the eerie silence of London. Usually, a few braver folk would be wandering outside at this time of the day, scavenging or searching for loved ones. Some even attempted to put businesses back together, setting up makeshift stalls to trade what they’d found for what they needed. The lack of anyone around right now indicated they were, at the very least, in an area where a nightmare lurked. 

“I did a spot of Seeing this morning after you got your orders. It was here,” Jon said in hushed tones, as though someone might hear them and report his presence to a Warden. “I tried to check again on the walk here, but…”

He shrugged and shook his head. The inconsistency and unreliability of his powers was not something he wanted to discuss at length. 

Martin moved from their hiding spot, checking left and right. “Right, then. You stay here – if you get any closer, you’ll scare it off.”

“And what are you going to do?” Jon asked, doing his very best not to sound patronising. 

“Lure it back to the Exclusion Zone,” Martin said, though a quiver in his voice betrayed him. “Paul does it all the time.”

“Paul thinks he’s some sort of movie action hero.” Jon stepped in front of Martin, blocking his way towards the run-down takeaway. “What did Georgie ask you to do? I thought this would just be recon o-or information gathering again…”

“She asked me to kick it back into the Zone and look for anything that could explain how it got out in the first place,” Martin recited. He rummaged through his bag, and Jon thought he might be looking for the papers to pull out as proof. After a few seconds, it became clear Martin was using the action as a means to avoid looking at Jon. 

“You’re scared,” Jon said softly. 

“Of course I’m scared!” Martin stopped his rummaging and finally snapped his head up, eyes sparkling with tears. “It’s got no skin, Jon! It’s running around trying to peel people! Yes, I’m scared! I’m supposed to be scared! I-I-I know everyone keeps saying I’m some great hero w-who ended the Incursion a-a-and—”

Jon gave a sorry little half smile and tilted his head to the side. “—And killed the wicked monster atop its terrible tower?” 

Martin swallowed, the tears now threatening to spill from his eyes. “But you’re not a monster. You…you never were, Jon.” 

“Martin…”

Martin sniffed and went back to rooting in his bag. “S-so I really don’t have as much experience with this as everyone else seems to think.” 

Trust Martin to pick up a worldwide compliment and beat himself with it.

“Maybe,” Jon said. “But even if you don’t think it’s true that I am a monster, you do know you are a hero. Probably why Paul gets so jealous of you,” Jon suggested, putting a hand on Martin’s shoulder. 

His boyfriend sniffed again, then jammed the heel of his palm into his eye to rub away the tears. “I really didn’t feel heroic, you know.”

“I know.”

“I felt awful.”

“So did I.”

“Don’t you dare follow that up with ‘because I had a knife sticking out of me’ and ruin this moment.”

“I wasn’t going to!”

“Good!”

“Good!”

“But Martin…” 

Martin sighed and rolled his eyes, preparing himself for Jon’s inevitable terrible attempt to make light of the worst situation of their lives. “Oh, go on, say it…”

“I need you to stay very still for me.” 

Confusion knotted Martin’s brow, and he blinked several times. Jon kept smiling, though the expression no longer warmed his eyes. He stared just over Martin’s shoulder, and with each second that ticked by, more eye sockets began to form and split open across Jon’s face and down his neck. Eyelids fluttered open, revealing dull green eyes that swivelled around in a weak attempt to focus themselves. 

“J-Jon?” Martin squeaked, his muscles of his shoulder turning rigid under Jon’s palm. 

“It’s all right. It’s…It’s about three feet away from you.”

“What i–Oh. Oh God, no, is—?”

“Yup. It’s erm…It’s quite something to see,” Jon said matter-of-factly, acting as though his own voice wasn’t quivering. 

Standing a short distance from Martin, rooted to the spot, a bipedal creature fixed Jon with hollow eye sockets. Its silhouette appeared to be its only effort to look human, for its legs and arms were so long that it had to bend its knees to balance upright, and the knuckles of its red-raw hands scraped against the ground. Every heavy breath it took whistled through bony nostrils on its skinned skull, its ribcage pushing up through glistening, skinless flesh with such force that the bones threatened to pierce right through. 

A steady drip, drip, drip accompanied its ragged breaths, but it kept its distance, black-shadowed eye sockets impossibly watching Jon. 

“C-can you…you know…smite it?” Martin whispered, shaking. 

“I-I don’t think so? That was…I mean, that wasn’t me doing the smiting, I just…did the asking,” Jon hissed back. 

“Right, but the Eye’s still here!” Martin countered, starting to panic. 

“Y-yes, but nowhere near as powerful as back then! And certainly not the one in charge anymore! I-I-I don’t think it would make a difference if I asked it to look at this thing!” 

The creature issued a low growl then, the sound grumbling through its exposed teeth and making blood bubble and froth between them. It canted its head to the side. It wasn’t just waiting, Jon realised. It was sizing him up. 

“Can we try?” Martin pleaded. 

“No. If I try and fail, it’ll attack. I-I think that’s what it’s waiting for, Martin. It wants to know if I’m still a threat.”

“Fuck! Erm…r-right, so…I-I mean, how big is it? D-do you think…?”

“What, that you could take it in a fistfight?” Jon snapped back, taking his own set of eyes off it and leaving the additional sets pinned on it. A wave of dizziness made him stumble as two different pictures misaligned in his mind. 

“No! Just…I dunno, outrun it! The Exclusion Zone isn’t far from here!”

“No, we’re not going with that plan.”

“Well, what’s your plan?!” 

Jon exhaled, turning his attention back to the flayed creature. It had lifted one foot, the bones of its toes curling like claws. 

It still stared at Jon. Paused mid-stalk. Waiting. 

Calculating. 

“Shit …” Jon hissed, wracking his brains. The Eye would do nothing but feed on the information it could gather now. There were no Watchers or Watched to be dictated, no grand worldwide show of horror and torment for the Eye to mindlessly command over.

But, then, he didn’t just house the Eye. 

“Martin…which do you reckon it is?” Jon asked, keeping a steady eye on the creature. 

“What? Erm, I-I dunno, all the flayed business makes me think the Flesh? But I-I-I guess if it looks human but not human, it could be the Stranger? Erm…which do you, erm…I mean, what do you think it’s trying to make people f-fear more? The uncanny human bit or the, erm, peeling skin bit?” 

“Depends what it does with the skin afterwards, I suppose,” Jon answered faintly. “Does it wear it or…”

The creature risked its step forwards, the growl rising. It parted its teeth, lowering its head like a wolf upon its prey. Between its teeth, shredded ribbons of skin and viscera shuddered under its breath. 

“...Or does it eat it?” Jon said, finishing his horrified thought. 

“Eat it? Oh Jesus Christ, Jon, it’s eating people’s skin?” 

“I…I think it may have eaten its own too…”

“Oh my God, oh fuck, oh fuck!”

“Martin, calm down!”

“Calm down? Jon, of the two of us, it’s going to try to peel me first, isn’t it?” Martin snapped. His shoulder tensed even more under Jon’s palm – conscious of the decision or not, he was ready to bolt. 

“I’m not going to let it, Martin. Obviously, I’m not going to let it!” Jon tried to reassure him.

“Then what are we going to do?” 

“I…Right, I’m going to try something. Do not turn around. Do not move. And…and if it doesn’t work…run and don’t stop running.”

Jon patted Martin once on the shoulder, then stepped aside, heading towards the creature. 

“Jon? Jon!” Martin hissed, but Jon had set his plan in motion now. 

The creature reconsidered its slow step forwards, dragging its foot back and placing it carefully behind itself. Still, it faced the Archivist, watching and sizing up the threat he might still pose. If any. 

Jon summoned what little fake bravado he could, recalling the sensation of destroying Avatars and monsters along their path from the safehouse to the Panopticon. The rush of power. The thrill of control. The shame of enjoying it. 

“Blood-soaked Viscera,” Jon announced, sounding far more sure of himself than he truly was. “Sink your teeth into this miserable thing.”

For one awful second, the creature remained where it was. 

Jon watched it. It watched him. 

Tremors worked their way up from Jon’s stomach to his chest and out across his limbs, dread pooling in his heart. At the same time, something in his eyes burst, staining the scene before him in a deep, dark red. Not the scarlet richness of blood, but the deep, dried brown-crusted red of rotting meat and torn skin. 

The flayed creature before him hunched over, its long arms wrapping around its skinned skull. It wailed and roared, stumbling backwards and twisting this way and that. What little skin remained on its bones began to tear away, as though unseen teeth and claws frenzied upon it. Then, its flesh began to shred away into frayed ribbons, splattering upon the ground as the creature howled in agony. 

And Jon could not look away. 

Finally, devoid of all its skin and flesh and more, the creature's bones clattered into a heap before him. 

Silence settled upon them once more, until finally…

“...J-Jon? Jon, can I turn around now?”

Jon stared at the blood-licked bones at his feet. 

Before he could answer Martin, however, a slow clap shattered the air. Both men jumped, turning towards the source of the sound. 

A short distance away, a sleek black car was parked up on the side of the road. It was remarkably clean and in shockingly good condition compared to the few vehicles Jon had seen since Towerfall, but he found himself unsurprised by the display of resources and riches when he spotted its owner leaning against the side of it. 

Gwendolyn Bouchard stopped clapping and pushed herself upright, striding towards Jon and Martin, the heels of her shoes announcing every step. 

“Bravo, Jon,” she said, lifting one hand to adjust the set of dark sunglasses she sported despite the grey weather. “Quite the performance. Sorry, I would have announced myself sooner, but I didn’t want to ruin your moment.”

“Gwendolyn? What–How did you know we were here?” Jon asked, frowning. Last he’d heard, the O.I.A.R. agent had been on ‘annual leave’ shortly after he’d traded information on the source of her uncle’s ‘personality change’ for a chance to speak to Martin. A deal Gwendolyn had promptly doubled back on. 

“Same old tactics,” she said, smiling and offering nothing further. “Speaking of, it seems you’ve gone back to using a few of yours. That’s good. We’ll be needing that.”

Martin, who had finally unfrozen and stopped inspecting the pile of bones that was the Flesh creature, came to stand next to Jon. “Sorry, but Jon’s already got a job.” 

He took hold of Jon’s hand, then began to lead them away with a defiant stride. “Come on.” 

“Jon, I took your advice,” Gwen called out. Jon halted, bringing Martin to pause with him. 

Gwen smiled again, flashing her teeth. It was as if she knew which buttons to push, as though she’d had years of experience speaking with Jon despite the two only having briefly met. “You were right. About my uncle’s eyes. I can’t believe I didn’t spot it myself sooner, but you were, admittedly, right. And for that, I owe you. I am sorry I couldn’t get you your call with Martin as I promised, but it seems you were impatient and beat me to it. Maybe I can offer you something else instead?”

She turned, gesturing to her car. “I have a lead. Someone who I believe can set everything back to how it should be. We can fix everything, Jon. Turn the page and try again, as it were. Shall we?” 

──── •✧• ────

Chapter Text

Jon had never been inside Lena’s office before, but he could imagine the woman’s distaste for what had happened to it in her apparent absence. 

“Please, take a seat,” Gwen said, gesturing to one of three Chesterfield armchairs shoved into the relatively small room. Surprisingly, given the state of the world, the furniture all matched either by design or by chance, each chair dressed in fairly well-maintained green leather. The desk, Jon imagined, was Lena’s – Yes, it certainly was, a voice whispered to confirm in his mind – but it had been cleared of anything that might suggest the office’s owner actually worked. Now, the oak surface held objects to display power and status. Pens. A notepad. A mobile phone without a single scratch on its screen. 

Pictures had been removed from the wall, with telltale nails still sticking out, and nothing had yet been selected to take their place. Jon arched an eyebrow. 

“Is Lena redecorating?” he asked, flopping down in one of the armchairs. 

“No. I am,” Gwen corrected Jon, sitting herself down at her desk and gesturing for Martin to follow suit. Despite the gloom of the office, she chose to keep her sunglasses on. “I regret to inform you that Lena no longer works for the O.I.A.R.” 

“What?” Martin, who had been tentatively sitting down on the edge of his seat almost fell off it immediately. “Why? I mean, not that I’m sorry to see the back of her after what she did to Jon, but—”

Gwen held up one hand. “An action that we at the O.I.A.R. are deeply sorry for. We have several, ah, Externals in our employ, and while Jon may not quite neatly fall under the category, we do pride ourselves on fostering positive bonds with anyone who helps us. Lena’s decisions towards the end of her tenure certainly did not reflect that. I hope you won’t hold them against me when you consider my proposition for you now.”

“Lena was fired?” Jon asked, though it wasn’t entirely a question. He already Knew the answer. It must have shown, because Gwen smiled at him. 

“Yes.”

“...Because of what happened with Sam?” 

“Correct. I want to make it clear, Jon, that we have no reason to suspect you killed Sam. We have it on record that Sam was, sadly, quite ill shortly before his death in service. Lena made a catastrophic error in judgement not only in letting him return to work too soon, but also failing to spot the signs of his illness progressing. Had she been more concerned about his medical safety and less about your potential threat to him, he might still be alive today.” 

Gwen leant back in her seat, the leather creaking behind her, and steepled her fingers. Jon narrowed his eyes. 

She looked every inch a Bouchard. 

Or a Magnus, he supposed to himself, recalling how he didn’t actually ever know the real Elias Bouchard. 

“It…It wasn’t entirely Lena’s fault,” Martin piped up, wringing his hands in his lap. “I, err…I-I had to leave him behind at one point. Jon had gone through a, erm…Well, you see, there’s this creature, sort of, he…she…it makes, o-o-or it is doors, and…”

“You mean Michael?” Gwen asked lightly. 

Jon frowned. How did she know him? Asking felt like he would simply be feeding that smirking grin on Gwen’s face, one that seemed painted on rather than truly felt. But she needed no prompting, all too eager to continue to flout what she knew. “We’ve met. Briefly. I’ve been on a short leave of absence, but I wanted to keep an eye on things. I’ve suspected Lena would trip up for quite some time now, you see. After I’d attended to my business, I reached out to Michael and requested he find you both. I had hoped he’d find Sam in time too, but it seems he was too late.” 

“Sam was alive when Michael found us,” Jon said sternly. “Either you’re lying, or he went off-script.” 

Gwen tilted her head. “Oh? He did strike me as the type to mess around before actually getting on with his assigned task. I apologise for that. Indeed, he and Helen took so long to find me that by the time I’d followed the trail, you’d long gone. It took me longer than I care to admit to see where you’d gone.” 

She lifted a hand then, rubbing the pads of her fingertips against her forehead. “Again, you’ll have to forgive me. While I am no doubt the best and only choice for this role, it is still quite new to me.”

She sat forward then, leaning to pull open a drawer of her desk and take out a small stack of papers. She set them on the table in front of her, smoothing them down with manicured hands. 

You found an emery board in the wake of an apocalypse? Jon thought. I can’t even find a decent shirt that fits properly…

“But on to the reason I risked sending Michael to find you, Jon. During my own investigation into Towerfall, I came across a peculiar case. At first, I thought this person might be another External, but upon closer inspection, I realised he wasn’t. He had no powers to speak of, and frankly, lacked any of the overbearing confidence they all seem possessed by. I realised that this person was not one of them, nor a creature of the nightmare zones, nor even a dreamer. In fact, I can’t quite place this person anywhere at all.” 

“Categorising any of this is a fool’s errand,” Jon noted. “Something to soothe ourselves rather than to really achieve anything useful.” 

“Oh, you say that, Jon, but I know you’re curious now,” Gwen said, as though they’d known each other for years. “An oddity that doesn’t fit neatly under any label? I’d call you kindred spirits. Besides…it is my belief that this person might have something for you.” 

This time, it was Martin who spoke up. “Why’s that?” he asked, his tone and expression set like stone, his posture rigid, defensive of Jon. 

“Because he has been walking for several weeks now,” Gwen said coolly. “He would not stop when I approached him. He would not stop when I parked a damned car in front of him. His shoes had broken away underfoot, and still he marched on. Weeping,” she added, lip curling. “He begged me to help, and despite my best efforts, I could not. He kept on walking. I tailed him for a while, and I realised he was heading for London. He is worried he is walking right into the middle of the Exclusion Zone, no doubt, but I have my own theory.”

Jon didn’t have to ask. He didn’t have to Know. The cold dread that pooled in his stomach, which the starving Fears eagerly lapped up, sang the answer loud and clear. 

“You think he’s walking towards me.”

“I do. Like a poor little ant riddled with the lancet liver fluke.”

Next to him, Martin shuddered. “Did you have to pick that?” 

“Err…” Jon had no idea what a lancet liver fluke was, but luckily for him, Martin answered before he had to use any abilities to find out. 

“It’s a parasite. When people talk about brain worms, they’re usually thinking about something like these things. They hijack an ant’s brain and make it go climb a blade of grass and cling onto it so that another animal will eat it.” Martin shivered again, screwing his eyes shut. “They’re really freaky.”

“I’ll never understand the lines you draw,” Jon said with a smirk. “No to worms, but yes to spiders?”

“Actually, these days, I’m a bit ‘no to spiders’ too.”

“That’s fair enough.”

At that point, Gwen cleared her throat. She leant forwards, resting her elbows on the desk. She still had her sunglasses on, but Jon thought he sensed a glower being shot towards Martin. 

“Gentlemen. If this man is a danger, we need to know about it. If he isn’t, we need to know what he wants from Jon. Or whatever the thing commanding him wants from Jon. The only way I can do that is with your help. Of course, if you decline and return to the Wardens, you do so in the knowledge that an unknown person, possibly an entity from the Exclusion Zone, is making its way towards you and anyone around you.” 

Jon held up one hand, staving off Gwen’s attempt to manipulate them. “It’s fine, Gwendolyn. You don’t need to push so much. I’ll speak to this guy.”

“You will?” The question came from both Gwen and Martin, harmonising delight and shock into one. Gwen got to her feet, but Martin leant across and took hold of one of Jon’s hands. 

“Jon, this is so obviously a trap…”

“I know. But from whom?” Jon replied quietly. “If it’s the O.I.A.R., we would have enough evidence to tell the Wardens to keep away from them and reject any offers from them. If it’s someone else…or something else…Well, frankly, I’d like to keep tabs on anyone who’s out to make our lives difficult. I’m hardly short of enemies, so naming a few is helpful.”

Martin’s bottom lip jutted, and Jon could practically see the protests piling up behind his teeth. But eventually, Martin sighed. 

“Yeah, all right, I suppose…And yes, I’m going with you. Again.” 

──── •✧• ────

Two hours later, as the sun began to set, Jon found himself sitting outside an abandoned café with Martin. They perched on a low brick wall surrounding what used to be its outdoor seating area, only everything had long since been looted – the chairs, the tables, the parasols, even the welcome mat and potted plants. 

Jon nursed a warm plastic cup of tea between his hands, savouring the rare normality of it for as long as possible. Martin was filling out his own cup from a flask Gwen had given them, treating the vessel like a holy relic. 

“I can’t believe she had Yorkshire Tea…” Martin said, not for the first time since gaining ownership of the flask. He set it down with great care on the wall between them, making sure it wouldn’t topple off. “And fresh milk! God, I haven’t had a proper cup of tea for months!” 

“It’s not even crawling out of the mug,” Jon said. “Remember that one in the safehouse just after…you know. The Change?”

Martin, with his eyes closed and mid-sip of his tea, crumpled his face a bit. “We didn’t know just how much the world had changed at that point, to be fair. I felt a bit bad about throwing the mug across the room, but it really startled me…”

“I’m sure Teatrix forgave you in the end.” 

“Teatrix?”

“Yeah, you know, like Beatrice but…but he was a cup of tea, so…”

“No, I got that bit, I just…didn’t know you’d named the mutant cup of tea I accidentally made you.” 

“Poor Teatrix. Wonder where he got to,” Jon mused, sipping his drink and looking out across the street. Shattered glass shop fronts and the occasional piece of rubbish formed the ‘view’; evening fell faster these days, and no one wanted to be caught out in the dark. That suited Jon just fine – a little more time outside without his mask on. 

“He’s probably still there,” Martin said. “I wonder if some wanderers ended up getting lured to the safehouse. It was sort of…feeding on our reluctance to leave, wasn’t it?” 

“Mmm. Very likely it eventually found new owners,” Jon agreed, still facing the empty street. “Hopefully they fed Teatrix.” 

Martin snorted. “What would he eat? Sugar cu—oh! Oh, Jon, look!”

He tapped Jon on the forearm, then pointed out up the road. Following his gesture, Jon squinted against the dying sun peeking between the buildings. There, plodding steadily towards them, was a man. 

“Do you think that’s him?” Martin whispered. 

The man’s clothes hung in tatters, though he’d build up so many layers that they each compensated for the other’s holes. His feet dragged across the concrete in steady, consistent footfalls, the flesh bruised and bloody from his long travels. The way the sun played across his face, Jon couldn’t make out any features. 

But it was painfully clear that the ragged man was looking right at him. 

──── •✧• ────

Chapter Text

Mr Delrin had, until rather recently, lived an agonisingly normal life. Once, that anguish had been born of the pain of boredom. He daydreamed of being more, being special, being chosen. In his youth, this manifested as vibrant episodes in his mind where he wasn’t Jake Delrin, but Thor, God of Thunder. Or Spider-Man. Or Aragorn. Or a thousand other heroes he’d read about. 

He was never, in those dreams, Jake Delrin. Why would he want to be? Even with make-believe powers or a pretend prophecy, Jake Delrin wasn’t someone he wanted to be. 

As he grew older, those trips of make-believe damped into something more grounded, yet still entirely unreachable. He’d imagine getting an unexpected phone call on his way to work and finding out someone, somewhere, in some high-flying and influential workplace, had come across one of his manuscripts. That he, Jake Delrin, would be published – properly published – under some great label and hey, there were already talks of a movie deal! 

He would never, in those dreams or otherwise, publish under the name Jake Delrin. Why would he want to? Jake Delrin was a ball and chain he longed so deeply to escape from. To peel away the choking identity he’d been forced to portray and live some all-new life – now that was a dream. 

Of course, none of this came to pass. And then, just was his luck, the world unravelled. 

Jake hadn’t even been special at the end of the world. He’d spent the entire apocalypse wandering through an endless museum filled with the achievements of everyone he knew, everyone he loved, everyone he hated, everyone but him. He’d climbed endless flights of stairs, wandered between countless glass bookcases, gone in circles around trophies and awards inscribed with every name but his own. 

Once, he’d stumbled upon the bathrooms. Funnily enough, the many, many attempts he’d made at success were in there. Fistfuls of manuscripts clogged the stained toilet bowls. 

Yes, the end of the world had been lonely, depressing, and a nigh-constant reminder of his own failures. But he hadn’t had to sleep. Pay bills. Pay rent. Worry about other people and what they thought about him. 

A softer pain. A gentler anguish. 

Guilt dogged him when, on the day the Great Tower crumbled and the museum along with it, Jake found himself a touch annoyed. A little sad that it was over. Despairing that he’d have to go back to his normal life again. 

But then, the woman arrived. How she’d found him, Jake would never know. He wasn’t even living at his last address. Some squatters had beaten him to it after Towerfall, and without any legal structures in place, unless Jake was going to throw them out, he had no way of reclaiming his home. He’d ended up living in the attic of an abandoned shop. And one day, scaring the soul straight out of him, the ladder had creaked at the end of his room and the woman with bloody bandages around her eyes had appeared. 

She had said she had an important job for him. 

He was to find the Archivist and tell him what had been on the top floor of Jake’s museum. 

Nothing more. Nothing less. 

Well, the last thing Jake wanted to do was talk about that. He’d told this woman as much, even as his feet jerked forwards and dragged him across the attic and down the ladder. 

She’d smiled, and in the dull light, Jake thought he’d seen a flash of something peeking out from the corners of her mouth. A glint of white accompanied by a wet clicking sound. 

“Ah, but Jake…You’re my Chosen One. But consider it your own rotten luck, if you prefer,” she’d said as he stumbled down the ladder and out of the house.

──── •✧• ────

Chest rising and falling, Jon snapped back into himself with a gasp. 

“Jon? Jon?” Martin’s hands gripped Jon’s upper arms, and he shook him again. “Snap out of it!”

“Is…Is he okay?” a tired, unfamiliar voice asked somewhere off to Jon’s left. 

Jon blinked rapidly, then looked around, grounding himself in the present once again. The broken street and its relics of normal life surrounded him still, along with Martin and the thin, weathered face of the stranger that had been walking towards them. 

“J-Jake?” Jon asked, though he framed it as a question out of politeness. 

The look of concern that flashed across Martin’s features wasn’t lost on him. 

Jake, meanwhile, tried to step back, his feet scuffling on the concrete but refusing to let him abandon his quest. “Erm…yeah. I…I guess it makes sense that you’d know that. You’re…You’re the Archivist?” 

Dread latched onto Jon’s heart, the lingering tatters of his humanity screaming at him to get away from this man. To grab Martin’s hand and run, away from this stranger, away from the O.I.A.R., away from the Wardens and the Exclusion Zone and London and—

“I am,” he answered, as though invisible strings had looped through the fresh scars that dotted the edges of his lips and pulled them to form words against his will. 

Whatever horror haunted Jon, however, it amplified on Jake’s face. Lines that Jon was quite sure didn’t belong to his age deepened, his grey eyes sparking in fear. 

A little voice in his mind muttered how beautiful it was. 

“I…I have to tell you something,” Jake squeaked out, eyes darting from Jon to Martin and back again. “I have to tell you something. I think once I tell you something, this’ll…stop. The whole thing. Please, my…my feet…my legs…I-I-I’m starving, I haven’t slept, I just…If I tell you this thing, can you help me?” 

Martin, of course, nodded. “We can try. Right, Jon?” 

“First, tell me about the woman who sent you. The one in the attic. Did she tell you her name?” 

The name muddled and twisted in on itself in Jon’s mind, the knowledge offered by the Eye and immediately garbled by the Stranger. It tried again, only for the words to be burnt away by the Desolation, devoured by the Flesh, cloaked by the Lonely.

But the bandaged eyes…

Jake shook his head, the motion sharp and jerking, like a marionette. “I have to tell you. I have to tell you,” he repeated over and over, his eyes growing wider in panic. Panic and, Jon recognised with a pulse of disgust, pain. 

Martin stepped in, his cold hand finding Jon’s scarred on. A silent encouragement to be softer. To be kinder. To have mercy on this poor soul he’d indirectly broken. “A-All right, erm, Jake. You’ve got a statement, right? Something to tell Jo—err, the Archivist?” 

Jake nodded so rapidly that his neck clicked. 

A statement. One he was eager to hear. 

A warning sign if there ever was one. 

“Martin, I…I don’t think this is a good idea,” he muttered. 

“When is it ever, but look at him. Besides, Gwen said this guy might be able to help us ‘set everything back to how it was’, right? She seemed to think this guy might know something useful.”

“Useful to me, or useful to the Archivist?” Jon snapped. “Look, Martin, I-I…I want to hear his statement. I really do. And that…Martin, it’s like being at the top of the tower all over again, that draw, that pull, that…jealousy. That’s…”

Martin’s demeanour shifted at once. His grip on Jon’s hand tightened, and he nodded once at Jake. “Right. Sorry, Jake. You’re on your own. Sorry.” 

And then he turned, taking Jon with him, and began power-walking them both out of there, hauling a scuttling Jon along behind him. 

“Ahh-ah! Martin, what—?” 

“Nope. Nope, not making that mistake again. Look, I-I-I…Last time, I watched you climb those stairs to the Panopticon, I knew you were being pulled, I even said it was a bad sign, and I ignored it. I saw your face when you looked up at Elias, all Pupil-of-the-Eye, a-a-and then it all ended with you doing exactly what we feared, and you turned into something you aren’t, and then you died, and-and no! No, this time, we’re not walking into the proverbial tower, Jon. We’re not ignoring the red flags on the road in hopes of finding another way along that path. We’re turning right around and walking away.” 

“Martin, just…just stop for a minute, you’re—” 

“I’ll stop when we’re home, Jon! When you’re safe!” 

“I’m not going to be safe, Martin, I—” 

Jon’s vision burst white, the front of his shirt soaking warm in an instant. When his sight returned to him, he saw his hand fall from Martin’s. Martin turned, confusion morphing into horror. 

Jon looked down. 

Twisting black fibres writhed from the centre of his chest, piercing through his back and bursting out before him, a black spider lily of shiny obsidian ribbons. 

…What…? But I…? 

Jon tried to speak, numb lips opening and closing around rivulets of blood. He found Martin again, rasping a silent plea for answers. 

Martin was saying something, but Jon couldn’t hear him. Standing behind his partner, the ghostly form of Elias Bouchard grinned. He raised his eyebrows and pointed with a slender finger over Jon’s shoulder. 

“I told you, Jon. I have a lead. Someone who I believe can set everything back to how it should be.” 

Martin’s hands clamped on Jon’s shoulders, his stream of panicked words little more than a muffled rumble in Jon’s ears. He remained transfixed on the spectre of Elias Bouchard, watching as his thin lips stretched into a feline grin, flashing blood-stained teeth. 

“Now, Jon…once more, with feeling. Repeat after Mr Delrin, if you would.”

Rasping words crashed into Jon from behind, both sickening and staggering him like a storm-whipped wave of sludge and silt. 

“You who…watch and…know and…understand none…”

Jon’s heart quickened. He tried to grab Martin’s arm, his lips fluttering around desperate pleas. 

“Mar…g-get…’way fr’um…” 

Martin, get me away from him! Get me away from him! 

But the parroted words from the parasite-riddled man meant nothing to Martin. Instead, he focused on trying to pull Jon free from the fibrous black tapes that continued to slither from the wound in Jon’s chest, crawling outwards and wrapping him tighter. 

“You who watch and know and…understand none!” Jake insisted, his voice slamming into Jon from all sides. 

The Archivist’s tongue unlocked, shaping around the familiar nightmare. 

“Y-you who…watch and…kn-know and…understand…none…!” He wept, unable to tear his eyes away from Martin. Poor Martin, frantic Martin, Martin who was going to have to kill him again. 

“You who listen and hear and will not comprehend.”

“You who l-listen.” A sob burst from Jon, shattering the sentence for one blessed moment. “A-a-and hear and…will not comprehend…”

From the cadence of Martin’s muffled voice, Jon could tell he was asking what was happening, what he should do. Questions Jon wanted to answer. 

Don’t let me do this, Martin. Not again. God, not again, all of this was to avoid them getting out again, please, Martin, oh God, please realise…

“You who wait and wait and drink in all that is not yours by right.”

Click.

Click click.

“Y-you who” – What was that? – “wait and” – That clicking – “and drink in all that is not yours by right.”

A tiny sound. Click. Click, click. Was it Jake? Had he distorted into some ungodly horror behind him? Probably, Jon thought to himself, if the dark river of vines rippling through his back and out his chest were anything to go by. A parasite, they’d called it. Jon imagined the poor sod behind him, snapped ribbons of tape writhing out from his eyes, his nostrils, pouring from his mouth. Binding his wrists, his ankles, his neck, and puppeting him towards the Archivist. 

“Come to us in your wholeness.”

“C-come to us…in your…wholeness…”

And what of Jon? There had been no such strings forcing him along. No. Nothing but his own damned curiosity, once again. 

“Come to us in your perfection.”

“Come to us i-in…in your…p-perfection…”

Jon tried to close his eyes, as though blocking out the world would stop what was going to happen. Maybe if he didn’t look at the sky this time, it wouldn’t look back.

But the next thing he heard was not Jake’s monotonous drone. Instead, Martin yelled.

“Oh fuck this! 

Martin let go of Jon. Would he run? God, Jon hoped he was running. Not that it would help in the long term, but at the very least, he wouldn’t see what was about to happen. After all, this time, the Fears weren’t on the edge of reality. They were within him. What would happen when they were summoned once more? Would they crawl and choke and blind and fall and twist and leave and hide and weave and burn and hunt and rip and bleed their way out of him? 

“Bring all that is—ARGH!” 

“Bring all that is—!” 

Jon fell backwards, the tapes snaring him yanking tight and hauling him to the ground. The air burst from his lungs, the back of his head smacking into the concrete and sending a blast of white through his mind. When his vision swam back, he could see Martin lifting his arm and bringing it down once, twice, three times. 

Click! Click, click! Click! 

The sound – it was coming from whatever Martin was bludgeoning Jake with. 

A bag. Jake’s bag. 

Click! Cli-cli-ck! Crrk! 

But through the chaos, and despite Martin’s efforts, Jake kept on speaking. 

“—Fear! And all that is terror! And all that is the awful dread that crawls and chokes and blinds and falls and twists and leaves and hides and weaves and burns and hunts and rips and bleeds and dies!” Jake screamed, each word garbled around bubbles of blood, mouthfuls of tape, and terrified confusion.

“—Fear and all that is terror, and all that is the awful dread that crawls and chokes and blinds and falls and twists and leaves and hides and weaves and burns and hunts and rips and bleeds and dies,” Jon echoed, tears flooding down his face. 

“Shut up! Shut up, shut up, shut up!” Martin yelled, striking down with the man’s heavy backpack again, tears cascading down his cheeks. 

“Come to us!”

“Come to us…”

Martin, leave him. Kill me. Stop me. Please, God…

“I OPEN THE DOOR," Jake howled. 

Jon closed his eyes in defeat. 

“I…” 

Still, even knowing how it would scald his veins, knowing how it would boil his psyche, knowing how it would prise his bones apart, he tried to hold the words back. 

“Open…”

It hurt. White-hot agony; a cosmic demand to do as he was told, to function as he’d been forged. Maybe it would kill him. If he just refused with every fibre of his being.

“Th-the…”

Something large, flat, strong, and freezing cold whacked right over Jon’s mouth then, bursting blood from between the back of his lips and the front of his teeth. 

He twisted and writhed, instinct driving him to do what he must to finish what he was saying. To complete the ritual. He opened his eyes – all of them. 

There, wrapped around his back and clinging to him with all the desperation of a man swept out to sea, was Martin. He kept his hand firmly over Jon’s mouth, his own eyes wide in fear, face pale and shining with sweat.

Jon might’ve laughed if he could. 

Well, he thought to himself, delirious with despair and standing at the edge of the end of the world once again. Now what? 

──── •✧• ────

Chapter Text

For the second time in his life, Jonathan Sims was about to end the world. 

Everything about that sentence irked him. For starters, it ought to be impossible. If he had ended the world once, then surely the only silver lining to soothe the unbearable guilt of it all would be that he couldn’t do it a second time. But no, no, of course his own devastating bad luck had found a way. 

Secondly, he rather liked the world. Contrary to his slightly abrasive tone and often jaded outlook, Jon had been content with his lot in life. Before all the eyes and monsters and Avatars and…statements. 

Bloody statements. 

Finally, and the part of all this that bothered him the most, was that it meant he had been tricked a second time. Controlled. Manipulated. That despite all of his protests and efforts to be forged by his own choices, once again, Jonathan Sims had found himself running headlong into a wall at the end of a corridor whose walls he hadn’t even noticed. 

In one brief second of selfishness, Jon closed his eyes and thought: 

Let it. 

He imagined the despair billowing from under his skin and seeping into Martin, a wordless offer to take the blame for what would happen now. A silent permission for him to remove his hand from Jon’s mouth and let the Archivist doom the world once again. 

