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The world un-ends.
The Eye closes, the skies brighten, time and space fall back into place, and sound erupts through London. Screams, confusion, sobbing, sirens, laughter, relief . The sun rises for the first time since it went dark.
Martin tries not to cry, but he can’t help it, the tears are joyful and wild and they tear ragged and loud out of his chest. He squeezes Jon too tight and sniffs hard and watches things stagger back to normal, or as normal as they can get after what everyone just went through.
“Are you alright?” he asks Jon, letting go after a long silence, the sensations of a whole, living world sinking back into his skin--to think he was going to cut all this out and leave it behind. This is humanity . Noisy and confused and angry and real and absolutely incredible.
“Hmm?” Jon responds, dazed, eyes following two kids chasing each other down the street. “Oh. Yes. I’m fine.”
“You sure?”
“I was thinking,” Jon says, squinting into middle-distance. The kind of expression that precedes a lecture on emulsifiers or a recounting of how Bram Stoker stole Oscar Wilde’s girlfriend and how that exemplifies compulsory heterosexuality in artistic circles or--the kinds of things he would talk about when everything was normal, a long, long time ago.
“Never a good sign,” Martin says, smiling broadly down at him, a few more strangled, happy sobs forcing their way out of him. He coughs them down and waves away Jon’s look of alarm. “Sorry.”
“I, uh. Well. I just. Marriage is horrifically outdated as an institution, I’m sure you agree.”
Martin laughs, breathlessly. Jon never fails to startle and confuse him, even at the oddest times. “I...I guess? Why were you thinking about--”
“Just...I have no interest in the strange notion of--of ownership , or...or even complete faithfulness or...relationships change, obviously, and--but seeing as we just survived and reversed the end of the world together, and that I love you very much, I was wondering if you’d overlook how barbaric the practice is and marry me anyway,” Jon says, braving a look up at Martin through his eyelashes. His eyes are duller than they were. Martin never noticed how sharp and bright they’d gotten until now.
It takes him a long moment to process what Jon just said, if he’s honest, because he’s distracted by the world around him and what they just managed and worrying about Jon and the future, and he sort of assumed this would just be Jon going on one of his tangents for whatever reason at an odd time, but--once he realizes, all of the air seems to exit his body at once.
“Oh,” is all he can force out of himself before he’s near-hyperventilating, trying to get his oxygen back.
“Of course I understand if not,” Jon says, brow furrowing in concern, hand hovering behind Martin’s back.
“No, uh, n-no, obviously I--yes. Yeah. Yes. I’ll overlook anything to marry you,” Martin says, laughing again, unable to keep the sound inside him.
“Are you sure?” Jon asks.
“Completely.” Martin kisses the top of Jon’s head, and Jon smiles, burying his skull in the gap between Martin’s chin and his collarbone.
“Then we should do it as soon as possible.” The sound is muffled by Martin’s shirt.
“Whatever you want,” Martin says. “But--wait, why?”
Jon extricates himself and takes a step back, grabbing Martin’s hand, face falling. “Martin…”
“You said you were fine,” Martin says, all of the joy and shock and wonder draining from him in an instant.
“In this moment, I’m incredible,” Jon says, softly, squeezing Martin’s hand. “But...Martin, you--you know what’s going to happen to me.”
“I hoped …” Martin starts, but shakes his head, not willing to finish the sentence. It makes him sound like a stupid child, ignoring everything he knows and has tried so hard to accept. He hoped what , that things were magically going to go better than expected? They never do. Not once.
“I know,” Jon breathes, reaching up and brushing Martin’s cheek with his free hand. Martin takes it and squeezes it too. “That’s one of the things that’s so incredible about you.”
“I’m sick of it,” Martin says, laughing bitterly.
“Please don’t be.”
“Why does it matter ? If--I mean--” Martin sighs and squeezes both of Jon’s hands.
“Not to put too fine a point on it, but your hope saved the world.” Jon smiles, lopsided and a bit weak, but obviously a stab at reassurance. “I don’t think you should ever stop.”
