Chapter Text
ARCHIVIST: Fine. Speak your piece. Tell us about your 'way out'. (197 - Connected)
It didn’t go over well.
The moment they arrived in London, the camera-things with their clacking shutter wings and telescopic eyes fell upon them. Without the artifact, the only protection they had from the Eye was whatever it deigned to grant Martin in Jon's absence. He should've expected that Jon would Know he'd come back, and didn't have any excuse for jumping when he stepped through the open panel into the tunnels and Jon said hello.
"Jon! You're - here!"
A shadow passed over Jon's face briefly as Annabelle came through. Jon's arms were crossed, his expression equally as cross. Annabelle flicked on a torch, and shrugged when Martin glared at her over his shoulder.
"I can't see in the dark, can you?"
"Jon, I -"
"Hello, Annabelle," Jon said in a terribly reasonable voice. Martin had bosses who did that sort of thing - sounded very calm until they exploded in anger. Jon was less inclined to do so, but the situation called for it.
"Hello, Jon," Annabelle said brightly. "Hope you don't mind me dropping in."
Jon ignored her, which was probably for the best. "You left."
"I had to get Annabelle. For our plan." He tried to meet Jon on the same level of restrained indignation. However, fury was difficult to drum up with Agnes remarking on how Jon's anger made his eyes spark handsomely.
"I felt a - a supernova of power go off not far from here. I sent spotters to see what happened. The ones that weren't instantly destroyed disappeared." He glared accusingly. "Do you know where they went, Martin?"
Martin sighed, resigned. "I assume they went to a Lonely domain, Jon."
"Of a sort. They went to your domain, which is on fire now, if you didn't know."
"See, I did know that, and it's part of the plan. I had it all worked out, but you couldn't know Jon. If you found out, the Eye would know. And there's no plan after that." He took a step closer and Jon didn't retreat so he gained a bit of ground.
"Well, you've brought Annabelle here, so either the plan is close to finished or you've unwittingly doomed us all."
The worst of all of it, more than the sarcasm and the distance in Jon's voice, was the soft vulnerability lying beneath it. Jon had trusted Martin, at one point, and whatever he'd established with Annabelle seemed to have betrayed it. Maybe Martin had done it all to save Jon, to hopefully save the world, but working behind Jon's back undermined everything. And Martin knew it - he’d known it when he’d agreed to talk to Annabelle while Jon was conveniently asleep, unable to voice protest or objection. Intent mattered, intent always mattered, but it was worlds easier to justify something in your head than to the person who suffered from your actions.
Martin slowly raised his hands. "Annabelle is just as weak as we are in these tunnels. More, probably. She doesn't have any friends."
Annabelle made a quiet noise. "You don't consider us friends, Martin?"
"You're really not helping!" he hissed over his shoulder. "I'm not saying we don't have to be wary of her. We obviously can be wary of her."
Jon sighed, his shoulders slumping. "I know you've done this with the best in mind, Martin, but the Web is the most insidious of all the Entities. She'll make you believe whatever she needs to in order to accomplish her goal."
"I know, but she wants to defeat Elias. Jonah. And you can believe that, right? That Annabelle - that the Web - doesn't want Jonah in power?"
"Yes, though I doubt her objective ends there." Jon reached out and grabbed Martin's hand, his thumb running over the new scars although he didn't comment on them. "We should lay it all out for Georgie and Melanie too. Not that I think they will be particularly thrilled to see our new guest."
"I do have a list of options for everyone," Annabelle said, shining her torch on the way forward. Jon's grip tightened around Martin's fingers.
They met in the room Martin was sure had been where the Institute kept extra office supplies, but he daren't look in the boxes marked 'Implements' or 'Parchment(s).' A dilapidated couch and four rickety chairs of varying steadiness were pulled around a low table. It was the most apparent sign of the lives that used to live around Georgie: abandoned mugs, a dubious romance novel with a changing cover, scrawled notes of someone writing a deeply mediocre poem.
Annabelle perched delicately in a chair, her slightly imperious look undermined by the nervous twitch of her fingers on her jacket’s hem. Martin hadn't sat next to Jon on the couch like he wanted, but rather beside him in one of the chairs, their fingers able to brush, but not a unified front against the others. Georgie occupied a tiny sliver of the couch and Melanie paced behind it, her cane tapping on the floor with a staccato beat.
"So you're… with the Web," Georgie said slowly, as if they were beginning a job interview.
"For now. We'll see how well it holds up once she realizes what I'm doing."
"Then out with it," Melanie said harshly. "Go on, say the magical thing that's gonna stop this from being a waste of time."
Annabelle smiled, even though it was lost on Melanie. She spread her hands, unable to hide the slight shake of them. "When Jon brought about the apocalypse, our ability to maneuver became significantly limited. I was only able to do things with the help of a friend, and now even that avenue is shut to us. The Entities - the Fears - have a limited time here. Eventually, Terminus will claim everything. You know that."
Georgie blanched and gave a tight nod. Her gaze drifted to the cracked table top.
"The Mother is the only Entity capable of understanding inevitability like that. So, she began to devise a way to fix the problem - to escape."
"It's a crack in reality. The thing that makes Hill Top Road weird. The Web wants to toss all the Entities into it so they can go on and infect other universes," Martin interrupted. Annabelle glared at him, probably for ruining her performance. She did love the dramatic.
"Yes, crudely put. The Mother would see Jon become the Pupil of the Eye and then cast into the fissure, ensnaring all the others and pulling them along. The Entities, however they may seem, are intrinsically connected, a disparate but gestalt organism. They would all need to be bound together for it to work."
"How's your plan gonna do that?" Melanie asked.
Jon chuckled, humorlessly, his hands tucked tight under his folded arms. "We should've all figured that out. The tapes, of course. I - we - committed all the Fears to the recordings. Connecting them through me, the same way Jonah did when he had all the Fears mark me, I suppose would make it easy enough to bind them."
"That's great," Melanie bit out. She thumped her cane against the back of the couch, sending up a puff of dust. "So we're just passing on the apocalypse somewhere else?"
"It is one option," Annabelle said. "If Jon died after assuming his role, then he would take the Fears away from here, possibly into other worlds. We don't know what that would look like, how it might turn out. We could also choose to do nothing and let Terminus fulfill its duty, though it could take hundreds of years, all of them in suffering. It is also possible, though I'm uncertain of the viability, that once Jon takes control, he could speed up entropy, end the suffering sooner."
"Those are… fucking terrible options," Melanie said.
Georgie, curled tighter with every mention of the End, gestured at Annabelle with her chin. "If those are our choices, then what are you here for?"
"As Jon said, the tapes are threads the Web has woven that I can control. If I were able to affect them, I could pull them taut, snare all the Entities as close as I can. And then destroy them." She folded her hands in her lap.
Melanie pointed in Annabelle's direction. "That one - that sounds like the best idea."
"Yeah, that sounds good, but how do we do that? How do you even kill a platonic ideal of fear?" Georgie asked.
"Yes, Martin," Jon said quietly. "How are you going to accomplish that?"
Martin cleared his throat, his cheeks flushing with heat from the attention, and from Jon's unsubtle ire. "I'm going to do it. Well… me and, er, and Agnes."
After a beat of silence, Melanie thudded her cane again. "You said it very dramatically but I have no idea who that is."
"Oh! Right. Agnes Montague, she's - ah - she's the avatar for the Desolation. She's going to, well, she's going to burn them. Metaphysically. Literally too, I guess, but definitely on the - the 'platonic ideal' level."
Melanie swung herself over the couch and leaned back, throwing her feet up on the table. "Great. Great. That's an even better plan than all the shite plans she just told us. You're asking us to trust the spider lady and now the - what was she called? I think I remember now. The messiah of ruin, wasn't it? When does she show up?"
