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Falling in love with a God
is not a death sentence.
The story is only a tragedy
if the God loves you back.
-Nathaniel Orion G. K.
The Archivist reigned supreme over the ruined world at his feet. His voice rang out across the broken wasteland below, his eyes glowed green with unnerving power, and the mere force of his mind could turn hundreds of people to dust in the blink of an eye. Every day he strayed further from humanity and slipped more into terrible godhood; every day the line between human and creature became more blurred. Martin Blackwood was neither a hero nor a monster – at least not in the traditional sense, not a being made of claws and fangs and ravenous rage – but he was unfortunate enough to have fallen in love with a man who was both.
And so he stayed, because what else was he to do? He had promised to go wherever Jon went, to stay with him until the very end, and though Jon may have broken all his promises, Martin was determined to keep his. No matter what happened. No matter how much of Jon was still left inside that all-seeing creature.
In the beginning, Jon had been calm, almost unchanged, his voice reverberating just the slightest bit and his single pair of eyes just a little more intense shade of green. Despite the coils of tape reel snaking down from the ceiling and wrapping around his wrists and ankles, restricting his movement, he had stood with both feet firmly on the ground, close enough to touch, if Martin had dared to reach out to him. Even as the Pupil of the Eye, as the sinister deity ruling over this doomed planet, he had looked so very human. So much like the man Martin had met and fallen in love with all those years ago, when even his darkest nightmares could have never predicted how everything would turn out for them.
Now, Jon was floating high above the ground, ink-black tape reel twisting his limbs into unnatural positions, making him appear more like a mangled messiah than a true god. Where he had once been capable of human speech, of apologising to Martin over and over again, all that poured from his mouth now was a steady stream of ominous syllables, overlaid with the prickling buzz of static. The words were as nonsensical as they were unsettling, and Martin had long since given up on trying to interpret any sort of meaning into them.
These days, he just listened for the occasional intelligible sentence thrown in there, for something spoken by Jon and not the Archivist, usually directed at Martin, usually a desperate plea for forgiveness that Martin couldn’t grant him. The rest just faded into the background, became some kind of gruesome ambient noise.
But even those brief moments of lucidity were rare treasures nowadays, and Martin knew not to expect them, not to get his hopes up. It even worked, some of the time. He told himself that it wasn’t such a bad life, all in all, and sometimes he almost believed it. After all, he was still with Jon, and wasn’t that all that mattered? Wasn’t it selfish to ask for more?
But with every passing day, he grew less certain how much of Jon was still alive inside that lonely god, that being made entirely of eyes and static and unbridled power. Was there even a single trace left of the man he loved more than anything in this wretched world, or had every last morsel of his soul been devoured by the Archivist? Had the Eye decimated all that remained of his humanity and left him an empty, monstrous shell?
Martin didn’t want to believe that; he couldn’t believe that. Despite everything, he still clung to hope like a frightened child clung to its favourite blanket, in the forlorn belief that it could shield him from the dark. He cherished every single one of those fleeting moments where Jon seemed to be aware of his surroundings, where he remembered who Martin was. He refused to even consider the idea that those instants were no more than fading echoes of who Jon used to be, like the light of distant stars still illuminating the night sky even long after their death, that they were just cunning tricks of a fear domain specifically designed to torment Martin. That Jon was just a ghost who occasionally remembered to haunt Martin.
In a way, hope was the cruellest torture of them all.
But even if this tiny fragment of hope he cradled like a precious heirloom was shattered once and for all, even if he had undeniable proof that Jonathan Sims was gone, would that get him to leave? Or did he, on some level, love the Archivist just as he loved Jon, because he knew that the human and the monster were always inextricably entangled? Where did you draw the line between love and revulsion? Was there even a distinct boundary, or were they just two sides of the same messed-up coin?
And, of course, he couldn’t forget that even before ascending to his new and horrific godhood, Jon had betrayed him. Jon-the-human, Jon-his-boyfriend, had gone behind his back and broken his promise, all so he could bring damnation to the whole world in some twisted act of martyrdom. It might not have been what he wanted, but it was what he chose, and that was what counted in the end. When push came to shove, when the cruel design of this universe was revealed in all its undisguised ugliness, the love of Martin’s life had chosen his misguided idea of sacrifice over him.
And perhaps Martin had been foolish to hope, even for a second, that he could ever be anyone’s first priority, let alone Jon’s. That a god could ever deign to love him.
Still, it stung. Still, the rejection hurt enough to eclipse any pain he had felt in his entire life. In his weaker moments, he lorded that pain over Jon, forged all his pent-up anger and frustration and grief into words like razor-sharp blades and wielded them without mercy, in the desperate hope that at least some of them would find their mark. That some tiny part of Jon was still human enough to bleed.