Martin mouths it hurts , but no sound comes out, and that’s probably for the best. He shakes his head, clears his throat, and drops Jon’s hands, rubbing his face and sighing. “Let’s go home.”
“Home?”
“Oh. My flat? Or...or we could go to yours, I don’t...whatever you want?” Martin asks, tentatively, shrugging.
“Yours sounds good,” Jon says, softly, pressing himself into Martin’s side.
*
The air in Martin’s flat is stale and dead and strange, so while Jon strips out of his apocalypse clothes and throws them in the trash, Martin opens every window out to the world and lets it all in.
By the time he follows Jon’s lead and tosses the clothes away, vowing to never buy or wear anything that looks like them ever again, Jon’s asleep, eyes closed this time, curled in on himself. Martin lies down next to him, wraps an arm around him, and holds him close, face pressed into the back of his neck, breathing him in.
He thinks about how they should’ve showered first and how it doesn’t really matter and how they’re engaged maybe and how they saved the world like the stories he always dreamed about and how everything’s going to fall apart in the palm of his hand like it always does and then he blinks awake with midday sun streaming into his bedroom and Jon making soft, humming sounds as he stirs in Martin’s arms.
“Good morning,” he says, voice cracked with sleep, twisting around to face Martin, their foreheads touching.
“Hi,” Martin says, and he can’t help but smile. “Fancy seeing you here.”
“What a strange coincidence.”
“How’d you sleep?” Martin asks, brushing a hair out of Jon’s face. Jon catches his hand and strokes it idly with his thumb.
“I didn’t dream, so...well, I think,” Jon says, kissing Martin’s hand and dropping it. “What about you?”
“Same here,” Martin says. “Felt like Upton House. Was really nice, actually.”
“Good.”
“So are we getting married today?” Martin asks, mostly joking, but he can’t stop himself from smiling like an idiot even thinking about it.
“Why not?” Jon asks, smiling back, leaning in and kissing Martin gently and briefly. Martin still gets a jolt of wonder and disbelief every time he does that.
“We need to shower, though,” Martin says, before he forgets, lips still centimeters from Jon’s.
“How romantic.”
“I’m not getting married with layers of apocalypse grime in my pores, Jon, I’m sorry, I’m not.”
Jon laughs, turning his head away from Martin’s. “I suppose that makes sense.”
Martin means to get himself out of bed, but he can’t muster the will or the energy to do anything except lay there and stare at Jon. Jon stares back, and it’s a long, pleasant moment of shared, affectionate eye contact until something in Jon’s eyes clouds over and he blinks away.
“You alright?” Martin asks, and Jon hums a wordless, questioning response. “You just...never mind.”
“I’m fine, Martin,” Jon says. “I’m glad we’re here.”
“Here…?”
“I always wanted to go to Scotland,” Jon says, with a furtive sort of smile, like he’s telling Martin a secret.
Martin’s chest clenches. “Yeah,” he breathes. “Uh. Jon. We’re in London.”
“I know,” Jon says, brow furrowing, clearly brushing it off. Martin can’t tell if it’s a lie. He recovers quickly regardless.
“Jon, you remember--”
“Yes, Martin, of course I remember the apocalypse,” Jon sighs, rubbing his face. “I was just thinking about before.”
“Are you--” Martin starts, for are you lying to me or something of that nature, but he doesn’t want to push it and he doesn’t want to know, so he changes questions. “Do you want to go back?”
“That...that would be nice, actually, I think.” Jon smiles, and Martin kisses his cheek.
“Maybe we will, then,” he says. “Alright, we have to get up. Laying in bed all day’s no way to live, not now that the world’s back.”
“I don’t know, I think it has its merits.”
“Nope. Get up. We’re showering and eloping.” Martin slides off the bed and stretches, rolling his shoulders.
“You drive a hard bargain,” Jon says, fondly, letting Martin pull him out of bed and into his arms, leaning fully into him and letting Martin drag him into the bathroom.
*
The line at the closest register office goes out the door and down the block, and Martin laughs in disbelief when he sees it.