"Ah, well. She's here." Martin grimaced.
"She's here?" Georgie asked, sitting up. "How -? I haven't heard anyone else come up the tunnels, and the things outside usually let us know."
"She's - hmm." Martin stood, letting the heat of Agnes begin to seep from him. "She's inside me. I tied us together, Annabelle too, so we can all use our abilities to end this."
The heat sent charred fractals crawling up the edge of the wooden table. Georgie put her hands over her face and Melanie chewed on a thumbnail and when Martin looked over at Jon, his expression was solemn, sad.
"It seems you've already decided." Jon said.
"No!"
"It isn't like that," Annabelle said, hands out in a placating gesture. "The pieces are difficult to gather. If this is the path we want to take, then it is easier to have them all in place rather than risk one of the Entities discovering the plan beforehand."
"Of course," Jon said agreeably. The corners of his mouth ticked up, but in nothing close to a smile. "If this is what we do, and I agree it seems the most reasonable out of all of them, how does Annabelle get access to the tapes? If I'm the Pupil, how do you three connect to me?"
Martin glanced at Annabelle, who tilted her head to the side, eyebrows raised as if something had finally surprised her. A grin broke over her face from whatever expression crossed his.
"Don't look at me - I already devised a ritual that used up all my resources."
Georgie wiped her hands off on her jeans and stood as well, sparing a glance for the table and the others. "I don't think anyone's gonna argue against destroying the Fears. But Jon's right. If we can't figure out a way to link all of you, then it's probably not going to work. And then we will need to choose from one of the other options. Maybe we should take time to think about it."
In the quiet assent that followed Georgie's statement, none of them moved. Then, Jon deliberately scooted his chair out of the way. "I'm going to have a cigarette."
He fled the room at a reasonable pace, his whole back rigid with emotion and his hands clenched into fists at his side.
Melanie grabbed Georgie's hand and Annabelle raised an eyebrow at Martin He rolled his eyes, hurrying after Jon.
BASIRA: All we can do is try and do something worthwhile with the time we've got left. (199 - Seeing It Through)
Jon leaned against the black glass, steadily pulling on a cigarette, blowing the smoke off to his side. Martin leaned next to him, a good foot of space between them, not to crowd. Out of the tunnels, the fog began to roll out from his feet again, as if he needed the reminder of all the things he'd done. He listened to Jon’s rhythmic inhale, the cherry on the fag growing red, and exhale, a meandering trail of smoke rising away to nothing.
Agnes stayed uncharacteristically quiescent, though she’d set their hand on the glass as close to Jon as they dared. After initiating it so much, relying on it as a constant presence - not touching Jon, not holding his hand, felt painful, a yearning chasm pulling his chest apart.
"You should've told me," Jon said, his voice rough from the smoke.
"I couldn't." Martin squeezed his eyes shut. "If you'd known, the Eye would've known. It would've ruined any chance we had."
"Did Annabelle tell you that?" Jon snapped. He turned his head away, as if instantly regretting it.
"She did. But I knew it was true." Martin pressed his cheek against the cool glass. "I'm sorry. You deserved to know. I just couldn't get the idea out of my head that you would - that you were going to sacrifice yourself and I wouldn't be able to stop it."
"Mmh." Jon stubbed out the cigarette and turned to face Martin. "So you decided you would martyr yourself instead?"
"That's - that's not what this is." At least, he hoped it wasn't. He was putting a lot of trust in Annabelle and Agnes, though he swore it wasn't misplaced, not after all this time. "I chose to take this on. You didn't want any of it. You tried your best to stop everything."
"Did I?" Jon laughed, the sound choking him into a near sob. "I damned the whole world, Martin."
"Oh, come on. You didn't -"
"I'm the one who caused all of this, that's just the truth of it! I'm the one whose whole life has been nothing but one long setup to this."
"Jon -"
"You didn't speak the words!" he shouted, his whole body shaking, as if the violence of that statement ripped him into pieces. "You didn't feel them move through you, vomiting out of you like - like… I did this. It's my fault. I can't let anyone else feel that. That helpless, enormous guilt."
Martin placed his hand over Jon's jaw, holding him firm. He couldn't let Jon speak of himself like that, not anymore. He'd let Jon harbor this assumption for too long. He'd watched it drive Jon mad, watched him run himself against the wall of his guilt in punishment over and over. If they were going to make a last attempt at fixing things, he couldn't let it continue anymore, not without pushback. Martin lifted his other hand to capture Jon's face, bringing it closer.
"It wasn't your fault. No - don't - it wasn't. I know you think it was and I can never take away that feeling from you, but Jonah forced you to do that ritual. He had to trick you into doing it, Jon. He'd been starving you for months, manipulating you, playing you. You, and Agnes and Annabelle, you all were created exactly the way they wanted. And you're right - ever since the Web marked you, they manipulated you and still you came out like this. Still, you wanted to help, you were compassionate and brave and selfless. After everything, you felt sick when realized you had all that power at other people's expense. You read those words, but they weren’t yours."
Jon's eyes slipped shut, tears leaking out the corners and hissing when they rolled down Martin's right hand. "I can't - it still feels - I can taste the victory of it."
"It wasn't your fault." Martin pressed his lips to Jon's cheek, salt on his tongue. "Everyday I wake up, I'll kiss you good morning, and I'll tell you it wasn't your fault."
Jon squirmed closer, his hands twisting in the edges of Martin's jacket, dragging him closer. "I just don't want to hurt anyone else."
"Then you won't. We'll do this, and if it works, we're free. If it doesn't…"
"If it doesn't?"
"Then we'll figure out something else. And I'll be there, and I'll still say it. Wherever you go, I go. That's it."
"That's it," Jon repeated. He tucked his face against Martin's neck, breathing deeply. He traced a faint burn scar down Martin's arm. "What do you want to do, when we're out?"
"Oh, I don't know." Martin wrapped his arms tighter around Jon. "Miss chips, you know? There's a cart, not too far from the Pimlico station -"
"Right, the one with, er, Roni, with the -"
"Yeah! The blue hair. And his daughter -"
"Ranya -"
"Yeah. That's - some of the best chips I've found. He always gave me a bit of laddu on the side if it was a rough day."
"Me too. Said I wasn't eating enough." Jon smiled against his skin, the press of his teeth delicate. Martin held him tighter.
"Yeah, I'd like to get some chips again," Martin said. "Wouldn't mind actually going to uni, you know."
A little snort huffed into the collar of his jacket. "You know more than any of them now, if you wanted to go the parapsychology route. I think I'll look elsewhere. I always entertained the idea of teaching."
"Oh?" Martin ran his fingers through Jon's hair, the strands greasy, but still soft. "I think you'd be good at that. Once they get past the, you know."
"The 'you know'?" Jon pulled back, raising one of his eyebrows even as a grin threatened on his mouth. The tear tracks were drying on his cheeks, but his skin wasn't so sallow. "What are you implying?"
"You'd be tough, I think. But they'd all like you, once they made you proud." Martin tapped his chin. "You'd have to be careful though. Tell them not to get too attached, you have a jealous husband."
"I do?" Jon's whole countenance softened, the delicate smile on his face trembling. "Is that what you want?"
It hadn't ever been something he'd intended to say aloud, but if the end of the world wasn't the right place, Martin didn't know where else would be. Agnes agreed. He nodded, letting the teasing humor drop and rubbed one of his thumbs under Jon's eye. "I didn't think so. My mum, she - didn't work out so well there. But… yeah. I think I'd like that. If - if my - if my, erm, partner? If - if you - you - that is -"
"I think… I would like that very much." Jon held his eyes for an infinite time, leaning forward to touch their mouths together before dropping down, thunking his forehead against Martin's sternum. "Oh christ."
