Chapter Text
Jon jerks up instantly in a panic, fully, excruciatingly awake, making Martin almost jump out of his freckles. Jon is… Watching him, intensely, darts of green in his eyes and traces of movement under his latest scar lines. Not his thoughts, more like he’s Knowing what’s… inside his body?
“No, no, no! Please no, no… What I’ve done to you!”
“Jon… you are… scaring me a little bit?”
“How didn’t I feel it? I See differently now, I’m not just the Archivist, and with all that happened, and then the Leitner’s, and in Artifact Storage, there was so much interference and…
“Jon”
“It is still pale! I didn’t notice... I’m sure Simon didn’t pinpoint it either or he would…”
“Jon, just talk to me.”
“You’re not… anymore… you’re…” he swallows, shakes its head, he’s going to be crude, but there’s no quicker way that he can think of to explain, and he’s not sure he can manage more than one more word out.
“Avatar.”
“What? No, no, no, look, I feel… normal.” Normal as in, normal for me, normal for five years of uninterrupted trauma, but “Why should I be…”
“It’s all my fault, Martin! I didn’t think, I didn’t mean… I didn’t…” Didn’t what? What’s the excuse this time for fucking up? I didn’t want? I never wanted, but that doesn’t fix, doesn’t change the consequences, I didn’t want to remember that I am marked, that good… can’t come out of me anymore, that I’m poisonous to stay around… always been. Always been… Georgie was, is, right to go away, smart enough to see… I should never have let Martin came close… but… “I did.”
Jon doesn’t go on, stays sit at Martin’s side, a hand on his mouth, another clutched over Martin’s chest, like he’s checking his heartbeat or his… what? Smell? How that even works?
“What happened” tries Martin softly, deliberately addressing Jon’s panic instead of his future as a non-human being, plenty of time to freak out on that later “You’re the Pupil now, so you… accidentally? Made me what, your Archivist?”
Jon feels too numb to even go on, but at least he ought to explain to Martin, Martin that should be running away horrified, and instead is holding his arm around him to keep him close, like he’s afraid he may choose flight, any second now. Again, in spite of what’s he’s promised, again, just a few seconds ago.
“Not the Eye” he swallows “You’re still bound to it, of course, but… When I beamed you all that… hope. I was surprised the Eye would let me, would even help me… Stupid… I should have gathered something was wrong. I channeled into you so much of that that… it became… it coalesced into a new Entity. And you ended up as his first avatar. You… bet the world and killed Annabelle’s plan for your hope, that was choice enough...”
“I would be an avatar for… Hope? But how? I mean, Extinction, took two centuries and an Apocalypse to just say hello, how is it possible for something… new? To make avatars in minutes?”
But again, it’s me, so kinda figures it’d happen like this. An instant avatar, cheap like a microwaved Nescafe of fears.
“Humans… started gradually to fear for their Extinction, as they became aware of the scale of the new dangers their own discoveries posed but… by how little has been done about it, humanity feared its own demise… nowhere near enough. It could manage to mark me just because I was on the verge of a very extreme act. This change back… it was a sudden thing for the whole world, after being trapped, tortured, lost… Hoping again. So much for so many people at once, people and any animal with brain enough to suffer, and it happened while the change back was still underway, so this thing, could carve itself a place much more easily while the world was still reshaping…”
Keep him talking, keep him from spiraling… keep both from spiraling… “But… Hope? How is it even a Fear?”
“The nature of hope has always been… hard to pin. It’s not the certainty of something good, it’s an expectation, with the possibility of it turning into disillusion. One can fear hope for this reason, for the hurt that would come with a broken expectation. So much that I could power our ritual collecting exactly that. No hope can exist without fear.
Even in literature, Hope, Elpis in Greek, was the last item in Pandora’s box of vices. Pandora opened the jar, letting out the evils… relatable, isn’t it? She then hurried to close the lid, trapping the last bit, Elpis, inside. I wonder where that myth came from, and if we’re going to find some ancient version of Hesiod’s ‘Works and Days’, marked by Leitner…”
“Wait, if it’s a new full Entity, you lack a mark for it, then it’s impossible for a new Apocalypse to happen through you!”
“I’m afraid not so, Martin. I experienced it all, while I channeled it to you, and it is… a Fear I know all too well. I’m marked too, already.”
“Then… what happens now? What do I… eat? Like, people’s daydreams?” Which, I’d have some real CV for it, surviving on daydreams it’s all I’ve done until Jon. Though. Do they still count as daydreams if they’ve become real?