“Do you think--did everyone have the same idea as us?” he asks, stunned, and Jon shrugs, smiling up at him.
“Considering that most of these people are in pairs and we all just survived the apocalypse, I would say yes, probably,” Jon says.
“That’s…” Martin says, smiling at the line. Love for humanity pounds sharp and hot and near-painful through his chest, the fact that after going through fear and darkness and frankly absolute hell , love and dedication is the thing that matters most to all of these people--he knows the Lonely’s gone, banished for now at least, because he can’t understand in any capacity why he wouldn’t want to be part of a world that focuses so much on light and love.
It chokes him up a little, actually, and he just shakes his head.
“What?” Jon asks, leaning his head against Martin’s shoulder.
“Beautiful,” Martin says. “It’s sort of beautiful.”
“They’re all probably rushing into it and will, statistically, end up divorced in--” Jon starts, then catches Martin’s glare, and stops. “Yes. No. You’re right. It is sort of beautiful.”
“You’re so cynical.”
“I’m not the hopeful one.”
“I might not be so hopeful once we’re done with this line,” Martin says, sighing. “The things I do for love.”
“We could just not and say we did,” Jon says, shrugging. “I don’t mind calling you my husband without actually going through the motions.”
“I don’t either,” Martin says, even though he always sort of dreamed of even just a small wedding. This is Jon, though. He still feels lucky to even just be near him, let alone be able to say they’re together.
“What should we do with the rest of our day instead?” Jon asks, taking Martin’s hand.
“I think we should get smashed on champagne by the river,” Martin says, and Jon laughs softly, nuzzling back into his shoulder.
“Sounds perfect.”
*
By the time they get back to Martin’s flat, they’re both hammered and breathless and sticky-hot and happy , and it takes Martin a full minute to get the key into the lock, mostly because he keeps laughing at the perfect David Attenborough impression Jon’s doing to narrate his struggles.
They finally get in, and after sitting on the floor staring at each other for entirely too long, Jon gathers enough composure to propose something. “I think that even though we’re not actually married we should still have rings. Except, I think--it doesn’t even have to be that , I just think--we should give each other things to wear that are important to us.”
“Like Arwen gave Aragorn the Evenstar,” Martin says, nodding sagely. Jon’s solemn expression cracks and shatters, and he spits laughing, pressing both hands over his mouth.
He collects himself. “I love you.”
“I love you too,” Martin says. “Give me a second, I think I have something.”
“I’m desperately excited,” Jon says, joking and genuine at the same time. Martin makes his way into his bedroom and digs through his drawers looking for--there was a necklace his grandma gave him when he was a little kid, and even though he got rid of most of the jewelry and dresses because they made him feel sick and wrong once he discovered who he was, he always kept this one. It’s a little gold sun, and he’d always loved it. Wore it under his binder sometimes as a good luck charm.
He can’t think of any better use for it than as a symbol of his love for Jon. He finds it, and staggers back out to the living room, dropping onto his knees in front of Jon and presenting him the necklace in cupped hands like an offering. Jon smiles, small but loving, and gives Martin a tiny bow in response, looking at it.
“I love it,” he says, softly, and Martin smiles, kissing Jon clumsily on the lower lip and mostly getting his chin.
“Let me put it on you,” Martin says, and Jon spins obligingly, pulling his hair up with a hand and waiting patiently. Martin fumbles with the clasp for a solid thirty seconds, but manages to get it.
“Thank you,” Jon says, leaning back into Martin’s chest. Martin holds him tight. “I’ll go get yours from my flat tomorrow.”
“No need,” Martin says, and Jon tilts his head all the way back to look up at him.
“I’m going to,” he says, and Martin laughs.
“Okay.”
*
On the third day of their almost-marriage, Jon goes outside to have a cigarette, followed out the door by Martin’s vaguely judgmental complaints, and comes back five minutes later looking shaken, cigarette still burning forgotten between his fingers.
Martin’s heart plummets ten stories, but he tries to just breathe and not jump to dangerous conclusions. “Could you put that out, please?” he manages, throat tight, and Jon blinks, startled.