"What? What is it?" Panic swirled up in his throat and Martin held on to Jon's arms, not wanting to push him either way. But when Jon raised his head, he was grinning, cheeks dark with color, almost exasperated.
"A, uh, a marriage is, well. It's a ritual. To bind people together." Jon stared until Martin got it, and when he did, he shook his head.
"No. No! That can't work. Can it?"
Jon waved one of his hands. "Why not! It's a ritual. It's the oldest ritual, except maybe funerary ones. Why wouldn't it work here?"
"So you're -" Martin giggled, the sound bubbling out of him involuntarily. "Are you asking me -"
"Yes. Martin No-Middle-Name Blackwood. Will you, ah, marry me?" Jon's eyes were wide, but he asked, just the same.
Martin nodded. "Why the fuck not. Yes. Let's - let's get married."
Jon grinned and Martin kissed him. Agnes encouraged him to kiss his new fiance a little deeper and Martin obliged. Their bodies left smears of heat from the press of them, and Jon couldn’t stop laughing.
Georgie had her hands on her hips, her face a mixture of disbelief and something softer, almost sweet. Meanwhile, Melanie had immediately left for her and Georgie’s room, and Martin didn't want to know what she was up to.
"Married," Georgie said, again.
"You're ordained," Jon said.
"No, I remember. It was illegal to marry same-sex couples and I was in uni, Jon. Of course I was going to break the law."
"If it helps," Jon said seriously. "You're probably breaking the 'no happiness' law here."
The humor on her face turned tender, and she regarded each of them carefully. "You mean it. You once told me the institution of marriage was a yoke of servitude."
Jon huffed. "We met in a Gender and Social Constructs class. And I was twenty. I'm allowed to have changed my mind since then."
"Yeah." Georgie appraised Martin, the furrow of her brows easing as a smile overtook her mouth. "Yeah, alright. It's been some time, but it’s not too much to remember. We need two witnesses, which we just have."
"Lucky I'm here," Annabelle said, her face the picture of charity.
"So lucky," Georgie said, sarcasm heavy. "Where's Melanie gone?"
"Here!" Melanie hurried from the hallway, bumping into the wall with her cane hanging from her arm, not in use. She thrust something out at them, her aim just to the left of where they were standing. "For Jon."
Jon reached out and took the object, shaking it loose from where it'd been crumpled in Melanie's grip. It was a plain purple shirt torn into strips, woven into a circle with long tails in varying lengths trailing from one side. He opened his mouth, then closed it.
"It's a veil. You're the bride. You were carried over the threshold, remember?" Then, her perception informed by Jon's grab, held out another veil, exactly the same except in yellow-green tartan toward Martin. "You too. You're both the bride. Congratulations."
"Thanks?" Martin said, but he put the veil on his head and when Jon did the same, something tightened in his chest. Emotion welled up in his throat and Martin cleared it. "Uh, thanks, Melanie."
"It's a wedding, right? Love a wedding. Not nearly enough dress shops in the apocalypse." Her flippant tone couldn't hide the pleased blush on her cheeks.
"I'll bring it up to the administration," Jon said dryly.
Georgie clapped her hands. "Alright! Doesn't take too long and now we're dressed. It'd be nice to have rings, but they aren't required for the legal ceremony. So -"
"I, uh." Jon fumbled for the plain silver chain he never took off, long enough to be unnoticeable most of the time. Martin had only realized he wore it when he'd taken off his shirt. When Jon pulled it out, Martin remembered that it had a slim circle of gold on it, and his head swam. "It, um, it was my mother's. My grandmother was going to - well. I rescued it. I think it will just fit me, so -"
Martin reverently took the chain from Jon. He undid the clasp, palming the ring before settling the necklace back over Jon's head, tucking it into his shirt. The gold was warmed by his body heat and Martin pressed it against his lips. Jon cleared his throat.
"Right, well, one's better than nothing, I suppose."
"I have -" Annabelle said, then stopped herself as if surprised she'd been speaking. She reached into her slim dark jeans and pulled out a small something, offering it to Jon. "It's Mikaele's. I wanted - he was my friend. The only friend I've had. It isn't - you can have it, if you'd like."
Jon held her eyes for a long moment, even after she fidgeted, before he gingerly took the ring, a thick band of dark silver inlaid with three diamond-shaped black stones. He nodded his thanks to Annabelle, who waved her hand as if it had been nothing at all.
"Wait," Agnes said. She grabbed the romance novel and ripped out a hunk of pages, deftly tearing and burning the edges. After a few seconds work she had what was, unmistakably, three small roses. She gave one to Jon, then retreated beneath the surface, smug in a way that shimmered.
Georgie laughed, a bit incredulously. "Okay! Okay then. It's a right proper do, it is. Outfits, rings, witnesses, and flowers. Let's, em, let's get started."
She arranged them how she liked, with Jon and Martin facing each other, Melanie and Annabelle slightly behind and off to each side. Georgie stood in front of them, her hands clasped.
"Welcome, ah, everyone, to the only happy wedding at the end of the world. Jon, say that you declare you don't know of any legal reason you and Martin can't be married. Full names, please."
"Erm. I declare I know of no legal reason why I, Jonathan Sims, may not be joined in marriage to Martin Blackwood. Oh. Those are the correct words, Georgie."
"I'm running the ceremony and I'm improvising, so hush." She straightened her posture. "Okay, repeat after me. I, Jonathan Sims, take thee, Martin Blackwood, to be my wedded husband."
Jon raised his eyebrows as he repeated the phrase, his voice sounding less casual and more sincere as he spoke.
Georgie had Martin do his own version of the same phrase, then she waved between them.
"Now's the time to exchange rings, say something if you like, before I close it up."
A breath caught in Jon's throat and Martin knew how he felt. What was he going to say here, in front of these people he wasn't close to, some he'd considered a stranger only a few hours ago? Martin had a thousand poems memorized, a hundred thousand, and every gossamer collection of words and emotion fled his mind. He remembered trite things, the lines from Shakespeare's famous plays, the rom-coms his mother had watched relentlessly. Substance escaped him.
He thought of the rawness of some poems, the way they split him open and exposed all his trembling insides. How he could read a line and know he'd never repeat it to anyone. De la Cruz saying "love opened a mortal wound. In agony, I worked the blade to make it deeper" or "I have loved you fiercely and assiduously with the very marrow inside my bones" from Kojouri, whose brand-new book sat unopened on his desk in a world as distant from him as any star. How could he expose the depth of that emotion here?
He held the ring in his hand, warm from the blood in his body, Jon's mother’s ring that his grandmother had nearly disposed of because it was not her son's, because she perhaps resented Jon or his mother or the grand fabric of a life snatched from her son. Martin held it, and he pushed it onto Jon's hand and he said a fragment of a poem about the mundanity of love, the precious facet of everyday life that pitched a prism on the canvas of the cruel world. "But with whom can you sit in water?"
A smile bloomed over Jon's face, as if he knew the poem, as if he'd spent time reading deaf Ukrainian poets, and the naked bones of Martin's affection were clear regardless. Jon mimicked the motion, and leaned in, his words just for Martin. "Te amo como se aman ciertas cosas oscuras, secretamente, entre la sombra y el alma."
For a long moment, silence enveloped them before Georgie blew out a heavy breath. "So, by the, er, power of temporarily displaced England, I declare you lawfully wedded spouses."
Martin waited for the same sensation he'd felt when he connected to Agnes, to Annabelle, but nothing happened. Maybe it was something more subtle than that, but he'd never known anything to do with the supernatural to be particularly adept with 'subtle'.
"Did you kiss?" Melanie asked. "You have to kiss for it to be official, what are you guys even doing?"