“There’s been… opposite interpretations of that poem, of Elpis. Some argued, that hope was a false one, a final evil, to prolong suffering under the expectation of good that would never come. To others, it is good hope, and closing the jar locked away from humanity what could have balanced the evils. Leading to a world with only bad powers at work…”
“Jon, I know how it felt. You felt it too. It didn’t feel like bad hope.”
“No. You’re right… People were terrified of it in the beginning, to see the world collapse once again, but when they started to allow themselves to hope, it was… the most not bad thing ever, possibly.” Jon panicked face starts to change, and he raises his hand to cup Martin’s cheek. Thinking back at Martin being stubborn, declaring he forbad a bad ending. Looked delusional to him back then, but Martin didn’t fear to keep hoping.
“The Eye, why would it let you?”
“While it happened, I had a brief thought. Not sure if mine or the Eye’s. Acquired tastes. To the Ceaseless Watcher, there’s no good or bad. Fear is merely food. The Eye, any Fear it can See, it can eat. Like we have… bacteria that help us digest food we couldn’t otherwise” goes on Jon, years of documentaries finally paying off “I think the Eye saw the pile of potential food hope could generate, and went along with me accidentally conjuring its birth, to gain an avenue to better eat hope too. It may have already done so. The Eye, two rituals in, is the only Fear that hasn’t shrunk. The damned thing is… happy like a baby with a full belly. And even fonder of you than usual.”
“Because now I’m. A new bacterium for its digestion. This is… ugh. Unappetizing. So, Hope won’t hurt them.”
“No. It’s too ambivalent. In a sense, Hope may be… their way to adapt to a reality that has changed. The world that Jonah and the Web manifested, was the vertex of what could be accomplished with fear alone. The ultimate post along that line… was a dead-end. Wither or leave, world after world… The Eye wants more.”
“But I believed it couldn’t plan?”
“It does not. Not like us, not like the Web. Nor do bacteria, molds, or cockroaches... Yet it never prevented them from picking winning evolutive paths and feed on everything else.”
“And us? Will I get some useful trick out of it?”
“Maybe, though, they may take time to manifest and have string attached. I surely wish being an avatar won’t… change you…”
Jon’s eyes unfocus at the sudden thought. The Eye may enjoy its avatars freewheeling, but what about this new thing? He has to Know, now. Soon he clenches his teeth.
“Jon, no, stop. You’re exhausted.”
“I need to Know… not yet as blinding as the others, I can discern a bit… Ceaseless Watcher, allow your servant to look for you at this new thing you focused into being…”
He tightens his grip on Martin’s shirt and force himself to look again, breathing harshly. Hope is soon going to gain full luminosity and make Knowing impossible. Now may be his only chance ever to see a glimpse, and it may be vital knowledge for Martin.
Hope looks… imperfect.
Like… a tentative, nervous smile.
It’s like water, soft and overlooked, yet unrelenting and strong enough to cut mountains.
It’s changing and branching. We will find a way.
It’s crossroads, where there were dead ends before.
Just wanted to check if you wanted tea?
It’s a cup, that you can let slowly go cold and pretend means nothing. Or accept and risk it’ll warm you.
I wanted you to save yourself.
It’s a choice that is given, not taken.
It’s the most he can See. Brilliance aside, it’s in its nature to be undetermined, chaotic, endlessly evolving, always something left to be Known. It’s what thrills the Eye probably. But maybe… he doesn’t need his Sight to know how familiar some of it feels.
“It won’t change you. It’s not in his nature to impose, but to offer...” Jon takes a moment to catch his breath. Martin will be ok. Well, mostly. Nothing is like being fully human, but at least, Martin will gain some protection against other avatars. They’ll need it.
“And still…” Jon goes on, pondering, trying to make sense of the glimpses he’s seen “Hope is an Entity and is intertwined with the other Fears. Its emergence, it cannot be undone. There is no known way to kill a single Entity, no way to separate them. Should the worst come again… another Apocalypse. Hope will follow along with every other Entity. It’s unavoidable.”
“But how hell can be hell, if it is not… hopeless?”
“How can… Right… It… it cannot, can it? With Hope in the mix, the rules of physics, nature, will still be all messed up, but morally? Hope won’t hurt the Fears but…”
A choice that is given.
Of course.
“It will affect us, our standing in that world! The people trapped in their roles in the hellscape, watched or watchers, both were hopeless. Even switching roles, even when Melanie and Georgie pulled them off… it was just an illusion of hope.”
“They were always meant to be taken back.”