I failed. Again. And maybe I always will, Martin. Maybe, despite what I wanted or dreamt or chose for myself…this was always going to be my lot. My future. My purpose. 

The need to speak burnt through every vein, sparking like embers catching along paper and turning them into fragile flakes of ashen grey, caught in a helpless dance against a breeze they could not hope to act against.

It swelled at the root of his tongue, blocking his airways and setting a cold fire in his lungs. It split his skin like rotten fruit striking the ground, and if Jon thought for one moment that all that awaited him for his continued resistance was death, he’d gladly keep fighting. 

Not brave, he reminded himself. But stubborn. Stubbornness he could do. 

But the End, nestled around his ears, whispered lazy promises that he would not die if he continued to avoid the ritual’s words. He would suffer. And suffer. And suffer. 

But it would not lift a finger to save him from it. 

How long could he lie here? Drifting from himself and watching it all unfold like a macabre play on a dusty old stage – (Ah, I’ve seen this one before; it ends in tragedy, you know) – his whole body jerking and spasming, legs kicking out across the ground, thin hands clawing at Martin’s as though the man were suffocating him. 

Cold teardrops splashing on the backs of his hands, burning the skin with shame. 

My fault. 

My fault. 

My fault. 

It had to end. Surely Martin realised that too? They could not, as much as either of them might wish it, remain lying in the street forever, clamped together like desperate sailors knocked overboard in a storm. Eventually, they would drown. 

And Jon would drag the world down beneath the dark waves with him once again…

There’s nothing we can do, Martin, he thought to himself, not daring to open his eyes. We should have ended this properly when we had the chance. 

“Jon?”

Made the world as comfortable as we could and guided it as gently as possible towards the end. 

“Joooon?” 

Starved the Fears. Made this their graveyard. 

“Come on. It’s time to wake up.” 

We damned the world for each other, Martin. 

“You can’t spend all day in bed, Jon!” 

We said we wouldn’t, but we—

…What? 

──── •✧• ────

Though every fibre of his being screamed against the notion, Jon opened his eyes. 

His body seized up, and he lurched upright. 

“—Door!” 

The word exploded out of him, and Jon clamped his hands over his mouth in a sad bid to keep it from shattering reality. 

Yet reality remained. 

Jon’s brow furrowed, his rapid breathing slowing down as he looked around. 

A large bed sprawled from under him, and he was sitting in a twisted nest of light blue-grey sheets. His bare foot poked out from the end of the pile. 

With his hands still over his mouth, Jon turned to his right, his loose hair brushing over his shoulders and tumbling down his back as he did so.

Nothing more horrifying there than a bookcase filled with pastel-covered volumes. A bedside table with a glass of water on it, a book, and some pens. 

He looked to his left. 

There, wrapped in an overly plush faded brown dressing gown that made him look like a bear from a cartoon, was Martin. 

“Blimey, what kind of dream were you having?” he asked with a half-hearted smile that twitched with uncertainty. 

…Dream? Jon thought, blinking up at Martin, his hands still clamped over his mouth. No. No, no, it wasn’t a dream. He’d felt the ritual’s words purge from his being, burrowing out from where they’d been etched into his flesh by each and every mark the Fears had left upon him. 

It hadn’t been a dream. 

Martin sat down on the edge of the bed, the mattress squeaking a little in response. “Oh. It was that dream again, was it?” he said knowingly, stroking back a lock of Jon’s tangled hair and tucking it behind his ear. “You’re all right, Jon. You’re safe. We’re all safe here.” 

Jon, however, was only half-listening. His eyes darted left and right, scanning the unfamiliar room for any sign that something had happened. That the World of Ruin had risen from its ashes once more like teeth beneath the earth. 

His hands began to slip from his mouth as the need to ask questions overrode his caution. “It…No, hang on…Martin, we were outside. We were just outside, right now! There was…Where’s Jake? Th-the man Gwen—Elias—Jonah told us to find? He was just—?” 

Jon started suddenly with recollection, throwing the bedsheets off himself to look down at his chest. 

Nothing but a scrawny torso littered with old scars greeted him. The largest – a starburst of grey tissue just over his heart – drew his fingers up to investigate it, but it was off-centre. The ribbons of tape hadn’t caused that one…that one was…

A cold hand joined Jon in brushing the scar. 

“Hey. It’s all right, you know. You’re probably going to have nightmares for a long time about all that. Hell, I think we all are. No offence.” Martin moved to wrap his arms around Jon, pulling him into what should have been a warm embrace. Yet, despite the fuzzy dressing gown now smooshed into Jon’s cheek and Martin’s strong arms, no warmth reached him. 

“But it was…It wasn’t a dream, Martin. It can’t have been…all of it…No.” 

He pushed back from Martin, shaking his head. “Simon! The O.I.A.R.! Lena, the camera, Michael…S-Sam! It wasn’t all a dream, Martin, I-I-I know it wasn’t!” 

“A-all right, no, hang on! Yeah, Simon showed up, and yeah, the, erm…the O.I.A.R., we had a run-in with them!” Martin stammered, a pink flush creeping over his face. The same flush that betrayed him whenever he had been caught out. 

Jon tilted his head, eyes narrowing. “Martin.” 

“What? I’m saying those parts weren’t a dream! Yeah, we, erm…I-if I remember rightly, a-a-after what happened with Sam, we, erm, we met up with Georgie and the Wardens. Did some work with them for a while, a-a-and then Gwen contacted us about a possible, erm, monster-Avatar-something issue coming from the Exclusion Zone? We, erm…went to investigate and, erm, yeah, we found that guy Jake.”

“And?” Jon prompted, leaning forwards. 

Martin swallowed, looking up for a flutter of a heartbeat then back to Jon. “And he, erm, did some weird ability on you and…you…passed out.”

Jon’s jaw locked, his pride and disbelief tussling for ownership over it. 

“I passed out?” 

“W-well, I wasn’t going to mention it, ‘cause you always get so weirdly offended by the idea that you’ve ever passed out before, but…yeah. You passed out. And I guess you had a bad dream when you did?” 

Jon let that linger in the air between them – the lie. He allowed it to lurch around them for a while, let it take some deep breaths, waited to see if Martin would backpedal and swat it back down with an admission of truth. 

But no. No, Martin just watched him, getting steadily pinker across the cheeks with each passing second. 

“I passed out and had a bad dream.” 

“Yup.”

“And Jake just, what…wandered off?”

“N-no! No, erm, G-G-G-Georgie showed up.” 

Jon arched an eyebrow. “Georgie showed up.”

“Yup! Jake scampered, s-s-so yeah, all right, we might have to deal with him again one day, but, erm…yeah. W-we agreed you should get some rest, and, erm…h-here you are!” Martin opened his arms out, gesturing to the room. “Resting!” 

“...Martin, I don’t even know where we are.” Jon took the opportunity to look around again. The pale room yawned back at him, somehow too big and too small at the same time. “This isn’t your house. Or our room at the Warden’s site. None of this stuff is ours. It’s not even the safehouse. And you, you’re…you’re cold.”

“Ow.”

“No, I mean literally!” Jon jabbed a finger into Martin’s chest. “You’re freezing! And you’re obviously lying to me, which you know I cannot stand, which means you’re hiding something you think is worth annoying me for. And there are only two things you deem worthy of pissing me off over.” 

Martin, for what it was worth, held his head a little higher. “Oh really? What’s that, then?”

Jon held up a finger, counting the items off as he spoke. “One, that you actually believe Die Hard is, in fact, a viable Christmas movie.”

“Which it is,” Martin interjected, nodding to the side. Jon shuddered, but remained focused on the issue at hand. 

“Whichitisn’t, but anyway. Two, when you think you’re protecting me from something I either can’t or won’t protect myself from.” 

Once again, Martin swallowed and looked away. The truth, wordless and held from him, teetered close to being revealed. But Martin shook his head and stood up. 

“I’m not lying to you, Jon. You’ve just…not been right since that whole thing with Jake. We’ve been here for days. I carried you here. It’s an old cottage out on the coast that my mum and I used to go to. So, yeah, the stuff’s not ours, it’s whatever the landlord left in it. Guess looters don’t think much of books these days.” 

He headed for the door, escaping further argument. “I’m gonna get dressed and head to the village; get some stuff in for the kitchen. Maybe you should take a walk or something? Clear your head a bit.” 

He glanced back at Jon, sadness clouding his features. “Those bad dreams always do a number on you.” 

──── •✧• ────

The sand crunched underfoot as Jon plodded his way along the shore. Even wrapped in one of Martin’s hoodies, Jon couldn’t escape the chill that had taken up residence in his bones. 

He drew in a deep breath, trying to tempt the sea air into providing its so-called healing benefits. But the sharp salt and freezing current only made him think of pale grey eyes and a falsely cheerful voice. 

Huffing, Jon stopped. Though he’d been walking for quite a while, the old cottage seemed as close as when he’d left. The sea, painted in an eerie stillness, moved so little that it blended almost imperceptibly with the sky, two shades of grey only briefly touched with a memory of blue. 

Something was wrong. Jon knew it, but he couldn’t place his finger on it. The answer, obvious and simple, danced out of his reach, obscured by the penetrating cold that lurked in the very air and wriggled its way through his skin, numbing his senses, his sight, his mind. 

It whispered that this was better. It pleaded with him not to worry. To settle. To relax into the grey fog and drift away with it. It was wrong, it hurt in its own way, yes…but it was oh so very easy, wasn’t it? And if it was only him who was hurting, surely that was all right? A fair price to pay, even. 

Yes. 

Jon’s footsteps started up again, and he continued his walk, the old cottage remaining behind him at the same distance despite his steps. 

Yes, that all seemed quite fair. The agony of not knowing for certain would hound him the rest of his days, but that was all he deserved. No one else would get hurt so long as he stayed here alone. Alone together with Martin. More than he deserved, really. He ought to be thankful. Getting to drift into the grey with the man he loved, away from the world. Alone…

He halted. 

Alone? 

No. That was the problem. He wasn’t alone. 

Jon steeled himself, trying to push back against the cloaking cold to feel something amidst the choking numbness. 

But the End did not whisper. The Flesh did not claw behind his stomach; the Desolation didn’t scorch his chest. His throat was soft without the velocity of the Vast rushing through, and his fingers no longer itched to prise bloody wounds apart for the Slaughter. The Dark had abandoned the pit of his stomach, and the Stranger no longer giggled with glee. The Spiral had untangled itself from playing with his psyche, and only a clammy sweat remained of the Corruption’s touch. Any tightness in his legs that urged him to chase for the Hunt had stiffened with lethargy, and the Buried freed him from its claustrophobic grip around his spine. The Web lurked only in his memories, spinning old webs from trauma and nothing more, the Eye only a dull observer behind his own eyes. 

In fact, only the Lonely remained in his orbit – outside of him now, but smothering the Archivist with its chilling comfort. 

Jon’s heart dropped with a different type of cold; one of sheer and awful realisation that pierced through his muddy mind. 

“Martin. Oh, what have you done…?” 

The sand twisted beneath him as Jon turned on his heel and ran back to the old cottage. 

──── •✧• ────

Chapter Text

When Jon was a boy, his grandmother would, on occasion, take him down to the beach. She always acted as though this were some great day out for Jon, as though he’d ever expressed an interest in the seaside or requested they go. In truth, Jon had been quite indifferent to the whole idea. Coldness clung to the air no matter the season, and the sand got in his shoes and all over his socks, grating between his toes and taking forever to clean away. Litter splayed across the beach and rocks like pockmarks, and the only highlight of the day would be if his grandmother decided not to pack dry sandwiches and lukewarm cartons of orange juice and instead bought them steaming hot battered fish and chips with lashings of salt and vinegar. 

They’d walk for hours along the shoreline, with Jon entertaining himself by seeking out shells (“Put it down, Jonathan!”) pretty rocks (“Don’t put that in your pocket, Jonathan, it’ll get sand all inside!”) or sea glass (“Oh, stop picking up rubbish, Jonathan!”). Eventually, he would grow tired of every excursion being off-limits and, as was his tendency, he’d wander off the moment his grandmother wasn’t looking. 

There was never a risk he’d get swept into the water; Jon avoided the waves by a healthy distance, having never been taught to swim. Besides, the churning grey and frothing white foam held little appeal to him. Noisy and dour. No, instead, his attention would be drawn to the towering white sentinel with its black crown in the distance – the Portsmouth Harbour Lighthouse. 

It would require him to walk up from the beach back to the paths and across some rocks, but each time, Jon dared to stray a little further from his grandmother, increasing the scolding he’d get later in exchange for a better look at what he once thought was the ultimate symbol of solitude. 

He knew better now, of course, darting across the faded sands and pebbles in search of Martin. No lighthouse pierced the horizon in the Lonely – the very concept of it would stand as the perfect antithesis of its slow, soft suffocation. No guiding light. No shining path. No lantern through the fog. 

No home to find one’s way back to. 

Finding Martin would be impossible were it not for Jon’s abilities. But even then, Jon was all too aware that actively looking for Martin in the village would be a fool’s errand, as the village did not exist. Nothing truly existed in the awful, serene realm of existence. Even the beach, Jon knew, was a construct built upon his own expectation of loneliness. 

The Lonely swirled with grey and stained white, painting images of forlorn lands and ghostly houses, but only enough to make the inhabitants feel truly alone. 

So Jon made his way back to the isolated beach house, stuck with the only plan available to him. 

He would have to wait for Martin to return. Whenever that might be. And given Martin’s disposition for being engulfed by the Lonely, Jon could be waiting for a long, long time. 

He sat himself down in the kitchen. 

He busied himself making tea. 

The water was cold even after he boiled it, and the tea tasted of echoes and ashes. 

He explored the house, trying to burn away his anxious energy by flicking through the books that lined the walls. Books with no titles, pages absent of tales of knowledge. 

Huffing to himself, he closed yet another tome and shoved it back on the shelf, then glanced at the front door, as though there were any chance Martin could have sneaked in without him noticing. 

Accepting defeat for the moment, Jon shuffled to the worn brown sofa in the living room and threw himself down upon it. As he did so, something brushed against his side. 

He almost leapt to his feet in shock, but a whisper of knowledge assured him of his safety, prompting him to look – to See. 

There, sitting on the sofa next to him, his shoulders hunched forward and his face in his hands, was Martin. 

Jon sighed, reaching out an arm and placing his palm flat on the other man’s back. Martin remained where he was. Evidently, he’d known Jon was nearby for quite some time, invisible on the sofa the entire time the Archivist had fretted. This might have annoyed Jon if it weren’t for the fact Martin’s shoulders kept shuddering, hiccups of sobs wracking his broad frame. 

“Martin,” Jon said softly, scooting closer. “Martin, I see you.” 

Martin pressed his face further into his hands, as though he could hide better for it. Then, he mumbled back, “I know.”

“Tell me what happened. All of it.” 

Only gentle patience laced his words. No coaxing. No compelling. Simply trust that if Martin had initially lied to him, it would have been without spite fuelling it. 

Martin sniffed and shook his head, but finally, he let his palms come away from his tear-blotched face. Grey-blue eyes remained steadily on the carpet in front of them, locked with shame and sadness. 

“I-I don’t really know. I swear, I didn’t do it on purpose, I just…!”

“It’s all right, Martin. I’m not here to blame you for anything. Tell me what happened.” 

Martin sniffed, casting a sideways glance just long enough to meet Jon’s eye. “I…You were…convulsing. Clawing at my hands a-a-and I could feel you trying to speak. You were going to do it again. You were going to let them out into the world – the Fears. And I know you didn’t want to, and I…I just…I couldn’t let you walk around with that guilt on your soul again, Jon! It nearly killed you last time – Hell, it sort of did? But Georgie wasn’t there, the Wardens weren’t there, Basira, Melanie, Sasha, Tim, I—I was…I was all on my own! I don’t know why, but it…it shattered me, Jon. I could feel everything inside of me just give way and suddenly, it all felt so hopeless and pointless, and I felt so, so alone even with you right there in my arms. Big, stupid Martin, the only thing between the world and a second apocalypse of eternal suffering! What can he do? I just…I wanted someone to show up, Jon! I wanted someone to show up and save us for once! Because what the hell was I supposed to do? I wasn’t going to…to kill you. Not again. Not for anything. I-I-I know I promised I wouldn’t damn the world for you, but you know what, m-maybe I lied, and maybe that’s awful, b-b-but you broke a promise to me too, so we’re even, a-a-and—” 

Jon brought his other hand up to settle on Martin’s shoulder in a quiet attempt to apply the brakes on his spiralling ramble of self-deprecation. “It’s okay. I’m here. You’re here. And…well, the world, I assume, is still there too. So you did manage something.” 

“But I didn’t mean to, Jon,” Martin pleaded, turning to face him properly with a face carved of pure woe. “I got so overwhelmed by that feeling, that helplessness, that…that fear, that I just…It just…The fog, the mist, it…started coming towards me, and I thought Sod it! Let it! And…H-h-honestly, I thought only Peter and his family could do that? You know, open a way to the Lonely? But it was there, and I was there, and you, and I just thought, well, m-maybe if you finished the ritual in the Lonely, the worst-case scenario would be that the Fears would get brought here instead of the world?” 

Jon’s eyebrows shot up, realising the logic in Martin’s plan despite his agonising.

“That…that’s actually incredibly clever,” Jon said. 

“Well don’t sound so surprised!” Martin snapped. 

“I’m not! I’m not surprised you thought of it, I just…” Jon trailed off and blinked a few times. “I mean, did they? Are they here?” 

“I don’t know.” Martin’s shoulders drooped again in defeat. “Every day, or sort-of-day, I don’t know, it’s hard to track it here, but you’ve woken up saying the last part of the summoning or whatever it is. And you don’t seem to remember anything from before you went to sleep.”

Martin sniffed and then smiled sadly. “I’ve actually had this conversation with you seven times. And on the first day, I told you right away. I just started experimenting. Maybe you’d remember if I didn’t tell you, that sort of thing. Never works though.” 

“Oh.” 

It was Jon’s turn to let defeat sink through his body now. Martin hadn’t lied; not really, then. Jon had forgotten every time he’d been told the truth. “M-maybe it’s the whole disconnection thing again. Like at Salesa’s when the camera was—” 

Jon stopped. That couldn’t be it. He’d been in the Lonely before, and the Eye had had no difficulty in staying tethered to its Archivist then. Hell, the first time he’d crossed the dreary realm, he’d never felt stronger. His abilities had proven strong enough to destroy an Avatar as powerful as Peter Lukas. And if the Fears had been loosed into the Lonely, then he ought to still be connected to them. 

Click! Click, click! Click! 

He recalled the strange noise from Jake’s bag, the very thing Martin had had in his hand when he tried to beat the other man into stopping the recital of the ritual. 

“Gwen. The O.I.A.R. The camera!” Jon snapped his attention back to Martin. “Martin, d-did you still have Jake’s bag? When you arrived here? The camera, I-I-I…I think the camera is in it! That’s how he travelled all that way without any of the lingering nightmares setting upon him! Gwen must have given him it to protect him on his way to me, and it…Is it here?” 

Jon leapt to his feet, already hurrying to the bedroom to start searching for the item. Behind him, Martin half-jogged to keep up. 

“Oh, erm…Yeah, I think so. Try my side of the bed, under it. I didn’t even think to go through it, to be honest, I’ve not really been feeling the most optimistic here, ha…” 

Instead of walking around the bed to Martin’s preferred side, Jon dove onto the mattress on his front and dangled over the edge, searching under the bed upside-down. With the Lonely’s slothful touch, everything blurred and paled, the shadows beneath the bed frame only making things worse. But there, nestled almost out of sight, was Jake’s battered and journey-ravaged rucksack. 

Jon reached forward and grabbed it, hauling it back up onto the bed along with himself. By now, Martin had sat himself down too, watching as Jon undid the fastening and emptied the contents all over the top of the quilt. 

There, among papers and cracked tapes and torn museum maps, lay the inconspicuous camera, its lens cracked and warped. 

The artefact’s closeness sent Jon dizzy, muddling his thoughts and skewing his focus. But he did what he could to cling to his theory if nothing else. He picked up the camera and turned it over in his hands, earning a worried question from Martin. 

“Woah, should you be doing that? I-I mean, that thing’s always messed you up before.” 

“I know. But the Fears aren’t held within me anymore, Martin,” Jon said softly. “Save for the Eye, I think. Maybe. But the others…” 

Martin frowned, tilting his head like a confused puppy, then glanced at the camera. His eyes widened, and he looked from it to Jon and back. “What? What? No, come on, they…the camera? How do they fit? I mean, I know they’re not literally massive, but all that power—” 

“But that’s just it!” Jon set the camera back down with shaking hands, like it might explode at any second. “They were ruined. Sad echoes of their former dreadful glory. And this camera’s entire function is to absorb fear. To store it. I don’t think Jonah intended for me to release the Fears out into the world again, Martin, not in their current weakened state. It wouldn’t achieve anything close to what he had before. He just wanted them out of me. Collected up—”

“—And brought back to him?” Martin finished. “But why? What, was he hoping to eat them himself or something?”

“I didn’t eat them!” 

“No, I know, I just…Look, I get the theory, but it can’t have worked, can it?” Martin gestured around them. “I mean, the Lonely’s still out here, right?”

Jon pursed his lips, considering the camera for a while. “It is. It escaped because you fed it. You fed it us. You made it strong enough to avoid being sucked into the camera along with its kin.”

Martin recoiled at that, offence furrowing his brow and straightening his spine. “What are you getting at?”

Jon chuckled and looked over at Martin with great fondness despite the madness unfolding before them. 

“Frankly, Martin, I think you may have rather spectacularly ballsed this up.” 

──── •✧• ────

Chapter Text

When Martin was a boy, his mother would, on occasion, take him down to the beach. Generally, she did this to put on airs for visiting family – not that Martin’s relatives dropped by often. As such, trips to the seaside happened once a year at best, and he liked to make the most of them. 

The difficulty in that was the nature of their occurrence; the requirement of family members visiting. This usually meant his Aunt Maria and his three cousins, Liam, Patrick, and Jamie. 

All three of his cousins were around his age, so in theory, they ought to have played together quite easily. But no matter what game they chose, Martin always knew he was slightly outside of the trio of brothers. They added him to their group out of necessity rather than any real want to play with him, and this showed in indirect and direct ways. 

Indirectly, they made this clear with the unspoken hierarchy. This manifested in one big way: Martin never got to pick the games they played. They didn’t want to go looking for shells (“That’s boring, Martin…”) pretty rocks (“What, to throw them?”) or sea glass (“That game is for girls, Martin!”). 

Martin didn’t mind too much. Liam, Patrick, and Jamie came up with good games, and more importantly, they let him play with them. That was more than the kids at school did, and it made the trio his favourite set of cousins by far. 

He told them as such too, though this led to the direct way in which his cousins showed they tolerated rather than enjoyed his company. They flat-out told him so, very matter-of-factly, that he was not their favourite cousin. That honour was Layla’s, some unknown-to-Martin face on his uncle’s side of the family. 

Martin didn’t mind. Heck, he understood, really. He’d not be his favourite cousin either. He wasn’t fast like Liam. He didn’t come up with cool, creative ideas like Patrick. He couldn’t skim rocks and do bike tricks like Jamie. 

But sometimes, the sense of not belonging would twist up all of Martin’s insides. With no warning, the need to get away would seize him. The dreadful desire to be alone growing from his fear of it. 

In such moments, Martin would wander away from the group and along the beach. He’d sneak a chance at picking up some interesting shells, pretty rocks, or cool pieces of sea glass, stuffing them in his pockets so he could take them home and add them to his secret collection. But mostly, he’d head towards the lighthouse at the end of the sand. 

He’d never go in, of course. He just sat himself on the rocks and pretended he had come home from school and was waiting for his father to get back. His father was a fisherman on some days, and they lived in the cosy lighthouse together and played board games every night. Other days, he was a brave sea captain, and he needed Martin to light the lantern atop the tower to help him get home. Every so often, in particularly glum chapters of Martin’s life, his father was a god of the sea, which made Martin secretly special, and that was why everyone didn’t want to hang out with him; they could instinctively tell he wasn’t all human, that he had godsblood in his veins, and—

—and then Martin’s mum would arrive and tell him off, grabbing him by the wrist and marching him back to the group, hissing all the while that Liam and Patrick and Jamie behaved themselves so well, why couldn’t he? 

She never did explain why sitting on the rocks by the lighthouse was misbehaving, exactly, but Martin assumed it simply must have been. 

All of this was terribly sad, but worst of all, it wasn’t even close to what Jon was looking for. 

With a gasp, Jon snapped back into himself, his senses tumbling into place one at a time. He swayed and nearly crumpled onto the bed, but Martin caught him before he could flop forwards. The two of them were sitting on top of the quilt on their bed, the contents of Jake’s bag still gathered around them like a magpie’s nest. 

“So? Did you find anything this time?” Martin asked, a little pale himself. 

Jon shook his head. “No. No, I think I must have been distracted or something, I…I got some memory of you at the beach? With your cousins?” 

Martin flushed red, a mix of embarrassment and annoyance tightening his tone. “For God’s sake, Jon, you’re supposed to be looking for the Lonely, not unearthing my childhood traumas! You said you’d be careful!” 

“I am being careful! It’s just…the camera makes everything foggy at the best of times, let alone trying to do this while within the Lonely. It’s like having lizard scales over my eyes or something…” Jon grumbled, straightening up and running his hand through his hair to brush it out of his face. “I’m sorry. I…I know you hate me looking into your head like this. And now that I’m so bloody bad at it, it’s probably even less fun.” 

“For you or for me?” Martin quipped. 

“I never enjoyed it, Martin,” Jon lied. He paused, sitting with that for a second, then relented. “Well, I never enjoyed it with you. It felt like…like a betrayal. Of your trust. So I tried my best to stay out.” 

“Hmm.” Martin scooted off the top of the bed and to its edge, getting to his feet. “Maybe we should take a break. I mean, at least we’ve confirmed the Eye’s not stuck in the camera if you can use your abilities even a little bit. Guess it’s still chilling next to your kidney or something.”

“No. No breaks,” Jon said. “Martin, you might be fine here these days, but…but the longer I’m here, the harder it is not to just give up. Let the mist roll through and swallow me whole. Never mind the bloody camera sending me half-senile,” Jon said, gesturing to the relic on the bed. 

Martin turned in the doorway to fix Jon with a scowl. “‘I’m fine?’ You know damn well what the Lonely does to me.” 

“I do. And don’t you find it odd that none of that has happened this time? The soft pain? The lethargy? The despair? You’ve not wandered off or told me to leave you here, or…given in to any of it. In fact, you brought us here. Before that, the only people in recent history to have done that were the, erm…” Jon paused and frowned, the name escaping him. “The…erm…family of…ah…?”

“The Lukases?” 

“Lukas. Right.” Jon sighed, the fight burning clean out of him. He loathed forgetting things, much less in front of Martin. “Fuck.” 

Martin smiled, and he moved back to the bed to sit down next to his partner. He reached out and started rubbing slow, comforting circles on Jon’s lower back. “It’s all okay. Look, you’re right. The longer we stay here, the worse it’s going to get for you. And if your abilities are fading, they’re only going to get weaker. I know you don’t want to risk it, but…”

Martin inhaled deeply, nodded, then said with a bold assertiveness that took Jon quite by surprise, “We should go back.”

Jon blinked. “Back? Back to…back to the real world?” 

His heart flooded cold at the thought. “Martin, what if it’s…what if it’s gone? What if it’s ruined, or worse, and…and maybe you’re safer here, and I-I…I mean, I could go first, but…I just don’t think we should risk—”

Two hands clamped down on Jon’s shoulders, grounding him in a heartbeat. Two grey-blue eyes found his, steeled with a belief Jon couldn’t fathom the foundation of. 

“Jon. Listen to me. We can’t stay here. You know we can’t, and you know the Lonely’s tempting you. It’s feeding on your fear of leaving.” 

“I…” Jon swallowed, his throat dry. “R-Right. And…and you know that because…”

“Because I…I feel fucking brilliant at the minute,” Martin admitted, a pink tinge staining the tops of his ears and spreading all across his cheeks and nose. “So maybe you don’t need to go spelunking in my head to find proof that the Lonely’s moved in. Maybe that’s proof enough? And if the Eye’s stuck in your head, and the Lonely’s in mine, then logically, the ritual can’t have been completed, right? The Fears can’t all have come through into our world again ‘cause we’ve trapped at least two of ‘em in fleshy prisons. And the rest might be caught in the camera!”

“Please stop talking,” Jon begged, his expression souring more and more with each of Martin’s choice descriptions. “I think I’d rather risk seeing if I’ve ruined the world again than hear you describe anything as a fleshy prison…” 

──── •✧• ────

With the sheer amount of dread pooling in his stomach, Jon was certain that the world would paint itself in ruins around them as they left the Lonely’s pale Domain. Instead, they stepped out into nothing more terrifying than the ghostly streets of London, unchanged from the moment they had left.

Jon looked around while Martin busied himself with their bags. 

“Okay, I think the first port of call should be to hide the camera. Somewhere we can find it again, but far enough away that you can keep your wits about you,” Martin announced, rummaging in Jake’s bag to check for the fifteenth time that the artefact was still there. 

“I’ve not been that bad,” Jon said, still taking in their surroundings and checking for any signs of nightmares or monsters lurking. 

“Right. Except forgetting entire days every time you went to sleep, forgetting the name of one of the former bosses you smited, forgetting where you put your socks—”

“That was actually nothing to do with the camera,” Jon muttered, still stalking about the place. 

“Either way.” Martin straightened up and shrugged both his bag and Jake’s bag over one broad shoulder. “We hide it, and you can keep an eye on it by not being able to see it, yeah?”

“Mmm.” Jon stopped, reaching out the blind spot that lurked over Martin’s shoulder. “I wonder if they are in there. The other twelve, I mean. I can see the Lonely around you, and I can hear the Eye within me, but the others…they’ve really been hauled out of me.” 

“You sound a bit disappointed,” Martin pointed out curtly, heading over to an abandoned restaurant on the side of the road and starting to look for a hiding spot for Jake’s bag. “Slightly worrying.”

“I’m not disappointed, I’m…concerned,” Jon said, following him across the road and trying to help out with a good hiding place. “It’s like when there’s a spider in the room. You hate that you’ve spotted it, but you hate it even more when it buggers off, and you’re left knowing it’s around, but you don’t know where anymore.” 

“Never bothered me, to be honest,” Martin said around a smile, pulling back a plantless plant pot from the front entrance of the restaurant. “Urgh, we can’t really leave it outside, can we? We’re gonna have to break in somewhere. Inside’s probably a little more secure.” 

“What, even after we break in?” Jon teased, heading to the front door. “We’re hardly a dastardly duo on that front; if we can break in, then surely—” 

He stopped. 

He narrowed his eyes. 

And…he sighed. 

Because the restaurant now sported a bright yellow door, one that clashed horrendously with the overall decor. One that was far too bright and unblemished to be part of the building. 

“Michael,” Jon grumbled. He stepped back from the offending entrance, eyes narrowed with suspicion. “Or Helen, or both.” 

A winding laughter echoed around them, braiding itself with the squeaking of the door opening. A long-fingered hand appeared first, followed by the grinning face of Michael and Helen, impossibly simultaneously and at the wrong height for a head entirely. 

“Archivist! And his forsaken pup!” Michael greeted them, stepping out onto the street and bowing with a great flourish. “I wondered where you’d disappeared off to. I was so worried, you know!” 

Martin, who had appeared at Jon’s side, huffed. “I’m not a lonesome pup!” he complained. 

Before Jon could tell him off for squabbling with the Distortion, Helen laughed, peeling forward from Michael’s form. “Oh, sorry, Martin. You’re quite right, of course! Why, it seems like you’ve had a full promotion from forsaken pup to full-on lone wolf, eh? Then again, is it a promotion if the running only had one candidate left?” Helen sighed and held her hand to her chest, looking to the sky. “Rest in peace, Captain Lukas. You’d have made a truly dapper vessel for the Lonely.” 

Jon opened his mouth, but one long, crooked finger slammed over it. “Ah-ah!” Michael trilled, shivering across Helen’s face. “Not a word from you about this! You already had a foot in the door – of course the Eye chose you, and then you promoted Martin by giving him the Lonely?” 

“Urr di’uhnt gib ‘im th’Lern’lee!” Jon protested around the clawed digit, eyes flashing in warning. 

But the threat fell flat, and both Michael and Helen giggled with glee, feeding on the Archivist’s irritation. “Oh, now, now, we aren’t upset! Not too much, anyway. After all…you also promoted us, Archivist! I must say, he was quite surprised, but she wasn’t. She always knew that deep down, you had a soft spot for her!” 

Jon swatted the finger away and stepped back, bristling. “I didn’t promote anyone! I didn’t have a say in any of this, and–and what do you mean, you got promoted?” 

Michael’s grin stretched wider, and he gestured around them with two huge open palms. “You gave us the Spiral, of course! Poor thing was lost and starved, but we’ll take good care of it, Archivist. We’ll keep it warm and fed, and it’ll be back to fighting strength in no time!”

Every door. Every window. Every broken entryway up and down the street. They all sported the same neon-yellow door. And as the Distortion drew their attention to each of them, a bubbling echo of countless laughing voices bloomed, in perfect synchrony and cacophony. 

──── •✧• ────

Chapter Text

In Jon’s vast experience, the horror of nightmares was not in what they showed. The ungodly sights they conjured paled in comparison to their true terror – the way they repeated. On and on and on, trapping the sufferer in what felt like an endless and inescapable cycle. 

He’d seen enough by now that he’d almost become desensitised to any visual torment a nightmare could chisel from his wealth of trauma. Yet, despite his extensive time spent enduring them and surviving, Jon found the shackling sense of entrapment always snatched him in its cold, clawed grip. 

What if this time was the time he didn’t make it out? 

As he watched Michael and Helen delight in the new nightmare unfolding, that same dread slithered under Jon’s skin, whispering promises of blame. 

He’d done this. Yet again, despite his best efforts, Jon had released the Fears into the world. No. No, Jonah fucking Magnus had, but worse, he’d used Jon as the means to do so again. 

Was this his fate? To endlessly serve as a beacon for the Dread Powers to find their way to their hunting grounds, whether he wanted to or not? 

Did he truly have no choice in the matter? 

The evidence suggested not. 

“Jon, snap out of it!” 

A large hand grabbed Jon’s upper arm and shook him, rattling his teeth together. He blinked, dry eyes stinging and then focusing on Martin’s stern expression as it swam into view. 

Strawberry-blond curls frosted with white-grey. Once-rosy cheeks drained pallid save for a smattering of greyish freckles. A small starburst scar on his temple where the falling tower had struck him during what should have been Jon’s final day. Eyes that once sparkled with a rich, clear blue now steeled with the cobalt-grey of a fog-drowned sea. 

God, look at you, Jon thought. Look what I’ve done to you, Martin. Look what I keep doing…

Martin, as though reading Jon’s numb inner commentary on his face, shook his head. “No, no, no. We’re not doing this right now. Jon, get it together!” 

Martin’s pleas began to dislodge the creeping cold numbness that had stuck Jon dumb, but it was Michael’s coiling laughter that shattered its hold entirely. 

