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"Are you sure about this?"
The Archivist stared up into his lover's eyes, which shone with tears in the dim orange light of the fire-ravaged, collapsing institute. How badly he wanted to reassure him, to tell him yes, this would fix everything, I am sure of it. He knew he couldn't. As much as The Eye knew, as The Archivist so often reminded his friends, it couldn't see the future. It could only see the odds, and even those weren't great. But it was a chance.
"No," The Archivist answered. But he pressed the already-bloodied knife into his lover's hand anyway. "But I love you," he whispered. He could barely hear himself over the buzzing of The Eye's presence in his mind, but his lover clearly heard him. His face crumpled completely as he began crying in earnest, and he gripped the Archivist tighter.
"I love you too," the lover answered, and despite the chaos surrounding them, the Archivist smiled. What beautiful last words to hear, he thought to himself as the knife plunged into his chest.
It didn't hurt like he expected to. Obviously, there was pain, but another sensation quickly overtook it. A strange, staticky sensation, almost like when your leg falls asleep after sitting a certain way for too long. It reminded the Archivist of the panic attacks he used to have, how his chest would fill with that same static as he hyperventilated. But the Archivist wasn't panicking now. For the first time in what might have been weeks or even months in this strange new world, he relaxed. He was so tired, and he knew he would be safe in his lover's arms.
He was dimly aware of an odd noise, like a tape being played backwards, and beneath it, the sound of his lover sobbing. He wanted to comfort him, but he was losing his fight against the exhaustion. He couldn't speak, couldn't even lift a hand to wipe away his lover's tears. His eyes -- so many eyes -- started to flutter closed. The noise died away. The last thing the Archivist remembered before the last of his eyes drifted shut was the faintest ray of sunlight, coming in through one of the broken windows.
And so, the Archivist ended.
Except.
There was a man, floating in an endless, dark void. He couldn't see anything. He didn't know where he was. He didn't know anything, actually, not even his own name. For the briefest of moments, he felt more lost and afraid than he could ever remember feeling before. Then again, that wasn't exactly saying much, since he couldn't remember anything before the void.
And then suddenly he wasn't floating -- he could feel himself pressed against something. No, someone. Someone warm and solid, with strong arms that wrapped tightly around him. And he wasn't lost in a void. It was just that his eyes were closed.
The man opened his eyes, the only two of them he had, and gazed out at the world around him. The first thing he saw was the sleeping face of the man holding him. It was a round, almost angelic face, dotted with freckles and hidden partially by a shock of ginger curls. Though the man couldn't remember his own name, the name of the man before him blazed in his head, bright and clear as the sunlight filtering in through the little windows of the bedroom they were lying in. Martin Blackwood.
"Martin," the man croaked, surprised to find that he had a voice.
Martin's eyes opened. They were a brown as rich and soulful and warming as the first sip from a hot cup of tea. As the two of them sat up together and took in the room around them, the man realized he'd been here before, and so had Martin. Memories flashed into his head -- Martin lying beside him on this bed, huddled under the duvet; Martin standing in the doorway holding a mug out to him; Martin rolling his eyes and smiling at a joke the man told with a tape recorder in his hand.
Martin was smiling now. He remembered where they were, too. "The safehouse," he whispered. He turned to the man and pulled him into a fierce hug. "We did it, Jon."
Jon. Suddenly, the man had a name. Yes -- he remembered now, he was Jon. Jonathan Sims. Of course he was. How had he ever forgotten?
Jon didn't know what Martin meant by "we did it", but something told him not to ask. Instead, he focused on his hands as they clutched the back of Martin's sweater. They were badly scarred, particularly his right, but they were whole and unmistakably human. He felt that there was a time where that hadn't always been true, which made him all the more grateful that it was now.
The missing memories bothered him. What if he was forgetting something important? Like the tape recorder he remembered from the last time he was here: what was he doing with it? Where did it go?
But he remembered Martin, and Martin knew him. He was alive, and human, and he wasn't alone. They had a place to live, and the day was bright and sunny. This was what mattered for now. The rest would come later.
And so, Jonathan Sims continued.