“Oh,” he says, looking at it, then tossing it into the kitchen sink and backing away like it burnt him. “I--I forgot I was holding it. I’m sorry, Martin, I--”
“It’s alright,” Martin says, waving a hand dismissively and getting up to make sure it’s actually out. “What’s wrong?”
“I...I can’t go back out there,” Jon says. “E-ever, um, possibly.”
“Out where?”
“Outside,” Jon says, simply, like that’s a normal, rational thing to say.
“Why not?” Martin asks, dread creeping like the growing dark outside the windows.
“They all--they all know what I did.”
“ Who does? Wh-what you did ? What do you--” Martin starts, realizes he sounds angry, and then pauses, sighing and collecting himself, shaking his head. “I’m sorry. Just...please explain, Jon, I want to understand.”
“Everyone. They know I ended the world,” Jon says, hugging himself, shoulders hunched. He stares at the floor instead of Martin. “They can all see it. They hate me, and--and they should , so I can’t...I can’t go out there. I can’t live with them knowing.”
Martin twists the ring Jon gave him around his finger anxiously, trying to search for an appropriate response, something that calms Jon down and fixes everything in a simple, concise way. It doesn’t come to mind. “They—how could they know, Jon? No one knows. Don’t you think it would be on the news? Or—or, you know, investigated, or—“
“It’s the Eye, Martin,” Jon says. “It’s—it’s getting revenge, it’s—I don’t know how , but—“
“Jon,” Martin says, putting his hands on Jon’s shoulders. Jon doesn’t look at him, just keeps his eyes fixed on the ground. “The Eye is gone . They’re gone. We’re safe now.”
“Are you really naive enough to believe that?” Jon snaps, head jerking up, eyes burning, and Martin takes a step back in shock, pulling away from him.
“Don’t speak to me like that,” Martin says.
“Sorry,” Jon says, whatever fight was in him immediately leaving his body. He sinks again. “I--just--as long as there’s fear, they’re there. Weakened, sure, but...it’s just a matter of time.”
“But weakened. So how could the Eye, weakened, show everyone in the greater London area that you’re the reason the apocalypse happened? Seems like it would take a lot of energy,” Martin says, instead of I know, Jon, I know, I know they’re not gone, but I also want to be able to enjoy the time I have left with you .
“You’re right,” Jon says, weakly, running his hands back through his hair over and over, one after another, strands starting to come out tangled around his fingers. “I need another cigarette. I’ll be back.”
“I’ll go with you,” Martin says, sighing. He follows Jon out of his building and onto the street and leans against the wall next to him, watching him smoke in silence. Watches Jon’s eyes hungrily and anxiously land on every passerby.
“They don’t know,” Jon says, voice scratchy and choked with smoke. “If they knew, I wouldn’t still be alive.”
“I don’t know if that’s--” Martin starts, and Jon silences him with one of his fierce, determined looks.
“I think I just wanted it to be true.”
“What, that the Eye’s out there getting revenge on you?” Martin asks, incredulously. “Why would you--”
“I miss it.” Jon mumbles that, so softly Martin almost doesn’t understand, but he catches it after a brief moment of confusion.
“Oh,” Martin says. There’s nothing else he can say.
*
Jon wakes up at 2AM gasping desperately for air and clawing at Martin’s arm. Martin was already awake. He can’t fall asleep anymore, not really, not properly. He feels like he has to be awake for every moment he still has Jon, before it all falls apart.
“What’s wrong?” Martin asks, trying to reach out and calm Jon down, but Jon flinches away, mouthing something Martin can’t make out in the dark. Finally he gets enough air to speak.
“Don’t let them put me in the book, Martin, I can’t--I can’t --I want to rest , I don’t want to be the Archivist forever, I don’t--” He breaks off to breathe again, hyperventilating, and Martin pulls him close and whispers breathe, hey, breathe in his ear, taking slow, deep breaths to give him an example to follow.
“You’re not the Archivist anymore,” Martin whispers, stroking Jon’s hair. “It’s over, remember? We burned the Archives down. You’re free.”