“He’s right, Archivist! You really do need to get a hold of yourself,” Michael said, appearing over Martin’s shoulder, his spine arched in ways that ought to have been impossible. “It would be so very anti-climactic if you didn’t run for me…!” 

“R-Run?” Jon asked, even as the answer flashed through his mind with such urgency that he moved to grab Martin’s wrist, feet already shifting in readiness to bolt. 

Michael’s grin peeled further, revealing endless sharp teeth from ear to ear. “That’s right! You see, Helen and I don’t agree on many things, Archivist, it’s true…but we have both landed on the same end thought – we’ve decided to kill you, Archivist, though we disagree on the reason. Would you like to choose?” 

As he spoke, the Distortion continued to lean, bending its body around until it was spiralled before Martin and Jon. By the time Michael had finished speaking, it was Helen’s face that smiled at them both. 

“N-no thanks!” Martin said. He turned his hand to hold Jon’s wrist too, creating a panicked link between them. A slow cold radiated from Martin’s palm, blotching up Jon’s arm up to his shoulder. It wasn’t until he saw Helen’s confusion that Jon realised what Martin was doing. “Bye for now!” 

“No! Get back here!” Helen screeched. She dived forward, all long fingers and too many teeth, but Martin pulled Jon out of her line of fire. He tripped, landing squarely into Martin with an “Ooph!”, but Martin pushed a finger against Jon’s lips to stop him speaking again. 

Rebalancing himself, Jon looked up at his partner with a quizzical frown. They weren’t in the Lonely – thank God. But Helen now stalked the street around them, looking left and right, her face switching each time she turned around. 

“Jooooon? Come out, come out, wherever you are!” she sang, shoving over a concrete plant pot that had once housed a tree outside a café. “Don’t be such a spoilsport, now! The Eye had its turn. It’s only fair if someone else gets to play at Kings and Queens this time, hmm?” 

She can’t see us…? 

Martin nodded, and with his hand still holding Jon’s wrist, began to creep away from the Distortion, taking careful steps not to make a sound or knock over any debris that littered the street. 

Jon followed Martin’s guidance, looking away only when they passed the fallen form of Jake. At least, what was left of him. The only part that Jon recognised as human was his legs, sprawled as they were over the kerb of the path and onto the road. From the waist upwards, his body had split apart, a tangle of shiny black tapes knotted and tangled like unruly ribbons spilling out of his carcass. Jon gave the mess a wide berth and let his free hand absently lift to his chest where the parasitic tapes had pierced through him not hours – or maybe days? – before. 

He squeezed Martin’s hand, then jerked his head towards Jake’s body. 

What happened? 

Martin spared the man a glance, paling a little and swallowing. He shook his head and continued on without a word, leaving Jon to his thoughts. 

Had the parasite killed Jake when its purpose was completed? Or had Michael shown up and entertained itself with hunting the poor man? More troubling to Jon was how his injury had disappeared so quickly. 

That, however, he already knew the answer to. 

The Eye was feeding. Gaining strength from every question Jon posed and then doggedly pursued the answer to. 

He was making the same mistakes all over again in his attempt to avoid repeating them. Worse, he was aware of it. But what else could he do? Sit down and simply let everything unravel, make no effort to figure it all out? 

Maybe that would actually be better, he thought to himself sullenly. 

“Are you all right?” 

Jon jumped, startled by the sudden voice despite it being Martin’s. He looked over his shoulder, but they’d put enough distance in now that Helen was nowhere to be seen. 

He cleared his throat and nodded. “I-I’m fine, Martin. Just…Jake, he…” 

“He didn’t look like that when we left,” Martin said, still taking the lead in walking them down the street and keeping an eye out for anyone around. “I mean, he…he still had, you know, his head on when we left…” 

“Maybe it all just progressed,” Jon suggested, his nose wrinkling at his own choice of words. 

“Maybe.” 

An air of disbelief filtered into Martin’s answer, and Jon almost pressed him further when he noticed which street they were on. They’d trotted down a set of stone steps that brought them below street level, and before them was a too-familiar weathered old door. 

The security system, Jon had been told many weeks prior, was external. 

Jon pulled back and away from Martin, even as his partner tightened his grip on Jon’s wrist. “Woah, no, Martin, what—?”

“Jon, it’s all right, we’re invisible, just…don’t get so noisy and we’ll be fine!” Martin tried to reassure him. “Listen. I know you don’t want to be back here. Trust me, I’m hardly thrilled about it myself! But if the Fears have fastened themselves to Avatars, then…then this is the place that’s holding most of them, right?”

“What?”

“Simon told us! ‘They’ve scooped up a fine collection of former Avatars since the tower fell’,” Martin recited in a weirdly accurate mimicry of Simon’s tone. “Chances are at least one of them has scuttled over here, right?”

“Right, and that means we should go here because…?”

Martin gawked at him. “W-well…well because we’re going to, you know, sort it out?”

Now it was Jon’s turn to drop his jaw. “Sort it out? Martin, first of all, wherever I try to sort anything out, it tends to get exponentially worse. Second of all, what exactly is our plan here? Ask them nicely not to feed their in-house patrons?” 

“To be fair, we actually haven’t ever tried being nice to them,” Martin rebuked, though there wasn’t quite as much confidence in his delivery anymore. He sighed, rubbing his free hand through his hair and then letting it fall back down to his side. “Well, I’m open to other ideas. But it’s not like we can just let the Fears piggyback people until they’re strong enough to feed on the world again, Jon.” 

“Right, but even if we knew what we could do to stop them, I don’t even know which Avatars the O.I.A.R. managed to round u—Oliver Banks, Jordan Kennedy, Simon Fairchild, Nathaniel Thorp, Monica Shortley, Ash Collins, Bianca Desmond – oh bloody hell!” Jon snapped, twitching away from Martin and pulling his wrist from the other man’s grip. 

The pervading cold left him the moment Martin’s hand left, leaving Jon standing with the bog-standard chill of London’s autumn air. Jon didn’t care, distracted as he was by the sudden and uncontrolled display of Knowing. He paced along the short slab of path before the front door to the O.I.A.R., his nostrils flared, hands wringing. “Right, fine, yes, there are seven Avatars in there. I can’t tell which, if any, would have the Fears themselves housed in them – they’re all rather keen not to be seen at all, funnily enough. I…I guess Oliver would be the most obvious candidate for the End. You, the Lonely; me, the Eye; Michael and Helen, the Spiral, and—” 

“Oh, sorry, could you, erm, start again?” Martin asked brightly. 

Jon stopped. Martin stood there, a small tattered notebook in one hand and a pen in the other. He smiled at Jon, then pointed to the notepad with his pen. “I got Oliver for the End, obviously me and you for the Lonely and the Eye, that’s pretty much a dead cert, so I underlined those ones, aaaand Michelen for the Spiral—”

“Michelen?” 

“Yeah, you know! Michael and Helen! Michelen! I…I thought it was rather clever…” 

Christ…

“Fine! Fine, right, erm…Jordan might be holding the Corruption, though he never seemed all that keen about being an Avatar…then again, neither were we, so perhaps that’s not a prerequisite. Simon, the Vast, obviously. Nathaniel, he was…” Jon trailed off, filtering through the many statements he’d stored away in his mind. “Oh! He cheated Death itself, so, the End? If not Oliver? The others, I don’t think I’ve ever taken statements from them. I could try to Know which Fear they are aligned with, but…”

“Mmm, best not just yet,” Martin said, scribbling on his paper. “I don’t think we should be using our abilities too much. You especially.”

Jon pouted and narrowed his eyes. “Oh, do you now? Well, we can talk about that one later.”

“So who’s missing?” Martin looked up from his notepad in an infuriating display of ignoring Jon’s comment. He drummed the end of his pen against the paper as he counted off the Fears. “We have the Eye, the Lonely, the Vast, the End, the Corruption, and the Spiral possibly accounted for. That leaves…the Dark, the Stranger, urgh, not that again…the Slaughter, the Flesh, the Web, double-urgh, the Desolation, the Buried, and the Hunt?” 

“Yes, well done, Ash Ketchum,” Jon drawled. “But we still don’t have a plan, do we?” 

“Smite them?” Martin suggested, pocketing his notepad. 

“You just said not to use our abilities too much!” Jon folded his arms and shifted his weight to his other leg. 

Martin flushed pink. “Y-Yeah, but smiting for the greater good is…for the greater good!” 

“And then what, Martin? What if smiting them just lets the Fear out and to another host? What about you and me? I’m not smiting you!” 

“And I love you for saying that, but Jon, we need to start somewhere. Look…how about we go in there, invisible—”

“I don’t think we should be using our abilities too much!” Jon parroted in Martin’s voice. 

“Very mature, Jonathan. Anyway, we go in there invisible because this place has a history of doing horrible things to you, scope out the Avatars they have and…I dunno, see if you can tell when you’re up close? You seemed pretty certain about the Lonely being attached to me, and the Spiral being with Michelen.”

“Michael told me the Spiral had come to him, and stop trying to make Michelen a thing.” 

“Look, it’s the only plan we have, Jon! Do you have a better one?” 

Jon opened his mouth to retort, of course, but thought better of it. In truth, he had no plan at all. 

“Fine. Invisible espionage it is.” 

He held out his hand, letting Martin take hold of it and plunging them both into the icy numb cloak of the Lonely once again. They made their way towards the weathered door, with Jon pretending he wasn’t shaking the closer they got. Martin gave his hand a little squeeze, then pushed the door open. 

The inside corridor greeted them with endless darkness. As they stepped across the threshold, the door swung closed behind them, plunging them both into pitch black. 

Doing his best to remain silent, Jon reached for the wall and pawed for a light switch. Finding none, he tugged on Martin’s hand, hoping he’d understand that he couldn’t feel a switch and needed him to pull out a torch from his bag. 

But Martin didn’t move. 

“Martin!” Jon hissed, risking a little sound to try to get his attention. “Your bag!” 

But Martin remained silent. Worse, he seemed rooted to the spot, ignoring anything Jon did to try to get his attention. 

At a loss, Jon wracked his brain for ideas. After a moment’s deliberation, and with more than a little reluctance, he allowed himself to stray closer to the wilting Eye lurking within. The miserable entity responded, granting Jon several more eyeballs that bloomed over his face, each one emitting a dull green glow that painted the vicinity around him in its sickly hue. 

Martin, now visible in the eerie light, was standing next to Jon, his eyes wide and fixed down the endless dark corridor. 

Jon followed where his partner was staring, but the darkness swallowed the light within a few centimetres of him.

“Martin? What are you looking at? What’s wrong?” he whispered, stepping towards Martin and using his free hand to grab Martin’s shoulder. 

As his palm made contact, however, Martin’s knees gave out. Shocked, Jon only just managed to half-catch the man on the way down, causing them both to fold to the floor. 

“Martin! Jesus, what…what’s wrong? Martin, talk to me!” 

Jon gathered Martin in his arms, his heart hammering in rising panic. Martin now seemed to be trying to speak, his mouth opening and closing. But with every effort, bubbles of blood and black ichor erupted from his throat, spilling down his chin and over the floor. 

“Wha—? No, no, no! No, Martin! What…?! How…?!” As frantically as Martin tried to speak, Jon tried to find the answer to whatever ailment had struck the man so deftly. No wounds, no injuries, nothing seemed to have even touched Martin save for Jon’s own hands. Still, Martin tried to speak, his whole body jerking and spasming with the effort until…

…Until it didn’t. 

Silence descended in the dark, thick and cloying. 

“...Martin?” 

Jon shook him. “Martin? No. No, come on. That…We didn’t…There wasn’t…You…” 

No. No, it wasn’t fair! What was that? There hadn’t been a single thing to suggest Martin was in danger, no warning or mishap or poor choice. No fight or risk or battle. He just…fell. 

“Martin…This isn’t…This can’t…!” Jon half-sobbed in confused despair, making another effort to rouse the man in his arms even as the realisation dawned on him. Martin stared at him, unseeing, shock and panic locked in his pale face forever. 

──── •✧• ────

Chapter Text

Time itself halted, waiting patiently as the Archivist’s grief unfurled. 

Silence shrouded him as he clung to Martin’s lifeless body. He remained crumpled on the floor, his thin arms wrapped around his fallen partner, his face half-buried in the crook of his cold neck. Only the dull gleam of two unblinking green eyes gave away his presence. 

Dead. 

Martin was…dead? 

And for what? And how? Even now, stifled by his silent anguish, Jon sought answers through the numb void. No traps. No poisons. No weapons, no disease. Nothing that he could see, that he could blame for snuffing out his candle in the endless dark. 

Jon shifted and stroked back the white-and-strawberry locks atop Martin’s head, tucking some behind his ear. Martin continued to stare up at him from behind shattered-glass lenses. 

Jon’s fingers moved to just above Martin’s right ear. Odd. Only now did he notice that Martin’s glasses were missing an arm. He scoffed, the movement knocking tears from his cheeks down to Martin’s shirt. When had he lost the arm of his glasses? When they had been running through the trenches of the Slaughter’s Domain so long ago, perhaps. Or maybe when that piece of debris fell from the ceiling in the Panopticon and struck him. 

And he’d never mentioned it. 

Jon drew Martin up closer, squeezing him tightly. 

Any rush Jon had to try to set the world right, to redeem himself in the eyes of humanity, had left with Martin. What was the point? 

Martin was dead. There was no setting the world right now. Even if his mind screamed at him for the illogical nature of this conclusion, even if his heart demanded he carry on in Martin’s name, Jon’s soul collapsed, weary and exhausted and oh-so defeated. 

Footsteps sounded in the dark, but Jon remained where he was, holding Martin and, on occasion, stroking back his hair. 

“Oh. Sorry. Thought you’d be immune,” a sullen voice said. “Gwen was. Suppose she had no one to lose. I’d have tried warning you otherwise. Well. Anyway. Sorry about that.”

Jon flicked his gaze up to see a young woman standing in the shadows, barely more than one herself. Her brightly-dyed hair hung in matted, tangled knots to her shoulders, and her clothes were several days past being called simply ‘dirty’. She tugged her stained sleeves down to half-cover her hands, moving her weight from one booted foot to another in intervals. Not once would she meet Jon’s eyes. 

Alice. 

Her name floated through Jon’s sorrow-soaked mind long before true recognition did. 

Alice cleared her throat and jerked her head in the general direction of Martin. “Happens every time someone wanders in here these days. I think…I think it’s me, to be honest?” 

Jon’s eyes narrowed, transforming into a scowl over Martin’s shoulder. 

Unaware, Alice continued. “You know, ‘cause of…Well. You know, don’t you?” A bitter laugh followed, and she finally looked at Jon. “Dropped him off on the doorstep for me, didn’t you? Left me to pick him up off the floor, find him…find him like that. So actually, no. No, I-I guess I’m not sorry. N-Now you know how it feels.” 

She squeezed her hands into fists, looking every inch the petulant child before the Archivist. Uncertainty doused any fire her attempt at cruelty might have summoned, the action suiting her ill. 

Jon returned his attention to Martin, unfazed by her outburst, and once again started brushing his partner’s hair from his deathlocked face. 

“He…can’t see me,” Jon said to no one, his words clawing just above a raw whisper. “He can’t see me.”

And how would Alice understand? Martin was lost. Lost and wandering, and if he could only see Jon, he would find his way back again, wouldn’t he? Wouldn’t he…? 

“I’m not sorry,” Alice repeated, taking a step back. “Not for you, at least. Colin and the others, yeah, but you? It’s a taste of your own medicine, as far as I’m concerned. I-I mean, how could you?” she asked, tears of fury and fear spilling over her dust-mottled face now. “You just left him there! Did…did you kill him? Was that it? He trusted you, in his way, Christ, he was the only one of us stupid enough to risk taking you along for a bit of field work, and that’s what you do to him? I-I’m sorry it’s…Well, maybe it’s the world balancing you out a bit, Archivist!” 

Jon stared at Alice, his expression as calm as glassy lake waters at night. Not one drop of his anger showed, save for how his arms tightened further around Martin as he held him even closer. 

How long had Jon begged the world to name its price for redemption? And now, it had finally named it. 

And its name was Martin. 

There was no point telling Alice that he hadn’t killed Sam. She wouldn’t believe him. And even if she did, what would it accomplish? A lifetime of guilt for killing Martin in revenge? 

A good start, he thought from the dark. But never enough. 

“S̶e̶e̶ ̴i̶t̵.̶” 

The Archivist’s command throttled the space between Jon and Alice. Her nervous backwards steps ground to a halt, her eyes widening as a milky veil swept over them. Her arms locked out at her sides, fingers twisting to cling at nothing. Her back arched, forcing her up onto her toes as Jon sent wave after wave of knowledge into her mind – walking with Sam, his collapse, Michael’s doors, looking for help, finding none, returning to see they were too late.

Not once. Not twice. Jon sent the memories to Alice over and over, making her relive the days through his eyes until tears poured and dried from her own, until her sobs bubbled hoarse and cracked from her throat. 

Over and over. 

He was in no rush. 

As Alice suffocated in the waves of his memories, Jon went back to Martin. 

He sniffed back a sob of his own, then slowly, carefully, laid Martin down on the floor he could not see. The pervading black that robed the building meant Jon couldn’t tell where he was, but the door had to be behind him. 

“I’ll come back for you,” he said, folding Martin’s hands neatly and patting them. “I promise. I’m going to find Georgie, and I’ll ask her to help me take you somewhere nice. Not the forest. Not buried. Not burned. Certainly not the bloody sea. I…I don’t know yet, but I’ll think of something.” 

He got to his feet, his joints aching with cold and counting up all the minutes and hours he’d stayed in that position. With his hand outstretched, Jon went to feel for the door he had come through. 

It was then that he realised how silent it was. 

Stopping, he glanced back towards Alice. 

He hadn’t let her go. Yet she was no longer locked in the whirlpool of Sam’s final days, body seized and frozen. Instead, she knelt on the floor, her hands splayed in front of her, hair hanging to cover her face. Heaving breaths tore through her whole body, spittle and tears dripping from her face to the void-painted ground. 

“I…I don’t want this…” Sobs softened her pleas to tiny mewls. “I don’t want any of this. This…this sadness, this grief, this…this fucking pointlessness! I don’t want it! I don’t want mine, I don’t want yours, I don’t want any of it!” 

Her head snapped up then, revealing a mask of agony that set Jon’s heart shivering in his chest to behold it. Alice lifted one hand, half reaching out to Jon, half throwing something at him. “I don’t want this!” she screamed at him. “Fucking take it back!” 

The shadows around them heeded her orders. They slithered from the walls like thick ink, rushing towards Jon in great ripples of black velvet. The floor rose up, flowing from under Alice and Martin without moving them an inch and revealing the familiar stark metal grates of the O.I.A.R. building. 

The moment it did so, to Jon’s shock, Martin’s form wavered and faded, dispersing into fog. 

“Wh—No. No! Martin!” 

But sheer, unrelenting nothingness engulfed Jon then, blinding him with perfect darkness. 

──── •✧• ────

Falling through the abyss, Jon couldn’t help but wonder if this were, perhaps, the most perfect ending. 

Martin was gone. 

He’d lost his grip on the Fears, and the half-starved little maggots now writhed through the dying corpse of the world, seeking new hosts to replenish themselves with. How long would it be before they rose again and demanded that a trembling humanity offer up their screams? 

His eyes were useless here at the end of it all. He fell and rose, both true and untrue at the same time. He lived and he died, as he always had, caught in the whims of the Dread Powers and their blind drive to simply exist and feed. 

The horrors they cast upon the world were a mere side effect to their being; not an act of planned cruelty or intentional spite. Somehow, that made it all the worse for Jon. There was no reasoning with that. 

Though he could not see – or See – within the echoing veins of the End itself, the Archivist could not help but Know. 

He thought of the End, and the End thought of him back. 

Terminus. The Coming End That Waits For All And Cannot Be Ignored. It, like the Mother of Puppets, stood ever so slightly aside from its brethren, gilded with flashes of something that might be called sentience by a human mind. At the very least, the Archivist got the sense that, like the Web, the End had an understanding of its own goal or nature. 

Unlike the Web, however, the End stood further back from its ilk. It garnered no enjoyment from using them and so did not, and where the Web mapped out calculated moves and nudged each of its siblings along, the End took no steps at all. 

It did not need to. It craved no glory, did not entertain itself with notions of feeding eternally or conquering worlds. It had been born victorious. The final glory was already decreed to belong to the End. The game was won – it cared not for how it played out. 

Despair knelt at Jon’s feet, its brittle arms twisting around his knees as it used him to haul itself up, a wave of nausea rising with every awful inch. 

You can never defeat the Fears, it rasped, cracked-skinned lips flaking with each rotten breath. You know this. You have known this for such a long time, Archivist. For even if you were to achieve your goal…ending the Fears only serves one of those very same Fears. You feed them with every second you yearn to destroy them. 

Jon remained locked in silence, for all words withered in the abyss. Dreams, hardly more than whispers, flickered in the dark only to entertain Terminus in snuffing them out. 

You feed them with every second you yearn to destroy them. You feed the End even as you wish it upon the Dread Powers. Luckily for you…the End cares not how all things arrive before its bone-clad throne. Only that they do. And it barely cares even then – what is there to worry for when it is inevitable no matter what choices you make? 

A grizzled hand lifted before Jon’s face, pallid and riddled with black veins as though pulled from the core of a great slab of marble. Its fingers curled into claws, its index finger pressing against his left cheekbone. 

Rejoice. The End will come quietly. Store itself in the Archive once more. It is all the same…in the end…

As the rasping words crackled into his ears, the pale finger pushed into his skin, pulling it apart and wriggling like a root, its chewed nail scraping the bone. It dug itself into Jon’s flesh, burying itself up to the knuckle, then the next, then the next…

Finally, it stopped. The unyielding darkness swallowed the hand, but the wound it had made on Jon’s face remained. It wept with blood, trickling crimson down his cheek and pooling at his jaw line.

But the blood remained there, undripping. A hand, far softer and kinder than before, cupped his cheek. 

A voice beneath black waves bubbled, each syllable muffled by the twisting dark roots all around him. 

“Jon…? Oh my God, Jon, I thought you…! When we came in through the door, you just…you just collapsed, I…You weren’t breathing, you just…I thought I’d lost you again! Christ, you can’t keep doing that to me!” 

After what felt like eons Jon blinked. 

The world snapped into view. 

The world, in this case, being Martin’s pale and tear-streaked face. 

Life surged in Jon’s chest, chasing away the last dregs of the End’s clammy embrace. 

“Martin?” 

Jon sat up so quickly that he almost headbutted the other man. He grasped at Martin, thin fingers tangling into the slack loops of his well-worn woollen jumper and brushing against the warm skin hiding beneath. “Oh God, Martin, I…I thought you were…You…You weren’t breathing, you just…you just drowned i-in this darkness, you—”

Ended…

“Wha’?” Martin blurted out somewhere near Jon’s left ear. He clung to Jon with as much desperation, almost making his ribs squeak with the ferocity of his embrace. “N-no, it was you, you…you stepped in here and just started choking, all this blood a-a-and…Y-you were clawing at your chest, right where I’d…B-b-before, at the tower…I couldn’t…I couldn’t make it stop, I-I couldn’t…You kept bleeding, you were begging me to help, and I—”

Words failed them both, and for a long while, the two men remained where they were, tangled on the floor of the now-bright, sterile-yet-rusted corridor of the O.I.A.R. headquarters. 

Finally, and with as much enthusiasm as a man might back away from the gates of Heaven itself, Jon pulled away from Martin, though he still held his upper arms in a vice grip. He checked around them, but only they occupied the corridor. Alice had disappeared, though Jon suspected she was still in the building. He’d deal with that later. 

Martin’s previously fallen body, however, was nowhere to be seen. 

“Illusions…” Jon muttered. He then frowned, a correction hissing in his ear. “No…inevitabilities…” 

“Jon? What are you talking about?” Martin asked. Even as he did so, he shifted to sit down on the floor right at Jon’s side, his thigh against Jon’s to keep in touch with him. He shook with shock and residual panic, sending Jon's leg vibrating. “And you’re, erm…you’re sprouting eyes again, by the way. Just there.” He pointed at Jon’s left cheekbone. “Might want to, you know…pop that away in public.” 

Jon reached up to touch where Martin had pointed; right where the End’s deathly finger had burrowed into his skin. There, wincing and watering as Jon’s finger prodded it, was an extra eye. One that didn’t want to clear away no matter how much Jon willed it.

He pulled out his phone from his back pocket and turned it, checking his reflection in the shattered screen as best he could. 

A gaunt, muck-smeared face stared back at him, fragmented in the dull kaleidoscope. Two bright green eyes searched the glass, while one black-irised eye stared straight ahead. At him. Through him.  

“Ah, erm, it’s…I-I don’t think…It’s not like the others,” Jon explained, the answer arriving as new knowledge to him even as he spoke. He pocketed his phone and cleared his throat, trying to shake away the shudder of anxiety the onyx-hued eye’s reflection had summoned in him. “I don’t think it’ll listen to me.”

“Your eyes won’t listen to you?” Martin scoffed, though his own eyes still glistened with recent tears. He smiled and swung his old battered bag onto his lap as he spoke, rifling in it for a while. “Well, that’s going to be a story to explain to me before bed tonight, I reckon. In the meantime, I think I have your mask in here. You’ll want to put it on before we go if that’s going to be a permanent addition.” 

Jon shook his head. Though every fibre of his being wanted to grab Martin and run from this accursed place, something else rumbled through the hallways. A gravelly groan he was almost certain only he could hear. 

“Not yet,” he said. “There’s someone we need to speak to before we go.” 

──── •✧• ────

Chapter Text

For what felt like the thirteenth time in as many minutes, Jon and Martin stopped at the end of yet another steel-coated corridor. The path split off two ways; one stretched out in a straight line off to Jon’s left. The other wound in a wide arc and out of sight to Martin’s right. 

“Was it always like this?” Martin complained as he readjusted the strap of his bag. Another few threads finally gave up, leaving it hanging precariously by a handful of dedicated fibres. 

“No,” Jon replied, looking left and right and back again. For fear of worrying Martin further, Jon had done his level best to make it seem like nothing was amiss. But the more they travelled through the O.I.A.R. building, the weirder the layout became. Several times, Jon had stopped to check the doors, wondering if perhaps Michael and Helen had followed them. 

“Oh right, cheers for the lengthy and reassuring explanation.” Martin smirked down at Jon. He then wandered off to the path closest to him, risking a few steps to peer around the slowly turning corner. “This one looks properly weird. The walls, they just sort of…”

“Constrict?” Jon offered, following after him and taking a look for himself. “Yes, I, erm…I didn’t want to trouble you with it before, but the corridors have been getting narrower as they’ve been getting…weirder.” 

Martin cleared his throat nervously, glancing up and around. “Really? I hadn’t noticed. Right. Well. That’s a wonderful thing to keep in mind. Remind me why we’re delving deeper into the ever-shrinking corridors of the place that imprisoned you, several other Avatars, and recently put us through an illusory blender of horrors depicting each of our deaths?” 

Jon attempted a sympathetic smile and looped his arm through Martin’s, coaxing him gently away from the right-hand corridor. “It’s because this place imprisoned me and several other Avatars. I suspect…or I sense…that there’s another one in here. Look, the Lonely seems happy enough to stay with you. The Eye is clinging to me for dear life, obviously. The Spiral found its way to Michael and Helen—”

“Michelen,” Martin interjected. 

“Nope, I will never call them that,” Jon replied fluidly. “Anyway, yes, then the End, we practically tripped over that one. I hadn’t even considered Alice as a candidate…” 

“About that.” Martin stopped, which meant Jon had to as well, for he was in no mood to let go of Martin’s arm. “Where is the End now? I mean, did smite it? Or…does Alice still have it?” 

“I, erm…I think…I think she gave it to me.” Jon reached up and tapped just under the black-irised eye on his left cheekbone. It stared straight ahead, never blinking, never turning, never focusing. Yet Jon could see perfectly well through it, even though the image was painted in dull greys and detail-devouring blacks. 

Martin scrutinized the eye, bringing his face down closer to Jon’s to the point the other man started to flush pink. “Huh. So you were onto something with the whole Ash Ketchum quip before.” 

“Apparently so.” 

“And that’s the plan we’re going with now, is it?” Martin straightened up again, his lips pressed into a thin line. “Gather up the Fears and stuff them back into you? I’m not sure I’m thrilled about that, Jon.” 

“You’re not thrilled? Because I’m just leaping for joy at the notion.” Jon rolled his eyes – bar one, at least – and finally unthreaded his arm from Martin’s so that he could face him properly. “But it’s better than having the Fears in the hands of—”

“Rogue elements?” Martin offered with a sad smile. Jon responded with his own. 

“Rogue elements, exactly.” 

“Eh, true, I suppose.” Martin jostled his back up his shoulder again and started scouting down the straight left-hand path. “This one looks pretty normal, actually. I vote this way.” 

“Maybe that’s precisely why we should go the other way.” Jon jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Things that advertise their weirdness tend to end up being less weird.” 

Martin stopped, looking back at Jon with laughter held back behind a quivering smile. “Y’what?” 

Jon splayed out scar-riddled hands in front of himself. “Things that look outwardly weird. They tend to be less weird than things that present themselves as entirely normal.” 

“Right. Says the man with three eyes who is, incidentally, really weird.”

“I am not!” 

“Jon, you’re practically the gold standard for weird now,” Martin chuckled, though he retreated from his corridor of choice and started to head down the curving one, taking up one of Jon’s hands as he went past. 

“R-Right, all right, run with that theory, then – do I look less weird, as weird, or more weird than Michael and Helen?” 

“Hmm…” Martin’s bottom lip jutted, his gaze flicking to the ceiling for a second in thought. He drummed an index finger on his lip. “All right. A bit less weird-looking than Michelen.” 

“And am I actually more or less weird than Michael and Helen?” Jon asked, emphasising the naming convention for the Spiral’s favourite Avatar. 

“Oh, more. Definitely,” Martin answered without missing a beat. “Michelen has the initial shock factor, sure, but really, all they’re actually doing is making doors open into weird corridors? Which isn’t actually that weird, when you think about it – normal doors always open into rooms or corridors, right? If they wanted to be really weird, they should have their doors open into something like…a cloud. Or under the sea. Or something. But you? You’re properly weird.” 

“Exactly,” Jon said, triumphant in guiding Martin to his train of thought even if it meant accepting his own oddities. “I look less weird, but I am more weird.”

“Yeah. You look more like an actual regular bloke most of the time, unlike Michelen, but you do things like tie your laces with two double knots. And eat dry cereal. And squeeze the teabag when you make a brew.” 

“Exa—Err, hang on!” Jon bristled and yanked on Martin’s hand. “First of all, none of those things are weird. Second of all, even if they were weird, they aren’t more weird than Michael and Helen’s abilities! Third of all, why are those the things you picked? I sleep with my eyes open! All several hundred of them!”

“Right, and you technically have access to all known information in the history of mankind, yet you still ignore the golden rule of ‘tease, never squeeze’. Ergo, weird.” Martin nodded once, as though that ended the conversation, and he puffed himself up with pride. 

Jon had been about ready to clap back when the curving corridor finally ended. By now, the roof had sloped down so close to them that it almost brushed against the top of Martin’s head. Along with the narrowing walls, it boxed in the door before them so tightly that there was barely any room for its frame. 

The two paused before the closed door, their eyes settling on the gold-lettered nameplate shining against the rusty metal. 

Jonah Magnus – Head of the Magnus Institute 

Behind the freshly painted letter, a ghost of darker hues stained through, a scramble of letters pleading to be recalled. 

Gwendolyn Bou—ard – Direct Manager of the Office of —ent —ssment a—pon—

Elia—Bouch–rd – Head o—e Mag—stitute 

Ja—s Wr—t – H— the M— — In—

R—c—d —dle—n – H— — —Ma— ns—

Beside him, Martin shifted and spluttered with indignant disbelief. “Jonah…Gwen? Oh, I knew those sunglasses were suspect! The world ends, he gets stabbed, he gets blown up, and he still manages to worm his way out from the rubble?” 

Jon stopped, reading the nameplate over and over. “Yes, well…I-I suspect Jonah would still be under the rubble had I not…” 

His throat dried, protecting him from speaking the truth that had been building deep in his core for some days now. 

What happened to him, Jon? How did he gain those abilities?
...His eyes…check his eyes…

And those damned sunglasses. How he hadn’t noticed sooner, Jon could never say. Too busy worrying about other things, maybe. Or simply not wanting it to be true. 

“Had you not what?” 

“I…bargained with her. She’s Elias’ niece, and she wanted to know what had happened to him. Said she’d noticed him change – when Magnus took over him, I suppose. I was bargaining with her to try to get word out to you, back when I was locked up in here. She said his remains had been recovered, and I told her to check his eyes. I thought she’d…realise they weren’t her uncles and destroy them, or…or at the very worst have them sent off for tests, not…” 

Martin’s hand settled on Jon’s shoulder, giving him a reassuring squeeze. “Hey. You really don’t have any more room on your plate to add even more things to feel guilty about, Jon. You didn’t know this would happen. You had no reason to think it would. I mean…who looks at a pair of unusual eyes in their uncle’s corpse and thinks, ‘Right, time for an eye transplant to see what that’s all about, then’?”

Jon winced. “Right…erm, thank you, Martin?” 

“I’m just saying, you can’t be held responsible for the really bad decisions of other people.” 

“Speaking of terrible decisions…” Jon gestured to the door. “Shall we?”

Martin blinked, then frowned. “Huh? No, hang on, the Eye’s with you. Another Fear wouldn’t latch onto Jonah. He’s way too heavily aligned with the Eye, isn’t he?”

“Yes.” Jon grasped the door handle. The moment his skin touched the metal, his lungs constricted, pushing the air from his lungs and leaving him struggling to draw in another breath. “B-But…Gwen isn’t…” 

Jon went to push the door open, but his limbs locked in sheer dread. 

Whatever lurked behind the door rumbled its approval, which only served to sharpen Jon’s terror. His heart pumped faster, a cold sweat beading on the back of his neck and across his brow. 

His hand slipped from the handle, and he turned to Martin. “M-Maybe it would be best if you stayed out here. Keep an eye out.” 

“Keep an eye out? What…Be a lookout for you? The man who can have eyes in the back of his head? Yeah, not likely!” Martin scoffed, folding his arms across his broad chest. “Besides, you already got to stab Jonah. It’s definitely my turn this time.”

“No, just…Stop with the quips for a moment, I’m being serious,” Jon pleaded. “Last time we walked into something blindly, I…You…And…And to be honest, the last time we walked into a room with Jonah Magnus…” 

His words devolved into a rasp, the reality of their awful journeys up until this point unable to render themselves upon his tongue. Enduring them had been harrowing enough; reliving them through recalling offered no temptation for Jon at all. 

“Jon. Look at me.” Martin’s hands appeared once more on Jon’s shoulders, his palms practically covering them. Jon peeked up at him, his head bowed. “You know as well as I do that if I wait outside, you’ll worry about me. If I come with you, you’ll worry about me. The only difference is that if I come with you, you can at least make sure I don’t touch any C4.” 