She was right, and Jon shrugged, so Martin leaned over. He kissed Jon gently, but Jon threw his arms around Martin's shoulders, pressing their lips together over and over until Martin was laughing too much to keep going. "You made your point!"
It wasn't anything like Agnes or like Annabelle. Both of those connections were fierce, all-encompassing, overwhelming until he’d felt as if he wasn't sure he had a distinct self anymore. With Jon, it came over him like the tide, gentle, inevitable, as if he'd misplaced the bond momentarily, and now it had returned. Martin felt the throbbing absence of Jon's link to the Eye. With the link so thoroughly blocked by the tunnels, it pulsed a persistent pain in Jon's mind, underlying all of his actions and thoughts like a furious ache. Martin laid his palm against Jon's temple.
"You're suffering worse than I thought," he said. Jon leaned against him.
"Only for a little while longer. What is that, though? It's like - it's like -"
"Like the way your skin feels when you've been in sunshine? Yeah, that's Agnes. It's nice."
"Mmh." Jon didn't open his eyes, and Martin felt the sweep of exhaustion run through him.
"Right. Time for sleep. We'll… I guess we'll finish this in the morning."
When Martin scooped up Jon again, bridal style, he didn't protest once.
Martin woke up to a touch. He hadn't meant to fall asleep, but the weight of Jon pressed against him, the warmth of their little cocoon must've caused him to doze. He expected to find Jon nestled right beneath his chin, tucked close like he usually was. Instead, Jon was awake. Had propped his head with one hand while the other rested gently on Martin's temple. Jon smoothed his finger down the slope of Martin's nose, the ridge of his brow, the bone of his jaw, fingernails raking through stubble that had almost tipped into being a beard.
"Jon?"
With a slight hum, Jon paused. "Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you."
"S'okay. Felt nice."
Jon immediately resumed, forefinger and thumb tracing over Martin's features, his own face slack and mouth slightly parted, an adoration Martin didn't think his early-morning, barely-conscious face deserved.
After many long moments, Jon slid his finger across the dip in Martin's top lip, sinking into the channel below his nose, then down, pulling his lower lip slightly open. The wide wonder of Jon's eyes spoke to reverence, and the purse of his mouth to his unease.
"What is it?" Martin asked, hushed.
"I wanted to…" Jon smiled ruefully. "I wanted to make sure I wouldn't forget any of it."
"My face? My face isn't going anywhere." Martin threaded his fingers into Jon's hair. "Every morning, I said."
"So you said." Jon shifted his weight forward so it was halfway atop Martin, laying his ear right over Martin's heart. "Agnes is inside you, then."
"Yeah, since Upton. She's - she's been a big help." Martin cupped his hands beneath Jon's shoulder blades, holding their bodies tight together. "I don't know what we would've done."
"Hmm." Jon folded his hands beneath his chin. "Do you think I could… speak with her?"
"Oh yeah, sure." When he checked inside, he could feel Agnes right at the surface, eager to speak to Jon directly. He let himself drift as she took control, the feeling no longer bizarre - almost soothing, almost homey.
"Nice to meet you," Agnes said. She kept the warmth of her under control, but Martin felt it straining against its confines.
"Fascinating. I've heard the accent a few times when you've slipped, but that's her voice. She - you're speaking directly to me." A small smile graced Jon's face. "Nice to meet you."
"I've very much enjoyed the kissing," Agnes said. The blush that swept over Jon's fell so darkly it almost glowed, and Jon averted his gaze sheepishly.
"It's a bit off if we think on it too much, but I'm glad you weren't upset by it." Jon settled back down, one of his hands threaded through Martin's. "Agnes, do you mind if I ask you a little about Gertrude?"
"No," she said, though she wiggled out from beneath Jon, sitting up and just the slightest bit away. "I can share."
He chewed on his lip before speaking, his eyes demurely angled to the tangle of his hands in his lap. "Would you - what was she like?"
Agnes took a moment, her fingers tracing along the stitched lines in the quilt around them. She let the corner of her mouth lift, just a little. "I only met her the one time, though our connection persisted even after my death. But we… communicated before that. Letters, mostly. Easy to burn. She was very clever, sharp. She had a way, at least in the beginning, of making others underestimate her. By the time I was tied to her she was already a widow, her husband lost to darkness."
"Gertrude was married?" Jon asked, leaning forward, enraptured by Agnes' story.
"There were things married women could do that would never be allowed for single women, not in that time. Widows were even more empowered." Agnes paused. "I think she was relieved when he died. Not that he was a bad man or treated her poorly. She said, once, she didn't believe she was meant for that kind of 'gentle love.' Her love was like knives. We had a kinship in that."
"You were friends?"
"Ah, no." She huffed a little laugh, let her hand linger where Jon's leg sat propped near her. "I'm not sure Gertrude would allow herself to have friends, not once she joined the Institute. She knew something untoward was happening. When Jonah, whatever he was calling himself then, betrayed the Archivist before her, she changed. Nearly everyone died at the hand of the Grinning Wheel. She viewed attachments as weakness, and performed a debridement of her emotions so zealously, I don't think even she understood the extent. There was no room for friends after that."
"She was very efficient at what she did," Jon murmured, rubbing at the frown of his mouth. Agnes reached out and took his hand, holding it delicately in hers, the rough calluses catching.
"Jon, I don't think that's what you should take from her. Yes, she was efficient. She terrified avatars and followers in droves. The Lightless Flame protected her from attempts on her life, but there were, honestly, few. No one wanted to try and fail. I understood her lonely wrath in a way I believe few could." She traced over the texture of leaves engraved on the band on Jon's finger. "Your faith in other people, your trust, is stronger than any power. Even my cult only trusted each other on the surface, and it crippled them after I was gone. I wouldn't sacrifice what you've built, especially on the altar of… efficacy."
Jon swallowed, closing his eyes tight. "How was it? Being… being chosen?"
"It's invigorating, isn't it?" She squeezed Jon's hand and pulled back, laying her palm flat against her throat. "There's nothing like the power, nothing like the hand of discord so easily in your grasp. But, it… fades. Or sours? You realize you're an instrument, a tool, and then you are always waiting to be picked up. To be used."
"Yes," Jon choked out.
"You've been used, my dear Jon. And you've been discarded. You, me, Gertrude, even your rival in all his euphoria will be tossed aside when you present yourself to your master, a more perfect cog for its machine." She touched his shoulders, encouraged him to lay out on their chest, his ear just over their steady heartbeat. "It's okay to hate it. And it's okay to want it."
Agnes slipped back, and Martin surfaced, unsure. He tentatively wrapped his arms around Jon, who snuggled closer, tears leaking down the sides of his face.
"Hey, hey it's alright," Martin said, soothing. He combed his fingers through Jon's hair. "It's gonna be alright."
"You don't know that," Jon sniffed, He buried himself deeper against Martin's jumper.
Martin didn't have any sort of response. He had no idea what the next day would bring, what it would look like. What they were attempting was all they could do, and, if in the end, it wasn’t enough, then Martin was prepared to do whatever he could to save Jon. He would not lose him.
ARCHIVIST: Maybe, maybe everything works out, and we end up somewhere else. (200 - Last Words)
Agnes swelled inside him like a sunrise, her active presence waking him instantly. Martin sat upright with a jerk.
"What? What is it?" He scrubbed at his eyes, trying to connect the thoughts in his head.
"Jon's left."
"What?" Martin glanced around the bed, and, sure enough, Jon wasn't anywhere to be found. Martin scrambled off the bed, slipping into his shoes and out the door before he could process what he was doing. "What happened?"
Agnes reached their fingers up to brush their forehead. "He kissed us, here, and slipped out. He must've gone to the Panopticon. To Jonah."