“I am the Archives, Martin, it doesn’t--it doesn’t make a difference --I’m the Archives but there’s shit filing and it gets worse every fucking hour and I can’t f-find anything, and--” He takes a few more hiccupping breaths and then settles, slightly. “Just promise me, Martin, just--promise me that when it’s over it’s going to be over for good.”
“I promise,” Martin says. “I’ll do everything I can.” He doesn’t even really know what Jon means, but what can he do except reassure him? He pulls Jon close and strokes his hair with one hand and his back with the other. “Go back to sleep. It’s okay.”
Jon sighs and presses his head into Martin’s shoulder. “I wonder what happened to the people in the End’s skin-book. I hope--I hope they get to be at peace now.”
“I’m sure they are,” Martin says, even though he’s not, because he’d also like it to be true.
“I can’t imagine being stuck like that forever. Not dead, not alive, just--frozen in that permanent state of almost nothing. I don’t--I don’t think it gets worse than that,” Jon says, tensing slightly in Martin’s arms.
Martin can’t form words. Tries not to cry audibly. Jon manages, at times, even without the Eye, to stare straight into Martin and decimate him with single, blunt statements. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know how Martin feels. This fucking purgatory, with Jon half-gone. Martin’s always losing him without him getting lost entirely.
“I think--I think almost nothing is better than nothing,” Martin says, but Jon’s already fallen back asleep.
*
It’s like they told Martin after his mum’s stroke--not that they needed to, he learned it very quickly on his own--there’s good days, and there’s bad days. There’s days where Jon tells Martin stories about Oxford and gets lost in tangents about supposed hauntings and how octopi will just punch fish for no reason and everything in between, and it feels like how Martin always imagined being with him would. He just listens, and watches, and loves, and Jon is so overwhelmingly himself it stings.
There’s also days where Jon can’t go outside because the fear consumes him. Locks himself in the bathroom because he saw a spider in the bedroom, swears there was a new door on the first floor of the building, begs Martin not to turn the stove on because it’s going to start a fire. His memories scatter. He comes unmoored in time and space. Sometimes Scotland, sometimes the Archives, sometimes elsewhere entirely.
Sometimes he looks into Martin’s eyes and Martin knows Jon doesn’t remember who he is. But his hand always drifts to his chest to pull at Martin’s necklace, and the recognition floods back.
The bad days are hard . They weigh thick and heavy on Martin’s chest. But then Jon will lighten, if only for a few minutes, and it’s all worth it until the viscous darkness sets back in.
They don’t do much. They take walks when Jon’s up to going outside, and there’s a sort of wonder in that, Martin thinks--he loves to watch Jon rediscover parts of the city, as if for the first time. One time, Martin takes him on the carousel at the London Zoo, because he remembers Jon talking about it, and he just sits and watches Jon try and fail to pretend like he isn’t enjoying himself immensely.
When it stops, Jon sighs and rests his head against the pole he was holding onto. “Martin,” he says, batting his eyelashes at Martin, and Martin laughs, picking him up off the stupid horse he’s sitting on like a little kid and putting him on the ground.
“We can go again another day,” Martin says. “Don’t wanna spend all your fun in one place.”
Jon sighs again, except it’s not wistful this time. “Why are you doing this?”
“Doing what?” Martin asks, squinting in confusion, trying to deflect the conversation from where he fears it’s going to go. “Trying to make my husband happy and then cruelly restricting his fun because carousels are boring?”
“They’re not,” Jon says, softly. “It’s nice to just be a little bit apart from everything. To see outwards in all directions while staying in place. It reminds me of…” He trails off. It’s not like he needs to finish the sentence.
“You still miss it?” Martin asks. It comes out flat and resentful and bitter. He wishes it wouldn’t.
“I’m never going to stop,” Jon says, rubbing his face with both hands. They sit down on a nearby bench and Martin takes his hand, massaging it with his fingers. “You don’t understand, it was—it was part of me. It twisted itself up in me and then I cut out all the knotted pieces of myself and now there’s just...gaps. Loose, dangling strands of identity and memory.”
“You’re still you, Jon.”