He couldn’t help it; Jon snorted a laugh, blinking away the unshed tears that had threatened to fall. “I’m not sure Jonah Magnus is in the habit of keeping plastic explosives in his offices.” 

“More’s the pity.” Martin gave his shoulders a squeeze. “But seriously, Jon. I can promise you I’ll be careful. I do try to, you know; I’m not actively trying to fling myself into bottomless pits or piss off the local horrors. I’m trying to be helpful.” 

“You are helpful,” Jon said. “You’re…Well, you keep me me, most days, don’t you?”

“Exactly! So you need me.” 

With the matter settled, Martin let go of Jon’s shoulders and straightened up, a confident smile fixed upon his face and his chest puffed out. “Right, then. So. Which one’s behind door number one, Mr Sims?” 

“I’m not sure actua—T̴o̶o̸ ̷C̶l̸o̴s̷e̴ ̴I̶ ̶C̵a̶n̴n̶o̷t̷ ̷B̴r̴e̷a̴t̷h̴e̷ – Oh, bloody hell!” 

Jon recoiled, bringing one hand to his mouth and curling in on himself. He loathed how answers would spill from him unintended, shoving their way out into the open around his breath. Little acts of having his choice in a situation removed; little tugs on strings he hadn’t fastened to his own limbs. 

“Ah. The Buried. Brilliant. Love that one,” Martin said, paling a touch. His smile warped into something a little too bright, and a muscle on his cheek quivered with the effort. “Love being squished into tiny spaces and…locked in places and…”

“You can still stay out here if you want to,” Jon offered. 

“God, no. Not letting you dive head-first into the Buried again without supervision.” Martin nudged him with his elbow. “Last time, it cost you a finger and two ribs.” 

“N-no, just the two ribs – the finger wouldn’t stay cut off…” 

“Ooo, Martin, I’m not weird, how dare you call me weird, anyway, about this time I tried to cut my own finger off…” 

“Shut up, Martin.” 

Jon swatted at Martin, who had started trying to tickle the side Jon had given up two of his ribs. Still smirking at each other, Jon went to open the door once more. 

His rekindled hope crumbled away the moment his fingertips met the cold bite of the door handle once more. But this time, Jon refused to shy away from it. 

Grasping it firmly, he yanked downwards and hauled it open. 

Metal jingling greeted them, hitting the back of the door and scraping along the floor as they walked into the darkened room. Martin hunched down, the ceiling sloping so far that it brushed the top of Jon’s head. 

By the dull glow of his eyes, the office emerged from the shadows, details caught with a smattering of green. 

Thick metal chains encased the desk at the centre of the room, spinning off towards the ceiling or slumping down in coiled piles on the floor either side of it. The bookshelves that lined the wall behind it housed countless volumes, each one bound in thin chains. And there, at the desk, scratching away on a piece of paper that would not flatten on the uneven tabletop, was Gwendolyn Bouchard. 

Chains held her to her chair, wrapping around her torso and wrists, though with enough slack to let her write. She remained focused on her failing attempt to work, an action fuelled entirely by pride than any real need to conclude her writing before acknowledging her visitors. 

“Jonah,” Jon said, spitting the venomous word into the air. 

“Hmm. Somewhat,” Gwen replied. “But, I’m sure you can agree, this is certainly not my preferred aesthetic, Jon. But alas, what can one do when a process isn’t followed through properly?” 

She lifted her head, looking at Jon and Martin properly. Without her glasses, the truth of her ‘annual leave’ became clear: her right eye remained the same pale grey Jon had noticed when he’d first met Gwen. But her left was a mangled mess of scabbing and recent scars, fading bruises and a horribly familiar green eye. 

She smiled, a flash of too-white teeth despite her predicament. Where her green eye retained a lazy sense of smug victory, a lightning flash of panic dashed behind her grey one. “Miss Bouchard was eager to inherit her uncle’s abilities, but admittedly more cautious than I’d have liked. But I’m curious – why didn’t you tell her the source of Elias’ powers? You must have known you were adding honey to the trap with your cryptic words.” 

Gwen leant forwards then and rested her elbows upon the table, the chains jangling around her. She laced her fingers together and peered over the top of them. “Did you miss me, Jon?” 

“As much as I’d miss a mouthful of maggots,” Jon spat, slamming his palms upon the desk between them and setting the chains rattling. “I was stifled. I said as much as I could. I didn’t expect she would do something so, frankly, reckless.”

“All the better for me that she did. I can’t say I’m terribly fussed by the Buried, but I would so hate to have been put in a coffin and lowered into the ground while stuck in that corpse.” Gwen sat back in her seat, drawing her hands back. 

Jon went to ask a question, but Gwen held up a manicured hand. “Yes, yes, questions. I’m sure you have plenty. But, as you can see, I am rather at the mercy of Gwendolyn’s own alignment. My run of good luck is at an end, it seems; I had hoped to simply have you release the Fears back into the world and pick up where I left off, but it seems I’ve paid the price for my impatience. You hadn’t fed them enough before you loosed them into the wild again, Jon. They went scurrying to the nearest source to sustain themselves. In my unfortunate case, I appear to have awakened a fear of being suffocated. Crushed underfoot by those more talented.” 

She huffed a laugh then and tilted her head. “I have no idea what will happen if the Buried is left within her to feed. Perhaps it’ll gorge itself, regain its power, and leave her dead. The alternative, however, doesn’t bear thinking about for either of us.” 

“Doesn’t it?” Jon sneered. “I’m starting to think walking away right now might be the best decision I’ve made in months. Let you die in a box.” 

Gwen pursed her lips and sucked in a breath, the picture of false disappointment. “Ooh, Jonathan! You’d leave an innocent woman to suffocate and die alone? Well…I suppose after you’ve doomed the entire world to endless misery, it must become rather easy to inflict the same fate on just one measly soul, hm?” 

Scarlet clouded every sense. All the built up fury, all the vengeance that hadn’t been sated by driving a blade into Jonah the first time burst forth. 

Vaguely aware of Martin yelling his name in shock, Jon lunged across the desk, eyes wide, teeth bared, and hands clawing for Gwen’s throat. 

──── •✧• ────

Chapter Text

For as long as Jon lived, he would never speak of how Martin had looped one arm around his torso mid-lunge and hauled him backwards out of the office. 

Almost ten minutes passed by before Gwen’s laugh – Jonah’s laughter – had subsided entirely from behind the door. Another twenty crawled along before Jon stopped sulking and moved onto the next stage of his frustration: scowling at Martin. 

Martin was sitting by the opposite wall, one knee drawn up, his arm resting atop it. He lit up when Jon looked over, despite the glower. 

“Calmed down a bit yet?” he asked hopefully. 

“I can’t believe you did that,” Jon grumbled, folding his arms tighter. “It was humiliating.”

“Better humiliated than remorseful,” Martin pointed out with a shrug. “I’m all for throttling Jonah Magnus as many times as we can, but you were going to strangle Gwen.” 

“If you’re going to play it that way, I stabbed Elias,” Jon replied. “He’d been dead years before that.” 

“Right, but this…this isn’t the same, is it, Jon? She’s still in there.” Martin shifted in his seat, casting an uncomfortable look towards the office of chains. “You saw it too, didn’t you? Her other eye. She…She was terrified.” 

“Suffocating,” Jon muttered, guilt creeping up his back to settle on his shoulders again. He sighed and ran a hand through his hair, grey and black strands catching on his fingers. “Bloody hell, why did she have to go and do something that bloody insane? Who looks at the corpse of their uncle with strange powers, sees his eyes aren’t right, and thinks, ‘I shall transplant one into my skull immediately’?” 

“Maybe she didn’t.” Martin got to his feet and brushed off his trousers. He reslung his bag over his shoulder again, and he made his way towards Jonah’s office door. “Maybe something else happened. Something she can tell us about when Jonah’s not shoving her out of the way. Or when you’re not strangling her.” 

“I wasn’t trying to strangle her, I was—”

But Martin held up one hand. “I know, Jon. Look, just…Maybe we had it the wrong way around. Maybe you should stay out here, and I’ll talk to Jonah.” 

“You?” Jon’s eyebrows shot upwards. “You ‘It’s-My-Turn-to-Stab-the-Boss’ you? That very same you? I think not.” 

“I’m not going to stab him.” Martin scowled, pausing at the door with his hand resting upon it. “Just…trust me for five minutes, yeah? If I’m not out in five, you can come barging in. Promise.” 

A thousand protests knotted at the tip of Jon’s tongue. Sitting idly by while Martin walked into a room with Jonah sat ill with him. But another part of him wanted Martin to know that he trusted him. That, despite his lingering abilities, there was still plenty Martin could do that Jon couldn’t. 

Keeping his cool around Jonah Magnus, evidently, being one such thing. 

So Jon stepped back and locked his jaw tight against the protests, giving only one stiff nod at Martin. 

Martin rewarded him with an angel-soft smile. 

“Thanks, Jon. Well. See you in five!”

──── •✧• ────

Jon paced. 

And paced. 

And paced. 

He walked up and down the corridor, never straying too far from the door but unable to keep still. He shoved down every urge to See, to check in on Martin as a worrying mother hen might her chicks. 

Three minutes. How had it only been three minutes? 

Growling to himself, Jon kicked the skirting board of the wall and continued his pacing. 

Three minutes and eight seconds. Three minutes and thirteen seconds. Three minutes and twenty-one seconds. 

The click of the door made Jon jump. He bashed his head against the low ceiling, drawing a yeowl of pain. 

“Pissing hell!” he complained, rubbing over the lump on the top of his skull. But the pain faded the moment he saw Martin emerge, with Gwen half-hidden behind him. 

“Hi, Jon!” Martin greeted him cheerfully, beaming a huge smile of triumph. He had one arm held behind his back, and Jon assumed he might have been holding Gwen’s hand to lead her out of the office. But the young woman stepped away from Martin the moment they drew close to Jon. 

He had just enough time to notice the shredded material now covering her before Gwen slapped him across the face. 

Jon staggered back, more in alarm than from any true force behind the hit. 

“Woah, woah, woah!” Martin darted forwards and grabbed Gwen’s wrist. “Hang on, that is not all right!”

“He didn’t bloody tell me everything he knew about Elias!” Gwen snapped, yanking her hand from Martin’s grip. She prowled towards Jon, jabbing a finger into his chest. “You knew what had happened to him! You knew and you still told me check his eyes!” 

“Check! Check! Not stuff one into your own eye socket, you frothing lunatic!” Jon snapped back, letting several more eyes open over his face in a hopes it would put her off from touching him again. “And pardon me for not regaling you with the finer details of Jonah Magnus’ entire litany of crimes – you might recall I was struggling to breathe inside my lovely little prison at the time!” 

“Now, now, let’s…let’s all just take a nice deep breath.” Martin wriggled his way between the two of them, forcing them to step away as much as possible in the narrow corridor. “We’ve all been through a lot, and—” 

“Is…Is that blood on your hand, Martin?” 

Only one hand, oddly enough; his index and middle finger were bloodied up to the second knuckle, his thumb smeared with crimson too. Martin gave a nervous smile. 

“Erm…Right, look, Gwen, does this place have a cafeteria? Preferably one that isn’t haunted and/or warped in some horrible way? I’m sure you could use a cup of tea after what we, erm, what we just did, and Jon’ll need one when I tell him what we just did.” 

Gwen, who hadn’t stopped glaring at Jon even when Martin had stepped between them (for she had leant to the side for the sole purpose of continuing her one-eyed glower at him), huffed and began striding away. 

“Of course there’s a cafeteria. I’ll show you there. The doctor’s office is on the way; I suspect I need to see him more than I need a cup of tea.”

“Actually, you might be better off medically if you just have the tea,” Jon muttered, recalling his own run-in with the resident doctor. But he followed along behind Martin all the same. 

──── •✧• ────

During their journey back through the stark corridors, Gwen had abandoned them without a word. Despite Jon’s protests, she had elected to see Doctor David, assuring the two of them that she would find them in the cafeteria afterwards. 

“And for God’s sake, cover him up,” she had snapped at Martin. “If anyone else sees him strolling about the place, there’ll be hell to pay.” 

Luckily, Martin had kept hold of Jon’s Warden mask. Jon had made his feelings known by scowling and turning up his nose. The milky-white mask had done the same – hollow eyes and carved nose judging Jon just as much for his need of it. Eventually, Jon had relented and fixed it in place, lifting it only enough to risk sips of tea. 

“I can’t believe they have milk,” Martin said. He huddled over his own mug, both hands wrapped around the chipped little thing and staring at its contents in awe. “And sugar!” 

“Rather it was honey…” Jon sipped at his too-sweet drink again, but embarrassment already prickled behind his cheeks. He was sulking – there was no two ways about it. 

“It’s just a mask. It could be worse.” Martin moved one hand to find Jon’s across the table. “And just while we’re here.” 

“Hmm.” Jon watched Martin’s hand, the blood on his fingertips now dried down to a dull brownish-red. “You still haven’t told me what happened in there.” 

Martin retracted his hand, his expression melting from his face. He swallowed, drawing both hands back and starting to rub his fingers, crumbling the dried blood away. “Oh, erm. Right. Well. Jonah’s eyes are the problem, and I thought about that whole thing, you know, removing our eyes to sever our connection to the Watcher. And…well, figured the same theory might work for Gwen. Since she wasn’t actually dead yet, just…”

“Buried.” 

Jon watched the little ripples dancing across the top of his half-drunk tea. The Buried had picked Gwen. Surely there had been more fitting candidates? Had they been limited? With only enough power to escape Jon’s body after the miniature ritual, perhaps they had bound themselves to anyone nearby who was good enough to secure their survival. 

It certainly would make it easier to gather them up if all of them were in London, but somehow, Jon didn’t think their luck would stretch so far. 

He huffed and leant back in his chair. “So. What, you…plucked her eye out?”

“Plucked Jonah’s eye out,” Martin corrected him, pointing one index finger up. “Kill-Bill-style.” 

He performed a strange flourish then, mimicking a snake striking the air, complete with “Bah-bam!” sound effects. 

Jon, however, could only blink in response. 

“Jesus fucking Christ, Martin, I was joking. You actually plucked the eye out of her head? With your fingers?”

“What else was I going to use?” 

“Well, Melanie used a hole-puncher, if I remember rightly…” 

“I’ll remember to pop one in my bag for next time, then.” 

“Christ, no wonder she wanted to see Doctor David. That’s horribly unhygienic.” Jon shuddered and pushed his mug away. “So…where is it now?” 

“What, Jonah’s eye?” Martin flashed a very toothy smile. “Squashed it.”

“I am thrilled and disgusted to hear it,” Jon said. He couldn’t help but look at Martin’s hands for evidence of this, and Martin caught him. His lips parted in shock, a fluster of non-words spilling out, before he protested.

“Not in my hands, Jon! Ew! No, I threw it on the floor and stomped on it.!” 

“Right, because the logical line of disgust is at squashing a man’s eye with your bare hands, and not shoving your fingers into someone’s eye sockets.” 

Before Martin could explain the nuances of eye-based disgust, however, a sharp clacking of heels over metal flooring cut the pair off mid-squabble. 

Gwen strode to their table, electing to stand at the side rather than sit herself down. Her white silk blouse was still dotted with dried blood, but her left eye had been bound with a more professional technique, the fresh bandages a crisp stark white against her face and hair. 

“Sorted. Now. We need to sort out the rest of the mess you made,” she said, looking rather pointedly at Jon.

“For the last time, I tried to tell you. And, frankly, you’re the one who—”

“Contrary to the conclusion you have so deftly leapt to, Archivist, I did not elect to shove my uncle’s eyes into my own head, you patronising old git,” Gwen snapped. 

“Can we maybe whisper the words Jon and Archivist?” Martin interjected. “Sort of defeats the purpose of his mask if everyone in the adjacent corridors can hear you…” 

“Fine.” Gwen folded her arms, still glaring daggers at Jon. “But, for the record, that procedure was done against my will. And the person who performed it still has Elias’ remains.” 

A muscle in her jaw quivered then, her whole expression hardening. “Including his other eye.” 

“Shit. Jonah Magnus’ final life,” Martin said. He slammed both hands down on the table between them, and both their mugs rattled in support. “Or at least it had better be his final life, because what, we’ve had a decent go at him several times now!” 

“It will be.” 

Carried on a solemn rumble, Jon’s vow left no room for argument. He nodded up at Gwen, content to set aside their argument. “Tell us who has his remains. We’ll make sure Jonah is thoroughly removed. After that…if you wish to, you can bury your uncle properly. I can’t say I knew Elias as he was, but I am sure he didn’t deserve what happened to him.”

“I don’t think anyone would deserve it,” Gwen replied. She pulled a small leather-bound notebook from her pocket, flipped it open, and withdrew a little pen from its holding at the inner fold. She jotted down an address, tore the page away, and handed it to Martin between her middle and index finger. “I don’t know the person’s real name, only their…business name, shall we say. They’re an External. They go by Ink5oul. They have a rather unique floral snake tattoo that runs up their arm and to their neck. Tattoo work is their usual wheelhouse. I couldn’t tell you how or why they got hold of Elias’ remains, or why they decided to dabble in organ replacement. Frankly, I don’t care.” 

Martin took the paper and looked at the address. While he did so, Gwen turned to Jon. “Get my uncle’s remains and…and destroy that fucking eyeball. I’ll consider us even after that.”

“You’ll consider us even?” Jon stood up, his hands resting on the table between them. It didn’t offer him much in the way of intimidation – he stood practically the same height as Gwen, and she somehow managed to look much calmer and more collected even with her head heavily bandaged. “You imprisoned me. You lied about getting word to Martin in exchange for my help. And now you’re sending us off to a lunatic’s lair to tidy up your mess.”

“Our mess,” Gwen retorted haughtily, looking down her nose at Jon. “You failed to kill Jonah Magnus properly. I, admittedly, have shown Ink5oul that they can use my uncle’s eyes to great effect. Ergo, our mess. I could come with you, but I doubt I’d be much use, particularly in my current condition. Need I remind you that your boyfriend recently gouged my eye out?”

Martin started in shock, dropping the paper he’d been fumbling into his pocket. “To save you! Jesus, you don’t half have a way of twisting things!”

“Look, we’ll…We’ll do it,” Jon said, holding his hands up. A migraine began to blossom behind his eyes, and frankly, all he wanted to do was to leave the O.I.A.R. as quickly as possible at this point. The walls still appeared to press in around them, and whether Gwen was aware of it or not, he suspected it was entirely her influence. “But I’ll need something from you before we go.” 

“My other eye?” Gwen asked dryly, arching her eyebrow. 

“I have plenty of them,” Jon said, equally as withering. “No, actually. Something that’s hidden itself inside of you. Something that is making you slowly suffocate everyone here within these walls. Something I suspect you realise has granted you abilities that didn’t come from Jonah Magnus’ eye.” 

Gwen stood up a little straighter than, but the colour drained from her face and gave her away. She tilted her head up, looking at the ceiling, then cast a darting glance to the walls. “Yes. Quite. I had thought it was Alice, to be honest with you. She’s been quite unusual of late.”

“That should be sorted now. But I can’t leave you here like this.” Jon stepped out from their table, offering a hand to Gwen. “We don’t see eye to eye—”

“Hilarious.”

“Oh, shut up! The point is, I can help you, Gwen. I can…I think I can remove this parasite from you.”

Gwen stared at Jon’s offered hand, but she kept her own locked tight in her folded arms. “Jonah and now this…Fine. I don’t exactly want to slowly crush everyone in this building if I can help it. How are you going to remove it?” 

“I…I’m actually sort of new to this?” Jon admitted. At this, Gwen rolled her eye and unfolded her arms in exasperation, pacing away from the table. 

“Unbelievable.”

“N-No, hang on! I have done it before! Once! What I mean is…I-I-I am still theorising how it happened. Right now, I think…I think you have to give it to me. Willingly.” 

Gwen stopped in her pacing and glowered over her shoulder at him. 

“Fine. Take it.” 

Jon snorted, stepping forwards. 

“Right, but I don’t think it’s quite that—b̶u̶t̸ ̵t̵h̵e̸ ̴m̷o̷m̶e̵n̵t̵ ̵I̵ ̸c̸l̴o̶s̷e̷d̸ ̴t̵h̶e̴ ̴d̵o̸o̴r̴ ̸a̷g̶a̷i̷n̸s̷t̵ ̶t̷h̸e̵ ̶c̴r̸e̵e̸p̶i̸n̵g̷ ̷v̷o̶i̷d̶ ̸t̴h̴a̷t̸ ̵c̸l̶a̸w̵e̵d̷ ̷t̷h̴r̸o̴u̶g̶h̸ ̷t̶h̶e̸ ̸c̶o̸r̷r̷i̶d̵o̴r̴s̴,̷ ̷I̴ ̵r̶e̷a̸l̵i̵s̶e̷d̶ ̴t̴h̶a̶t̷ ̴m̶y̴ ̶o̸f̶f̴i̷c̶e̴ ̷h̷a̴d̶ ̵s̶h̶i̴f̵t̷e̴d̴,̷ ̷i̸t̵ ̸d̷i̷d̵n̷'̶t̸ ̷m̴a̵k̸e̸ ̴s̴e̴n̴s̷e̸,̸ ̷b̸u̵t̸ ̶i̴t̴ ̸w̷a̶s̷ ̸m̷o̶v̵i̸n̸g̴,̴ ̴t̸h̴e̶ ̷w̷a̵l̷l̸s̸ ̸p̵u̸l̷s̸i̴n̴g̴ ̴b̵a̴c̵k̶ ̴a̸n̷d̵ ̷f̸o̷r̵t̴h̵ ̶a̸s̷ ̵t̵h̶o̷u̴g̴h̷ ̸i̸t̴ ̸w̸e̴r̴e̵ ̵b̴r̷e̴a̵t̷h̷i̵n̸g̷.”

Jon’s eyes widened, the statement flooding from his lungs and out of his mouth like a drowned man coughing up water. Unending and relentless, it refused to let the Archivist draw breath. 

He dropped to his knees, his chest burning with a need for air, but the words kept splurging from him. “,̸ ̸A̴n̵d̷ ̷e̴a̵c̸h̵ ̶g̵a̵s̷p̵ ̶d̶r̵e̸w̶ ̵t̴h̶e̴m̶ ̴a̶n̸ ̴i̶n̸c̸h̵ ̸c̶l̶o̶s̷e̴r̶ ̷t̵o̸ ̶m̶e̷,̸ ̸a̸n̴d̴ ̴b̴y̶ ̷t̷h̶e̸ ̷t̸i̷m̵e̵ ̷I̶ ̷n̶o̶t̶i̷c̸e̴d̶,̶ ̷t̸h̵e̸ ̵c̶e̵i̶l̶i̶n̴g̸ ̶h̴a̷d̷ ̷d̴e̷s̸c̵e̶n̶d̵e̴d̷ ̶e̷n̷o̵u̶g̸h̴ ̸t̴o̷ ̷c̴u̶t̵ ̵o̸f̷f̴ ̷t̵h̷e̵ ̶t̷o̵p̸ ̷o̷f̴ ̸t̶h̸e̴ ̵d̶o̵o̴r̶ ̷f̴r̶a̶m̶e̴,̵ ̶m̸y̴ ̷l̸i̴t̷t̸l̵e̶ ̸s̴a̵n̴c̸t̴u̶a̴r̵y̵ ̸s̷q̷u̴e̸e̸z̶i̵n̸g̶ ̸t̶h̵e̴ ̴l̶a̸s̴t̵ ̶h̵o̴p̷e̴ ̴o̵u̸t̸ ̴o̶f̶ ̵m̸e̷!”

Worse than the constant stream was the knowledge that emerged from it – more statements swelled in his throat, determined to push their way out at any cost. Fixated upon the need to bury him in their woe. 

──── •✧• ────

Chapter Text

It had taken Martin several days to unearth Jon from being ‘buried’ under statements. To start with, the two of them had panicked, Jon attempting to find ways to drag air into his lungs as his ribcage squeezed air out to feed the words, Martin trying frantically to get Jon to tell him how to fix the problem. 

The Buried had fed upon Gwen for only a few hours longer than the End had gnawed at Alice’s grief, and the difference in the strength displayed astounded the Archivist. He tried everything to wrangle it under his control, but the statements continued to fill his mouth and stuff up his throat. 

Eventually, Gwen had half-dragged the two of them into a vacant office to avoid ‘causing a scene’, giving them strict instructions not to leave the room until Jon was ‘somewhat normal again or in any way silenced.’ 

Spurred on by the veiled threat, Martin had managed to figure out that he could coax Jon to speak about certain topics. From there, he got Jon to recall statements that were mostly to do with the Eye, which he himself logged into the old computer in the office and started pulling fresh statements that “seemed Eye-y” from the O.I.A.R. terminal’s programme, FR3-d1. 

Still, it had taken days of this slow progress to feed the Eye within Jon enough to contend with the Buried. Finally – and with a throat so raw he could barely whisper the statements anymore – Jon stifled the Buried once more. 

All that was left of its presence was a new eye upon his lower right jawline with a deep brown iris framed by a bloodshot sclera. 

“I’m starting to think we might need to reassess our plan,” Martin said, handing Jon his fourth cup of tea in an attempt to soothe his throat. “The Fears are feeding, aren’t they? And each one we get to from now one will have had even more time to recover than the last. If the Buried managed to do that to you, imagine what the next one’ll do with even more time to feed beforehand.” 

“Don’t have a better plan…” Jon croaked out. But still, the idea troubled him. If he couldn’t control them, then what? The image of the many-limbed creature he’d seen at the ruins of the Panopticon came to mind, its dragonfly-wings and grey-bone crown surely a hallucination; a wound left upon reality at the core of its destruction. Yet its words were beginning to make more sense. 

I am not what you could have been, it had said. I am what you should have been. What you should be. I am what is waiting for you. At the end of all this. At the end of every choice you make. 

Jon shoved aside his rising fear. Now wasn’t the time. Besides, the last thing he needed to do right now was to give the Eye, the End, and the Buried a feast. 

“Well, maybe we can adjust the plan?”

Martin sat himself next to Jon and patted his own shoulder; his silent invitation and instruction for Jon to rest his head against him. Jon did so, happy to snuggle in during this moment of rest and privacy. 

Martin continued, his voice now reverberating a little in the ear Jon had pressed against him. “You said the hosts have to willingly give you their Fear. Or, at least, that’s working so far. Can…can they only do that to you, do you reckon? Or could they, in theory—”

“No.”

“They can’t or you don’t want to entertain the idea?” 

“The latter.” Jon curled in tighter. “Not letting you do that…” 

“But Jon, it might help you. I don’t have to take on loads of them, and I promise I’ll tell you if it’s getting too much. Maybe…maybe just the more Lonely-aligned ones? The Vast, maybe? I could probably handle that.”

“Not a good idea,” Jon rasped. “Your…fondness for the Lonely…It’ll make it worse…”

“I’m not fond of the Lonely. In fact, I-I hate it. I really do. I just…” 

Martin trailed off. 

“Feel comfortable there?” Jon offered to end his dangling thought.

“Y-yeah. Yeah, I…I guess. Right, okay, so I take one that’s the polar opposite of the Lonely, then. One I definitely won’t get tempted by or inadvertently feed. What would that be, then?” 

“The Stranger? Mmm, no…the Hunt, maybe?”

“The Hunt?” Martin said, incredulous for a moment. He then hummed, shrugged his head to one side, and nodded. “Oh, right, I guess the whole pack mentality thing, right? Or even if you are off being a lone wolf, you’re not too fussed about it because you’re on the prowl.” 

Jon nodded, as his throat had begun to burn again for all the talking. He hated the idea of Martin taking on another Fear. Worse, what if he couldn’t? What if the only reason the Fears had latched onto some humans right now was because they were so weak that those humans could withstand it for now? What if the hosts were doomed to a horrible end once the Fears regained their strength within them? What if two would simply be too much for a human mind to bear, starved or not? 

“Yeah…yeah, so, maybe we can let me take on the Hunt for you. Give you a bit of a break? And this one Gwen’s sending us after, Ink5oul, do you think they might have a—Woah, hang on. Jon? Jon, what’s wrong?” 

Damn. Despite his best efforts, Martin had clocked the moment Jon had started to shudder, tears spilling from his eyes and into Martin’s shirt. 

“‘M’fine,” Jon mumbled, using his sleeve to dry his eyes. “Sorry.” 

“No, no, no, we’re not doing that.” Martin shifted to face Jon, forcing him to lift his head up. But Jon tried to hide his face all the same, at least until two fingers found his chin and gently coaxed him to look up at Martin. 

“You’re worried about me.” Martin said it as a matter of fact rather than a question, but he sounded quite calm about it all. “You think if something happened to me, it’d be your fault.”

“It would be,” Jon whispered. “It would be. All of this is—”

“—Not on your shoulders alone. Look, Jon, you…you didn’t want to end the world. You didn’t spend your life scheming ways to bring about the end of all things for your own gain. You didn’t agree with Eli—Jonah to do all that for him. You didn’t hear him out and say, ‘Oh yes, brilliant idea, Jonah, how can I help you achieve that batshit dream of yours?’. You didn’t even know what the letter was when you picked it up and started reading it.” 

“But I…Every choice I made led me to that moment,” Jon said. “There were so many crossroads where I could have picked a different path.” 

“And who’s to say they didn’t all loop around to the same place? Hmm?” Martin shimmied closer then and wrapped his arms around Jon. “And you weren’t the only one making choices, Jon. We all did. We all tried to figure out what was going on, because we all wanted to stop it. But…Jonah was just three steps ahead. And if you really want to play the blame game, you have to apply it to everyone involved, right? So it’s my fault too. If I hadn’t cut myself off to try to save everyone, I’d not have been thrown into the Lonely. You’d not have come after me, and you’d not have got your final mark, right? So…so by your logic, I ended the world too.” 

“That’s not—”

“Well, it is now.” Martin squeezed him a little tighter. “So there. If you don’t forgive yourself yet, that’s fine. I get it. But you have to start working towards it, Jon. Because while you still think it’s your fault, then you’re also thinking it’s my fault too.” 

Jon chuckled around his quiet tears and shook his head. “That’s some leap of logic, Martin.”

“So’s yours with the whole ‘I got tricked into reading out a ritual that ended the world, therefore it is entirely my fault the world ended’ logic. I’m just playing your game, Mr Sims.” 

Martin planted a kiss atop Jon’s head, making him chuckle again and sit back to look at him. 

He wondered if Martin realised that all of this only cemented his position against letting him sacrifice any part of himself to harbour the Fears. 

──── •✧• ────

Ink5oul’s studio would have been easy to find even without Jon’s ability to See. The slim little space, tucked between an empty florists and a café that had shut down long before the end of the world, was one of the few establishments on the narrow street with any lights on. The ground floor remained as gloomy as all the others around it, but the first floor window shone with a clinical white light that made Jon recall his unpleasant run-in with Doctor David not long ago, even though the doctor’s office had been lit with warm, half-dying bulbs. 

“By appointment only,” Martin said, pointing at a yellowing sign taped to the glass. 

“I daresay we won’t need one,” Jon replied, making to push the door open. But Martin gasped and grabbed him, stopping him just as the door clicked open.

“Wait!” he hissed. Jon followed Martin’s line of sight upwards. 

There, hanging just behind the door, was a tiny brass bell, waiting to call out anyone who walked into the building. 

“Oh. Good eye,” Jon said, but the compliment fizzled away as Martin snorted. All four of Jon’s eyes narrowed at his snickering boyfriend. “Ha ha.” 

“Sorry, sorry. Look, let me just…” Martin squeezed his way past Jon, taking over the duty of opening the door. He did so with great care, watching the bell with hawk-like intensity. The door pushed it ever so slowly, balancing the bell until it was practically horizontal. Then, when the bell was about to slip off the corner of the door, Martin jolted up onto his toes and grabbed it, silencing it before it could ring. 

He guided it back down to a prone position, then shifted to let Jon walk through the open doorway first. 

Jon crept in, and he started scouting the area while Martin set about closing the door without ringing the bell on the way back. 

They’d entered into a small waiting area, with two black chairs shoved against the left-hand wall and two more by the front window, their backs to the empty street outside. On the right-hand wall was a large shelving unit, though judging by the dust, nothing had been stacked on it for quite some time. 

A little desk unit cut the waiting area off from the studio behind it, and Jon imagined there might once have been a computer there. Now, only a handful of old papers remained, which Jon’s idle fingers brushed and leafed through. 

One of the papers outlined a rather grotesque tattoo design of a lion impaled on a sword. Another detailed a graveyard, with certain plots marked with a scrawled black star. 

“What’s the plan, then?” Martin whispered as he joined Jon and looked over his shoulder at the papers too. 

“We both stay down here. I take a little peak upstairs,” Jon replied, and he tapped a finger against his temple. “If we are due any good luck at all, Elias’ remains will be up there and Ink5oul will not be.”

“The lights are on though,” Martin said, casting a glance up the half-lit stairway at the far end of the room. 

“Like I said, if we are due any good luck at all. From how things have been going lately, I’d say we aren’t.” 

Jon sat himself down on one of the waiting room chairs and patted the one next to him for Martin to take a seat too. “Make sure no one sneaks up on me. I can’t See in two places at once anymore,” he said quietly. 

Martin nodded, his expression set and determined, and sat down on the edge of the seat next to Jon, his back so straight that it almost arched inwards. 

With a fond smile he knew Martin hadn’t caught, Jon retreated into his mind and through eyes he ought not have. 

His vision flooded a murky green, each second brightening the swirling image until it settled upon a person fussing about a small metal table. Though his sight was stained a sharp emerald hue, Jon could tell the person was wearing all black. Their shirt had once had sleeves, judging from the raw threads dangling at the shoulders where they’d been torn off. Their exposed arms were riddled with tattoos, though the most striking by far was a long, vivid, floral snake that twisted up one limb and struck at their neck. 

With each movement they made, a light jingling of metal followed, summoned from the little orchestra of piercings, chains, and rings adorning their figure. This had to be the infamous Ink5oul. 

“This is shit work, Lady M,” Ink5oul spat, kicking the table with such force that they might have bruised their foot if it weren’t for the hefty boots they sported. “What the hell am I meant to use this for?” 

“You asked for corpses, my little raven. You did not specify a specific state in which you required them.” 

How he’d missed a second person in the room, Jon couldn’t say. But there, sitting off to the side on a chair that seemed to insult her with its very basic nature, was a tall woman that Jon could not describe accurately as slim or broad. She was neither, instead built in such a way as to bring a bullwhip to mind. She was older than Ink5oul, yet she carried herself with a much more precise posture than the tattoo artist. Pointed-toe boots clad her feet and climbed halfway up her shins, and though the rest of her outfit was impeccably clean and without so much as a single crease, her footwear sported dried mud and worse. 

Almost white eyes pierced out from under the rim of her hat, and she held a large rifle of exquisite craftsmanship at her side as though it were a walking cane. 

“All right, well, how’s this for a specific state?” Ink5oul rounded on the lady, lips upturned in an unpleasant sneer. “Don’t let your dogs eat half of it before it gets here, yeah?”

“Please. My dogs wouldn’t so much have licked the blood of that cretin,” the lady sniffed. She got to her feet, leaning on the rifle as she did so, then hoisted the firearm up over one shoulder. “Mr Delrin was already a tattered mess when I shot him. I thought you’d have appreciated the…macabre nature of his design.” 