"Fuck. Fuck. Do you know where Annabelle is?" But Agnes didn't have to answer. Annabelle was on the dilapidated couch, wrapped up tight in a blanket like a cocoon. Martin couldn't imagine the last time she had slept. He leaned close to her. "Annabelle?"
She woke instantly, taking in Martin and the sleep lines that must've been pressed into his face. A rueful smirk graced her mouth, and she shook her head. "He went without us. Of course."
They ran up the stairs. Martin labored over the number of them, though the ascent went faster with his urgency. He was only a few steps behind Annabelle when she halted abruptly. He had to grab the wall not to tip over.
The shambling shapes of former archivists moved toward them, their liquid bodies sloshing, paint slapping against the ground. One of the archivists, a middle-aged man with receding blond hair, tipped back his head and opened his mouth. Only it continued to open, the great maw glinting with rows of teeth and a slavering, slithering tongue, whipping out to taste the air.
"New and eurgh," Martin said. Agnes pulsed through him, pushing Annabelle behind.
"No worry," she said. With a passing sweep of her hand the archivists boiled in place, smoke swirling off them in sooty streams. Flames licked up the sides of the closest one, hardening the pigments until it froze. It tried to take one more step and collapsed, shattering across the floor.
"That's incredibly useful," Annabelle said.
Martin hurried them forward, avoiding the melted piles of paint. "Come on, we don't know what Jon’s done."
They went through the doorway.
The central chamber had changed. Instead of bookshelves, screens filled the walls. Each one displayed a scene from a domain, a face wrenched in terror, extending far above their heads and rotating like film on a reel. A subtle undercurrent of static filled the room, and beyond that Martin could hear words. He strained to hear and recognized what they were: statements. Hundreds of statements, spooling along, most with Jon's voice, but if he tried, he could pick up Tim, Melanie, himself. The hushed susurrus of the statements ran together like white noise. The light that’d shone so brightly before had dimmed, now as strong as an overhead in a library, but it flared as they crossed the threshold, illuminating the center of the room.
Jon knelt, back toward them. Even from several feet away, Martin could see his chest heaving.
"Martin -" Annabelle warned.
But he and Agnes were in agreement as they stumbled over to him, reaching. Jon rose, turning as he did so. The front of his wrinkled dress shirt and trousers were liberally splashed with bright red blood, flecks making errant freckles on his skin, his face. His eyes, so brilliantly glowing green it hurt to look at, stared into the distance, mouth slack. A knife slipped from his fingers and clattered to the floor.
"Jon?" Martin took two steps closer. From this angle, he could see the crumpled body of Jonah Magnus, cooling in a pool of his own blood. "Jon, talk to me."
"- deep within her mind those bitter thoughts that make her hate herself and those that reassure but cannot hide their secret loathing that will leak and spread from tongues that mumble just outside -"
"No, no no no." Only Agnes' sudden hold stopped Martin from lurching forward. He struggled against her. "He's done it. He's fallen to the Eye."
"It's what he was supposed to do, remember?" She beckoned toward Annabelle. "Now we've our part to play."
She was right, of course she was. But to see Jon so enthralled, so lost to the information coursing through him, Martin shuddered. The decision hardened in his heart: if their efforts here proved futile, he couldn't let Jon continue like this. It wouldn't be Jon anymore.
Annabelle tentatively joined them, her pallor gone gray and her confidence entirely leached from her. But when Agnes held out their hand, Annabelle visibly steeled herself and took it. The link between them strengthened. Martin couldn't hear Annabelle in his mind, but he could feel her, feel the way she stretched and spread in a million different directions, each tremulous thread thrumming like a tuning fork when she moved. Annabelle gestured toward Jon.
Right.
The last piece.
Martin hovered his hand over Jon's shoulder. "Jon?"
"- feared that this indecent end would carve its bitter name full deep inside his soul and burn within without a ceasing seeing moment more than screaming ones who howl and hide from -"
"Jon? Please, Jon. It's Martin. Please say something."
"- pains approach to pull your skin like… like sodden cloth… and…"
Martin let his hand rest on Jon's shoulder and it sent a shudder through the whole room, the screens flickering, a stutter in the endless stream of voices. Jon shivered, shaking himself. After a moment, he resumed the ramble.
"Try again," Agnes said
Martin held his thumb just below Jon's jaw, desperate to rub it over his skin. He took another step, clothes brushing against Jon's, the blood spreading in a wet stain across his jumper. He leaned in, not quite touching, the heat radiating off his body soaking into Jon.
"Jon, please come out of it."
"- his pitch is low and black as…as…" Jon stumbled over the words. The glaring light of his eyes stuttered. He blinked, once, then several more times. "Ah - M - Martin?"
"There you are." Martin pressed a kiss to Jon's cheek. For the first time, all four of them connected.
Each of them struggled for power, the weight of it surging, making Agnes gasp with flame and a dozen voices pour out of Jon as the squeak of a thousand strings tightened on their burdens. Fog poured out from their quartet, and the room filled with it. Martin pulled back, but Jon caught his hand.
"Please. Don't - I'm not sure I can hold it back without you." Jon threaded their hands together, his fingers tracing over the ring Martin wore for a moment. He gave a curt nod to Annabelle. "It's your turn. I can - I can feel everything. I'm here if… if you need me."
Annabelle took a deep breath, then let her eyes flutter closed, one of her hands wrapped around Jon's wrist. That strange feeling - the pull inside like someone had taken hold of his veins and was dragging them out was a twisting pain that jumped between uncomfortable and excruciating - flaring up. Annabelle breathed a trembling exhale as power flooded into her.
The threads in their multitudes spread from Annabelle in an intricate pattern, delicate and indecipherable. He watched as she strummed her fingers through the air, trailing along each line until she found what she was looking for and coaxed it to wrap around a center point. When she played the thread the right way, the cacophony of voices quivered, one grew louder, and she snatched it, pinned it down with fangs, trapped it in her web. Sweat dripped down her temples, but her eyes had glazed over black as she worked, weaving a tapestry in the air only she could see.
She panted as she worked on the last one, struggling to contain it. She clenched her jaw, her words guttural. "I can't grab the Unending Sky."
Jon slid his hand up Annabelle's arm and caught her shoulder, his fingers splayed over the skin of her collarbone. "I've some experience with the Vast, unfortunately. It isn't containment that's going to help you. The Vast is unknown - depth or height or extent, but you have to Know it. Focus on that - find a domain that you can narrow."
Annabelle followed Jon's spool and laid a trap,concentrating not on ensnaring the impossible size of the Entity, but exposing it, divulging all its secrets, showing the very real limits of its presence. She wrapped it up in gossamer web and finally held it in place. The rest of the Fears twitched, caught up, pressed together with tape and knowledge. The screens of domains shorted and sparked. Annabelle wiped her face with her sleeve and a grin broke over her face, real. Uncalculated.
"I've got them. They're all wrapped up."
"Our turn, then," Agnes said, inhaling deeply. She wrapped their hands around the wrists of the other two and focused.
Annabelle's webs were not dissimilar to the patterned lines of destruction; Agnes saw them clearly, even if their purpose was different. Strands following a complex network surrounded them, stretching ever-onward as far as the Eye could see.
She sent a questing query of tinder down every line searching for the purest expression of each Entity. Although Annabelle had thoroughly entangled each one, bound fast by the recordings, flotsam muddied the field and Agnes couldn't afford to pick them off individually. They needed to be destroyed at the same time or the imbalance of power could upend their efforts.
Drawing on his connection to the Eye, and Jon's much stronger one, Martin aided Agnes in her struggle to Know the right way to access each Entity, the shape of it, each beginning and end. He showed her the entirety of the Lonely first, so easy to define, the familiar heft of it simple to contain. With his help, they scored their lines, laid their gunpowder and set charges, each meticulous in its path.