“Except I’m not, and we both know it.”
“Jon—“
“You think I don’t know what’s happening to me, Martin?” Jon asks, bluntly and exasperatedly. It winds Martin slightly. “I don’t talk about it because--because I know what this is doing to you and I don’t want to make it any worse, but--I can remember forgetting. If--if that makes sense. I know...I know I’m losing myself, Martin. I know I am.”
“What can I do?” Martin breathes, and Jon shakes his head.
“Nothing. There’s nothing. You know that as well as I do.”
“There has to be--there’s always something .”
“Sometimes there isn’t,” Jon says. “I think you should leave me, frankly. You don’t deserve this. Not again. You dealt with your mother, you shouldn’t have to deal with me as well.”
“Except you’re my fucking husband, and I signed up specifically for this, and you actually love me back, which, you know, helps ,” Martin says. “You’re not going to convince me to leave you. Not ever . I’d appreciate it if you didn’t try.”
“It’s for your own good , Martin! You’re so fucking stubborn , and you never do anything for yourself, it’s like you’re addicted to martyrdom!” Jon all but shouts, and Martin startles, instinctively flinching back, and Jon immediately reaches out a hand to him, hovering it between them. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to--”
“You’re not going to get me to leave by being a fucking asshole , either, so let’s skip that bit,” Martin spits, rubbing his face with both hands and turning away from Jon.
“Martin, I’m--I’m so--” Jon shakes his head violently. “I just--I wish that...you’re such a good person, Martin, you’re so--you’re so fucking loving and hopeful, it’s...but you--you excel at finding the situation that will hurt you the absolute most, and...and as your husband …” He trails off at that and laughs. “I really love saying that. Anyway--as your husband, I feel it’s my responsibility to help you hurt as little as possible. You deserve to rest, and--and if you’re with me, we both know you won’t be able to do that.”
“Do you really think I would be happy if I just left you, Jon?” Martin asks, shoulders hunching slightly. “I love you more than I’ve ever loved anything. I’m going to think about you every fucking hour as long as I’m alive.”
“You’re exaggerating, you know--”
“Yeah, well, I’m a fucking poet. I’m hyperbolizing my feelings to try and properly explain them,” Martin snaps. “Is that alright with you? I know you don’t ever try to explain your feelings, but, you know--”
“I just think--”
“I am going to think about you every hour, Jon,” Martin says. “Everything in the entire world reminds me of you. All my fucking neural pathways are going to degrade except the ones that lead back to you.”
“Martin.”
“You’re not going to get rid of me and trying is a waste of both of our time,” Martin says. “And who knows how much we have, so.”
“It’s because I love you,” Jon says, softly. “I don’t want to get rid of you, Martin. I asked you to marry me because I wanted to wake up next to you every day for the rest of my life. Every single one.”
“Why did we have to have this conversation in the fucking zoo?” Martin asks, trying hard to choke back tears, and Jon laughs, loudly.
“Because we’ve never once done anything in our relationship in an appropriate context, and why would we start now?”
“Can we go home?” Martin asks.
“Of course,” Jon says, leaning over to kiss Martin on the cheek and getting up, casting a wistful glance at the carousel before taking Martin’s hand and following him away.
*
There’s good days and there’s bad days, and then there’s bad days with good moments and bad days, and then there’s only bad days. Bad becomes normal, less bad counts as good. When Martin’s mum got to this point he didn’t have to take care of her anymore. He wouldn’t want anyone else to take care of Jon, though, no matter how much it hurts.
It’s still him, through the misplaced words and asynchronous memories and paranoid delusions. It’s still Jon. Sometimes that makes things better, and sometimes it makes it worse. Today he can’t find Martin’s name for a full thirty seconds, and starts crying, pressing his face into Martin’s chest.
“I’m sorry,” Jon breathes. “I remember you. I know you. I don’t--”
“It’s okay, love,” Martin says, softly. “I’m not upset.”
“Maybe you should be,” Jon says, almost laughing. “You’re one of the most incredible things in the universe. Your name should be required knowledge.”