Delrin…? Jon moved his focus back to the table. The mess upon it almost sent him reeling back to his own body – a familiar pile of legs, ribboned cloth, burst ribs, and knotted tape ribbons sprawled across the tabletop, parts dangling and dripping down onto the mucky carpet beneath. 

Had this ‘Lady M’ shot him? When? And how nearby had she been – along with her dogs and rifle – when Martin and Jon had walked by Jake’s corpse? 

Wait, Jon thought. Lady M…? 

Something about her was familiar. Someone Jon had never met directly, yet he knew about. Somewhere, through his winding memories, he’d encountered this woman before, he was sure of it. 

Of all things, Lena’s voice rang in his mind: 

Mr Fairchild, I’ll be blunt. If you manage to find a knife, my external colleague positioned in the rear garden of this property will shoot you.

Was this Lena’s External colleague? She had later complained – He wasn’t armed, Mowbray – Mowbray! That was it!

Oh wonderful, Jon thought to himself. There are two Externals upstairs.

──── •✧• ────

Chapter Text

Martin and Jon had managed to sneak back out of the tattoo studio by the same method they’d deployed to get in. After finding a suitably secluded area with a stumpy, half-crumbling wall to sit on, the two of them settled there to discuss their options. Naturally, Martin pulled out a battered thermos from his battered bag and began serving them tea, his face lighting up with delight. 

“I borrowed a little bit of milk from the O.I.A.R. canteen,” he explained, handing Jon a plastic mug as though he were passing him a bag of diamonds. 

“Borrowed, eh?” Jon smirked.

Martin’s face burned pink. 

“I…may have assumed they would be okay with me making up a flask of tea for our journey.” 

A smile fixed itself to Jon’s face, and he took a grateful sip of his criminally acquired tea. That Martin could still get flustered under Jon’s questioning of such things tickled him. Here he was, ender of realities, making someone feel slightly guilty over pinching a few tea bags and a splash of milk. 

“Speaking of your increasingly rebellious behaviour,” Jon said, “we’re going to have to break back into the tattoo parlour at some stage to retrieve Elias’ corpse. Or at least destroy his other eye. But I really don’t fancy going up against two Externals at the same time.”

“I don’t fancy going up against one, frankly,” Martin said. He blew on his own cup of tea, his eyes fixed on the street opposite them. “I mean, what’s their deal anyway? Are they just Avatars by another name?” 

“Not sure,” Jon admitted, trying his best not to go looking for answers right away in the swirling archives trapped in his mind. “Possibly. Possibly not. It seems they have some link to the Fears, yes, though perhaps a little less…singularly.” 

“That fuzzy overlap again, isn’t it?” Martin sighed, looking crestfallen at the idea. Jon sympathised. As much as he wanted the Fears and their followers to follow Smirke’s Fourteen theory in a neat manner, the more they delved into the world of the esoteric, the more it fought back at being categorised. It made solving anything in its truest sense nigh impossible. 

“Perhaps it would be fine to think of Externals as simply another type of Avatar. For now, at least.” Jon tipped at his tea again before adding. “I’m sure they’ll correct us on it when the time comes.”

“A time we should continue to put off for as long as possible,” Martin declared. He finished his tea, shook out the dregs on the grass to dry the mug a little, then fixed it back over the top of his thermos. “Have Ink5oul and Lady Mowbray left the parlour yet?” 

Jon took the chance to check while drinking his tea, his eyes glowing brightly. He swallowed and then shook his head. “Not yet. Lady Mowbray looks like she might be preparing to leave, though. I really wanted to question her. I mean…why shoot Jake? He’d finished his task. Was it just for sport, or did Gw— I mean, did Jonah order her to? She used to work for Lena, so perhaps she has ties to the O.I.A.R. that extended beyond her…” 

He hadn’t noticed he’d finished his tea until Martin took the mug off him, pulling it away from his lips and placing it back atop the thermos. 

“I’m restricting you to one question per muttering session from now on,” Martin teased with a grin, shoving the flask into his bag again. “Let’s focus on one thing at a time, yeah? We wait till the coast is clear, nip in, bag Elias or his eye, then get the hell out of there. There’s no need to hang around, is there?”

Jon pursed his lips. 

Martin noticed it and scowled immediately. 

“Is there, Jon?” he repeated, though with a healthy dose of scepticism this time. 

“I…I think at least one of them might have a Fear attached to them,” Jon admitted. “But you’re right. One thing at a time. The most pressing matter is to avoid Jonah coming back again.”

“Again.”

“Again.”

“Ag— Hang on, how many times has he dodged death at this point?”

──── •✧• ────

Though Lady Mowbray left the tattoo parlour shortly after their impromptu tea break, her two dogs trotting along at her sides, Ink5oul remained working on the first floor for another hour or so. 

Impatience began to itch at Jon. Ink5oul knew Elias’ eyes were, at the very least, a source of power. They had witnessed Gwen changing as a result of implanting one of the eyes, and perhaps they had even caught a glimpse of Jonah’s abilities manifesting through it all. The longer they left Ink5oul, the more likely it was that Jonah would crawl back out from oblivion yet again. 

Jon huffed and squeezed his folded arms tighter to his chest, the cold night air nipping at him even with Martin slumped against his side. His boyfriend had fallen asleep a short time ago, his head resting on Jon’s shoulder, lips parted and snoring gently. That Martin had drifted off didn’t annoy him as much as the fact that Jon was trapped in the meantime. 

Well. In truth, sneaking off on his own hadn’t ended so well last time. Maybe it was for the best that the opportunity escaped him now. 

Jon tried to get comfortable, deciding that he’d let Martin sleep for fifteen more minutes before nudging him awake with the new plan of heading to the parlour. Now that Lady Mowbray was gone, the odds were far more in their favour. 

Those odds, however, changed upon a sharp click behind Jon’s head. 

“So much for the all-seeing Archivist,” a curt and clipped voice greeted him. “You make disappointing prey.” 

Jon, doing his best not to jostle Martin, lifted his hands up. Now that he knew to look, everything behind him played out with perfect clarity – the barrel of a rifle bore down upon him, its wielder aiming it at the nape of his neck. 

“Stories of my omniscience are currently exaggerated,” Jon replied. “As are the tales of your ruthlessness, it seems. You haven’t pulled the trigger yet.”

“The thrill isn’t in pulling the trigger, lad,” Lady Mowbray said. “It’s in—”

“The Hunt.”

Jon clenched his jaw. Of course the Hunt had found him rather than him tracking it down. It never could resist taking a bite out of him. Behind him, Lady Mowbray chuckled. 

“Exactly. Besides” – she lifted the gun and rested it back on her shoulders, then strided forwards to stand before Jon and the still-slumbering Martin – “my client was very clear.”

“‘Stop blowing their heads off’?”

Lady Mowbray grinned. 

“‘Don’t kill the Archivist.’” 

“Ah.” Jon nodded once. “Of course. Gwendolyn’s orders, I presume.” 

“I see you do know a fair bit, Archivist. But yes. You’re quite critical in restoring the world to its former short-lived glory.” 

Lady Mowbray arched an eyebrow, and Jon caught her now-red eyes flicking towards Martin for a fraction of a second. He sat up straighter, trying to nudge Martin awake with his knee without the lady noticing. 

“And your other client?” Jon pressed. “The tattoo artist?” 

Lady Mowbray’s mouth opened in mock disapproval. “Archivist! Were you eavesdropping? How very unbecoming.”

“It’s a bad habit of mine.” 

For fuck’s sake, Martin, wake up! Jon shoved his knee a little harder. 

With her gun still slung over her shoulders, Lady Mowbray began to pace before them, her gaze transfixed on Jon, giving her the look of an impatient tiger. “Hmm. Ink5oul is useful, but not as useful as Ms Bouchard. I’ll not be breaking my agreement with her for them. But then, I don’t need to, do I?” 

Those dreadful, blood-stained eyes trailed off to Jon's side. To the man still slumbering there. 

Both the Archivist and the Huntress remained still, wound tighter than springs, each waiting for the other to make their move. 

Lady Mowbray’s mouth stretched into a smile, rows of yellow-stained teeth clashing with her painted lips. 

More eyes opened across Jon’s face; his last-ditch attempt to frighten her off with the ghost of his former glory. 

They broke the stillness together. 

Lady Mowbray swung her mighty rifle up and into both hands, taking aim at Martin and squeezing the trigger.

Jon threw his arm behind Martin’s back and hauled both of them forwards, face-first into the ground. 

Either this or the gunshot woke Martin up, and he spluttered before taking a mouthful of mud and dirt.

“Wha—plrrrph! Pleh! J-Jon, what?”

“Hide us! Now!” 

To Martin’s credit, he wasted no time on questions or confusion. He clung to Jon’s shoulder, and the now-familiar numbness flooded over Jon where they lay upon the ground. 

He did his best to slow his breathing and to remain as still as possible, still watching Lady Mowbray. 

The lady stepped back, eyes darting left and right in the general area Jon and Martin had fallen. She couldn’t see them – but she might yet hear them if they weren’t careful. 

Ah, but what did it matter? Perhaps this was for the best, staying here. In the dirt. Hidden from the world. If he stayed away, the world might yet heal. Besides, who would miss him? The damned Archivist, the hapless fool who ended the world? Yes…best to stay here in the cold fog and—

Martin’s finger jabbed into Jon’s cheek, snapping him out of his Lonely-coaxed spiral. 

Jon glanced at him, finding solace in the other man’s storm-blue eyes. 

Almost imperceptibly, Martin shook his head. 

Don’t get lost, Jon. Not here. Not now. 

Jon swallowed and nodded. Focus. Martin needed him to focus through the numbness.

They had to move. But could they without alerting Lady Mowbray to what they’d done? Right now, she was scanning the area, taking careful steps as she went. She must have thought they’d moved – she hadn’t yet considered they were right where they fell, simply invisible. 

Jon began to inch up to his hands and knees, all while keeping his shoulder under Martin’s palm. Martin did the same, taking great care not to knock any debris or make a sound. 

Slowly, slowly…

Jon froze, for he noticed Lady Mowbray had too. 

She looked over her shoulder towards where they were, a smug half-smile creeping over her powdered face once more. Her nostrils twitched, and she began sniffing the air. 

Fuck. Jon grabbed Martin’s arm and forced them up to their feet, heedless of the noise, and set them off sprinting just as Lady Mowbray cocked her rifle and sent a shot right to the ground, the bullet whistling past the sole of Jon’s foot as he ran. 

“Go, go!” Jon shouted, before cursing himself for the impulse as Lady Mowbray sharpened her focus to where they were running, still out of sight. 

Martin, quick to see an escape, pushed both of them down a side street as another shot rang through the air. 

They dashed down the darkened street and out the other side, skidding into a new lane of similarly abandoned shops. A few scavengers picked through the bones of London, and while Jon’s heart lurched and he recoiled to cover his face on instinct, he remembered Martin still had them hidden. 

“Here!” Martin hissed. He shifted his grip from Jon’s shoulder to his hand and hurried them to a small café to Jon’s right. 

They headed inside and closed the door just as Lady Mowbray appeared at the exit of the side street they’d escaped down.

Martin let go of Jon to set about barricading the door. He shoved tables and chairs up against it while Jon peeked through a small patch of window that wasn’t smeared in filth and soot. 

He watched as Lady Mowbray sniffed the air, her chin tilted upwards, and then began to prowl down the road. 

“Christ…” Jon sighed, stepping back from the window and turning to the shadowy café. 

Dirt smeared the black-and-white checkered floor, and most of the furniture that Martin hadn’t yet utilised lay on its side. It gave the appearance of being ransacked, but as Jon wandered through the place, he spotted cutlery and plates still sitting on shelves. He headed to the front desk and rattled the till. Coins jingled back. 

Jon frowned. Odd. Every single place in London had been looted by now, and while people had knocked furniture over, nothing had been taken. 

Something itched behind his eye – a connection he’d failed to make. A detail he hadn’t spotted. An answer he’d looked over. 

“Martin, something’s wrong…” he whispered. “Something’s…off about this place.”

Martin finished heaving another table onto his barricade with a strained grunt, then turned to Jon, irritation flashing over his face. 

“Might’ve piped up before I blocked off the door, Jon,” he hissed back. But, as he took in the place too, a frown of confusion began to crease his brow too. “Wait…there’s still stuff here?” 

“Loads of it,” Jon said, and he ran his hand along a glass cabinet holding different musical instruments and framed photos of bands. “Maybe it’s just not useful stuff? Looks like this might’ve been a jazz café or something at some point.” 

“I mean, I get not looting a harmonica, but the knives and forks are still here,” Martin commented from where he was now squatting down and rummaging through a low cabinet lining the wall. “Mugs, plates, all sorts that would be useful. And…oh. Oh…ooooh, shit, Jon, erm…Jon, look at the floor.” 

Jon paused his own investigations and looked down. 

It took a second for him to realise what had worried Martin. In the gloom, Jon had initially thought dirt smeared the checkerboard tiles. But now that he inspected it closer, he realised his error. 

It wasn’t mud. Dried blood painted the floor, long having shifted to a murky dark reddish brown, preserving distorted footprints and streaked handprints. 

“Oh…Oh, God…” 

As the horrified whisper curled into the air, a gentle music began to bloom, filling the macabre space with a contrasting beauty. The smooth piano notes floated around them, filling Jon’s ears and slipping under his skin as phantom hooks, a siren-like demand for him to become its captive audience. 

Now, Jon noticed movement in the very furthest corner of the café, where the shadows pooled at their darkest point. Slithering through the dark in a controlled flurry, a thin man played a battered old piano, accompanied only by the steady splat, splat, splat of bloodied fingertips striking the keys. 

──── •✧• ────

Chapter Text

Eternally out of the frying pan and into the fire. That the Fears had managed to crawl only a stone’s throw from Jon before finding suitable new hosts didn’t surprise him, but Jon had been through enough to know that it wasn’t bad luck that kept bringing them onto his path. 

The telltale silvery strings of the Web had to be behind this. 

Jon stepped back, thankful that the pianist remained engrossed in his tune. 

He reached one hand behind him, fingers flexing until he brushed Martin’s hand. Jon nodded at him over his shoulder; a silent command that they needed to get out of here. 

But Martin shook his head, but when he replied, his voice followed the pianist’s song.

“You want to run,

But where to now? 

To face the Huntress again?” 

Jon and Martin frowned in unison, and a pinkish tinge glowed over Martin’s cheeks. 

The pianist remained with his back to them, striking the keys with bleeding fingers, ignoring Martin’s impromptu performance. 

Jon didn’t want to push his luck further, however. The old blood dried underfoot reeked of terror, and it melded with the vision of the pianist and his music, presenting its true form before the Eye. 

The Slaughter sang around them, and the last time it had done so, it had delighted in people tearing their own ears off. Martin's singing, in comparison, was not that horrifying, but Jon had no intention of sticking around to find out what the second verse would bring. 

He tugged at Martin’s arm, pulling him to the blocked door. 

“Listen to me, 

We can’t stay here, 

Trapped in the Slaughter’s Domain!”

A loud, aggravated sigh followed Jon’s lyrical response. Brilliant. Now he was singing, trapped in some stupid musical number with his boyfriend. 

Behind them, the pianist swayed with more gusto, his crimson-splattered hands scampering across the keys. 

Martin, meanwhile, dug his heels in and pulled Jon back. 

“Staring down the barrel of a gun, 

Or facing a madman’s music?

The right path unfolds as clear as day, 

For once, we’re doing as I say!” 

As Martin yanked him back, Jon stumbled and fell into him, avoiding falling on the floor only by the grace of Martin’s reflexes. He jerked away from him, anger rising, and rounded upon him. He jabbed a finger into Martin’s chest. 

“Who knows the Fears better than I?

Why won’t you listen to me? 

Instead you’re always intent on resisting

Or following everyone else’s theories!”

Martin’s face became the picture of insult, but anger quickly flooded over it. 

“All I’ve ever done is fight your corner!”

Jon barked a laugh, his fury boiling through his veins. 

“The only corner you fought for was the one you backed me into!

Ignoring my pleas not to make me repeat this hell anew!”

Martin pushed back, however, towering over Jon with ease. 

“Every eye of yours was cloaked by guilt; what choice was left to me?

You’d have let the world that is become a world that was for a world that may be!”

The pair of them drowned in their song, the words sharpening under the pressure of being buried within for so long. Jon, itching to get his next retort out, went to snap back. But the sight of crimson ribbons dribbling down the front of Martin’s shirt made him pause. 

Stunned, he looked down at himself. His own threadbare jumper bore similar cuts, and flashes of split skin winked scarlet beneath. 

Jon opened and closed his mouth several times, the urge to continue his tirade wrestling with the realisation of what he was doing. What they were doing to each other. 

With a gargantuan effort, he turned towards the pianist, whose animated playing now filled the entire café with discordant melodies and the metallic scent of blood. His bony shoulders hunched over the keys, and every so often, he let out a wheezing huff of laughter, drunk on their swelling violence. 

Jon advanced upon him, and as he crossed the room, he paused at one of the cabinets to pick up a knife. He managed to get within ten steps of the mad musician before Martin’s arm wrapped around his waist and lifted him up, hauling him off his feet. 

“Jon, stop and think! 

If you kill this man, the Slaughter escapes – that we can’t ignore, 

And God knows where we’ll cross paths with it once more…” 

Teeth bared and rage rising to a crescendo, Jon growled back: 

“Let it flee and see what happens! 

I’ll slit every throat it calls home if I have to!” 

Martin staggered back, holding on to the flailing Archivist and grunting with the effort before continuing their lyrical argument. 

“And what if it’s your skin it crawls beneath?”

“Then I’ll claw it out from under me!”

“And if it goes to ground inside my chest?”

“I’ll dig the damn thing out with teeth and nails!” 

Still squirming in Martin’s arms, Jon fought every step of the way as Martin led them away from the main room and through to a dingy staff break room. 

The larger man dropped his half-feral companion on a rickety metal chair. He shook his arms out, then sat himself down with a sigh that combined exhaustion and irritation. 

“Jesus Christ, Jon, what— Oh! Oh, thank God, we’ve stopped singing,” Martin said, turning to look over his shoulder. The music, muffled and subdued, still beat its blood passion against the door.

Jon was already on his feet, however, his hands balled into fists. He stomped towards the closed door. “Why did you do that? We could have stopped him!” 

“You were about to kill him, Jon!”

“And what happened to getting our murder on, as you so eloquently put it?” Jon snapped, whirling about and fixing Martin with a stern glower reminiscent of their first few months at the Archives. 

Martin spluttered in surprise. “That was…! That was the end of the world! Fighting against monsters and nightmares! This is different!” 

“How? That man, evidently, sent the customers here half-mad and had them butcher each other!” Jon threw an arm out to gesture blindly back the way they had come. “If that doesn’t make a man a monster, what does?” 

“I’m not worried about him!” Martin’s eyes filled with tears. “I’m worried about you! You…you’ve got, what, three Fears half-fed and living under your skin? One whisper from the Slaughter, and you’re grabbing knives ready to slit throats, and…Jon, it isn’t like you!”

“I’m annoyed,” Jon growled. “I’m annoyed and tired and sick of all this, and…” 

“And maybe that’s why you’re doing this.” Martin opened his arms out. “And maybe we should talk. I’m not saying the bloody Slaughter had the right of anything, but…but we both started saying some pretty intense things back there. Or singing them, I suppose. Still…obviously we’ve both been bottling some stuff up ever since…ever since…the Panopticon. Stuff we haven’t properly addressed.” 

“And you think now’s the best time to open up those wounds, when the Slaughter is sniffing at the door and coaxing us to rip each other’s throats out?” Jon scoffed. 

“I think if we don’t, it’ll—” 

A loud gunshot and shattering glass eclipsed Martin’s protest. Jon flinched away from the door, his arms lifting to cover his head, while Martin yelped and dove off his chair to the floor. After that sudden flurry of activity, silence reigned. 

The music had come to an abrupt stop. Worse, the unpredictable violence that twirled through the air delighted in the shocking conclusion. 

Jon crept towards Martin, helping him up off the floor. “We need to get out of here,” he whispered. “If that’s Mowbray, we are, for want of a better phrase, fucked. The Slaughter and the Hunt in one place…”

Martin nodded along, but then, quite without warning, he paused. “Wait. Jon, that gunshot. You think that was Lady Mowbray. And she shot…” 

“The pianist,” Jon stated, the green glow of the Eye shining through him as he watched the scene unfold. “Alfred Grifter. Playing notes that drove those who listened to tear their ears off in despair had entertained him for a long time, but tedium settled in quickly for the Slaughter. It demanded new songs. New pain. New violence. So he changed his tune, as any good musician should, and drew in a new crowd. The melody would not bring them despair – it would invoke rage. The desire to push fingers and nails through flesh and pull it apart, bathing in the warm blood of friend and stranger alike. What a show. What a performance. But how to conclude such a perfect song? By prising out the fury of the Archive itself? Perhaps. No. No, better yet, the Hunt approached. Yes. It was all so clear to him now. A truly magnificent crescendo before a sharp silent end – the sudden, violent death of the musician who played the melody of carnage, right as he was playing it? It was too good of an opportunity to pass up. And too easy a one to set up, for even the slightest touch of the Slaughter stirs a frenzy in the Hunt…”

Jon sighed, content with every part of the statement that had rasped through him. “The Slaughter took a moment to float in the thrill of that shocking, bloody end. What a masterpiece of brutality! But it would hunger again, and soon. It would need more. It would need a new host. Perhaps it would return home, for now. Settle with its kin and feed from the Archive again.”

Martin’s hand appeared on Jon’s shoulder then. “What? Jon? Is that real-time? Is…Is the Slaughter coming for you? What do we do?” 

Jon snorted and then grinned. As his lips peeled back, thin strings of blood slithered from between his teeth. 

“T̷a̴g̴,̵ ̶I̶'̸m̶ ̴i̷t̶.̵ ̷N̶o̸w̶ ̸t̴h̶e̴ ̴H̶u̶n̶t̷ ̶h̸a̵s̴ ̸t̸o̸ ̴r̶u̸n̸.̸.̷..” He laughed, teeth still bared. Confidence flared through him, a giddy recklessness that both freed and excited him, urging him to action. Why should they keep running? He was the Archive. The final Domain of all that terrified the living; all that remained of the horrors when the tormented finally fell silent. He was their end – he was the End. The End, the Eye, the Buried, and the Slaughter. What possible threat could the Hunt pose to him? 

But once again, the Lonely blocked his way, wearing a face of concern. 

“Wait! N-No, Jon, I don’t think that’s…I-I think maybe you’re…Look, how about you sit down for a second, and we—” 

“Get out of my way, Martin,” Jon snarled, pushing past the other man and heading towards the door. But Martin caught his hand and pulled him backwards. 

“Jon, stop! Stop and think! The Slaughter just fed, you said it yourself! It just had the most spectacular meal of its life, and now it’s found its way back to you. And you think this is you thinking clearly?” 

Jon whirled around and yanked his hand from Martin’s grip. Of course, Martin was being a wet blanket about it all now. Now that Jon wanted to kill someone that didn’t bother Martin, suddenly it was an awful thing to do. 

“It doesn’t matter!” Jon snapped. “If it wants to exist within me, fine, but I’m going to make use of it. And I’m starting with the Huntress! You can stay here and cry about it for all I care!” 

Though tears did shimmer in the corners of Martin’s eyes, he stepped forwards, determination in every inch of his posture as he loomed down on Jon. “Oh piss off with that! Now I know you’re not in your right mind, because that wasn’t anywhere near scathing enough. And while we’re on the topic of making use of things, the Slaughter’s making a bloody puppet out of you, Jon! You, who nearly supercharged the end times to its fucking finish line just to have one choice of your own!” 

“I—!” 

Jon paused. He hadn’t told Martin that. He hadn’t explained why he broke their promise, or why he’d left him sleeping alone that night and gone to the Panopticon early. He hadn’t explained the true terror behind his decision – not only that the Fears would be unleashed on other worlds, but that he’d be doing so again at the behest of someone else, friends or not. That for once – for once – he wanted to make his own choice. To shoulder guilt of his own making rather than continue to be throttled by the shame of choices others had made for him. 

Martin had…noticed? 

No one had ever noticed before. They’d always assumed he was simply annoying. Or stubborn. Or mad, by the end. Then again, who had ever been as close to him as Martin? Contrary to the popular belief, Jon had never closed the door on people who wanted to get close. People simply didn’t knock on the door at all. Not until Martin. And evidently, Martin had begun to figure him out even without being told. 

“I want to kill her,” Jon admitted. “The Slaughter…I…No. It’s me. I’m tired of running, Martin. I’m tired of being scared. I’m tired of putting you in danger. I’m…tired of pretending I have no choice but to be the prey.” 

“You’re not pretending.” Martin took hold of Jon’s hand, his tone all softness and understanding that Jon did not deserve. “You’re holding on to you. Your humanity. And that’s…that’s pretty damn important.” 

Jon watched Martin’s hands covering his own, the light-blue tinge that perpetually stained his skin at the tips of his fingers. 

Martin was right. He had been clinging to his humanity all this time. For so long, nothing had been as important to Jon as to hold on to who he was. He’d have died before letting go of the shreds he had left. 

But now? Now he had something else to hold onto. A reason. Something worth giving up his humanity for. 

He smiled at Martin, and as his partner returned the expression, Jon wondered if it would be the last one Martin gave to him. 

──── •✧• ────

Chapter Text

Not for the first time, Martin was in a huff with Jon. 

Jon sighed to himself, stirring his cup of tea far too much and watching as the liquid spiralled inside the cup. He doubted very much that this little peace offering would go much further than the last one, but he trusted that it was the thought that counted. And with enough thoughts stacked up, surely Martin would eventually forgive him. 

In truth, Jon considered Martin’s sulking a wild overreaction. They were happy – finally happy – in a nice little house in the countryside. Red-stained walls and a too-sharp picket fence lining the outer perimeter of their rose-painted front garden. The barred front door stood at the end of a narrow vein-like hallway filled with framed photos of places they’d never been to; the two of them in front of the Eiffel Tower they’d never visited, relaxing on a wall overlooking a lake they’d never gazed upon. The hallway led to a plush living room, its scarlet walls almost invisible behind more photographs. Jon had wanted one or two bookshelves, frankly, but those had been relegated to the bedroom and office upstairs to make room for more photos. 

Martin loved his photographs, didn’t he? No. No, that wasn’t quite right. He loved the potential photographs. Places they might go together, happy memories they may yet make. Something like that. Jon had gifted the pictures to Martin in a hope that he’d see things his way, but to no avail. 

The kitchen, nestled behind the living room, was Jon’s real pride and joy, though. He couldn’t cook to save his life, but the room remained his favourite one. A strong oak table took up most of the centre, clashing somewhat with the ruby-hued ceiling and walls. A recent change that Jon hadn’t been entirely fond of. He’d wanted something calmer. Blue-grey, maybe. Like the ocean under rainclouds. Whose idea had it been to paint everything red anyway?

With a sigh, Jon got up from the table and picked up the mug of tea – in Martin’s favourite mug, of course – and went in search of his partner. Redecorating could wait. Sorting out their feud could not. 

“Martin?” Jon made his way to the bedroom. He’d been hiding in there for hours. Or days. Or weeks. A bit immature, Jon thought. 

Still, Jon knocked on the door with his free hand. “This is ridiculous. Stop hiding and let’s talk. You know I can just See you if I have to.” 

“But I can’t see you, Jon,” Martin’s sob-throttled voice called out, a strange echo resounding despite the small quarters. “Not anymore. Not after…not after that.” 

Jon groaned and shook his head. The idea of having that particular argument again gave him a pounding headache and made his teeth itch. 

“You’re being stupid. And that’s aggravating because you are not stupid,” Jon snarled. He set the tea down on the floor. “It was scaring you, so I killed it. It’s gone now. You can come out.” 

“You’re scaring me!” Martin retorted. “This isn’t you, Jon! You…What you did to her, you just…” 

“I killed a vicious rodent that had got into our house. I know you prefer to put them outside, but you blocked up the door, didn’t you? What choice did I have?” Jon pointed out. 

“I’ll give you a choice,” Martin said. “You…You need help, Jon. The Fears, they’re…You don’t realise that they’re drowning you! G-Give one to me – let me help you hold them, a-a-and I’ll stop hiding.” 

A rumbling chuckle bubbled from Jon’s chest, resonating as though coming from a much larger creature. “Is that not a little antithetical to the host of the Lonely? To seek more company?” he asked as he leant on the doorframe and arched an eyebrow. 

“Hardly company. I’m not thrilled at the idea. But if it helps you; if it…if it brings you back to yourself, then I’ll do it!” Martin protested. 

The Archive grew tired of their back and forth. He pushed himself up from the doorframe and shook his head. “I haven’t gone anywhere, Martin. I’m right here. And I’ll wait for you. However long it takes for you to accept that.” 

Jon – the Archive – prowled back through the strange house. In the narrow hallway that connected Martin’s room to the kitchen, he caught sight of himself in the long mirror adorning the far wall. 

A large gangly creature stared back at him, its hands pressing against the floor, the walls, and the ceiling as it paused in the middle of guiding its too-large frame through too small a space. Its colourful eyes turned this way and that – green, black, brown, red, and amber, the latter two accounting for far more irises than the others. 

It’s fine, Jon told himself flatly. It’s fine. It’s just me. That’s all. 

He headed back into the kitchen and decided to make himself a cup of tea. Surely Martin would calm down sooner rather than later. He’d killed worse than rodents before. And at Martin’s behest, no less. Yes, Jon was quite sure that, eventually, Martin would realise how unreasonable he was being. And how pointless it was to continue trying to hide from the Archive. 

Archivist. 

Archive? 

Jon pursed his lips in thought. Archivist. No. Archive. Archive. It suited him much better – it always had, he supposed. But even more so in recent weeks. Archive. Yes. Maybe that was it. The understanding of what he truly was had made letting go of what he had once been that much easier. 

Strange to think that it had once caused him such unending terror to consider his humanity peeling away. 

Jon took the kettle over to the sink to fill it from the tap. But when he turned the handle, a thick sanguine liquid burst from it. It gushed from the pipes and poured into the sink with such ferocity that it sloshed all up the sides and splattered onto the kitchen counter.  

How? No, that wasn’t right. This wasn’t right. 

The whole kitchen tilted, knocking Jon off-balance, the house’s creaking groans filling the air. At the back door, something scratched with hellbent urgency, the shadows of claws and paws beating against the ground flashing at the lip of the door. 

“See, I couldn’t just put it out!” Jon grumbled to himself as he tried to rebalance. He made his way back to Martin, annoyed and frustrated. 

This time, Jon didn’t knock. He grabbed the door handle and pulled. To his surprise, the door opened without resistance. Fog spilled out almost as soon as he did so, with biting cold coils slithering around his shins as he stepped into the room. 

“Enough of this, Martin! I—” 

Jon stopped. 

There, in the middle of the room, was Martin. He had his arms out, shielding something behind him, his face turned towards Jon with steely resolve even as tears spilt down his cheeks. 

“I’m not letting you do this, Jon,” he said around a sob. “Not again. You can’t. I…I can’t watch you do this again.” 

“What are you talking about?” Jon stepped forwards. “I’m not going to hurt you; I could never—”

Something moved behind Martin, however, bringing Jon to pause. 

Huddled in a pathetic little heap and peering out from Martin’s side, a pair of hazel eyes behind cracked spectacles stared up in horror at Jon. Blood and bruises covered the cowering man from head to toe, his suit torn and frayed in several places. He had a sharp look about him, a pale face full of angles and limbs almost too long for his short height. His dark hair, short at the back and sides, was speckled with as much muck and blood as it was with peppery silver that seemed premature for the man’s apparent age. 

“S-Statement of Martin Blackwood, regarding his first encounter with a supernatural creature.” 

Jon blinked, snapping himself away from the huddled man behind Martin and back to his partner. 

“Wh-wha—?”

But Martin continued on. 

“Statement begins. I’d only been working at the Magnus Institute for a couple of years when Jon first started. He was in research, and I was in the library, so I only really saw him in passing a few times. Knowing what I know now, I guess those brief glimpses of him were the only time I met the totally human version of Jonathan Sims. I don’t think we even said hello to one another, not until four years later when he was promoted to Head Archivist and moved to the Archives. Elias transferred me from the library that very same day, and to be honest, I still don’t really get why. 

“But yeah. Weird to think about, really – the first time I actually got to speak to Jon, he was technically already…changing. Already not entirely human. He honestly scared me more then than he does now though. It was my first day, and I was all-too-aware that I was not on Jon’s transfer request list, so I really wanted to make a good impression. I’d taken out a load of books from the library about proper archiving techniques, made a load of notes, put on my smartest clothes and headed into work early. My plan was to get all set up with my book and notes, you know, really look the part at my desk for when Jon got in. But then my train was late, so I had to hurry across London, then my bag split, and…and then there was a dog outside the Institute that I stopped to make friends with. Because, you know, after a morning like that, you have to find the silver linings, right? Anyway, I finally got there with five minutes to spare, but the dog sort of darted in as I opened the door. 

“I dumped all my books at my desk and then ran off to find the dog. I figured if I could find the little scamp and lead him back outside, I could sort this whole mess before Jon was any the wiser. But…well, turns out Jon got to work earlier than anyone else. See, since I’d only seen him in passing a few times in the library, I hadn’t really ever met-met Jon. Hadn’t put a face to a name. So when I saw him in the office, I figured, ‘Oh, that handsome chap from the Research Department has been transferred to the Archives too! Maybe he can help me find the dog before Jonathan Sims gets here!’. 

“Only…it turned out he was Jonathan Sims. The new Head Archivist. And he was not best pleased that I’d let a dog into his Archives. Threatened to fire me within the first two minutes of meeting me. Hardly surprising – all my preparation and effort and I still nearly got myself fired on the first day. 

“Anyway, off I ran to find the dog. I looked everywhere for it, but for the life of me, I couldn’t find it anywhere. I even ended up roping Tim and Sasha into looking. I mean, it wasn’t even a small dog, but the Archives were such a mess back then that anything could have hidden down there! And…well, actually, plenty did, in the end, I suppose. Weird tables. Dead bodies. Old men with haunted book collections. 

“After a few hours of this, Tim and Sasha eventually gave up and went for lunch. Tim tried to assure me that the dog had probably found its own way out, but I really didn’t want to mess this up. I wanted to fix this mistake and prove to Jon that I wasn’t some bumbling idiot. So I kept looking. 

“At one point, I was looking behind a stack of really old boxes in one of the storage rooms. The bulb had blown, so I was going off the glow of my phone and whatever light I could get from keeping the door to the hallway open when I heard footsteps behind me. I figured Sasha might have come back early to help me out – she seemed to pity me the most, which was nice but also super embarrassing – but when I turned around, it was Jon standing in the doorway. 

“I started stammering that I was still looking for the dog, and I lied a little bit and said I had seen it come in here, so I’d have it out of the Archive soon. But Jon just sort of…stared at me. I thought for sure he was going to fire me on the spot. Instead, he said in a flat voice, ‘Documents Storage, under the sofa by the window.’ 