Jon never responded, of course, was no longer capable of normal speech, and it was doubtful most of the time whether he even sensed Martin’s presence. Still, Martin was sure he observed, though it might only be a hopeless delusion borne of wishful thinking, a vague aura of sadness surrounding Jon’s floating, barely humanoid form at Martin’s tearful accusations. A haunted look in his manifold eyes, a sorrowful tilt to his sharp jaw, a remorseful cadence to his incessant chanting.
Maybe Martin was reading too much into it, seeing signs where there were none, but he much preferred that to the terrifying prospect of not being able to reach Jon at all anymore. And, loath as he was to admit it, he took a perverse sort of satisfaction in having such an effect on Jon. The most powerful being in the entire universe, and Martin could reduce him to contrition with a few barbed words.
But of course, that wasn’t what he really wanted, and screaming his grievances at an unresponsive Archivist brought him a fleeting fulfilment at best. He could shout his rage into the void until his voice grew hoarse, he could make an exhaustive list of every single one of Jon’s faults, but that wouldn’t make them come to an agreement, to an understanding. Martin wasn’t out for revenge or punishment, no matter how much some vindictive part of his mind tried to convince him that destruction was what he truly desired.
All he wanted, all he’d ever wanted, was what fate had always denied him, what he'd come so close to having during those halcyon weeks in the safehouse: the chance to hold Jon close and never be forced to let him go again. A peaceful life together, as dull as it was wonderful. Waking up beside each other every morning and falling asleep in each other’s arms every night. That wasn’t too much to ask for, was it?
What hurt most about all this, if pain was even something that could be quantified at this level, was the indelible fact that that illusory future could have been theirs. A normal life could have been just within their grasp, if Jon hadn’t seen fit to destroy it once and for all. To sabotage any chance they might have had at happiness just to further his own selfish scheme. We can still be together here, until everything is over, he’d said to Martin, as if that paltry reassurance was any consolation, and the words still rang like a hollow echo in Martin’s head.
They were together, yes, but at what cost? What even remained of their relationship but the stubborn memory of a love that wasn’t quite extinguished yet? Martin couldn’t bring himself to douse what was left of the fire, to snuff out the last flickering embers of a flame refusing to burn out. If he let go of his love for Jon, he’d have nothing left. Nothing to live for, nothing to hold onto. He’d endured the icy depths of the Lonely before, and knew even the excruciating, needle-sharp pain he experienced now to be kinder than the utter absence of any kind of feeling.
So he would stay, he would bear the onslaught of conflicting emotions, because it was what Jon had asked of him. Regardless of how much of the Jon he knew and loved was still inside that voyeuristic marionette. Even if he was pouring all of his love and despair into someone who was long dead.
The others – he supposed he couldn’t call them his friends, at least not anymore – didn’t share his perspective, needless to say. He’d only seen them once or twice since the day that had changed everything, had only spoken to them enough to gather that they were still trying to save as many people as they could, but that it was a fruitless mission so far. People were dying at an alarming rate, whisked away to End domains in the blink of an eye, and maybe that was a good sign. It showed that Jon’s plan was working out as he’d intended, at least.
No matter how devastating his apotheosis had been, he hadn’t gotten drunk on power yet, had only used his immense privilege to grant people a swift death. Never toying with his poor, helpless subjects, never indulging in their misery. Even in his god-like state, Jon was never sadistic, never knowingly cruel, still eager to save others as much pain as he could. Compassionate to the end. The thought made something akin to fondness bloom in Martin’s chest.
But of course, the others were much harder to convince of Jon’s inherent goodness. The last time they visited, all three of them looked weary beyond belief, like their ordeals had aged them by several decades. Martin wanted to tell them that all their efforts were pointless, that they should just cut their losses and focus on their own survival until the inevitable end of everything, but he couldn’t get his tongue to form those harsh words, and only managed a half-hearted plea for them to stay safe, which was met with three unconvincing nods.
They asked, practically begged, him to leave the Panopticon and come with them, of course they did. And he said no. Of course he did. He needed to stay with Jon, he told them, trying to convince himself as much as the others, to see whether there was anything at all to be saved.
Georgie hugged him tight for almost a full minute, and whispered how truly sorry she was about all of this, and that he knew where to find her in case it ever got too much for him. That she knew from experience how draining it was to care for someone who was never going to get better, and that sometimes the most merciful choice was to walk away. He blinked away his traitorous tears and thanked her, sincerely, even as he knew he would never heed her advice.
As usual, Basira was blunter in her choice of words, but somehow the lack of sugar coating hit Martin much harder than any gentle message could have. “He’s a monster, Martin,” she said. “I know it’s hard to move on, but you have to accept that the old Jon is gone. There’s nothing left of him in there.”
There was a slight wobble in her voice, a rare trace of vulnerability, and Martin thought again of the bullets she had put in Daisy’s chest. Of how little her hands had shaken. Of her cold and unwavering certainty, even in the face of destroying the person she loved. He’d envied her that certainty then, and in a way he still did.