“Your romance novel phase is showing.” Martin tries to make it a joke so they don’t get bogged down in this .
“I wish I still had my fucking mind,” Jon says into Martin’s chest.
“It’s alright. I’m M--”
“Martin Blackwood,” Jon says, cutting him off. “I know.”
“I love you,” Martin says, running a hand through Jon’s hair and pulling him close.
“I loved you before,” Jon mumbles into his chest. Close to a normal response but just off. Martin would try and parse it, but he’s a bad friend on top of a bad husband, and chasing Jon’s trains of thoughts down their dark, twisting rabbit holes never does anything except make both of them miserable, so he just lets it go.
“I love you before, during, and after,” Martin says, kissing the top of Jon’s head. “Always.”
“Always,” Jon repeats, somewhat blankly. “This--this doesn’t feel right, does it?”
“What doesn’t?” Martin asks, trying to sound somewhat cheery or...something.
“Reality. All of it. Something’s wrong.”
“Well, to be fair, it did sort of get broken and then glued back together by relative amateurs,” Martin says. “So I’d say several things are wrong with it.”
“No, but--but something feels wrong with me , I--I feel incomplete,” Jon says, shaking his head. “I feel like I’m losing pieces of me, but--but I don’t know what pieces, and I don’t know how to quantify their loss. Could that be--do you think that would be the Spiral? I’m not sure. And--and why would it feed on me now? Proactively? I know I’m the Archivist, but--”
“Jon,” Martin says. “You’re not the Archivist anymore.”
“I’ll always be the Archivist,” Jon says, blinking and shrugging, like what Martin just said is ridiculous. Martin knows it’s because he’s loose in time again, but it feels eerily prescient. Doesn’t sit well in his stomach. “That’s not a job you get to quit. If you try, the severance is horrid , I’d imagine.”
“I’d imagine so,” Martin breathes, through a very, very tight throat.
“Well. Whatever it is, I hope it leaves me alone soon,” Jon says. “I’d like to be able to think properly again.”
Martin thinks he’s just going to exhale normally, but something that might be categorized as a wail tears out of him. He grabs a pillow to muffle it, and just sinks his face into it, all the energy drained out of him.
“Are you alright?” Jon asks, so much concern in his voice that Martin wants to vomit. “Is there something I can get you? I--”
“No,” Martin says, surfacing, shaking his head. “No, love, you stay there, I’m fine.”
“Are you sure?”
“Absolutely,” Martin says. “Thank you.”
*
Sometimes, Martin thinks about the hole in the world at Hilltop Road. He thinks about another reality, and another Jon, and another fate, and he thinks that maybe he could squeeze himself through.
He’s not that selfish, though. He never has been. He has to stick with Jon, now, here at the end of all things. Every day hurts. The pain is a ton of bricks on his chest. It’s a fish flopping on sun baked earth with a bleeding hole through its mouth where a hook was. It’s burning and frostbite.
It’s love, really, that’s all it is. It’s love. Love hurts. That doesn’t mean you stop doing it. Doesn’t mean you run for another dimension where it’s easier. It’s worth it, every single second. Martin can count on one hand the number of times he’s actually found Jon in those dull, sad, searching eyes over the last week, but it’s worth it for all the times he has.
There’s a phenomenon in people with severe cognitive impairment Martin learned about from dark, deep, fatalistic research holes back when his mum really started declining-- terminal lucidity , they call it. A moment, just before death, where the person suffering achieves perfect clarity. People with late-stage dementia remember every family member and everything that’s happened to them and where and when they are. People who’ve become nonverbal start speaking again. It’s not ubiquitous, but it’s not completely uncommon either.
When Martin learned about the End, he thought that explained it. Just Terminus getting a little snack before it’s all over. Now, though, he’s not so sure. He thinks it might be something the fears never touched. A moment of humanity and closure.
He’d like to talk to Jon again. Properly. Without the stuttering, confused thought loops and the all-consuming delusional paranoia, without the huge gaps in his memory, without all of this fucking irreparable damage the Eye has done to the thing Martin loves most in the world.