“I mean, I was already freaking out, and I had no idea how to take any of this. I just watched him, totally perplexed. He stared at me for a little while longer, then turned away. As he did so, the shadows of the room poured over his face, and…and I swear I saw three eyes open on his face, all in the wrong position, all the wrong colour. 

“He walked off without a word, and I figured I’d just been imagining things. I’d not slept much the previous night, and all this stressing about the dog, maybe it was all in my head? I headed out and straight for the Document Storage room all the same. There was no way he was right, but hey, I hadn’t checked it yet, so why not? 

“No sooner had I opened the door than a golden blur dashed out from under the sofa by the window and out the door, scampering down the hall. I forgot everything else in that moment and just chased after the pooch, guiding it outside to its very worried and very grateful owner. 

“With that all sorted, I had more wiggle room to think about that weird encounter with Jon. And, well, he’d been right, somehow. Down to the exact location of the dog – under the sofa by the window in the Document Storage room. So I went to his office to tell him so. Told him he was right about the dog, that I’d found it in there, and it was out of the building now. Jon just frowned at me, muttering something about not having looked for the dog himself, but waved me away to ‘Get on with some proper work now’.

“That would be the first time I saw Jon lose a little bit of himself, but it wouldn’t be the last. I’d spend the next few years watching him spiral into this abyss that I couldn’t follow him into, fighting tooth and claw to pull himself up and keep himself human. Or as human as he could. All I could do was try to hold on with him. Sometimes…sometimes, he really loses sight of it though. He…gives up on himself. Decides he’s not worth saving, and his grip slackens. But I know how much it means to him to be himself. To be human. So even if it means staring down all the worst parts of him, even if I never truly knew him as a human…I won’t give up on Jon. I won’t let you kill the last piece of you. And I know, deep down, you don’t want to either.” 

Want? Want had nothing to do with it. When had what Jon wanted ever had anything to do with any of this? 

Such a response built behind Jon’s teeth, but before he could give it voice, something inside of him settled. A tearing storm he hadn’t even acknowledged subsided from under his skin, burrowing back down to his core to settle among the other waltzing calamities. In its place, now sated by the new statement, a familiar sharp sight and too-clear green clarity washed over him. 

The walls around them faded from scarlet to jade, the photos of promised memories to come darkening into pupils and irises that darted this way and that within their frames. No sooner had the house switched, it began to fade entirely from view, like a dream dissipating upon waking. 

For a split second, Jon stood still, confusion rooting him to the spot. His hand, stretched out before him, was clawed and dark – worse, it dripped with great globs of blood and viscera. 

The flash of a nightmare lasted for only a second; Jon blinked, and his hand returned to its usual human form. 

But the blood remained. 

“M-Martin…?” Jon mewled, still transfixed on his own bloodied hand that had now begun to tremble. “What…what did I…?” 

“Jon?” Martin stepped out from Jon’s peripheral, emerging from the air in a coil of grey mist. “Jesus, God…Christ, you’re back! I didn’t think that would actually work!” 

Strong, cold  arms wrapped around Jon, even as he kept his own stuck out awkwardly to the sides. 

“Back? I didn’t…We’re still in the café…? But we were…The house, the man you were hiding with, where…? Jesus, you’re freezing, Martin.”

Martin stepped back, though he kept a hold of Jon’s shoulders. “Sorry. I’ve been hiding in the Lonely for, like, four days, I think? You kept finding me and then losing sight of me – that’s when I figured that maybe we needed to balance you out a bit. Feed one of the others. So I figured feeding the Eye would be the best place to start, so I gave you a statement.” 

Seeing Jon’s confusion pulled Martin back on track. He cleared his throat and nodded once. “You, erm…W-Well, I…Mowbray, she shot the Slaughter guy at the piano, remember?” 

“...Alfred Grifter,” Jon muttered, and a grizzly flash of his corpse sprawled across the ivory keys splashed across his mind. 

“Right. And I think…W-well, I know the Hunt then latched onto you. You were saying how you were sick of us running, of being hunted down all the time, about…about wanting to fight back. I guess it liked that, and you…you…”

Martin’s hands began to tremble against Jon’s shoulders. “You…I think you…I-I-I don’t think you chose to, not really, I think…The Slaughter must’ve fed recently or something, right? You got overwhelmed by it o-o-or it pulled out the worst parts of you, I-I mean, who could blame you, really, having a bit of pent-up anger in there, and…” 

“Where’s Lady Mowbray?” 

Martin squeezed his eyes shut against Jon’s quiet question. He shook his head. 

“She…She’s, erm…You…” 

“Martin. What did I do?” 

Martin inhaled deeply, his whole body quaking with barely repressed sobs, a ripple of disgust betraying him. “You, erm…Jon, I really don’t think you want to know all the details for this one. But, look, it really wasn’t you, you were all…I mean, you didn’t even look like you. You told me to stay here, and before you even got to the doorway, you were all sort of…stretched and…and your eyes a-a-and your skin, you…” 

Martin swallowed, finally letting his hands slip from Jon’s shoulders. “Look, I…I really don’t want to tell you, and I know you won’t make me tell you. But I also know you’ll be agitated until you know. So…so you have to promise me you won’t run off the second I tell you what happened.” 

Jon stared at Martin. It only crossed his mind for a second that perhaps he ought to leave well enough alone, but the Eye, recently fed, shoved that tiny protest away. 

“Where is Lady Mowbray, Martin?” 

“You…you…o-or the monster you drunk on the Slaughter, I guess…sort of…ate her. And I’m kind of actually hoping the Hunt went straight to you after you did that, because it would explain why you immediately tried to do the same to me.”

──── •✧• ────

Chapter Text

“So…what was it like for you?”

Martin’s fifth attempt to get Jon to talk had, at least, veered away from ill-fitting efforts to chat about mundane subjects. 

Sitting in the gloom of the staff room, Jon tried to imagine heading out into the café proper. Confronting the mess he had no doubt made when he’d…

His stomach turned on itself, and he reflexively shook his head. What he’d done to Lady Mowbray, how he’d killed her, it still felt like a horrendous tale he’d been told of another’s actions. But the blood burnt upon his hands; a phantom pain prickling on his skin as a constant reminder. 

“What do you mean?” Jon asked weakly, taking the offered lifeline to think about anything else. 

“When you were…I don’t know what we’re calling it. The Archivist?” Martin suggested. He was currently unpacking and repacking his bag for the third time. This journey required careful resource management, given hunger and thirst and sleep were no longer on hold. But Jon was quite certain Martin hadn’t needed to count their food supplies three times over. “The big…thing.” 

“The Archive,” Jon whispered. He then cleared his throat. “At least, erm, that’s probably the most fitting thing to call m….call it. To call me.” 

A monster, Jon thought. A true, honest-to-God monster. I’m drowning in the Fears, and I’ve not even gathered half of them yet. 

“Right. I mean, did you…stay yourself? Not that I’m suggesting you wanted to eat someone!” Martin added hastily as Jon shot him a look of utter insult. “I just mean…W-well, I was wondering how…how aware you were when you…I mean, you sort of…well you did hunt me…a bit, and I—” 

“I didn’t see any of that,” Jon said, practically whispering as his shame weighed down on his words. “To me, I was in a-a-a house. Quite a nice one. I thought…I thought I was killing a rodent that had got in. And that you were annoyed at me for it. You hid yourself away, and all I wanted was to find you.” 

“To…talk it out or…?” 

“Martin, I—” 

The repeated vow froze in Jon’s chest, blocked by a horrible realisation. 

Martin, I would never hurt you. 

But that flew contrary to the evidence. He’d hurt Martin plenty of times. He’d sought him out, bloodblind between the Hunt and the Slaughter and stricken with the mad notion of tearing him apart. Even without all that, he’d hurt Martin at the Panopticon. Leaving him that morning and setting off early. Dragging him across a hellscape to fix the world. Locking themselves up in the safehouse in Scotland. Leaving him alone at the Institute while they went off to prevent the Unknowing, which led to Martin being ensnared by Peter Lukas and the Lonely. 

Tears blurred Jon’s vision, but he heard Martin’s chair scrape across the floor. 

“Oh no. No, no, I know that look. If you ditch me here and try to finish this quest on your own, Jonathan Sims, I’ll hunt you down!” Martin promised, walking over to Jon’s side of the small table and squatting down. He put a hand on his shoulder and the other under Jon’s chin, tilting his head back. “Hey. I’m not an idiot, all right? I…I knew the risks. I know it’s not a fairy tale. I…I know you could hurt me. Hell, I could hurt you. We could all hurt each other, and…and all we can do is trust that the people we love wouldn’t do so if given the choice. Right?” 

“...Right…”

“And I’ll be flat honest with you – being possessed by the living embodiment of senseless killing and unending pursuit within five minutes of each other is a pretty good excuse for being a bit of a mad dickhead to me.”

“...Thanks…” 

But therein lay the problem. With each Fear he recollected, Jon’s already fragile sliver of humanity cracked further. The tiny pieces flitted between his fingers, snapped up by the hungry maw of the Dread Powers before he could catch it again. Not only was he going to continue to be a threat to Martin, but Martin would have to watch him lose himself again. Or be on the receiving end of it all. 

Jon swallowed and tried to steady himself, and he made an effort to fix his face so that it didn’t look like he was still considering every which way he could leave Martin somewhere relatively safe and finish the journey alone.

“You weren’t alone in the house,” Jon said suddenly, not quite to Martin and not entirely to himself either. “I-in my head, or whatever it was. You…you were shielding someone from me. I couldn’t figure out who it was though.” 

“Huh. What did he look like?” Martin asked, as though discussing imaginary people in Jon’s head were a completely acceptable topic of conversation. Which, Jon supposed, in the grand scheme of all they’d been through, it probably was.

“He was…short. Skinny. Hazel eyes. Wore glasses.” Jon fiddled with his own fingers as he recounted the cowering man that curled behind Martin. “Short dark hair. A lot of greys, though he didn’t look that old, to be honest with you. Wore a suit. Quite a nice one, actually, though he was…he was in bad shape.” 

Martin stared at Jon for a few seconds longer than was strictly comfortable. A pink tinge rose in his cheeks and across his nose. “Erm…right. And that didn’t seem at all familiar to you, no?” 

“A-a bit, but…” 

“Jon, you…you just described you.” 

Jon blinked at his partner, neither surprised nor alarmed at the answer given to him. It made sense, in hindsight. Martin was guarding a figment of Jon from the worst of Jon. Or, he supposed, what sad little messed-up fragment of his human self remained against his now more monstrous self. 

“Oh.” 

It was the only answer he could think of before he went back to looking at his own fingers. “Not quite me anymore though, eh?” Jon tried to laugh. “Christ, I…Feels like lifetimes ago since I looked like that, doesn’t it?” 

Martin smiled, then lifted a hand to stroke back some of Jon’s tangled hair from his face. “Maybe. But you’ve not changed that much, you know. Even if you seem hellbent on branding yourself a monster these days. I think you’re still the same bloke who nearly fired me three minutes into the job. Just…haven’t had a shave in a minute or two.” 

Liar, Jon thought. Even you admitted there couldn’t be much left of me at the Panopticon. Surely there’s even less now. 

As his thoughts trailed back to that god-awful time, the image of the bizarre creature Jon had seen at the ruins of the Panopticon weeks ago formed in his mind again. Was it still there? What was it? Some part of Jon knew it was him, but how? 

“Martin…what did I look like to you? Before, I mean,” he asked suddenly. 

Martin rocked back on his haunches and let his hand drop away from Jon’s hair. “Oh, erm…w-well, you…I mean, do you really want to know?”

Jon gave Martin a stern look, wordlessly prompting him to continue. 

“Okay, okay! You…You left me here in the break room, but I followed you out. You charged right at Lady Mowbray, and…and you sort of…stretched out? Everything was eyes, like, all crowding your arms and legs. A-and more limbs sort of grew out of you – arms, legs, even some kind of wings? A-and your head, it…” 

Martin stopped and shook his head. “Look, I don’t think you knowing this is really going to help anything.”

“Did…Did I look like that at the Panopticon too? When you…when you asked how much of me was even left? Did I look like…like a monster?” 

Martin swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat. “Erm…n-no. Not…No, Jon. You didn’t look like you, but…you didn’t look like that either. You were…I dunno, I guess seeing it now, you looked like something in-between? A lot of eyes. Sharper? I-I dunno, Jon, I wasn’t exactly trying to commit the worst day of my life to memory.”

“Right. No, right…Sorry, Martin, I…”

Jon sighed, and he pushed himself up to his feet and began pacing the small room, an anxious energy demanding to be burnt off one way or another. He ran his hands through his hair as he went, filtering through the memories he didn’t want and the horrors he couldn’t recall. “I just…I feel like I’m fighting a losing battle. I mean…What if you were right, Martin?” 

Jon threw a hand out in a vague gesture towards the window, where the Panopticon would once have been visible. “What if there wasn’t anything left of me when you caught up to me? If I was already gone then, then there’s certainly nothing left of me now. And as horrifying as it is to consider, the moment I stopped trying to cling to this notion of holding onto my humanity, I got rid of a monster who threatened to hunt and kill us for the last three days. Maybe…maybe this attempt on my part to stay human is the problem. I already lost it long ago, and I’m just too bloody stubborn to realise it.”

Martin straightened up then too, and he folded his arms across his chest, canting his head to the side as he listened to Jon tirade. “Right. Good points, bar two very important details.”

He unfolded his arms and held out two fingers, counting them off with his other hand. “Firstly, yes you did deal with Lady Mowbray, but you picked possibly the most terrifying and gruesome way to do it, and you then got Slaughter-Meets-Hunt-Drunk and chased me down for nearly twelve hours afterwards. So I’m really not voting in favour of you ditching your humanity and embracing the Eldritch monster life, Jon. Secondly, I actually don’t think you’re being stubborn enough. I-In fact, I think that’s half the problem here – I think you’ve given up on yourself, Jon. And that’s maybe the least-Jon-like thing you could do, which might go a long way to explaining why you’ve been feeling quite so…not-you lately.”

The two men shared a long look at each other, before Martin hastily added, “You know, several supernatural entities lurking under your skin notwithstanding.” 

Jon almost laughed. “What, you think I’m not helping myself enough? That I can, what, just refuse to let the ungodly powers festering within change me?” 

Martin shrugged, his bottom lip jutting a touch as he did so. “I mean…Jonathan Sims certainly wouldn’t. He’d just flat-out refuse to cooperate. Didn’t you spend a good chunk of your first year as the Head Archivist dismissing literal proof of supernatural encounters by any stubborn means necessary?”

“Y-yes, but that was—”

“Deeply weird and unhealthy to a certain extent, yes. But right now? I dunno. Maybe it’d help you to go back to your roots a bit. Just…stubborn your way through this a bit. Feel more like you again. Look, Jon, I genuinely think you might have focused so much on how to avoid becoming an Eldritch monster the last year or three that you’ve forgotten to focus on how to remain Jonathan Sims. Refuse to accept something you’re not 100% happy about! Be the stubborn prick in the face of all odds again!”

Jon’s expression fell flat at that. “Right, too far.”

Martin flinched back, pink prickling across his cheeks again. “Oop. Right. Sorry.” 

──── •✧• ────

While Martin insisted he needed to check his bag and their supplies again, Jon went and found the staff bathroom to clean up. He suspected Martin might well be doing the same, really – sneaking out into the main café to get rid of whatever remained of Lady Mowbray before they set off again. To save Jon the sight of what he’d done. 

Standing at the sink, Jon took a deep, steadying breath and looked in the mirror. 

A gaunt-faced, scarred man glared back at him. His own eyes, a brilliant and unnerving green, were accompanied by four more. On his left cheekbone, a dull black eye stared forwards; on his right jawline, a brown eye nestled in a bloody-veined sclera; on his right cheekbone, a brilliant red eye darted in search of a target; and on the flesh of his left cheek, an eye completely flooded with crimson, the iris and sclera blurring into one.

Muck and dried blood splattered the spaces between these unclosable eyes, his hair a long mess of greying tangles that fell well past his shoulders. 

Martin was right. He barely recognised himself anymore; even the human parts. 

He’d picked up a pair of scissors from the drawer in the staff break room before heading to the bathroom, making the most of the unlooted place. 

With no plan of attack, Jon grabbed a handful of hair and made rough cuts through it. He dropped the handful the moment it broke away, then he took hold of another load and began chopping away again. After a few minutes of this, the sink filled with knotted clumps of black and grey hair, and Jon’s reflection shifted a little closer to what he recognised. 

He pocketed the scissors – Martin would no doubt want to make the most of this treasure trove of a place before they left anyway – and ran a hand through his now-short hair. Tiny dustings of cut hair sprinkled down to his shoulders and across his forehead, but he didn’t care. He even managed a tiny smile before brushing himself off, dumping as much of his hair from the sink into the bin, and then running the tap and making a start washing his face and hair as best he could in the cold water. Then, with great difficulty, he shaved his stubble away with the sharpest knife he could find in the staff kitchenette, though he ended up with several tiny cuts along his jaw for the effort. 

Still, satisfied that he looked a bit cleaner, Jon left the bathroom and headed back to the staff break room. Martin was still out in the café, so Jon busied himself with raiding the drawers for anything that might be useful on their journey. 

He grabbed a few knives and forks, the bottles of water from the fridge (though the food in there had long since gone rotten), and the sachets of condiments from the cupboard. He even found a few tins of beans and packets of noodles, along with some coffee pods that he figured even Martin might resort to if his stolen stash of O.I.A.R. teabags ran out. 

Jon was piling his findings upon the table when Martin returned. 

“Before you turn around, don’t freak out,” Martin said as Jon turned to face him. “I have a plan and— Oh! You cut your hair! And shaved!” 

“Yes, I—Jesus Christ, Martin, what are you doing with that?” 

Martin had pushed the door open with his shoulder, because his arms were full with the limp body of Alfred Grifter. 

“I said not to freak out!” Martin said, and he dumped the body on top of the table, sending Jon’s cutlery and water bottle pile clattering around. “Look! Plan is…we take him to Ink5oul. Maybe we can offer them a trade – the body of an Avatar of the Slaughter in return for Elias.” 

──── •✧• ────

Chapter Text

While Jon had been fully prepared to break into Ink5oul’s tattoo parlour all over again, emboldened as he was by the return of two further Fears, Martin had other plans. 

“They’re expecting us at 11:00,” Martin had told him while getting ready that morning and preparing to leave the bloody café. 

“What?” Jon, mid-way through pulling his socks on, had almost toppled over. 

“By appointment only, remember? So I made an appointment.” 

So it was that the two men set off for Ink5oul’s parlour, perfectly expected and entirely respectable save for the corpse Martin hauled along with them. 

The little bell above the door chimed as they entered, and Jon sat himself down on one of the two black chairs he’d spotted during their first visit. Martin claimed the other, leaving Alfred Grifter sitting up against the wall next to him. 

Jon pulled a face. 

“Did you have to sit him up?”

“Well where else am I meant to put him?”

“I don’t know, lie him down or something!” 

“You know I’ll probably trip over him if I do that.” 

“Martin, the majority of his skull has been blown off, I doubt he’s all too concerned about—” 

Their bickering came to an abrupt halt as the commanding thud of boots sounded from the stairway. 

“Are you my eleven-o-clock lot?” 

The tattooist themselves strolled down the stairs, pulling latex gloves off their hands as they went and chucking them into the bin in the corner with an impressive overarm throw. Ink5oul, average in height and looks, had evidently taken it upon themselves to add as much as they could to themselves in order to have a chance at standing out at all in a crowd. Almost every inch of their exposed skin sported tattoos, the most dominant being the floral snake that Jon had seen before during his eavesdropping. Their hair was shaved on one side, the other side kept knotted and long, with countless pieces of metal crowding their ears and face. Though their hair covered their right eye, the left had a white contact lens that moved ever so slightly slower than their eyeball did. 

They looked Jon up and down, then snorted. 

“I’m gonna guess the ink’s not for you. For your—” 

Their judgement came to a halt as they spotted the third visitor sitting on the floor next to Martin’s chair. “Fucking hell, why’d you bring that with you?” 

Jon had been about to speak when Martin got to his feet and cleared his throat. 

“We’re not here for a tattoo. We’re here for your other business,” Martin declared. He then lowered his voice and added, “You know. The one Lady Mowbray helps you with.” 

Jon groaned and ran a hand over his face. Someone, Martin managed to act completely out of his depth despite having endured the literal end of the world. He seemed intent on acting like this was some great thriller movie, and were they in any more danger than was normal, Jon might have scolded him for it. 

Ink5oul, however, looked alarmed. “How did you—oh. Oh.” 

They turned back to Jon, the realisation of having dismissed him too quickly dawning on their face. “Shiiiiiit. It’s you! You scrub up different without the hair and beard,” they said, bending at the hip to get a closer look. “Oh man, are you sure you don’t want a piece? I could do a dope impressionist piece of that tower of yours all up your spine. It’d open your mind up like nothing, I promise you.” 

“I’m quite sure,” Jon replied, sitting up a little straighter. Even if he had wanted a tattoo, he wasn’t all too keen on letting an Avatar or External near his skin again. “As Martin says, we’re not here for your art. We’re here to trade.”

Ink5oul straightened back up, a low whistle escaping their pursed lips. “Yeah, yeah. Problem is, I don’t need your shit. I got the best body-gatherer this side of the ocean, haven’t I? And she doesn’t ask me to trade for ‘em. I help her out by clearing them away for her.”

The tattooist jerked their head towards Grifter’s corpse. “You got no idea what that’s gonna be bringing to your doorstep if you keep lugging it around. But me? I’m special. I scare off the creepy crawlies that come looking for a bite of dead flesh.” 

They grinned, pierced lips spreading back to frame yellow-stained teeth. “So unless you’ve got me a better deal than Lady M, you can piss merrily off.” 

“As a matter of fact” – Jon stood up and straightened his jacket – “I do have a better offer than Lady Mowbray.” 

It was a risk, but for the briefest second, Jon let the Hunt snarl through his blood, changing his own eyes as red as the one it had set upon his right cheekbone. Every muscle in his body tensed, the thrill of the chase pounding through his chest, but he wrestled the impulse down. “I’m alive and can do business with you. Lady Mowbray is not.” 

Ink5oul stared Jon down, but the briefest flicker of concern that twitched over their face gave way to a strangely familiar smirk. “Well, well, well. You do your old boss proud, Archivist.” 

They stepped back from Jon and nodded over at Martin, putting their hands on their hips and shifting their weight to one foot. “Right, fine. So. What have you got and what do you want?” 

A little ruffled by Jon stealing his thunder, Martin shot him a glare before clearing his throat and stepping back to gesture at the mangled form of Alfred Grifter. “This is…or was…Alfred Grifter, of Grifter’s Bone fame. O-or infamy, I suppose. A-a-anyway, he was an Avatar of the Slaughter until Lady Mowbray showed up. Used to play music so beautiful that people tore each other’s ears off.”

“Tore their own ears off, Martin,” Jon corrected him. That earned him another scowl. 

“Yeah, all right, details. Point is, this one’s a really old Avatar. Been around ages. And we’ll let you have him for all your spooky corpse-inspecting needs in exchange for one of yours.” 

Ink5oul had strayed closer to Grifter’s body while Martin regaled them with the details of the former Avatar’s past. A sparkle that couldn’t be dulled by the contact lens ignited in their visible eye, and Jon knew they had caught the artist’s attention. “Jesus Christ, she took his head off again. Kept telling her not to fucking do that! Still, there’s probably plenty left I could work with…and, what, you want one of my old corpses for it?” 

The smoothness of the transaction set Jon’s nerves on edge. Something would go wrong. Something always did. He caught Martin’s eye, and from the way the other man’s jaw set, he could tell that the same thought had crossed his mind too. 

“Yes. A fair trade, no?” Jon said. He’d apologise to Martin for taking over the transaction later. Right now, he wanted to make sure that they used every bit of leverage they had over Ink5oul. 

Ink5oul finished their inspection of Grifter’s corpse, straightened up, and arched their back, letting the vertebrae click. They clucked their tongue a few times, then turned and beckoned them up the stairs. 

“Yeah, I’d say so. Come on, then. Come see what’s in stock!” They snickered after that, then disappeared from view up the stairs. 

Jon watched after them for a while, until the sound of Martin hauling Grifter’s body over his shoulder snapped his attention away. 

“Something’s gonna go wrong,” Martin grumbled as he passed by Jon and started his careful ascent of the stairs. 

Jon followed after him, silently praying his partner was wrong in his pessimism. But he kept several additional eyes open all the same, in part to remind Ink5oul who and what he was. 

Upstairs appeared to function as Ink5oul’s main studio, and just as much disarray featured there ad down in the waiting room. A few rickety trolleys held a number of medical-looking instruments, and while their uncleanliness could be put down to the struggles of a post-apocalyptic world, Jon got the sense that Ink5oul had always worked like this. Indeed, the External wandered around their den with ease. They shoved a rather mangled corpse off one battered old examination table, and it dropped to the floor with a heavy squelch. 

“Chuck him on there,” they ordered, pointing for Martin to deposit Grifter’s corpse in the newly made space. Meanwhile, they ferreted in their pocket and drew out a large keyring fastened with a chain to their belt band. “Nice. Right, let’s see who you’re trading for, eh?” 

“Actually, we already had a person in mind.” Jon stopped pretending to examine one of the rusty workbenches. He clasped both hands behind his back and looked down his nose at Ink5oul. “A former colleague of ours at the Institute. Elias Bouchard.” 

He was vaguely aware of Martin’s jaw dropping, no doubt alarmed at the brazen move. But Martin didn’t know what Jon knew. 

The Archive smirked and canted his head to the side. “But you already knew that, didn’t you, Jonah?” 

Ink5oul stared at Jon for a long while, their one visible eye narrowing just enough to confirm Jon’s suspicions. 

“...Nah. The old man’s not got a hold of me,” Ink5oul said around a growing smile. They lifted one hand to push the longer side of their hair away from their face and reveal their other eye.

Martin gagged and turned away, but Jon remained where he was. Ink5oul’s hidden eye, now shown, glowered out from a mess of crusty scabs, dribbling pus, and red-raw flesh. But the swollen, infected skin couldn’t hide the sharp, cold, jade-green stare of Jonah Magnus. 

The External huffed and folded their arms again. “Not my finest work, I’ll give you that. Making art on flesh is easy, but making art from flesh is new territory for me. I take it you saw my prototype?” 

“You mean Gwendolyn?” 

“Now that was a thing of beauty. Took to her like a duck to water, didn’t it?” Ink5oul grinned. 

But Jon scoffed and mirrored their stance by crossing his arms too, shifting his weight to his other foot. “Hardly. You butchered her, and frankly, you’ve made an even worse job on yourself. And for what?” 

“Little Gwen told me everything, didn’t she? Uncle Elias had powers, powers that were rightfully hers. Ha! Nah. She’s not special. Not like me.” Ink5oul opened their arms out wide. “I mean, look at me. I can keep that stuffy old shit in check. He just grumbles away in my head, but the best part? I can still tap into his creepy tricks.”

A cold scoff of disbelief heralded a smirk of Jon’s own. “If you can still tap into his creepy tricks, Ink5oul, then I daresay you’ve made a terrible mistake. Jonah Magnus is many things, but another’s lapdog is not one of them. You’re not keeping him at bay – he just doesn’t think you’re deserving enough to be a vessel of his.” 

Ink5oul’s face contorted, their self-assured smile shattering in an instant. Their arms dropped to their sides, and they balled their hands into fists. “How does that make sense? If he had a choice in any of it, he’d not let me use his abilities, fucknut.” 

“Let me guess,” Jon retorted coolly. “You could See me. Track my movements. Maybe even a little more from around…two or three weeks ago? Right when his other eye got trapped by the Buried suffocating his host. But as of a few days ago, you’re back to only being able to See me. You were probably even aware that I was in the reception area the first time we visited your parlour. Did you leave me be because you were unconcerned? Or because the old man in your head told you to?” 

Ink5oul’s jaw clenched, a sliver of yellowish teeth peeking from behind snarling lips. Jon took that as confirmation of his theory. 

He began strolling across the room, taking in as much detail as he could. Jonah was on his last life, that much was certain. Stuck in a vessel that he didn’t choose. One that wasn’t truly suited to him or his abilities. Of course, the idea that he was keeping tabs on Jon was hardly a leap of logic – Jonah had used Jon to his own immense gain plenty of times in the past. Keeping Ink5oul from confronting Jon directly had, very likely, been a simple survival tactic. Jon had killed Jonah twice now after all. 

Then why entertain the notion now? Jon thought. 

Jon jerked his head in a sharp nodding motion towards Ink5oul. “What’s he saying to you now?” 

Once again Ink5oul remained silent. But Jon had moved far beyond worrying over when and where to exercise his own powers. 

He closed the gap between himself and the tattooist in three strides, drawing close enough that the two of them were almost nose to nose. “T̸e̵l̷l̷ ̴m̵e̸ ̷w̸h̷a̶t̵ ̸J̵o̷n̶a̶h̵ ̴M̵a̸g̴n̷u̶s̶ ̶i̷s̷ ̶s̴a̴y̸i̷n̶g̷ ̸t̶o̵ ̶y̷o̸u̴ ̵r̸i̴g̷h̶t̶ ̴n̸o̸w̸,” he commanded, his words ribboned with resonating Compulsion.

“He…told me not to greet you. T-to leave you downstairs and get on with my work. That we’d face you once I had succeeded, not before. I-I told him to go fuck himself, ‘cause this is the second time you’ve come sniffing at my door,” Ink5oul growled. “And I was gonna find out why.” 

“Succeeded in what?” Jon asked. Just as he did so, Martin’s voice sounded from a side room.

“Ah, Jon? You…You might want to see this,” he called. 

Jon, startled that Martin had managed to wander off without either himself or Ink5oul noticing, jumped. Ink5oul seemed equally shocked, but the surprise on their face shifted to irritation as they spotted the door left ajar across the other side of the room. 

They stomped over, knocking a chair out of their way with a loud crash. “Oi! What the fuck are you doing? I didn’t say you could snoop around my stuff!” 

As Ink5oul got to the door, however, Martin appeared in the doorframe. He stood up to his full height, bearing down on the tattoo artist with more confidence than Jon had ever seen in the other man. Or, perhaps it wasn’t confidence – Martin’s expression was rigid with disapproval. 

“You need their eyes,” he said, his voice dangerously level as he advanced upon Ink5oul, who backed away in slow steps. “That’s why you got annoyed at Lady Mowbray for bringing you headless corpses! For blowing Grifter’s head off! You want their eyes!” 

“‘Course I want their eyes. What’s it to you?” Ink5oul snarled back, though they kept cowering back as Martin continued pacing towards them. “Look. You brought me a corpse. I can use it for other work. You want your trade? Take it and go!” 

“Martin?” Jon turned his attention from the open door behind his partner to Martin himself. “What is it?”

Martin pointed at Ink5oul, his whole body shaking with rage. “They’re tattooing the eyeballs of the corpses they get! All these strange symbols and…and the irises. They’re turning green, Jon! One of them even swivelled on the table on its own to look at me!” 

Ink5oul, now outed before the Archive itself, began to back away from them both. “Look – just shut the fuck up a second! Not you, erm, listen…the eyeball thing? It’s…it’s not even really my gig, right? How about this? You wanted Elias’ corpse, yeah? Take it. Free of charge. And then we’re good, yeah?” 

“We are most certainly not good, Ink5oul,” Jon snapped. “You’re a sharp person. You know why we wanted Elias’ corpse.” He raised an eyebrow and looked pointedly at Ink5oul’s – no, Jonah’s – mangled eye. “Worse, you’re trying to, what, make replicas of Jonah’s eyes?” 

“N-no! Not me! Well, yeah, okay, I’m making them, but he’s asking me to! Look, I’ll stop. He’s not even giving me that much in return – the fuck you are!” Ink5oul kept hissing off to the side, their conversation with Jonah spilling out of their head. “I didn’t even want to get this deep in on all this! I’m happy in my sandpit; I tattoo people. I make their flesh follow the art. I don’t…I’m not into all this sculpting flesh bollocks. Trying to make him new eyes. Not my thing. I couldn’t even do it when I implanted his eye to start with! I only got it later when—” 

“When I released the Fears. The Flesh,” Jon muttered as two more pieces of the puzzle slid together in his head. Jonah had, once again, pulled the strings above him, orchestrating the release of the Fears from one vessel and catching the one he needed for his failsafe plan in another. “You’re its new host.” 

“Erm…” Ink5oul’s bravado had crumbled to ashes now, and to their dismay, they’d run out of room to back away into. The wall hit their back, and they let out a nervous chuckle. “O-okay. Let’s…let’s trade, then. The corpse for this eye! Then you can destroy it!” 

“The Flesh for your life,” Jon countered, though he had to steel himself to ignore Martin’s quiet plea behind him. “That’s my trade.”

“Wh—H-hang on. You…The Flesh? You…You’re gonna, what, yank it out of me?” Ink5oul had gone quite pale by now, their tattoos now so stark that Jon could have sworn the floral snake began to move, slithering around their neck ready to tighten. No. It had moved. Ink crawling over skin and taking form. 

Their flesh followed the art. And the Flesh itself could sense the trap closing in on its new host. 

“You’re going to give it to me,” Jon said softly. “Before the Flesh kills you to flee from me.” 

Ink5oul frowned, but the question that moved their lips tripped on a strangled breath. The floral snake tattoo wrapped around their windpipe and constricted with a loud crunch. 

──── •✧• ────

Chapter Text

Like an oasis in a storm of chaos, the front door of Martin’s house closed off the outside world and several months of madness. When they turned the lock and shut out the noise, Jon almost bent over laughing. 

What were they doing? Coming home after a long business trip of rounding up eldritch forces, sticking the kettle on, and watching some crap television? 

“Nice to be able to come back here, isn’t it?” Martin said, tossing his keys into a glass trinket dish on the side table in the hall. “I mean, we’re probably about as safe here as we are with the Wardens or at the O.I.A.R., and I don’t know about you, but even with their tea supply, I don’t think I’d want to sleep at the—Oh, Jon.”

Jon sniffed and quickly swiped his hand over his face, hoping that he might be able to convince Martin that he hadn’t seen any tears. 

“Hmm? Oh, it’s nothing. Don’t worry.”

But Martin wasn’t having any of it. With his hands on Jon’s shoulders, he guided the living Archive over to the small floral sofa in the living room, then sat both of them down upon it. 

“You know I will,” Martin said curtly. “Come on. Talk to me. These last few months have been…”

“Horrible? Awful, but we got through it? Martin…all we’ve had is awfulness and…death and blood and worse.” Jon sighed, but he let himself flop to the side so that his head rested on Martin’s shoulder. “All I’ve given you is—”

“Nope. Not going down that road again.” Martin cut him off with a sharpness that refused to accept any rebuttal, but he did rub small, soothing circles over Jon’s back. “You didn’t set out to cause any of this, Jon. And we’re making progress! How many is it now?” 

“Seven. The Eye, the Lonely, the End, the Buried, the Slaughter, the Hunt, and…” 

Jon winced, trying not to think about the most recent addition to his unwanted collection. 

The Flesh. Now bound in his body and watching the world through a new eye on the lower edge of his left jaw – a bone-yellow iris settled within a bloodshot sclera. 