“But Hope as an Entity, will be real in that world. Well Hope isn’t certainty, but would give people a chance, should they not fear it, to find a way out. Hope will… restore their agency. Then the outcomes could be either good or bad, but just like it is in this world, against war, or injustice… in a sense, it will be not so unlike what we have now. Humanity could adapt and continue in it…
Or, whoever next would find themselves facing our same choice… should they decide to let the Web send the Fears packing elsewhere. Hope will spread with them, and every destination will receive both things. It won’t be a death sentence anymore… It may even be a blessing, should there be other worlds from which the Fears are spreading, any world that inherits the version with Hope attached, will never risk getting only Fears… And there is no way to undo this, to be back to our kind of Apocalypse, ever…”
Martin’s eyes are as teary as Jon’s, when he finally asks.
“Jon… we… fixed it?”
“We can’t be certain but…” he smiles “We can hope.”
He smiles again, and tears return too, but Jon lets them, because they’re not bad tears, they’re not going to ruin…
We fixed it… not with our plans, not because of everything I tried to sacrifice, but just because…
I did something for no other reason than to make Martin happy.
He can only hug him, wordlessly, circling him as tightly as he can, and Martin just let him, and leans against him. No one else will be left in their same hopeless dilemma, bearing that same unescapable guilt. What Jon wanted most, what he thought he could never give him. So, Martin can let go, and allow himself to cry, and be terrified, and then happy, held until he feels safe again.
It’s a very long embrace, and they gradually shift and lay down, settling one against the other. Martin clings on wakefulness until he can see Jon’s eyes closing behind his silver locks, before falling asleep too.
---
Georgie and Melanie are thoroughly not impressed, when the two lovebirds emerge from Document Storage at noon. Firmly glued to each other, like two halves of electronics not meant to be user serviceable, Martin’s arm molded around Jon’s shoulders, and Jon’s hooked to his waist. The portrait of sappy, as if having slept through the whole morning while the others carted malevolent crap in the tunnels wasn’t enough offense on its own.
Still, Georgie cannot find it in herself to snap at them because they just look… luminous. Martin’s smile has a warmth that’s almost melting, and Jon… seems rested, and serene, and happy Jon is something so utterly rare that she’s unwilling to break.
“We have a thing to tell you!” both Martin and Jon say, as synchronized as Breekon & Hope.
“Oh god, what now” utters Melanie “You just sounded like a couple announcing they’re expecting.”
And there is no answer. Just a silence that somehow screams ‘you caught us’.
“I mean, no.” establishes Georgie “Right? Please, don’t tell me Archivists, I don’t know…” she cuts herself right before pronouncing ‘lay eggs’ because now there is an image in her mind of Jon sat on a white egg with a pupil, inside a nest of entwined statements.
“Obviously not.” starts Jon “Though, in a sense, we, Martin... Metaphorically…”
And that’s how they end up having to explain the whole Hope newborn Entity thing keeping a desk between them and Melanie’s not metaphorical cane. It’s remarkable, the clarity with which she’s able to convey her sentiments by swinging it.
Basira asks questions, but Georgie just listens in silence and Jon isn’t sure anymore they will take any of this as good news. He’s turned Martin into an avatar. The Fears will still be around and will still need to feed. He, and now Martin too, will need to feed, somehow. While any good that will come from this, may lay years in the future, maybe past their lifetime, maybe past their universe.
Georgie can hear his tone fade back into tired resignation. Until he’s talking again about Martin, and the fight is back in his voice as he’s repeating how Martin is not a puppet of his new patron. And it clicks. Please, don’t look at Martin the way you look at me since the coma. Be angry at me all you want, but don’t you dare, put Martin through that.
And it is so much like him, like Jon, to reason like this, that Georgie finally makes up his mind and steps forward to hug him. Archivist, Archive, Pupil, eldritch whatever, over anything else…
“Jonathan Sims. You did save the world, in the end. More than one.”
“I just... you know. Five years ago… Martin made me a cup of tea and left it on my desk and… I took it, and…”
Georgie finishes for him “And we’ve been spared the mess you’d have made left on your own. So come here, Martin… Hope. Suits you.”
“Oh, I don’t know, I mean, I... Gave up. Once.”
“That’s why it’ll suit you. You know. What’s like to be without, and have it gifted back to risk it again to give it in turn.”
“Hope huh?” points out Melanie, after they’re done crushing Martin in a hug and she turns towards Jon again, her cane back at poking his chest “Ask Eyeball to find you Arun’s address, so you’ll know where to send your apologies, Jonathan That’s-not-how-it-works Sims. And you’d better make them rhyme.”
“Look, it did not work like this at all in our Apocalypse so I… Ouch!”
“Accept it. Jellygod 0, Cult 1.”
---
Melanie and Georgie still leave, a few days later, but it’s good to know, things between them aren’t broken.
Rosie came back. She could not find the Institute door, but she kept returning, searching along the sidewalk. The third day, they decided she was too tied up with the Eye to be able to quit, and let her in.