Of course, you don’t get ‘terminal lucidity’ without the ‘terminal’ part, and Martin’s not ready for a world without Jon. Not yet. Not ever.
*
It’s their six month anniversary, and it’s not like Jon would know what they were celebrating if Martin tried, so he doesn’t, really. He doesn’t need to make this hurt any more.
He’s working on a poem for Jon, has been for a while, but it just keeps coming out wrong. He’s sitting on the couch crossing out words and trying to find synonyms that fit the feelings better, and Jon’s sitting next to him watching some documentary about quantum physics because he’s still fundamentally a giant nerd.
Martin flicks a page in his notebook to check something, and Jon’s eye catches on his hand. He cocks his head, pulls at Martin’s hand, and Martin lets him take it, laying the notebook facedown on his thigh.
“Hey,” Martin says. Jon runs a finger over the ring on Martin’s finger.
“That’s mine,” he says, squinting.
“Yeah,” Martin says, tiredly, suppressing a sad sigh. “You gave it to me.”
“Did I?”
“Just about six months ago to the day, actually,” Martin says. He almost smiles at the memory. Jon telling him excitedly about how the ring was the only thing he had left of his father, and how much it had always meant to him, and Martin trying to refuse it and Jon insisting that he take it.
“Oh,” Jon says, pausing his idle fidgeting with the ring. “Oh. Of course.”
“Of course?”
“Your wedding ring.” Jon strokes Martin’s cheekbone with a thumb and kisses him. “Has it really been six months?”
“It has.” Martin kisses him back, as punctuation, savoring the rare moment of clarity.
“They’ve gone quickly,” Jon says, squinting. “I barely remember.”
“That’s alright, love.”
“I’m...not well, am I.” Jon rests his head on Martin’s chest.
“No,” Martin breathes. “Not really.”
“Martin, you can’t spend your entire life caring for the ill,” Jon says, so sure , like he still knows everything there is to know. “It’s not right.”
“You’re not ‘the ill’,” Martin says, complete with airquotes. “You’re the man I fell in love with and followed through the end of the fucking world. You’ve killed for me. You’re my husband. I’m--I’m caring for you because you’re you and you deserve it. You deserve someone staying with you and loving you on fucking purpose , even when it hurts, and I’m frankly honored to be that someone, so.”
“But you also live on hope,” Jon says, softly.
“Yeah, and?”
“Is there any hope? Is there a way I get better?” Jon’s voice dims to a whisper.
“No. You’re not going to get better,” Martin says, bluntly, because he’s come to terms with that. Jon sags against him, deflated.
“Oh.”
“But that doesn’t mean there isn’t hope,” Martin says. “There’s hope in everything. The sun still rises every morning. There’s still birds. Someone else falls in love for the first time every single day. About five whole entire new people exist every single second. That’s incredible, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Jon says, quietly. “Of course it is. But--”
“Jon, I love you more than anything, and my heart is breaking all the time, but there’s something out there that always manages to keep it glued together,” Martin says. “So don’t worry about me. I’ve got myself sorted.”
“And what about me?”
“I don’t know.”
“I guess we’ll find out.” Jon nuzzles into Martin’s chest. “I know I’m in good hands.”
He falls asleep, one of his open-eye nightmares, and Martin just holds him, staring at nothing. When Jon wakes up he’s lost again, but he tells Martin he has lovely eyes.
That’s one of the hopeful things Martin forgot to include in his list--Jon’s forgotten him entirely a handful of times, but loves him again every single time. There are fundamental truths to the universe, and sometimes they’re horrific, but sometimes they’re beautiful. Sometimes they’re fear gods pulling the strings of reality, and sometimes they’re the slightly unfocused eyes of Martin’s husband as he introduces himself for what he thinks is the first time.
Hi, uh, I’m--Jonathan Sims. J-Jon. I don’t believe we’ve met, I’m, uh. The new Archivist.
One time, Martin played along, sort of. You haven’t seen a dog, have you?
Jon, blinking in surprise and the soft, gentle sort of confusion. The kind that doesn’t hurt.
No, but I’d love to.