A wave of sound, every recorded statement, washed over Martin when he approached an Entity, reaching to him almost like a plea for mercy. He ignored them.
The Eye, becoming cognizant of their efforts, drew on surrounding creatures to come for them. Jon gasped with the influx of information, squeezing their hand even as he shut down the spotters, his reach able to extend past his patron with their connection. As stronger things made of eyes and shattered fragments of mirrors tried to stir from the bowels of the tower, Agnes engulfed them with flame and the air filled with the hiss of fluids evaporating, the musical tinkle of breaking glass.
Both Jon and Annabelle collapsed to the ground, shuddering with the sensation laid out before them, their two masters able to see the ruin Agnes would bring and unable to stop it. Annabelle's hand slipped from their grasp, but the connection had been forged - nothing could separate them now. Jon held on.
Agnes chuckled, a dark crackling thing of snapped twigs and roaring flame. "My destiny will no longer be barred from me."
The fire grew in their chest, a living, thriving thing, roiling like the dark clouds on the horizon, full to bursting with the storm. Their feet left the floor, buffeted by the upswell of heat, and Agnes closed their eyes. The burning halo descended upon their head, where it belonged, the blue flames dripping down their arms.
The fervency of her conviction caught Martin, suffused him with its power and its righteousness. He'd seen how the Entities tortured people firsthand, and he knew that they needed to be destroyed, but his own nature, his own abilities, were passive at best. Quiet and unassuming. He'd thought himself easy to forget, easy to tuck away. Having Agnes with him had changed that.
She existed with such a confidence that Martin couldn't help but admire it, pick up pieces of it like sand clinging to skin long after you've left the beach. She had destruction at her fingertips but hadn't loneliness garnered just as many victims? He knew the face of lonely people, how they meandered through life, functioning and bereft, existing only as a shrine to where warmth and connection and love had once flourished. He had just as much power as she did, and he could use it. He should use it. Every time it'd been turned against him, every time he’d gone on an empty date or a friendship hollowed with the passage of days, every time Martin had asked for help and he hadn't even been denied but been ignored! Every time. He could tap into each incident and use it to fuel him, give him exactly the sort of strength Agnes wielded.
Her expert hand moved in his, the adroit pluck of strings used his muscles and he had always been good with memory. Martin moved with Agnes, not a vessel but a companion. She'd revealed all the notches in his soul where the flame of vengeance burned. Maybe she didn't realize, but their union reflected it - he knew each crack the Lonely seeped through, until the fog saturated her whole being, left her exposed and he knew every exploit.
Agnes was always meant for grander things; she pulled Martin along with her.
"The paths are set," Agnes said, her voice pulsating with the roar of a wildfire. "I am the shatterer of worlds and this one is brittle."
The heat, the fire, exploded out of them, running down their arms, their legs, through the intricate net woven by the Web and charted by the Eye. Mapped by The Lonely and Desolation both. Their skin blistered and blackened, the flames consuming, and Agnes laughed, so darkly from their chest it charred from the inside out.
A high-pitched noise, a thin wailing, rose around them, and Martin discerned the frantic, animalistic scramblings of the other Entities. His careful touch directed Agnes' fury, enough of a link to the Eye to know weaknesses and reveal them to her, enable her, prevent her from burning out too soon, too quickly. Without guidance, without plan, without anything other than a desperate need to survive, the Fears stood no chance. The fire ate them all alike.
Their wild, futile cling to existence only intensified the fall, the fear, pure and enormous, overwhelmed them. Martin laughed, their voice reverberating throughout the room in two twinned tones, stripping the Panopticon of its structure, revealing the fragile lattice of illusions that bound everything together in a harsh shriek, the sound a harmonious chord to the screams.
The screens, cracked and filled with static, began to crumble, smashing against the floor as they fell. Agnes paid it no mind, the flame engulfing her thoughts, but it startled Martin. He looked, and when his gaze cleared of ash, he saw Annabelle and Jon writhing on the floor, screaming.
The joy - and it had been joy and he'd been reveling in it - fled Martin's mind. He’d meant to protect those two, hadn't he? He remembered, distinctly, holding them in their plan as untouchable, as preserved from whatever ruin Desolation would bring upon the things that made them. The glory of their victory turned acrid in his mouth, like he’d finally lost the taste for ash. Martin tried to assert control again, let himself spread throughout his body, but he was denied by walls of blades and shattered stones. He couldn't do anything, not while Agnes luxuriated in the grandeur of their plan's fruition.
But she would stop before destroying everything. Wouldn't she?
The wide-eyed horror on Jon's face shook the foundation of Martin's certainty. Jon was staring at Agnes, at him, and that couldn't be right.
Jon's eyes snapped to his. He mouthed something, even through the grimace of pain. Martin squinted, trying to make it out even as the distraction of Agnes' wrath too easily tore him away. Instead of trying to regain control of his whole body, Martin shifted his awareness into his hand, the one still linked with Jon’s. He focused and he could hear -
"Take us away! Before they’re gone, you have the power to make us disappear - take us away! Just me, just you."
It was a gift of the Lonely to vanish, either oneself or others. Martin hadn't used it, but he’d witnessed Peter do it innumerable times. It should be easy enough. He didn't understand. Didn’t want to leave Agnes nor Annabelle, but Jon wouldn't ask him unless he had a plan. Martin trusted Jon, no caveats.
There wasn’t time to think.
The Lonely had always felt cold, not blistering or mild, but somewhere vaguely between, a cold that sank into your bones but left you unable to complain - a bothersome cold, because to ask for alleviation of it would make you bothersome. The heat enveloped Martin so thoroughly he couldn't recall the feeling of coldness. But if he brought up a memory of a desolate beach, the spray of the sea, salt limning his features, the chill not only of the air but the specific shape of emptiness, the sensation flooded back to him.
He imagined that beach, clear and specific, and the fog rolled in. His chest filled with it.
"No!" Agnes yelled.
They vanished from the Panopticon.
Martin sputtered out a mouthful of salt water, crawling from the gray ocean onto the rocky gray beach. He pushed himself to stand and shivered. He couldn't see anyone. The connection to Agnes smoldered in his chest, but it was muted, muffled, as if dampened somehow. He didn't know how long the Lonely would hold out against the heat, but he hoped it was long enough for Jon to deliver his master plan.
Oh. Jon.
"Jon?" he called out, desperation making his voice crack. "Jon?"
"Martin!"
Jon stumbled out of the fog. He threw his arms around Martin's shoulders, shaking, unable to keep himself upright and they both collapsed to their knees. Martin kissed Jon's cheek, his mouth, the tears streaming down his face mingled with the remnants of ocean water still clinging to his skin.
"Are you alright? Why did you -"
"I don't know how much time we have," Jon said. He brought both of Martin's hands to his lips, then sighed. "I didn't realize until the very end, the last poisoned gift of the Eye."
"I don't - what -?"
"For what it's worth, I believe you did what's right. As much as you could. And I don't think, surprisingly enough, Annabelle or Agnes were corrupt in their intentions."
"But?" Martin asked. The fog thickened around them as dread made its home where Agnes' ember vibrated with quiescent rage.
Jon's forehead puckered, his lips betraying a sad smile. "You gave Desolation the ultimate gift. Destruction of everything - the Fears, the domains, the knowledge and eldritch power binding it all together. I thought we could - but it's like an engorged leech, fattened on the biggest meal to ever exist."
"No, that's -" Martin stopped. He knew what Agnes was, had known the whole time. He knew what she served, but she'd changed, hadn't she? He’d felt her smoldering edges give way to softness. Hadn’t he? "Agnes wouldn't."