Martin drew his arm up from Jon’s lower back, sliding it around his waist and pulling him into a one-armed hug. “Yeah. Yeah, that one’s still a bit raw, I guess.”

“They’re not sentient. Other than the Web, really. And maybe the End. But it…The Flesh actively tried to kill Ink5oul,” Jon said, all too aware that he was doing a terrible job of not falling into a vicious whirlpool of speculation and questioning. “The tattoo, it tried to throttle them. And why? What happens if a host dies before I can reach them, Martin? I…I knew we had a timer on this, but now…” 

“You always said trying to think about the Fears in human terms would be daft,” Martin said, still cuddling Jon to his side. “So maybe that includes writing them off as sentient or non-sentient? And, well, maybe it wasn’t even thinking when it did that. Maybe it was…I dunno, a defence mechanism. If it sensed its host was about to get smited or something.”

“I wasn’t going to smite them,” Jon said. “I don’t think I even can anymore. The world is too—”

“Normal?” Martin smiled a little, then gave Jon a shake. “See? Improving all the time!” 

But Jon remained locked in his deathspiral of thoughts and theories. “Maybe you’re onto something with the defence mechanism idea though. Was it trying to flee Ink5oul? I-I think…I think it wanted to come back to me. Are they all waiting for me? Urging their hosts to relinquish them when I arrive?”

“Does it matter if we know or not?” Martin asked. “I mean, it made Ink5oul give up the Flesh and Jonah’s eye to you in the end, and I stomped on every other eyeball that dickhead could ever even think of coming back through, so…that's a win, right? And it’s not going to change our plan either. We’re going to gather them up and hold them with us while we figure out a way to get rid of them for good.” 

Jon’s stomach dropped cold at the notion. Not that he didn’t want to be rid of the Fears, of course, but the idea that somewhere at the end of this long journey, he would have to let Martin down again. Because he knew they would never find a way to destroy the Fears. As awful as they were, they were as fundamental to human existence as air. 

He was about to make a vague comment to allude to that, to prepare Martin for entertaining the notion that their happy ending might not be so easy to achieve, when a knock at the door ended their conversation with an abrupt pulse of panic. 

“Please tell me you ordered takeaway,” Jon groaned, already knowing for a fact that Martin didn’t and couldn’t have anyway. Even the most resilient food supply networks had yet to bounce back, let alone any businesses that relied upon them. 

“Stay here.” Martin got up and headed to the window, craning his neck to try to see who was at the door. Failing that, he headed to the front door, muttering under his breath all the way. 

With the chain still firmly on the door, Jon heard the hinge creak open. He stayed where he was, sitting on the sofa with his back so straight that it almost arched inwards, straining to hear the conversation in the hallway. 

“Hi, erm, Martin, right?”

“Yeah…oh! Jordan? Oh, wow, I’m…erm, how are you?”

“Good, yeah. Listen, sorry for showing up unannounced, I just wondered if, erm, if Jonathan’s with you still?” 

The sharp smell of vinegar or rotting fruit, oddly familiar, cut into Jon’s nostrils just as he recalled the name – Jordan Kennedy. The exterminator that had dealt with Amhurst’s ants, tried to tackle the wasp’s nest in Prentiss’ attic, and later, burnt her body at the behest of the Institute. The last Jon had seen of him, the man had turned his ire upon him as he tried to make sense of his new standing in the ruined world as an Avatar of the Corruption. 

“No, he…he isn’t.” Martin performed the act of a mourning partner a touch too well for Jon’s comfort, the pause accented with an almost imperceptible swallowed sob. The door creaked, likely from Martin leaning against it. “Have you tried the O.I.A.R.? The, erm, Office for…Incident Assessment and Response, yeah, that’s it. It’s not far from here – I think they were tracking down some of the key players from, you know, all that.” 

Jon almost got to his feet in protest. Martin must have forgotten that Jordan had previously been captured by the O.I.A.R. Had he escaped? Would Martin’s suggestion insult him, rile up anger? And then what? 

He crept closer to the doorway that separated the living room from the hall and listened in closer. The cutting scent of vinegar grew stronger as he went, making Jon wrinkle his nose. The smell got right under his skin, making it crawl. He scratched at the back of his leg to try to dismiss the sensation, but his focus remained entirely on the muffled conversation. 

“Yeah, I’m actually on their payroll now. Sort of,” Jordan said, his tone now much colder. “Some of us end up in boxes, others end up working for them as External staff. See you’ve flown under their radar till now though.”

“Yeah, well, sort of my specialty. Going unnoticed and stuff,” Martin replied, and once again, the door creaked. Jon wondered if he was slowly closing it to try to hint to Jordan that he wanted the conversation to end. He could easily watch, of course – he could use his abilities to See it all – but somehow, that felt like a betrayal to Martin. Traditional eavesdropping seemed more forgivable in this instance. 

He itched his back, then leant in closer. 

“Huh. Sorry to ruin your streak. See, I was asked to keep tabs on an External that has a history of being a bit out of line. They’d been gathering up so many corpses for some unrecorded project that a couple of…people like me started getting drawn to the area.” 

Guilt fastened itself to Jon’s heart and dropped it straight to the icy depths of his stomach at how Jordan said “people like me”. With distaste. With disgust. With anger. 

“What, Gwen’s got you checking on corpse collections? Well, none here for you, I’m afraid,” Martin replied, almost jovially, but Jon heard the confusion in his voice. Gwen most definitely had not sent Jordan out to investigate Ink5oul and their corpse projects – until recently, Gwen had been in the thrall of Jonah Magnus, who had very much wanted Ink5oul to work undisturbed given he’d also been in their eye socket too. 

“Nah, not Gwen…Listen, it’s fine. But you might want to take a shower. I can smell the rot on you,” Jordan said. “I won’t mention it in my report. Got enough to write about as it is…”

“O-Oh, erm…right you are!” Martin replied. “Well, thanks for dropping by—”

“Wait.” 

Silence settled over them then. Jon drew closer to the door, trying to peer through the gap without being spotted. The smell was almost overwhelming now, along with a tickling itch down his legs and up his back that got worse by the second. 

“...My friends say you’ve got company, Martin,” Jordan said. 

As soon as Jordan said that, the tickling itch tore across Jon’s skin like a striking match. His concentration broke, and for the first time, he looked away from the door and down at himself. 

Thousands upon thousands of tiny ants pooled at his feet, marching in threads under the door and up Jon’s legs, crawling under his trousers and over his skin, heading up his spine. When Jordan mentioned company, every ant that had made its way onto Jon bit down in unison. 

The Archive let out a cry of pain and disgust. He leapt back from the door, swatting at the little creatures and making a frantic effort to yank his shirt over his head to get them off him. He bolted for the kitchen and turned the tap on, gathering cupped palmfuls of water in his shaking hands and desperately throwing it over his back arms in an attempt to flush the ants off his skin. 

Of course, by now, their cover was blown. A brief commotion rumbled in the hallway, and then, the living room door flew open. Jordan almost fell into the room, pulling his arm from Martin’s grip and managing to balance himself at the last moment. He looked around, then quickly spotted Jon through the archway that led to the kitchen. 

Shorter than Martin but taller than Jon, at first glance, Jordan appeared unremarkable in many ways. He wore his brown hair cropped and neat, kept his clothes plain and clean, and for all intents and purposes seemed keen on not giving any hint of his alignment to the Fears away. In fact, Jon was quite certain that without his connection to the Eye, he wouldn’t have noticed how Jordan’s skin rippled ever so slightly, as though something scuttled over his bones and muscles. 

“Jonathan Sims,” Jordan said under his breath. 

Martin made to grab him again, but Jordan darted away with fluid ease. “Wait! I’m…I’m not going to hurt him. I promise,” he said, holding his hands up. “I…I just want to talk. We didn’t get much chance to before. After you…” 

“After I made you an Avatar? After I saved you from endless torture?” Jon, who was still swiping ants off himself, found his sympathy for Jordan shrivelling. “Tell your little friends to stop biting me, and you might get a decent conversation out of me!” 

Jordan nodded once, and en masse the ants stopped pestering Jon. They scurried down his back and his legs, raining out of the bottom of his trousers, and hurried back to their master. Once they reached Jordan, they crawled over his feet and up his legs, disappearing from view under his trouser legs in turn. 

“I figured Martin would hide you.” Jordan took one step closer to Jon, then checked over his shoulder to see if Martin would allow it. Martin narrowed his eyes, still half-hunched and ready to tackle Jordan, but otherwise didn’t intervene. 

With a small smile of appreciation, Jordan continued. “It’s all right. I get it. But, actually, the saving me from endless torture thing? That’s actually what I wanted to talk to you about, Jonathan. I…In the ant hill, all that was happening, I didn’t exactly give you the best response at the time for what you did to me.” 

Jon stomped across the kitchen to snatch up a tea towel and start drying his arms and torso off. “Yes. Well. The circumstances were hardly favourable. I wasn’t upset at the lack of gratitude, and I…I understood the turmoil. You really didn’t have to seek me out to explain yourself or apologise, Jordan.” 

“Oh, I agree.” By now, Jordan was at the archway leading to the kitchen. He leant against one side of it, watching Jon carefully. “I’m not here to apologise for how I responded. I’m here ‘cause frankly…I think I let you get off too lightly.” 

Though he spoke with all the lightness of someone commenting on the weather, the mood darkened in an instant. Martin, who had managed to creep into the living room properly now, caught Jon’s eye over Jordan’s shoulder, caution sparking. 

“You do, do you?” Jon shrugged his shirt back on and began buttoning it up. “You’d have preferred it if I’d left you to the ants? To be a victim of eternal torture?” 

“Well that’s just it, mate.” Jordan shoved himself up from the wall and gestured around himself with open palms. “Endless? Nah. It ended. In fact, if you had left me in that ant hill – if you hadn’t turned me into a freak – then right now, I’d be back to normal. Surviving, yeah, like the rest of us. But normal. Human. Still me. But I’m not. The only thing endless about all this, Jonathan, is what you did to me.” 

Jon, fastening the top button on his shirt, froze. 

All rebuttals died in his throat, all cutting remarks dulled behind his clenched teeth. 

Because he was right. 

If he had just left well enough alone, if he’d told Jordan they were looking for a way to bring the global torment to an end, then he’d have survived. Spat out by the horrors into a world of scars and struggles, true, but…but human still. Alive. Himself. 

“We…we weren’t certain that it could end, Jordan. Yes, we hoped but…but…but the chances were so slim. A-and you were suffering, you—”

“Bullshit.” Despite the venom, Jordan remained standing on the threshold between the living room and the kitchen. Part of his cheek shifted, several little lumps rising and settling beneath. “You and Martin were looking for a way. That was something, at least. You should have left me as I was until you knew for certain that you couldn’t end it. That there was no other way for me!” 

“I might not have been able to find you again by then!” Jon strode towards Jordan, but the Avatar backed away, one hand up in warning. That same open palm clenched, turning into an accusing finger pointed right at Jon. 

“You can see everything. You could have found me again. I could have endured it. You…you didn’t even ask me, Jonathan! You took my choice in the matter!” 

A flood of cold guilt doused Jon’s irritation. He could argue his point, justify his reasoning, but he couldn’t pick apart Jordan’s side of things either. 

“Jordan…I-I’m…I’m sorry. Truly, I am. And…And I’ll do what I can to reverse it. Right now, Martin and I, we’re on another mission, of sorts. By the end of it, I may be able to change your lot in life. I might be in a position to sever you from the Corruption.” 

Jordan scoffed, throwing his hands up and turning away to pace through the living room. “You think it’ll be that easy? This chain you wrapped around my neck, it’s never been thicker. Stronger.” 

Jon’s brow furrowed. Once again, the sense of pieces falling into place clicked through his mind. That sharp scent that had arrived when Jordan had – he’d never noticed it before on the man. Not on Prentiss or in the ant hills. The familiarity hadn’t come from them. 

It had come from himself. From the short time that he’d trapped the Corruption within him, along with the other Fears, refusing to let them escape to new realities. 

It wasn’t the ants. It was Jordan. It was the Corruption itself. 

Jon lit up, and with new hope that he could start to make this right, he darted into the living room. “I can help with that! Right now! I-I can take the Corruption from you! It won’t stop you being one of its Avatars, but it might make it less…intense for you. And then, once I’ve figured this all out, Jordan, I swear to you, I’ll come and find you and do everything I can to change you back. I’ll make this right.” 

Jordan stopped his pacing, mid-way through running his hands through his hair. A hollow laugh shook his body, and he wandered to the window. 

“Yeah…Yeah, I think you will make this right,” he said, his words strangled with unshed sobs. “See, the report I had. It meant I had a little run-in with someone sort of like me. Ink5oul, I think they called themselves? Pretty pissed at you two, I have to say. Anyway, they said they’d give me something useful if I agreed to ‘tidy up’ some of the details in my report to the O.I.A.R. about their little corpse collection. What they were using them for.” 

The Avatar shrugged and rested his head against the window. “Figured Alice wouldn’t mind that much, so why not. And man, Ink5oul paid up. Said I looked miserable. That I stank of rot and despair. Said I could…be rid of it. Give it up, if I wanted. Give it to the Archive. Said they’d had to do it themselves not a few ago with you.”  

Jordan moved away from the window, watching his own hand with acute interest. Ants marched around his palm and around the back like black-brown threads, between his fingers and down his wrist. “That’d go a small way to making it right.” 

“Fine. Fine. I can do that.” Jon extended a hand, as though to offer a handshake to Jordan, a deal well struck. “Give me the Corruption, Jordan.” 

But Jordan flicked his gaze at Jon, a dark greenish-yellow glow thrumming from within his irises. “It’d go a small way to making it right…but not much towards making me feel better. But this might.” 

Jordan moved too quickly for Jon to react. He lunged to the side, clamping his ant-swarmed palm over Martin’s face. 

The army of ants swarmed, charging from Jordan to Martin, covering every inch of his face and panicked eyes in seconds with a writhing black-brown blanket of tiny legs and biting mandibles. 

Martin’s muffled cry mingled with Jon’s yell of anger. But by the time he’d pried Jordan from his partner and thrown him aside, the ants had burrowed their way into Martin’s eyes, his nose, his mouth and ears. 

Driven to his knees, Martin coughed and spluttered, clawing at his throat and scratching at his skin in violent, desperate bursts. 

“Martin! Jesus, Martin!” Jon fell to his knees, hands hovering over Martin’s shoulders and arms, unsure of what he could do to help. “Oh God…Martin!” 

In the chaos, Jordan clambered to his feet and bolted for the door. He fled from the building, free of the Corruption and sated in his revenge. 

──── •✧• ────

Chapter Text

Over the next few days, Jon spent as much time looking after Martin as he had fretting over the consequences of his partner’s unexpected new companion. Martin, to his knowledge, had only ever been marked by the Lonely and, perhaps, the Eye. But the Corruption? 

“Makes sense, actually,” Martin had mumbled from his bed as Jon folded another cold compress onto his forehead. “I was locked in my house for ages because of Prentiss. I survived an encounter with the Corruption, right? That’s a mark, isn’t it? Even if it’s not visible.” 

“Maybe,” Jon had muttered back, his brow fixed in an ever-deepening frown. 

Maybe he’s right. And even if it did require a physical mark, Martin had his fair share of scars from Prentiss’ damn worms. Not nearly as many as Jon and Tim had gathered that day, but several of the little parasites had still managed to take bites out of Martin’s arms and legs. 

Was that all the Fears needed? A host marked in some way? Was that enough to make someone a potential vessel? Were some comfier than others, though – some better suited to the task? 

Every time he felt himself drift off into waves of questions that didn’t concern how to make Martin feel better, however, Jon snapped back with a pang of guilt and doubled his fussing of the man. 

It was no great surprise then when, six days into this coddling, Martin finally swatted Jon’s hand away from his forehead. 

“Look,” he said, “I know it’s not ideal. I do. But…I think this might be good for you. Not having to carry them all in your head. The Hunt made a real mess of you. I think…the longer we can give you to settle with the six you already have, the better.” 

“It doesn’t work like that, Martin,” Jon said, now soothing himself by retucking Martin’s blankets around him for the third time that hour. The lingering fog that often coiled around Martin had seeped into the quilt and now bloomed as white-grey mould that broke into spores every time one of them moved the blankets. “The Corruption is feeding. Either on your fear or mine, it’s…it’s enjoying itself. Growing stronger. Whether you give it over to me now or later, I’m going to have to wrestle with it at some point.”

Because you’re not bloody keeping it, he thought to himself. Out of the question. 

Martin sighed in defeat and pushed himself deeper into his mould-bitten pillows; that he hadn’t bothered to argue the toss much more only proved how ill the Corruption was making him. 

“Yeah, yeah…” He conceded, then craned his neck to get a look at the dying light of the day. “You, erm…you sensed any more nearby, then?”

Martin was flipping the subject away from an argument he didn’t have the energy to fight, but Jon found he was more than happy to let that happen. 

“Yes, as a matter of fact, there is,” he admitted, sitting back on his chair by Martin’s bedside and trying to quietly brush his hands off on his trouser legs. “Everything with Ink5oul and Jordan must have caused quite a commotion. Or perhaps the Fears can sense me just as I can See them. Maybe they’re like parasites—”

The image of Jake Delrin’s shuffling gait flashed in Jon’s mind. 

“—like hosts infected with the lancet liver fluke—”

Recollections of Jake’s jerking arms as plumes of black tape ribboned out from his chest cavity.

“—compelling their hosts to make a pilgrimage for the parasite’s benefit—”

Jonah had inserted knowledge into poor Jake’s mind like a writhing maggot; an order biting into his psyche and marching his body to his doom.

“—even if it kills them.”

He had done the same to Jon, in a way. The letter. A command whispered in ink that forced Jon’s mouth to move, to form the words of the ritual and summon the Fears against his will. Was that parasite still in his head? 

Jon shuddered. No. Best not to entertain that thought. Besides, Jonah Magnus was dead and mostly gone. 

“You still think the Fears want to get back to you?” Martin asked. 

“I do. They may not have sentience the way you and I do, but I believe they recognise comfort. Or, perhaps a better way to put it is ease.” Jon turned to look out the window too, watching as the falling sun painted the sky with reds and oranges. “You know, Elias – Jonah, that is – once told me that the title of the Archivist is a misnomer. I don’t tend to the records or maintain them. I am them. I am the record. The statements, the experiences, I don’t write them down, and while, yes, I used to record them on tape, the real record was…me. My burns and my scars and my…suffering. My memory of it all. I’m not the Archivist – I’m the Archive. Now more than ever, I suppose.” 

The Archive of Fears, he thought to himself sullenly. Incomplete at six, no less. 

Maybe the Fears weren’t seeking him out. Maybe he was seeking them out. Even after everything. Even knowing it’d doom him. 

Like a poor insect puppetted by the lancet liver fluke. 

Or a man tangled in a spider’s web. 

──── •✧• ────

A creature of habit, Jon would usually pick a nice quiet spot outside to smoke. Somewhere sheltered from the wind but equally from people. Even before the world learnt to fear and despise his face, Jon preferred to stay away from company. Small talk defeated the purpose of stealing a moment to enjoy a cigarette and silence, as far as he was concerned. 

Strange, then, that Jon found his feet carrying him away from his usual hideaway tucked around the street corner by Martin’s house. In some distant recess of his heart, he knew he ought to stay close. Martin was still sick; what if he needed Jon? But something coaxed the Archive to wander. 

No. Not wander. 

Pursue. 

Beckoned by the urge to know, Jon stumbled along, dropping his half-smoked cigarette to the ground on the way. The silent siren’s song lured him to a nearby park, its iron fencing almost invisible as overgrown hedges and bushes smothered the rusting metal prongs. Some of these plants rustled with the expected green and golden yellows one might expect, but others still carried the sharp silver and black foliage of the ruined world. 

Jon appeared to be the park’s only occupant, though whether that was down to the night drawing in or the lingering fear of the city’s people was anyone’s guess. 

Eventually, Jon spotted a familiar figure sitting on a bench not far from him. His stomach twisted into knots, cold with guilt and shock. 

Still, Jon carried on. He made his way to the bench and sat himself down. 

The other man smirked, burn-scarred skin stretching tight at the corner of his lip, and huffed a hollow chuckle. 

“Been a while, boss.” 

Jon shook his head. 

“You’re…You’re not Tim.” 

Tim sighed and lounged back on the bench, letting his head loll back so that he could look down his nose at Jon. From this angle, Jon got a better look of him, every inch compounding the old guilt he’d locked away under Tim’s name. 

Most of his flesh carried rippled burn scars, particularly up his right arm, stark against the brilliant light blue of his short-sleeved Hawaiian shirt. Both hands had lost fingers, and one of his eyes had clouded over a milky white. Patches of dark hair had disintegrated, unable to grow back through the thick scar tissue on his skull. 

“Bit rude of you,” Tim said. “I’ve barely changed at all. You, on the other hand…Well, you went and made one hell of a name for yourself, didn’t you?” 

“You’re not Tim,” Jon repeated, narrowing his eyes. “Tim is…dead. I saw him die. I—” 

His words skidded to a halt, bunching in his throat and refusing to come out. He’d never told that particular trauma to anyone, not even Martin. None of them had really asked, simply assuming Jon had either forgotten or been unconscious before he could have seen Tim break into scarlet mist again blinding yellow flames. 

“Whoever you are, evidently you know what I am.” 

Jon got to his feet, as though standing up would afford him more authority. “You may as well tell me who you are. Save us both the trouble of me prising it out of you.” 

Much to Jon’s quiet heartbreak, Tim sighed as his whole form began to shift. He melted in slow ripples like a dying candle, his limbs thinning and lengthening, reshaping into sharp angles and jerking joints. His skin darkened and bubbled, with some of the bubbles bursting to reveal eye sockets like little craters on his flesh. Bony protrusions pierced out from his temples, and at his back, dragonfly-like wings shimmered great translucent eyes. 

Jon stepped back, his heart thundering in his chest as a smaller, more human-sized version of the monster he’d encountered at the ruins of the Panopticon stood where Tim had been only moments before. 

“You…” he breathed, though suspicion still hummed through his nerves. Unlike the first time he’d met the creature, there was no sense of familiarity. No resonation. No familiarity. 

The creature shook from head to toe in one fluid motion, great globs of unsettled goop flicking off its skin and landing in the grass around them. It sizzled the greenery and set rapidly like red wax. 

It looked at Jon for a moment, then, stretching its lower jaw down far enough to rip the skin across its face into a makeshift mouth, began to speak. 

“I am…the part of you that Martin cut away that day,” it said, its voice lacking the bone-scratching timbre Jon had expected. “Your darkness. Your fears. Your monstrosity. I am the tether that took root within you, the chain that you crafted link by link that connected the Fears to your very being. To your world.” 

The words ought to have shaken Jon to his core. Yet, instead, his nose wrinkled in disgust, insult almost choking him. 

“Oh piss off,” he snapped, and he stormed forwards to jab a finger into the creature’s startled chest. “You are no such thing! There is no embodiment of the tether o-o-or living construct of my fall. Not besides myself, that is! Martin didn’t physically cut anything out of me that day – I was the tether! I am the Archive! I am what he severed. And you? You are a pale imitation of everything you’re mimicking. And I am so very tired of you and your ilk thinking I don’t See. You. All.” 

As Jon spoke, his anger surged, setting his blood boiling and delighting the Slaughter. His eyes blazed, more opening with every second and fixating upon the false Ruins Monster. The very air between them seemed to crackle and squeak under the pressure of the Archive’s rising presence, like a rapidly unspooling tape. 

“T̸e̴l̷l̴ ̷m̷e̴ ̶w̴h̵o̵ ̵y̶o̴u̷ ̶a̵r̷e̴,” Jon commanded, compelling the truth from within the myriad lies this being hid itself behind. 

The creature hissed and cowered backwards, and it wasn’t until its form began to melt away again that Jon realised the sound hadn’t come from its mouth. Its whole body sizzled, heat radiating out from the liquidating form as it reshaped itself into something horrendously plain. 

A vaguely feminine figure stood before him, its face devoid of any features save for the locked ripples of set wax. Molten wax poured from its head like locks of hair, dripping down its back and to the ground behind it. 

It canted its head to the side, looking at Jon despite its lack of eyes. It lifted its left hand and placed its index finger upon the opposite digit of its right hand, forming a “T”. Then, to Jon’s alarm, the right index finger began to slowly spin in place. 

“I am all that’s left,” a monotonous voice crackled from the Waxwork Woman. “Interesting. That the Archivist would so. Thoroughly and. Viciously obliterate the Desolation. And all its. Followers. Fitting, in a way. A perfect. End.” 

Jon’s lip curled into a snarl. This thing had impersonated Tim. The monster that haunted his fears. And it was nothing but a sad remnant of a fallen cult. 

“You’re the only thing left?” he asked. “All the Avatars of the Desolation, they…?”

“Died. Destroyed. Burned. Yes. The Desolation is. Most pleased. Everything. Razed to the ground.” 

Despite the creature possessing no mouth, its face wrinkled, giving out the sensation of a smile. The hairs on the back of Jon’s neck rose, recalling the painted grin of one Nikola Orsinov. 

“And what do you plan to do now, as the last one left?” Jon asked. “I assume the Desolation has taken up residence inside you. But you’re no Agnes Montague. I can’t imagine much of a cult flocking to praise you.” 

The Waxwork Woman’s head tilted at a sharp angle. The wrinkles in its waxen face shifted, casting odd shadows across it that almost looked like a grimace. “The Lightless Flame does indeed. Survive within me. Scorching away. Without warmth. Without care. I enjoy it,” it said. “And I would. Share it with. The world.” 

The creature snapped its head to the opposite side now, shadows of glee flickering over it. “Because this is. All we wanted. The Desolation is. Here and can. Begin to burn it all. Who cares if. The others came along too? The Eye is. No longer watching. Everything is. So. Much. Freer. Now.” 

And, what, it had lured Jon in to gloat? Did it not realise what he could do?

What did it matter? This vile fiend had mimicked Tim of all people. Mocked his death and their shattered bond. Twisted itself into the monstrous version of himself to further attempt to manipulate him. 

For once, the need for solid answers cowered before Jon’s need for vengeance. 

“You should have burnt me the moment I sat down on the bench,” Jon sneered, his eyes glowing once more as sheer authority swelled in his throat. “G̸i̶v̸e̸ ̵u̸p̵ ̸t̷h̶e̴ ̶D̶e̶s̷o̶l̸a̵t̸i̸o̵n̶.̵ ̴R̷e̶t̸u̴r̶n̷ ̷i̸t̷ ̴t̷o̴ ̵m̴e̴.̴”

Attempting to compel another to do something other than answer questions was, admittedly, new territory for Jon. But for the Waxwork Woman’s slights, he was more than willing to try. 

With a lurching step forwards that shuddered through its whole form like a badly operated puppet, the Waxwork Woman halted before the Archive and bowed, almost folding its torso against its thighs. 

“I always. Intended to,” it responded brightly, straightening up and turning its sightless face to Jon. “Who better. To scorch the earth to nothing. Than the calamity himself?” 

It lifted its finger up then, ending its stilted speech, and thrust its hand out, clamping around a startled Jon’s neck. Sheer scorching pain throttled him, and though he opened his mouth, the scream dried out in his throat. 

Black fire cascaded inwards, roaring through his bones and reducing them all to cinders in a second. Just as quickly, the Fears gathered within him forced his body to repair itself, refusing to let their vessel of survival fall. Within the chaos, Jon almost missed the slicing pain above his right brow that signaled the arrival of another eye for his collection. 

Gasping and panting, with sweat streaming across his face, Jon tried to prise the Waxwork Woman’s hand off his throat. 

The moment his hands touched its wrist, however, it began to sizzle and melt. Great globs of red wax oozed over his shoes, and by the time its grip relinquished from him, the Waxwork Woman was little more than a puddle of crimson on the ground.

──── •✧• ────

Chapter Text

Though Jon hadn’t yet told Martin about his encounter with the Desolation, he suspected Martin had likely spotted the amber-veined charcoal eye above his right brow. Plus, despite his own sickness, Martin had begun to fret over Jon, as though he were the one being corroded from the inside out by one of the more insidious Fears. 

“You look awful, Jon,” Martin said as he pushed himself up on his elbows, the quilt sliding off him in the process now more mould-blooms than cotton. “Seriously. You can take a little time to rest. I’ll be okay.” 

“I’m fine. I promise, I’m fine. No, I actually am,” Jon added, spotting Martin’s doubt-filled expression. “I shouldn’t be, but I…rather horrifyingly feel almost as good as I did when the world ended. Err, physically, I mean. Obviously I wasn’t thrilled at the events…” 

“You look feverish.” Martin pressed on, now fighting to sit himself up properly. Sweat beaded on his brow for the effort, and Jon tried to push him back down. 

“It’ll break. A side effect, nothing more,” Jon said softly. He even managed a smile. “Please, stop worrying so much about me.” 

“Shan’t,” Martin said, though he did at least let himself get pushed back down into his bed. “But…if you tell me what happened, maybe I’ll agree to stop nagging you.” 

Jon chuckled, getting to his feet and heading to the doorway. 

“Well, we’re going to need cups of tea for that.” 

“How are the supplies looking?” Martin asked, almost more concerned now than when he’d been scrutinising Jon’s health. 

“Grim,” Jon admitted. “We may need to stop by the O.I.A.R. again and pilfer their teabags and UHT milk rations again soon.” 

Jon made his way to the kitchen, trying his best not to laugh at Martin’s calling questions of, “Can we? Really? Because I’m absolutely fine with that if you are!” 

Though he’d yet to uncover the secret of Martin’s tea-making abilities – something that seemed to illude even the Eye’s knowledge – Jon returned to the bedroom with two fairly respectable cups of tea in hand. Setting them both on the bedside table, he began to recount to Martin his short trip to the park.

He spoke as quickly as he could when mentioning that the Waxwork Woman had chosen the form of Tim as its first appearance, though that left him having to speak about the miniature version of the Archives Monster that it had shifted to afterwards. 

“And it…Well, it sort of gave me the Desolation out of spite, I think,” Jon concluded, staring more at his cup of tea in his hands than Martin. “Or as some mad, last-ditch effort to enact the Desolation’s will upon the world – burning it all to the ground. I suppose it makes sense. I ended it once. I’m a logical choice for ending it again.”

“Jon…” 

“I-It’s fine.” Jon waved a hand. “I’m not going to exhaust you with that particular conversation again. But suffice to say, I’m handling it a damn sight better than the Slaughter and the Hunt. Either I’m getting to grips with this, or…” 

“Or you’ve some affinity with the Desolation already.” 

Martin sipped his tea, also keeping his eyes downcast. “I mean, we, erm…We stuck you in a funeral pyre, didn’t we? Back when I…”

Martin cleared his throat just as his voice strained. The topic he’d strayed close to stung him as much as Jon’s conflict over his part in ending the world. But Martin dodged addressing it again too, continuing with his theory. “A-Anyway, yeah, I imagine the Desolation really liked that. You destroyed Gerard Keay’s page with fire. Kept a lighter on you for months, Web or not. Blew up the Stranger’s attempt at a ritual. Sort of unravelled the end of the world and thus the Eye’s great victory by using fire, when you think about it. And didn’t you basically eat a sun with your eyes?” 

The spluttering noise of sheer perplexity that left Jon had Martin quickly adding while clicking the fingers of one hand, “The, erm, the Dark’s ritual?” 

“Wha—? Oh, Christ, that. I-I’m not sure I ate the sun, strictly speaking, I just sort of…I suppose, well, the Dark is an absence of light and therefore shouldn’t be seen, so the fact I Saw it meant it…sort of…collapsed in on itself or…something? I ruined its very definition.” 

“Okay, fine. But the other pyromania-themed points still stand,” Martin said, nodding once and sipping on his tea again. “You, Jonathan Chester Sims, are like a little moth. You can’t help but admire fire a bit.” 

“A moth?” Jon snorted. “I’m nothing like a moth…” 

“Don’t they have eye patterns on their wings too?” Martin asked brightly, sitting up a little straighter as the poetic joy flowed through him. “Oh my God, you are a little moth!” 

“Anyway,” Jon said, drawing out each syllable to ensure Martin received the sharp irritation in each sound, “I accept that, yes, perhaps there was an existing affinity and exposure to the Desolation that likely made it easier to stomach. All that aside, the point is, that Waxwork Woman chose to take the form of the monster we saw at the ruins of the Magnus Institute. I can only assume that it saw the creature itself and chose a form it thought might frighten me. But instead, it’s given me pause for thought.” 

Jon finished his tea and set the mug down on Martin’s bedside table, the bottom of the cup breaking little clouds of spores as it settled on the encrusted furniture. They’d arrived at the part of the conversation that Jon had been dreading. “I am…going to go back to the ruins. I need to know what that creature is. It seemed…specifically designed to taunt me o-o-or scare me in a way I’ve never quite witnessed before. I mean, obviously plenty of monsters have frightened me before, but I can’t think of any that have felt quite so…personal.”

But even as Jon said it, he realised he was lying. Not only to Martin but to himself. 

The twitching memory of huge spindly legs reaching out from a shadow-choked doorway and snatching one of his childhood bullies away itched at his mind. 

“Why would we need to go looking for it now?” Martin asked, his brow furrowed. “I mean, if it’s not carrying one of the Fears, it feels like a bit of a distraction. I mean, we can totally do it! But, you know, I’m worried maybe this is all just a bit of a…taunt?” 

“We aren’t going. I am. I’m just being reasonable and telling you this time rather than sneaking off on my own,” Jon said with a sad smile. He got up from his chair, Martin’s protest already building. 

“Wh—! Erm, no?” Martin spluttered, his face the picture of betrayal. With grey-blue eyes wide and lips quivering with restrained panic, he pleaded to Jon. “I’m going with you! You’re not leaving me here while you go off to oogle a creature that, by your own admission, seems designed to mess you up!” 

“Martin, you’re ill. You’re carrying around the embodiment of rot and sickness,” Jon pointed out. “I can’t expect you to come along with me in that state.” 

The silent ultimatum lumbered into the room and settled between them awkwardly. 

Martin frowned. 

Jon blinked. 

Martin pouted. 

Jon arched an eyebrow. 

Finally, Martin threw up his hands in defeat. 

“Right, fine! Fine! I’ll give you the Corruption, O Mighty Archive! Honestly, I try to help you out a bit, and you throw a big old strop because I knocked your collection a little bit out of alignment while, I don’t know, trying to stop you losing your mind to the unfathomable horrors, but that’s fine! Yeah! Whatever!” 

──── •✧• ────

Striding a step or two ahead of Martin, Jon tried his best not to let on that a cold sweat was making its way down the back of his neck and along his spine. He kept his face turned on the road ahead of them, clearing his throat occasionally to fill the silence. 

“Need some water?” Martin asked. 

“No. I’m fine,” Jon replied tersely, though he took the opportunity to stop and look around. The world spun by and settled a second later than he stopped, stirring up nausea in his stomach. “Is this the right way? I swear we’ve been past that broken statue four times…” 

“Hmm, nope. That’s a new one.” Martin headed over to the bisected stone lion and examined its damaged remains. “Actually, I think I recognise this. We’re not far from the Institute if it’s the one I’m thinking of. So that’s good!” 

