Chapter Text
Jonathan Sims was working late in the archives. That wasn’t exactly unusual for him. Everything was fine, really, except for the fact that Martin had to sleep in the archives on account of a certain… worm infestation. Besides that, everything was fine.
Until he saw something… odd. From the corner of his eyes, Jon could see what looked like a… computer glitch? Some kind of twitch in reality, maybe? Jon whipped his head around to look, but whatever he had seen was gone. Huh. Jon rubbed his eye and shook his head. Perhaps he was just tired. Surely, that was all. “I should be heading home, anyway,” he said to no one in particular. Jon reached down to pick up his bag and—
—he stared out a massive window, at stars passing by in the distance. He watched a dear friend drift away through the vacuum of space—
—and dropped his bag on the floor next to his feet. He was inside his apartment. How had… he… Jon had taken the train home, right? But he could only vaguely recall, in that way that when you do the same thing over and over again all those memories blend together. But this time, it was different… somehow… Missing.
Maybe Jon was more tired than he had first thought.
Jon stumbled down the hall—
—of the Aurora. He stopped dead in his tracks. Jon…ny. D’Ville. Jonny d’Ville. First mate of the space crew, The Mechanisms. Right. That was right. That was who he was: Jonny d’Ville. Who was Jonathan Sims, again? No one. It was no one. Right? Jonny’s head felt fuzzy. Had he been day dreaming? Unlikely. Was he sick? Definitely not. He was immortal and could heal from having his brains blasted out. How could he even get sick? Ridiculous. Why had he even considered…?
Jonny shook his head and continued walking, one hand on his holster the whole time. Why was he so shaken? Maybe he should, eugh, talk to someone. As disgusting as that idea was, it could help… maybe.
He walked until he found someone. Gunpowder Tim! He wasn’t exactly Jonny’s closest friend (that honor went to Nastya, of course), but they didn’t hate each other. Well, Jonny didn’t hate Tim. He wasn’t entirely sure what Tim felt, but that was irrelevant. “Hey, Tim!”
Tim looked up from what he was doing (Jonny really didn’t care what). “Yeah…?”
Jonny thought for a minute about what he was going to say. Which was not something Jonny typically did. Why did he bother? “I was wondering if you noticed—
—if anything was wrong?” Jon asked Timothy Stoker. His friend. Right. Right?
Tim glared back at Jonathan Sims (had he always been Jonathan Sims? of course he had. who else would he be?) like he was crazy (wasn’t he? no, no he wasn’t). “You mean besides the fact that we’re all going to die? No, nothing.” And that made sense, coming from Tim, because they were about to stop the Unknowing, and Jon knew that Tim saw this as a suicide mission, and Tim hated Jon for stalking him, and Sasha died, and why was this news to him, exactly?
Jon needed to breathe. He needed to be in the right headspace to do this. He was probably on the verge of a breakdown from the stress of trying to save the world. Yeah, that made sense. Jon turned the corner to look inside the circus, and—
—Jonny saw flashes of fire as bullets pierce into his skin from all sides. He was being shot at by red haired clones.
Rose Reds, he mentally corrected. He knew they were Rose Reds. He knew what Rose Reds were. Didn’t he?
He was laughing. Why wouldn’t he be laughing? He was immortal and bullets didn’t do shit! Well, they could absolutely blow off flesh and cause a lot of pain, but it’s not like he cared. He was immortal and not even a little afraid of dying! So why—
—was Jon screaming in agony as worms burrowed into his flesh on every patch of skin he could feel?—
—was Jonny laughing as he shoved allegedly shoved Dr. Camilla out of the airlock?—
—was Jon screaming as his ribs were being pulled from his chest?—
—He was in his quarters. In his bed. On the Aurora. It was quiet. So deafeningly quiet. His ears rang, his skin burned, his body was shaking.
He had no idea who he was.