A month later, Jon was fluent enough with “A Disappearance” that he and Martin left the Institute to have a cheesecake in one of the reopened cafes. Martin had to order thrice, the waiter apparently kept forgetting there was anyone at the table, but it felt like a little miracle none the less. And Martin proudly checked the first item on his new list of tiny dreams.
They kept doing it, always together (at long last, that promise did stick). People around them would often talk about their experiences during and after the Apocalypse, some were repeat customers, and Jon began to listen, then to write down a few sentences he wanted to cross check. He stopped as he noticed his calligraphy was changing to reflect the subject, and sure enough, when he finally dared to fall asleep, there they were, their terror of falling back into the Apocalypse feeding him.
But a couple of weeks later… they disappeared from his nightmares, and when they next spotted them at the café, they seemed better off, going on about their future more than about their past. Like they’ve found their way out of their fears. Like they had be given a choice to. Fittingly, born as it is from the ashes of the Web’s defeat, Hope is its opposite. The Web binds, Hope unties.
Six months later, everything to be hidden was moved in the lower levels of the tunnels, nearby the Panopticon. The former Institute couldn’t be shroud forever. Internet was gradually coming back as the world was rebuilding infrastructure and seekers were closing in around the place way too often. They collapsed it one night with the Seven Lamps, burying it down in the first level of the tunnels.
One year in, after ghost hunters and avatars wannabes were done with the dead ends of the ruins and the fragments of discredited statements still scattered around, a former employee, the last assistant to the Head of the Institute, Martin Blackwood, was given the deed of the terrain from the Lukas family. The ruins were cleared, and a memorial garden was placed along the street, in remembrance of the Institute employees who had lost their lives.
There were daisies around the stone, and two of the names were framed in fluorescent paperclips. Livening up the pale marble like they used to brighten the days of those they crossed path with.
What the Ghost, now “What the Hell - or lack thereof” had a special, tough still no news was uncovered about The Archivist’s fate.
On the back part of the terrain a smaller two-story building was erected. They didn’t need money from the Lukases for it, as Basira and Rosie had started a lovely side business of black mail and exposing other avatars or, even, very human evils. People who define themselves by their power are those who fear most to be Seen without them, and they’re meals that keep on feeding. The truce with the Vast and the Lonely was, mostly, still on, but it was nice to know they didn’t have to depend on it.
“The Watcher’s Cows” café opened on the ground level. Every cup was handmade, with wildly differently styled cows on each (that crossed a lot of items on Martin’s dreams list). The place was decorated like a Scottish Cabin, and there was a menu for tea where everyone seemed to find the brew they hoped for, despite it being just a leaflet.
And local store owners seemed to always keep stocking whatever Martin wished to find in his visits.
So much than when he decided to ask, the first jewelry store he tried had available a pair of steel grey and black tungsten rings, with a white gold patch in between, where the etching of a tiny cup could fit, along with a date from 2015. The smaller ring carried a purple stone. He said yes. A dozen times in a row. And then again. Jon just couldn’t stop saying it, for the entire week, his eyes would turn teary at every yes he could utter, even if Martin was simply asking whether to top his pancake with honey.
He stopped only after he mistakenly said yes to a request to go out for a picnic wearing the Adorable t-shirt (checked).
Gradually, the former Institute location became a kind of pilgrimage site from people seeking for a closure after their own horrors during the Apocalypse. On the first floor, over the café, those who felt like leaving a statement, could add it in the growing library of visitor’s logs. But they could just as much, simply have a cup, or chat with the owner, and whoever was the figure in a corner no one seemed to properly focus or remember, but the owner was always smiling fondly towards. Or fondly bickering with… because it was a tricky, risky balance. Hope could be a gift for those who saw it as such, but a Fear to those who feared it too much, it’s very nature a choice given to those who encounter it.
And some fear not being puppets, face choices, and others, people who had their hopes broken many times before, and it had hurt too much, would fear to hope again, fear changes, fear action, until… well, Usher reported of a person fossilized in their home, so Martin always ponders, and listen, and waits, before letting his patron make offers.
And he always welcomes with relief those who return, maybe months later, to say the place made them able to face their fears and feel hopeful about attempting to move on. Small, big, victories, one at a time, water against mountains.
Still, should anyone ask Martin about his most important achievement, he’ll probably answer the tiny strip of softness around his husband’s belly button.
Then, maybe not for Simon, maybe not for Jonah, but for them, a blink will be time enough. To give the world another chance, to give themselves another chance, and for anything else on Martin’s dreams list.
Whatever it’ll be, Annabelle is sure she’ll hate it.