He knew all too well that all of this suffering could have been avoided if only he’d asked the others to light the gas main early, and then worked up the courage to just kill Jon. While he was still stood on the ground, while his heart was still easy to reach. The knife had lain abandoned right beside Elias’s mangled corpse, after all. All Martin would have needed to do was pick it up and slide it through the gap between Jon’s ribs. But he’d let his pathetic feelings get in the way and been too selfish to carry out this one simple act, the one Basira had been able to perform without hesitation.
He didn’t know if that made her a psychopath or him a coward. Either way, he couldn’t look her in the eye.
“He’s not a monster,” he just said, well aware of how much he sounded like a petulant child too stubborn to face the facts.
What he didn’t say was, Maybe you’re right. Maybe he is a monster, maybe he’s always been. But you’d be wrong to assume that I can’t love the monster just as well as the man.
In many ways, Melanie was the hardest of them to talk to. He’d expected her to be angry, to hurl all sorts of colourful curses at his head, to tell him what a bloody idiot he was for wasting the remainder of his life on the broken shadow of his boyfriend. Maybe he even welcomed it, on some level. Wanted to view his own self-loathing reflected in her rage.
But it took the wind out of his sails when she just gave him a sympathetic smile and said, “You know I’m here for you, right? If you- if you ever decide to get out of here.”
He cried in earnest then, relieved that Basira and Georgie had already moved out of his line of sight, and if Melanie noticed his tears, she was considerate enough not to comment. Once his voice was steady enough to speak, he thanked her for the offer and assured her in the same breath that he didn’t need it. That he was happy here, in his own way. He could tell she found the lie as transparent as it had sounded in his own head, but she didn’t seem to know what to say, and instead just gave him a brief, one-armed hug. The simple gesture meant more to him than he could ever tell her.
In another life, in a kinder universe, they might have been the best of friends. But not in this world. Never in this world.
When the three of them gathered around him to say goodbye, Martin knew deep down that it was for the last time, and he assumed they did too. He couldn’t deny that it was a relief, in a way. He didn’t think he could stand any more of the pity in Georgie’s eyes, the disapproval in Basira’s furrowed brow, the sadness in Melanie’s voice.
Still, the room felt terribly empty when they left.
“Jon?” he asked tentatively, just because he wanted some company, just because he needed a reminder that he wasn’t alone.
But as he’d predicted, there was no answer.
It wasn’t all bad. There were rare moments of lucidity interspersed throughout it all, though few and far between, tiny pinpricks of light on a vast dark canvas. There were times when Jon’s incessant monologue was interrupted, just for a few seconds, and he seemed almost human, confused and contrite. His eyes would cast about the room, a frantic desperation in them like he was searching for something he had lost long ago, and they would always unfailingly land on Martin.
For just an instant, no more than a stray fraction of a second, he would only have one pair of eyes, and both were warm and brown, and looking right into Martin’s. I’m sorry, he would usually say, or sometimes just Martin’s name, like it was the only word he knew, the only word that mattered.
Martin held his breath every time, hoping against hope that this was the moment everything changed, that the distant deity would disappear and the Jon he knew would take his place again. But of course, he wasn’t granted that mercy, of course this universe would never show him such kindness, because after barely a second of cruel, senseless hope, the green glint would return to Jon’s eyes and the static would creep into his voice again, and he would once again be much too far away for Martin to even dream of reaching him. The Archivist resuming his reign.
Even though time was so slippery here, impossible to count or make sense of, Martin was sure that the gaps between those little lucid periods were getting longer and longer. He was still holding out for those rare glimpses he could snatch of the real Jon, awaiting them like a starving man hungered for even a morsel of bread, but with every passing day, he expected them less and less. He was dreading the time when they would be over, when Jon would be lost to him once and for all.
Sometimes, he could almost delude himself into thinking that if – when – that happened, when he could be certain that no trace of Jonathan Sims remained inside the Archivist, he would finally leave the Panopticon and seek out the others, help this doomed world in any way he still could, rather than cosy up to its destructor. But deep down, he knew that nothing short of supernatural meddling could bring him to leave. God or monster or human or something in between, Jon was still and would always be the man he loved more than anything in the world, and he would not abandon him now.
No matter what terrifying shape he had turned into. No matter what atrocities he committed every second of his existence. No matter if he was even aware that Martin was still there with him.
“I love you,” he said quietly, the words almost drowned out by the ceaseless chanting from above.
The creature floating at the top of the Panopticon had a thousand eyes in a thousand corners of the world, always consuming the combined suffering of every wretched soul on this planet, but in moments like these, Martin liked to imagine that those eyes were all trained on him. He liked to imagine that somewhere within that unending chant of ominous nonsense, Jon had carefully hidden the words I love you too.