"Perhaps not. But I don't know if she has any more agency than Jonah did as the Pupil. The Eye pointed it out to me. Too late. You couldn't guarantee Agnes' control - we just hoped she was strong enough. Maybe she was - is. But the amount of power we gave the Desolation is incomprehensible. We - I should've accounted for that. I should've guessed." Jon caught Martin's face between his hands, his thumb resting on Martin's cheekbones, the ring warm.
"It's not your -" Martin squeezed his eyes shut, briefly. "We did it, though. We destroyed - we destroyed all the Fears. We burnt them out, Jon."
"You did." Jon sighed shakily. "You did. Except for one. How can you plan to burn Ruin, when it’s your very tool for the act?"
Martin opened his mouth. He closed it.
They hadn’t had a plan for that. He’d thought it would just… work out. Hadn't Agnes said something about fervor? That maybe the Desolation would be so caught up in the chaos that it would burn itself out? But he hadn't seen any sign of it. If anything, the Desolation seemed maniacal in its glee, hyper-aware of what it was destroying. How could they have all missed it? Especially Annabelle, who he thought had perfect control, knew the ins and outs and had plotted her convoluted scheme to account for mistakes and spoilers. And it had seemed like such a good idea, hadn't it? When the Panopticon loomed on the horizon and Jon's vulnerability was on full display at Upton, Martin had been so eager to believe in anything that could rescue him. He felt foolish. Blind.
Martin wrapped his hands around Jon's narrow waist, sinking into the frayed fabric of his shirt, rubbing it between his fingers. Every thread felt precious, perfect, something he would do anything to hold onto. And he had. He'd all but betrayed Jon, even in the pursuit of saving him, Martin hadn't trusted Jon soon enough. And it was their downfall.
"I'm sorry," Martin blurted. He yanked Jon closer. "I didn't - I didn't think. I didn't - What are we going to do?"
With a soft sigh, Jon's eyes - the eerie green bleeding out the edges of them as rings of deep brown shone through - fluttered closed. "Without the End, the Great Ruin could potentially torture people forever. I don't know. That's the worst case. I think."
"That's really fucking worst-case, Jon."
"I know. I know and I know you tried."
A spot appeared in the fog. First it was just a thinning, a reveal of the rocky shoreline several feet out from them. But as it became clearer, the waves lapping at the edge, the distant rolling hills of an unreachable place, Martin realized what he was looking at. Fog, his type of fog, didn't just disappear or roll away - it had to be eliminated. It had to be burned out.
Martin grabbed Jon's shoulders. "Agnes - or whatever is Agnes - is here. Jon -"
A whirlwind of fire and heat blazed over them, dissipating the fog. Agnes manifested before them, hovering in the air. The tenuous ribbon of their connection shuddered in the air, stressed with maintaining itself as they existed inexplicably in separate bodies after being singular for so long. She glided toward them, her glorious crown a riot of flames, her eyes so searing they shone as twin suns. Jon stepped forward, his hand raised high.
"Ceaseless Watcher, witness the bearer of your demise and tear it asunder with -"
"It's too late for that, isn't it?" Agnes said, brushing off the attack, her voice echoing with the sorrowful sob of a thousand broken hearts.
Jon's hand wavered in the air. He fell to one knee, but kept his hand aloft, jaw set in a stubborn clench. Even Martin could see the straining tendons in his neck, the waver to his back as he tried to stay upright. The furious glow of the Beholding drained from his body and with it, all his powers. "Ceaseless Watcher -"
Jon’s voice cut out. His shoulders slumped and he swayed on the rocks, one hand striking out to stop himself from tumbling onto the ground. Martin put himself between Jon and Agnes.
If anyone was going to pay for his mistakes, it wasn't going to be the man he loved. Not again. Not like when Martin had failed to see him drowning in his paranoia, or supported his desperate global search for answers, awoken him from a coma Martin hadn't prepared enough for, or stopped the web-covered statement from digging into Jon and violating his only chance to be at peace. No. Martin could pay this time - he'd always lived in poverty but until now, hadn't realized the paucity of his soul.
"You tricked me. You just wanted to win. I thought we - I thought -" Martin wouldn't cry.
Agnes descended, her feet touching the ground and etching a circle of obsidian around her. Her face stayed too bright to look at, hiding the nuances of her expression. Her voice was only ruin, the callous resonant rumble of earthquakes. "You thought we were friends."
"And what a fucking fool I was!" Martin said, the gasping grief lurking in his throat, fracturing apart his words.
The radiance around Agnes faded, the crown dulling to embers, the soft hazel of her eyes discernible once more. She took another step and though Martin could feel the heat, it didn't scorch him. Her brows pinched together and her mouth trembled even as she pursed it. She wrapped her arms around her torso, clenching hard enough to bring her muscles into sharp relief.
"I knew what would happen if you gave me the power; I would burn it all, and I did. I knew, Martin, something you and Annabelle both tried very hard to forget, a glaring flaw in your fragile plan." The gentle lilt of her accent seeped through, a tinge of regret coating the words. "You knew only what I was supposed to be, what I failed at,, but you agreed to it anyway."
Martin wiped at his running nose, his hands clenched into fists at his side. He couldn't endure another moment of her voice, another reminder that he'd tried and failed. He’d wanted to believe that she would be who he thought she was, who they discovered together. She was only a person, after all, and he knew how easy it was to bury the truth of yourself so deeply you forget the shape. He'd thought, when she’d gleefully encouraged him to kiss Jon, when she’d insisted on touching every new texture, when she’d delighted in the duplicity of their existence, that she was someone he understood. Now, he didn't know. Now, he wasn't sure if he could trust her. She’d seemed so soft - was it another mantle to hide her true intentions? Was she even Agnes anymore, or had the Desolation consumed her, as the Eye almost consumed Jon.
"Are you going to kill us now? Or are we victims for the torture?” Wild, his voice pitched with near hysterical self-deprecation, he added: “You know how afraid I am of fire."
Her mouth tightened and her lashes lowered. "I wouldn't want that, Martin."
"Just - just kill us then. Or stop gloating, I can't stand another second of it."
"I -" Agnes lifted a hand toward him, hovering in the air, waves of heat radiating off her power still. Her offered hand didn't look like it had when she'd burned out the fears. It looked like succor, a hand outstretched to pull up, pull close, a hand for salvation. "All the Fears have a weakness. They can all be defeated, all in the same way. Including the Desolation. Including me. Do you know what it is, Martin?"
Did she expect an actual dialogue or was she playing with him, knowing he was at her mercy? He wanted so hard to believe in her, the way he'd been growing to, the way he’d vouched for her against the others. He wanted her to be good in the way he knew she was. In the way he thought he’d known. In the way he’d thought maybe he could be - someone born into sadness finding joy.
Bereft, drifting, Martin giggled helplessly. "Incredibly witty rejoinders?"
"Love, Martin. Selfless love."
Even as she said it, in her earnest, sweet voice, Martin scoffed. He shouldn't have expected ingenuity from the Desolation. "It's always - it's impossible to overcome. The Corruption's come the closest, but it still succumbs." She did move forward then, her hot hand against Martin's cheek. He flinched, but it didn't burn.
"That's bullshit," he said, afraid to trust even as the warmth of her hand seeped into his skin, human warmth like every press of Jon's lips against his, sweet and wholesome and real, casting so much doubt he struggled to maintain his sarcasm. She couldn't be sincere. He didn't think she was one for manipulation, but he'd learned so much from her, why wouldn't the reverse be true?
Was it irony or fate for him to enable his own destruction?