He smiled, having become infinitely more chipper since relinquishing the Corruption and having a long-overdue shower, and readjusted his bag. Its straps held on by mere threads – Jon found himself sympathising with the struggling strings. 

“Good. Right. Onwards, then,” he grumbled. 

“Jon, we can go a bit slower. If the monster’s there, it’s not going to be able to wander off without us seeing it now, not at this distance.” Martin moved closer to Jon and pressed the back of his hand against Jon’s forehead. “Mmm. You’re too warm again.” 

“I’m fine,” Jon replied, swatting Martin’s hand away. “If I was aligned with the Desolation, I suspect I was all but dancing in step with the Corruption after all those bloody worms…”

“That might be why you’re struggling with this one so much, to be honest.” Martin had crouched down now and unshouldered his bag. He rummaged through it and pulled out a half-squashed bottle of water, handing it up to Jon. “You got marked in loads of ways by the Desolation, and you didn’t hate every moment of it—”

Jon, halfway through taking a sip of water, almost choked. “I beg your pardon?”

“I’m not saying you were thrilled at it every time it showed up!” Martin said. “I’m sure there were times you hated it. There were times I hated the Lonely. But…but I still ended up being a good fit for it, right? Because there were times that I…didn’t. Hate it, I mean. There were times you didn’t hate the Desolation. Destroying the Panopticon, for instance. Or burning Gerard’s page and giving him peace. Hell, you admired Gertrude’s plan to try to blow up the Archives!” 

“And your point is?” Jon went for another sip of water, if only to stop himself being so mean to his partner. His frayed patience and bubbling nerves took some of the blame, but Jon could hear himself getting unreasonable. 

“You never had moments like that with the Corruption. You’ve always hated it. It was the first time in your life that something truly weird happened to you. It was the thing that confirmed to you that it was all real. It was the first one that almost killed you.” Martin got to his feet and smiled at Jon. “And, frankly, you’ve always liked keeping your space clean and tidy. I don’t think there’s a single aspect of the Corruption that agrees with you.” 

Martin started counting on his fingers. “Bugs. Dirt. Rot. Decay. You hate creepy crawlies, you don’t like dirt, and the idea of information or records rotting or decaying away is pretty antithetical to the whole Archive thing.” 

Jon, however, had stopped paying attention at the start of Martin’s theory. He glowered out at nothing, his jaw set so tightly that a muscle in his jaw quivered. 

“...Jane Prentiss was not the first time in my life that something abnormal happened to me,” he admitted. 

“What?” 

“The whole encounter with the Corruption was the first time in my adult life that something supernatural happened to me. It…confirmed to me that it was all real. Including what I’d seen as a child. I think I hated that the most about it all – if the Living Hive was real, then so too could…”

Jon shuddered and started walking again. “Yes. I think you’re right. I’ve always loathed the Corruption in one way or another.”

Martin hurried to catch up, spluttering in shock. “Woah, hang on. What? What? You…You had a spooky encounter as a child? When? What?” 

“Tell me, how did your spooky encounter with Jane Prentiss go again?” Jon snapped back, irritated at the idea of Martin making light of his fear. But he sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Sorry…sorry. I’m…I guess I’m not feeling my best today.” 

“It’s all right. No, you’re…you’re right. Sorry. Whatever it was, I’m…I’m sure it was really awful a-a-and you don’t have to go through it all again by telling me.” 

For a while, the two men continued walking in silence. 

Jon’s clenched teeth verged on squeaking, but eventually, he managed to prise his locked jaw apart to speak. 

“I read a lot of books. As a child,” he started, catching Martin quite out of the blue. He barrelled on all the same. “My grandmother would buy me piles of them from charity shops. If I was reading, I wasn’t getting into trouble, you see. Anyway…one day, I came across a strange book within the pile.” 

Jon cleared his suddenly dry throat. “A Guest for Mr Spider. I…shan’t recite the whole text for you, but suffice to say that it was not a children’s book. It depicted several creatures appearing knocking at the door of the eponymous Mr Spider. It was rather heavily implied each one was eaten…and more so that they’d been puppetted by Mr Spider to show up and knock on the door in the first place.” 

The pair headed down a small alleyway filled with litter and black bags. Jon paused in his story to concentrate on stepping over a few without tripping over. Once they’d cleared the dingy path, he continued. 

“At some point while reading the book, I must have started to wander off. The next thing I knew, one of my bullies had shoved me and pulled the book out of my hand. I can’t even remember his name. Anyway, he started reading the book and…off he went.

“I followed him through the park, down an alleyway, but I didn’t try to stop him. I don’t know why. I suppose I didn’t know what was happening. Or maybe I was curious to see how the story ended. I don’t know. But…finally, he wandered up to a house at the end of a residential street.” 

“Jon…”

“He put the final page against the door, one with a cut-out section acting as the door to Mr Spider’s house…”

“Jon.” 

“On that page were the words, ‘Mr Spider wants another guest for dinner’ and then—”

“—‘It is polite to knock’.”

Jon furrowed his brow and looked at Martin, surprised to have the last of his story robbed. “How did you know that?” 

Martin, however, was staring straight ahead of them. He kept one hand on the fraying strap of his bag and pointed with the other. “Because I don’t think it was the Archives Monster drawing you back here, Jon.”

There, built upon the ruins of the Magnus Institute, impossibly stable despite its fractured foundations, was a plain little house with a murky off-white facade and a grim, blood-splattered front door. 

Upon it was a torn page, stuck upon the wood with a light shimmer of webbing. 

The cut-out panel flapped in the breeze, beckoning its master’s guests to come and knock on the door.

──── •✧• ────

Chapter Text

Though his mind screamed at him to turn and run, Jon’s feet twitched and dragged him over the ruins towards the house from his childhood nightmares. Rocks and rubble rattled underfoot, and as he glanced down, Jon noticed multiple torn pages sticking up between the destruction like fallen leaves, fluttering slightly as the breeze caught them. 

He recalled the last he’d seen of the Archives Monster, as Martin had taken to calling it. As they’d hurried to Michael’s door to escape, Jon had seen it wither and dissipate, peeling into thousands and thousands of yellowing pages.

Now was his chance to find out what statements had made up that breathing shadow that haunted him so. 

Still, though Jon wanted to stop and pick one up, his legs refused to obey him. Still, he managed to duck and scoop one up mid-step, bringing the tattered piece up to read. 

The text seared from the ripped page, the ink bright and bold despite the dirty and sun-bleached page it was upon. 

KNOCK, KNOCK. WHO IS IT—

Jon’s breath caught in his throat. 

No. 

He dropped the paper and looked around, grabbing handfuls more as he walked. 

KNOCK, KNOCK.

—BROUGHT YOU HIS SON. 

MR SPIDER DOESN’T LIKE IT.

—, KNOCK. WHO IS IT, MR SPIDER?

ANOTHER GUEST FOR DINNER.

KNOCK, KNOCK. 

—WANTS MORE. 

“No…no, no, no, no…no!” Jon mumbled, the papers fluttering out of his hands. He tried to twist away, to stop his feet, but something thin and sharp cut into his ankles. 

“Martin, run. Run!” he yelled back, though he knew it was hopeless even before he felt Martin’s hand clamp around his wrist. 

“Not without you! What are you doing?! Stop walking towards it! We can just go!” Martin begged him, pulling hard on Jon’s hand. But the sharp cutting flared up around Jon’s wrist, making him cry out. 

“I can’t! I…Christ, not again…! Martin, it’s caught me, the…the spider, i-i-it’s in the house, its webs, they’re…!” 

Before Jon could explain further, something pierced through the corner of his lip and pulled, yanking his head and twisting him away from Martin. 

The house lurched back into view, jerking closer with each forced step Jon took. 

He’d faced flesh-twisted giants and seeping darkness. He’d watched smiling creatures wear familiar faces like masks. He’d experienced endless falls and ungodly isolation, felt his lungs burn as predators pursued him without mercy. He’d been eaten by parasites, stumbled at the knife-edge of madness, and choked on the rising bile of unfocused rage. 

He’d drowned in the void that awaited all, screamed as his skin and muscle boiled on his bones, and clawed his way through the cold, crushing earth. 

Yet not one of them summoned such dread in Jon’s soul as that plain little house with its blood-coated front door. 

Martin’s hand slipped from his, to the relief and terror of Jon. At least Martin could get away now. At least he could run. But what would happen once Jon, 23 years late, finally arrived at Mr Spider’s door? 

He closed his eyes and tried to swallow against a dry throat. 

I’m so sorry, he pleaded to a world that could not hear him. I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean for any of this! I didn’t mean to bring them here, I didn’t want to open the door, I didn’t want to die and have them escape all over again, I tried, I tried, I swear I—

His panic shattered as he walked into something tall, soft, and decidedly not a front door. 

Jon, perplexed, stumbled and opened his eyes, taking an awkward second to rebalance himself while the silvery wisps of webs at his wrists, ankles, and face tangled and snapped taut. 

There, standing with his back to the door and his arms folded across his chest, was Martin. 

“There. You’re not going in,” he declared. “What’s the Web going to do now? It can puppet you all it wants, but those spindly arms aren’t going to shove me out of the way. Checkmate!” 

Jon’s jaw dropped, and he blinked up at Martin, still half-unbalanced. In fact, were it not for the silk strings holding him, Jon would have been flat on his face. 

“Martin, get out of the way!” he yelped, eyes darting left and right to try to catch sight of any webs fluttering out of the cracked windows. “It’ll just move you otherwise! Or worse!” 

“Then I’ll take us both back to the Lonely!” 

“Martin, you can’t treat the Forsaken as a safehouse! It’s just as insidious as the Web – every time you disappear back there, I risk losing you!”

“And every time you go to collect another Fear, I risk losing you!” 

“You promised that—” 

Wait. 

Another Fear. 

Jon stopped straining against the sharp silk wrapped around his joints. A steadiness returned to him, dampening the shivers of terror that had wracked his frame until now, and he had no intention of wasting it. 

“Martin. Please. I know I have no right to ask this of you, but trust me when I say I promise I’ll come back to you. I can only say that I won’t betray you again, but you have to show me you believe me. It’s up to you. Trust me, or we both die here.” 

He had expected Martin to refuse. 

He deserved Martin to refuse. 

Still, the flash of conflict that stole Martin’s gaze from him for a second made Jon’s stomach twist with pain. Martin wasn’t sure if he could trust Jon in this way, and Jon couldn’t blame him for it. 

Then, without a word, Martin stepped to the side, unblocking Jon’s web-spun route to the front door. 

Almost immediately, Jon’s feet jerked into unnatural steps once more. The silks pulled him to the front door, even though he fought to try to look at Martin, to thank him, to assure him. 

His hand lifted towards the blood-splattered door. 

Then, front over his left shoulder, a tiny utterance reached his ear. 

“I love you.” 

Jon swallowed down the sobs brewing in his throat. He knew that phrase, the farewell cadence behind it. 

He thinks I’m lying. That I won’t come back. 

“I…” Jon’s voice caught in his throat. He took a deep breath. “I’m coming back, Martin. I’m so sure of it that I’ll make this wager – I’m not going to reply to that yet. I’ll give you my answer when I get back.” 

Jesus fucking Christ, I’d better come back from this now. 

With his heart on the line, his moment of sheer confidence passed, and – to the delight of the Fears nestled in his body – the shivers of terror took root in his bones once again. 

He knocked on the door. 

The damp wood printed dark red against Jon’s knuckles. Then, silently, the door swung open. Perfect darkness awaited beyond. 

Jon, with his breath trapped in his chest, scanned the shadows with frantic eyes. Where was it? Where was it? Just get it over and done with, where was that damned spider? 

Just as his panic reached its peak, four spindly grey legs burst from the dark, caging Jon within its grip and yanking him into the house. 

The door slammed shut behind him, trapping Jon in the house with Mr Spider. 

As the door snapped back into place, however, it cut the webs holding Jon upright. He fell to his hands and knees, a cloud of dust kicking up from the rotten wood floor. Coughing, he pushed himself to his feet and whirled, seeking any sign of the horrible legs of the spider. 

From somewhere behind Jon, a chirping clicking echoed in the small house. 

Cold sweat trickled down Jon’s spine as burning nausea rose from the pit of his stomach. 

“Wh-who is it…Mr Spider…?” Jon whispered to himself, his voice cracking. 

The clicking increased, excited and amused and oh-so-eager to play along.

Something large shifted in the dark. Furniture tumbled and struck the floor with a dull thud, and a scratching voice replied to Jon’s whispered question. 

“Why, it’s the Archive…All grown up and overflowing with fear…” 

With more effort than he knew he was capable of, Jon turned to face the direction of the noise. Only darkness greeted him, along with the truth – he could See through this if he wanted to. He was choosing to stay blind to it. 

“What are you?” Jon asked, rooted to the spot. 

The clicking made an impressive imitation of a laugh. 

“Will you not compel me for the answers, Archive? What is this, respect? I am flattered…” 

“No. Well. Maybe,” Jon admitted. “You’re…a shapeshifter, is that it? First a-a-a monstrous spider, and then you were the creature that lay in these ruins. You spoke to me. You told me that you were what I should have been. What was waiting for me at the end of every choice I make.”

“Correct. And thanks to that – thanks to you – I have fed. And I have fed well.” 

A great mass shifted again, brushing against the walls Jon could not make out. Two skinny, angled legs tapped forwards, landing so close to Jon that he yelped and jumped back. Almost immediately, the clicking increased, and then the wet suck of slurping followed, turning Jon’s stomach. 

“Y-you…you have…the Web,” Jon managed to say. Not a question this time. “You have the Web now…b-b-but you were a part of all this even before that. My first mark. Y-you…you picked me, not Jonah. You marked me. Why? Why me?” 

The two legs gripped the wood, claws hooking into the wet mush and tensing, dragging the mass behind it forwards along the floor. 

“You’d like that answer, wouldn’t you, Archive? Something to make it all make sense. Something to make it special. Something to make you sadness and your misery mean something. To give your nightmare a purpose. It would lessen the sting, wouldn’t it? Then allow me to dispel you of such notions. You ask me why you? I answer…”

A huge, hair-speckled grey face pushed out of the dark, chelicerae twitching bloodied fangs forwards and backwards. Many eyes swivelled in its head, every single one a milky white. It loomed over Jon, thick rivulets of saliva working between its fangs like a grotesque web of its own. 

“Because I wanted more.” 

It struck then, a maw of blood and viscera slamming down and missing Jon by inches. He screamed and fell backwards, his limbs slipping on a floor damp not with rot or rain but the remains of Mr Spider’s previous guests. 

He slid in his haste to get up, almost falling as he bolted for the stairs and Mr Spider’s leg crashed after him. 

Nothing. It was all nothing! Chance and his own rotten luck! No, no. No, there had to be something, there had to be a purpose for all this, not just the machinations of wicked creatures and terrible men aligning through chance! His misery, the suffering of his loved ones, the world’s torment, surely it all meant something. 

Jon made it to the landing just as the floor beneath him exploded, clicking fangs and wild blind eyes unblinking against a shower of splinters. 

“Wait, wait!” Jon yelled, backing up as far as he could. “Y-you don’t want to kill me!” 

Mr Spider paused. It watched Jon from the great hole in the floor, four legs holding the edges, ready to hoist himself up. 

“Aaaah? Do you hope so?” it hissed. 

Jon nodded, though he regretted it for how dizzy it made him among his nausea. “Mmm! Mmm-hmm! Y-you…you’ve haunted me my entire life. Your mistress even decided to make use of that! P-pushing me down the path to become the Archivist for Jonah Magnus. She…she wanted to flee. To feed on this world and then leave its hollow corpse behind and…and find more.” 

“You are…right in this…but I am not she. And I have waited so long for you to knock upon my door.” 

Jon shoved down the impulse to heave and continued, though he kept one hand groping out behind him to find a new escape route as he stepped backwards again. “B-b-b-but you said it yourself. Y-you want more. Not…not flesh, no, because, b-because if it were just that, you’d have eaten me when I showed up at the ruins. Y-you fed well, you said. You don’t feed on flesh. You…you feed on fear. And I have given you that in spades.” 

“That you have, that you have,” the creature rumbled, and to Jon’s horror, it began to duck down into the shadows of the hole in the floor once more. “You were terrified that I was right. That you would become like me. It was…delicious.” 

“I have known fear. I have heard tens of thousands of nightmares and experienced them as though they were my own. But you…” Jon laughed, the sound splintering on the edge of madness. He kept pawing his way backwards to put as much distance as he could between himself and Mr Spider, at odds with what scared him more – to see where it was or to be close to it. “You? You’re…you’re my nightmare, aren’t you? Mine and mine alone.” 

“Yesss…” Mr Spider hissed, satisfaction and pride pouring through. “You have been stuck in my web all this time, Archive. I am the root of your terror. Do you think you can change that? Conquer your fears? You and I know the truth of that, now, don’t we? There is no such thing…”

“I-I agree. I…I am scared. I am terrified of you in ways I have never known. The monster that lurks in the shadows of all my worst moments. The lingering reminder of what I…I’ll likely become one day. Were you human once?” – a hiss of anger, but Jon ploughed on – “Will I delight in tormenting people as you do one day? When all my humanity finally burns out of me? When nothing is left but my bitter defeat and agonising need to feed on fear?” 

His back hit a wardrobe, the handles pushing into his spine. End of the line. No more escape. Even if he could not conquer it, he must face his fear now. 

Jon steeled himself as spindly legs – click, click, click, click – hooked around the doorframe to the room he’d backed himself into. Like pearls in a black sea, eight eyes glowed beyond that, sightless yet fixed upon the Archive. 

“It matters not,” Mr Spider whispered through the dark. “Human or not, man or monster, I will feed on you forever. I am the root of all your misery…” 

“I know. I will…always be terrified of you,” Jon admitted, defeat pushing him to slide down until he sat upon the floor. “All my nightmares end with you. You are…the root of my misery.” 

He set his hands down either side of himself, palms splayed flat against the damp floor beneath. 

The soaked wood sizzled under his palm. 

Jon managed a small sad smile. “Still. A terrible, terrible friend taught me how to deal with that, should I ever face it. Actually, I’m flattering myself. We weren’t friends. Not by the end.” 

By now, Mr Spider had hauled itself into the room as best it could. Its huge swollen abdomen cracked the doorframe as it forced itself in, its legs crashing down around Jon like bars of a cage. 

Beneath Jon’s palms, the wooden floor began to smoke and crackled, threads of brilliant orange snaking through its core. 

Jon leant his head back and closed his eyes, concentrating on everything he knew of the agony of flames. Not the joy of light nor the comfort of warmth, but the skin-cracking torment of unrelenting heat. The stench of fat boiling and muscles scorching. The sound of bones squeaking under immeasurable temperatures, shattering at its crescendo. 

Tim, if you can hear this…fuck you too. But thank you for teaching me this. 

The Desolation seared through the Archive, scorching out of his body and searing off his skin. The room erupted into dark-emitting flames, filling the house with thick smoke and the screeching fury of Mr Spider. 

The gargantuan arachnid tried to back out of the room, its huge legs scampering across the burning wood in its panic to flee. But the black fire danced along its hairy limbs and spread with ease across its huge torso, engulfing it and cooking the flesh down to smouldering embers. 

It screamed and flailed, smashing through its house and causing almost as much carnage as the Desolation itself. 

From within the madness, Jon gritted his teeth and endured the now-familiar nightmare of being burned alive. He searched through the white-hot pain, seeking not the Desolation but another Fear. 

The snarling jaws of the Hunt let its irritation at the Archive be known, but begrudgingly came to heel when asked. Survival, it seemed, set all of them in alignment. It helped, of course, that Jon gave the Hunt a target. 

Find the Web. Don’t let it escape. 

Grunting, Jon pushed himself to his feet, fuelled by the Hunt’s crazed need for pursuit. Even as his skin boiled and bubbled, even as his flesh dripped off his bones, Jon ran through the house after the burning spider. 

His eyes alight with the Watcher’s glee, the entire building revealed itself to Jon. Framed pictures of sorrowful flies curled in the heat, and bookshelves filled with watches, glasses, necklaces, and rings broke apart as the lightless flame devoured what Mr Spider had not. The floor, once stained with the remains of Mr Spider’s unfortunate meals, now coughed up plumes of black smoke that lifted sheer heat from the ground to the ceiling. 

In the middle of it all, the mountainous form of Mr Spider writhed upon its back. With one last screech, the eight-legged nightmare curled into a twitching ball, one leg spasming as death throes claimed it. 

There! A fractal of silk, like the air itself had shattered, fluttered from Mr Spider’s open maw. Lithe as a ghost and almost unseen, it stuck itself to the wall and began to crawl upwards. 

“No you don’t…” Jon growled. He leapt forwards and clawed his way up the wall, snatching up the Web in burn-riddled hands. 

The moment the wispy silks touched his hand, it turned upon him. Threads of silk wove around his wrist and up his arm, covering his entire body in mere seconds. Ghost-white strands knitted over all of his eyes, blinding him and leaving him floundering in the burning house. 

He tried to tear the silk from his face, but even as he worked on freeing his eyes, the Web smothered his nose and mouth with the same feather-light steel. 

Why…can’t I…? 

He crashed into a table and fell to the ground, still rolling and thrashing to try to get the Web off him. The threat of suffocation drew ever closer, sending Jon’s heart thudding a mile a minute. He’d promised Martin! He’d promised him! He couldn’t let him down, not again, not again, why couldn’t he contain the Web? Why—?

Ah. 

The answer, of course, made perfect sense. 

Jon stopped convulsing. He stopped trying to pull the silk from his eyes and mouth. 

With a huge amount of effort, he lay still, setting his hands at his sides, and let the Web smother him. 

──── •✧• ────

Chapter Text

For the fourth time that afternoon, Jon’s shaking, bandaged hands dropped his cup of tea. 

The mug clattered onto the table, chipped but intact, spilling his drink all over his lap. He yelped and sprang to his feet, bashing into the table in the process and drawing out another shout of irritation mixed with pain. 

“Shit! Fuck…ow!” he grumbled, stomping over to the sink and snatching up a kitchen towel to dab at his soaked trousers. After a few pats, however, a crippling sense of pointlessness overwhelmed him. 

Jon threw the towel down, leant back on the counter, and sighed, hanging his head.  

“...I know you’re there, Martin,” he said suddenly, glancing up from under his brow at a seemingly empty corner. 

The air flickered, and Martin began to materialise. First without any colour to him at all, then slowly painting in his own features – strawberry-blond hair, his tattered navy hoodie, cracked glasses perched on a freckle-splattered nose. 

“I was trying to be nice,” Martin said. “I know you hate it when people fuss. But maybe we shouldn’t be trying hot drinks for a while, yeah?” 

He made his way over to Jon and picked up the now-empty mug. He rinsed it in the sink and set it on the drying board, then turned to face Jon again. “You’re still healing, and those burns can’t be happy with you chucking hot tea over them every three hours.”

“I didn’t chuck tea over them, I dropped it!” Jon held up his bandaged hands. 

“Which is why we should probably keep you away from the kettle for a few more days. Let your spooky healing factor kick in a bit.” Martin smiled and looped one arm with great care around Jon’s shoulders, being sure not to press down too hard. “We were getting somewhere with the statements; they seemed to really perk you up. That one about my week with Prentiss outside the door had you regrowing nearly all your major muscles in a fortnight!” 

“Yes, but I don’t think using your trauma as a battery to supercharge my healing is wise. I…I worry about you,” Jon admitted, staring at the floor the whole time. Not only that, but Jon had concerns over the lack of variety in Martin’s statements. Given his nature, most of his encounters revolved around the Lonely, with a sprinkling of run-ins with the Corruption or the Eye. 

The nine Fears coiled in his thin frame keeled, out of balance and at odds with one another as the Beholding, Forsaken, and the Crawling Rot grew stronger than the rest. A near constant shivering had taken hold of Jon, his lips and nailbeds purplish more often than not. His hunger for more information – any information, even answers to questions he’d never had – caused time to crawl as he paced the house trying to ignore the need. And every so often, when Jon lifted his hand from a tabletop or he brushed against a piece of furniture, a tar-like substance stuck to it, corroding the material at a sluggish pace. 

“Oh, I’ll be fine. I’m practically an expert in statement-giving now,” Martin said proudly, pushing his thumb towards his puffed-out chest. “I reckon one or two more could get you back on your feet properly! I was thinking I could tell you about the time Peter gathered half the library staff into the canteen and—” 

A sudden, loud blaring of ‘Me and My Husband’ by Mitski cut straight through Martin’s pitch. Martin patted his pockets, made a small “Oh!” of realisation, then hurried into the living room. The tune ended as a conversation began. 

“H-Hello? Oh, Gwen, hi!” Martin’s voice dropped to a hushed tone, prickling Jon’s curiosity. 

The Archive began to slink towards the living room, eyes narrowed. Martin, meanwhile, had paced to the furthest corner of the room, clearly wanting to mask his telephone call as much as possible without drawing suspicion by leaving the room. 

“N-no, he’s not fully…Yes, I know it’s time critical, trust me, I’ve dealt with this more than you have! I’ll tell him about it when…Look, don’t get snappy at me, I told you I would tell him when…R-right, just…No! No, don’t do that! Gwen! Gwen!” Martin took his phone from his ear, looked at the screen, put it back to his ear, then growled and shoved it in his pocket. “Rrgh! For Christ’s sake!” 

“Everything all right?” Jon asked. He wondered if his mask of innocence would have any effect at all. But before he could truly make an effort to convince Martin that he hadn’t been eavesdropping, Jon’s own phone buzzed in his pocket. 

“N-no, Jon, don’t—!” Martin started to plead, but Jon managed to pull his phone out with clumsy fingers and answer it. 

“Gwendolyn.” Jon wandered back into the kitchen. “To what do I owe the pleasure this time?” 

“Jonathan. Sorry for the interruption, but I’ve been wanting to pass some information on to you for weeks. Martin’s been…somewhat overbearingly protective of you. I agreed not to call you directly, but I take it he hasn’t been passing my messages along?” 

“No one has passed any messages along to me,” Jon said pointedly, turning to glare at Martin. Martin screwed his eyes shut and shook both fists at the ceiling, his lip curling in a silent, restrained grunt of frustration. 

Gwen, oblivious, continued. “I suspected as much. He mentioned you’d been injured during your most recent Fear caging.”

“Is that what we’re calling them?” 

“I’m sure the Marketing Department can come up with something more to your tastes once they’ve collectively returned from the corridor to their offices. Your friend Michael paid us a visit the other week, and no one’s seen them since.” 

“Why does the O.I.A.R. have a Marketing Department?” Jon asked, then he shook his head and pinched the bridge of his nose as best he could with bandaged digits. “Not the point, I suppose…But…Michael was there? Why?”

“Because he was hungry, I suppose. He takes great delight in us not being able to secure him like we have other Avatars. I’m willing to overlook him for the moment – his victims do, for the most part, tend to turn up eventually, and he hasn’t targeted anyone that would impede our current projects. But he isn’t what I’ve been trying to tell you about.” 

Jon sat himself back down at the table. Pain spiked at his temples, the promise of a pressure headache building with each pulse. This would be an argument with Martin later, and no doubt whatever Gwen was going to share would be frustrating all on its own. “Go on.” 

“While you and Martin have been running around like headless chickens hoping to just trip over a Fear Holder—”

“We have not been running around like headless chickens!” Jon spluttered, affronted. “We’ve caught eight of them, the Eye notwithstanding. And Fear Holders? I told you, they’re Avatars!” 

“Haven’t you? From what I’ve gathered, you and your boyfriend have been wandering around London under the vague assumption the Fears weren’t strong enough at the time of your releasing them to have got very far. But it’s been a number of months now, and nearly four weeks since your last capture. I suspect the remaining four have fed sufficiently to render that…plan…obsolete. They could be anywhere.”

“I can See. Capital ‘S’,” Jon snapped, before adding the clarifier for Gwen as though it should mean anything to her. “I’ll…I’ll just use my abilities to look for them.”

“Martin already informed me that your abilities are unreliable when it comes to looking directly into the Fears and their plans. You’ll forgive me if I don’t want to rest the fate of the world upon that. While you’ve been resting, I’ve been working, Jonathan. I hired a private investigator with a specialism in seeking out the peculiar. He’s already located one. An old friend of yours, I believe.”

Jon frowned. An old friend? 

“Who?”

“Simon Fairchild. He escaped our facility not long after you lost your grip on the Dread Powers. I presume you can guess how and why.” 

Jon let his head slam down onto the table, leaving his hand holding his phone upright. 

“Oh Jesus, I forgot about him…”

──── •✧• ────

Though Jon had expected Gwen to tell them that Simon Fairchild had been found soaring around the peak of Everest or swanning around the top of the Burj Khalifa, it turned out that her private investigator had spotted the Vast's favourite skydiver nowhere more dizzying than a cobblestone street in York. 

This left Martin trapped between addressing the tension between them and his excitement at getting to "go on a road trip", as he put it. 

"I can't believe this still works," Jon admitted as he got into the passenger-side of Martin's car. 

"Found her right where I left her! Glad we took the train up to Scotland that time, or we'd be in for yet another trek across the island." Martin clambered into the driver's seat and gave himself a moment to gaze fondly at the now-scentless air freshener dangling from the rear-view mirror. "Nice to finally go on a semi-normal trip together."

"We're hunting down an Avatar of the Vast. And the Vast itself," Jon pointed out. "It's really not that much different than our last trip together. I doubt Gwen's popped a nice hotel on the company's expenses for us." 

“But we might have the option of staying in a hotel this time,” Martin said with a smile and far too much hope in his eyes as he started the engine and set them on their way. “And we’ll have to stop on the way for normal things like…like lunch!”

“If anywhere is still open, Martin.”

“I’ll settle for a McDonald’s, Jon, stop crushing my dreams.” 

The next few hours passed without surprises. Martin sang along loudly to his music. Jon pointed out landmarks – or whatever was left of them – and gave long, rambling recounts of their origins and uses. They did, much to the sheer delight of Martin, find a functioning McDonald’s. Despite the barebones menu on offer, Martin treated it like Jon had booked them a lunch at the Ritz, almost weeping as he bit into his lukewarm cheeseburger. 

But the blessed normality of it all began to wear away during the second leg of their journey. 

Jon wriggled in his seat and huffed a sigh again, all while doing his best to focus on the green fields scarred through with crimson as they whizzed by. 

“You all right?” Martin asked. 

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. I’m fine.” Jon tried to settle down, but nothing he could find in the bleak landscape could satisfy the prickling under his skin. Which one was it? Maybe the Flesh. Surely not the Hunt, given the nature of their journey. The End seldom stirred, content with the passing of all things and the buried, silent fear that rooted through all living things. The Eye had fed well of late, as had the Desolation and the Web. 

As Jon quietly sifted through the candidates, the tips of his fingers buzzed with an incessant need he had no name for. After a while of trying to ignore this, he checked his hands and almost gasped in panic. 

His fingernails, though never prim and manicured, were now ripped and cracked, with dark globs of dirt and muck caught between and staining the tops of each digit. 

Jon sat up straighter, his hands held out. “Jesus Christ!” 

Martin, to his credit, managed to resist hitting the brakes. Whipping his head from the road to Jon and back, he stammered. “What? What’s wrong? What are we doing?” 

“I, ahh…” Jon’s voice faded with shock, and he had to clear his throat to buy enough time to pull himself together. “I-I-I think I’m…out of balance?”

“Out of balance? Out of balance, what, what does that mean, out of balance?” Martin stammered, still trying to find the problem without taking his eyes off the road for too long. “What do you need? What’s happening?” 

“I-I…I mean, they’ve been a bit off-kilter the last few weeks, but I think…I-I think the Buried’s had enough,” Jon explained in a hurry. “Oh, Christ, what do I do? I-I-I can’t feed on someone’s fear of being buried out here! What happens if I don’t?”

“What happens if you don’t?” Martin asked, paling. 

“I don’t kn—If I don’t feed the patrons, they’ll feed on me—Oh, bloody fantastic! Fabulous answer, that clears everything up!” Jon looked upwards, despite knowing damn well the Eye was no longer peering down at them from the sky. “What does that entail?”

“Well…A-a-all right, calm down, we…we know what it does. Right? W-when you went a bit cold-turkey that time, you got sick and weak, right? M-maybe it’ll just be that!” 

“I went lukewarm turkey, Martin. I still had paper statements to feed on,” Jon said. “I have nothing out here! What am I supposed to do? Hop out and bury myself in a field for ten minutes? I’m not even claustrophobic!” 

“Erm…Right, no, but…but what if we get you a statement!” Martin asked. He wrestled his phone out of his pocket and handed it to Jon. “Right, go on Chrome, open up the third tab…Y-yeah, that one, not the…Yeah, right, scroll through that, and—” 

Jon, having grabbed Martin’s phone and followed along with his instructions out of sheer panic, now began to settle down as he read the text on the screen. “What is this? A…forum?”

“Online forum, support group, that kinda thing. There are loads of them. People sharing stories about what happened to them during the, erm, the apocalypse. Their Domains, or their torment.”

“I saw all of this though. All at once, as it happened. It’s not like the paper statements that the Eye had fed on through Gertrude or others but at least I hadn’t experienced yet. These ones…I already digested these ones,” he explained, though he grimaced at his own choice of words. 

Martin waved a hand at his phone though. “Right, but there’s another section on there for weird stuff people experienced after the apocalypse. So after you became less omniscient. Stuff you won’t have seen or heard. I was looking for signs of where the remaining Fears might have wandered away to,” he said. “Have a look through! The Buried must have fed on someone on its way from you to Gwen, right? Or, you know, one of its surviving Avatars might have stirred up trouble somewhere?” 

“Maybe…” 

It was worth a shot. Jon’s thumb flicked over the screen, searching relentlessly for something that sparked his – or the Buried’s – interest. “I don’t know, Martin. The Buried would already have experienced this. It’s not like the Eye – it doesn’t care about storing the information. Maybe me reading about it won’t do anything.” 

“Just try it, Jon! And if it doesn’t work, I don’t know, we’ll…we’ll figure something else out.” 

Jon forced himself to fixate on a post about someone who recounted being overwhelmed by the sensation of drowning every time he drew a breath, hoping he wouldn’t have to come up with a Plan B with Martin. What would that even look like? Pulling over and tracking down some poor sod to bury in the field up to his neck? Acting like they’d leave him there for good? Even pretending to do something so cruel felt intolerable to Jon.

After several statements failed to soothe the itch, however, Jon gave up, throwing his head back against his seat and letting his hand drop to his lap. “It isn’t working. I-I-I don’t know what to do, what are we supposed to—”

It was only then that Jon realised the car had come to a stop. He blinked and stooped to look out of the window. The winding stone walls and grand spires of the York Minster greeted him, with a handful of brave people even flitting through its ancient cobbled streets. 

Martin’s seat squeezed as he leant back and clapped a hand on Jon’s shoulder. 

“Worked a treat, I reckon. The distraction, that is.” He opened the door on his side and started to get out. “Come on! The North’s filled with all sorts of spooky tunnels and stuff under its cities. I reckon at least one of them will satisfy the Buried. Then we can crack on looking for Simon.” 

──── •✧• ────