"When we started this, you thought - you thought I would burn you out. You thought that by doing this, you would die and still you - you agreed to it, with a farewell your only request." She smiled sadly. "You think all your actions are out of guilt and I lived in your heart, Martin, so I can tell you that the weight of your sins is no more than anyone else’s. Less, even, in quite a number of cases. There's no weight to purity or merit; everyone dies and suffers and we all deserve it to some extent. But love - oh love. I thought they made it up. You showed me it was real."
Martin stared at her and didn't notice he was crying until the tears landed on his scarred arms. The light of destruction had completely vanished from her face, leaving only her wide eyes and her crumpled mouth and the ardent hope that he would accept her words as truth. The tether between them, stretched taut by their separate forms, hummed with energy, and it wasn't the fire he usually felt or the cold he protected himself with. It was soft as well-worn woolen jumpers, woody green like young trees, crisp as the first bite of autumn's apple.
She was right. Those that had come before had told them it wasn’t enough, but why did they take their word as law? It was love. Or maybe it wasn't - maybe it was sacrifice and cooperation and trust and belief. All those things were love anyway, weren't they? Stemmed from the same place, motivated by the same desire. He'd tried so hard to love, to figure out the secret that unlocked his mother, brought back his father, fixed his relationships, kept his friends. It'd taken a rescue from the very edge of his undoing to reveal the truth of it in his heart, and a person living in his actual chest to open it up.
He believed her. Maybe that made him a fool, an idiot enamored, but he believed. He believed in her.
Martin slipped his hand up to cover Agnes’. When she winced, hunching inward, he looked down. A dark stain had appeared on the belly of her shirt. It grew, crumbling ash at the edges, caving inward and he could just make out the gray water behind her through the opening. She was burning out.
Panic scratched at his throat and Martin gathered her up close, his mind racing with ideas on how to stop it, how to keep her alive. His breathing went ragged.
"No, wait -"
"Thank you for letting me ride along. It was almost… it was almost like being alive again." Her eyes went wide, her fingers gracing the edge of the growing hole. "It would've been nice to have seen more people. To have been seen."
"I see you, Agnes," Martin said, laying his hands on her shoulders even as it burned. He couldn't let her go out alone. He'd held her in his heart for so long, he couldn't abandon her on this final step. "You helped me more than - more than you know."
She slowly nodded, one hand covered in ash, the other falling listlessly to her side. As tears rolled down her cheeks, they evaporated with a hiss. "You were right, Martin. I wish I had more time."
Immolation consumed her. She was a perfect statue of gray ash.
He choked on a sob, wanting to touch, fearing that doing so would crumble her to dust and he'd lose the last semblance of her. The place inside his chest rang a doleful sound with its emptiness. He cried. "I'm sorry."
"Martin?"
He turned and found himself wobbling, falling to his knees, then nearly face-first onto the rocks. Jon caught him, too weak to prop him up and they both collapsed into the rising tide, water cold on their faces. Even as he looked, Martin could see where exhaustion wrote itself in the lines on Jon's face, a smear of blood on his jaw. Martin wanted to reach out, but found his limbs refused to work for him.
"You're hurt," Martin mumbled, face stinging. He should do something about it. He should touch Jon, comfort him if he couldn't help him. Jon would like that. Jon would welcome it. Jon would… Thoughts and movement slipped from his mind.
"You're hurt. Just keep - just keep looking at me," Jon said. His eyes were deep brown, and so beautiful Martin bemoaned his fading mind couldn't think of a single apt phrase, except perhaps -
Your eyes drink of me, Love makes them shine.
EPILOGUE - I think our experience of the universe has value. Even if it disappears forever. (Big Picture - 151)
Martin forced himself to look in the mirror while he did his stretches. He didn't like the look of the burns left on his skin, the way they fell over his chest and shoulders, though the very worst were on his back where fingers splayed in a hug he hadn't felt. The doctor had told him stretching would prevent the skin from growing tight and hindering movement, so every morning and night he did the stretches. All of them, and not a little of it due to the sad disappointment Jon gave him if he discovered Martin was slacking.
Jon appeared in the doorway, dressed and standing too stiffly. He held his arms out for inspection. "Well?"
Martin paused and circled around Jon. They'd spent weeks figuring out the outfit, going over what had to be the same set of trousers at least six times until Jon was certain the fabric texture was correct and wouldn't bother him all day. Jon desperately wanted a tie but Martin had vetoed it. It wasn't, as he had told him, because the tie would make him look stuffy and silly, but that Martin found him so wildly attractive in his full setup he couldn't bear another person to see Jon like that. At least, not without Martin on his arm, preening.
"It'll do."
Jon scowled at him. "I've stuck to one single style of clothing my whole life, Martin, because it works for me. If I"m going to be embarking on a new style, then I want a full review."
Martin laughed. "You've just - you've just traded out jackets and ties for sweaters. You realize that you've just… right. Well."
He circled again, tapping at his chin and Jon waited impatiently. He even wiggled, biting his lip until Martin gave a determination. "Come on, I can't be late my first day."
When Martin stopped in front of Jon, he let out a small tsk. "Oh no."
Jon's face blanched. "What, what is it?"
"Right. Right here, you have -" He pointed at his face and Jon rubbed at his cheeks to displace whatever marred his appearance.
"Did I get it?"
"Ah, no, you've -" Martin leaned in and kissed Jon. Even rolling his eyes, Jon kissed back, fingers sliding along Martin's shoulders, dragging him closer until their chests touched. Martin kissed him again - his cheek, his nose.
"Yes, you've had your fun."
"You look great. And you'll do great." Martin smiled, lost in the grumpiness Jon touted very poorly. "Do you have your notebook?"
"Yes, just here. I wrote it all down. And we… we checked it?" Jon slid the handheld notebook out of his trouser pocket to show Martin.
"We did," Martin confirmed. He kissed Jon again, then stepped back. "I suppose I'll see you when you get back."
"Don't sound so dour, it's only student teaching. And you're to meet up with Annabelle today, yes?"
A grin broke out over Martin's face. "Yeah, did you remember?"
Jon shrugged sheepishly. "There's a note on your mirror. But it's getting better. I think."
Twining their fingers together, Martin maneuvered Jon toward the door, straightening the immaculate lines of his clothes as he went. "It's alright if it doesn't. I love you, any way that you are."
Only the left corner of Jon's mouth titled up in a smile, but he kissed Martin's forehead and squeezed his fingers before heading out of their flat, closing the door behind him.
Their tiny flat didn't need much tidying, but Martin cleaned up their mugs from breakfast and set the counter up with food Jon had made, still aghast that Martin had no ability to cook. Martin didn't much care for sports, but it was the first footy game since the world wobbled back to a version of normal, and he'd asked Annabelle over to watch. She swore to wear Arsenal red even though it wasn't Arsenal playing and somehow he knew he was going to have to deal with her shouting at the telly the whole time.
He gathered up Jon's books, careful to keep his notecards in place and the board with his mnemonic patterns intact. They'd figured out a system that worked to help Jon to remember things, and Martin took care to maintain it. He picked up a book that'd hidden under a stack of graded essays in Jon's spindly writing.
A book of poetry. Martin opened it and balked at the vast amount of writing covering the pages, picking apart syntax, diction, and meter or lack thereof in nearly every poem in the page. Trust Jon to be critical. One poem, two-thirds through, he'd flagged with a note that said "memorize for M."
It spoke of death, and love enduring beyond, regardless of form. Martin breathed in deeply, and exhaled. No matter what happened, no matter what Martin believed about their actions or situation, Jon remained steadfast. Martin wasn't too sure of his own virtues, but he'd had enough of thinking the worst about himself. He trusted Jon's instincts, and if Jon thought he was worth it then - he was worth it.
Meanwhile, somewhere else, Jon would find packed away in his lunch, a post-it decorated with lopsided flowers and stick figure cats. The words reminding him, as they did every day, that it wasn't his fault.