Chapter Text
Once so full of life, participating in the cycle of existence with such vigor, now static. His body, stiff yet spongy like rotting wood, unoccupied, merely a shell that once harbored a soul, something Martin treasured more than he did his own life. Eyelids closing in a slow, morbid motion. They will never lift again. The archivist had let out his last breath minutes ago, yet Martin still feels the crawling sensation of it on his shoulder. An estuary, fortified only by a rusty knife, oozing with a warm, sticky liquid, the color of a wilting rose just past its prime. Martin watches it stain his clothes. His dear Jon is no more.
He, just he, is unaware of how long he has extended his stay. There is no way to tell in this world of fear, thought to be eternal by the creatures who ruled it. However, Martin understands this is not the case. He can see, in the most mundane definition of the word, the walls around him, beginning to crumble. It is slow and peaceful, incomparable to the way a certain other extinguished the disgusting soulless ones in fits of anger and immeasurable power. Darkness seeps through the broken exterior, careful like a mother putting a blanket over her child. This thing does not belong to The Dark, for between that gentle void there are stars. Martin stares in awe at the twinkling enigmas, remembering what he was like when he lived in a world where monsters were fictional creations made to scare little children and entertain the older audiences. He remembers looking at pictures of Earth’s surface and all the stars that surround it with those very same eyes. He feels some recreation of a heart inside, warming his freezing self. Martin reaches out with one arm, the other still clutching his lovely, green-eyed broken dreams as tight as he can. He smiles through his eternal tears as the blanket wraps itself around him, removing him from the ground. He’s floating in space, admiring the gorgeous stars and celestial bodies whose names he has long forgotten. He’s almost where he’s supposed to be, but something is dragging him down. He has to let go of what was once a man, the most beautiful of flames, weakened by the wind, blown out by him, now just frozen candlewax.
‘Please…take care of him.’
He whispers to the stars. They sigh in return, echo his soft words, in sync with the breeze that carries itself through the endless sky. Martin wills himself to turn to the archivist once more, desperately trying to take in every detail, to make a blueprint of his soul.
‘I love you.’
He says to the dead man, intertwining their hands one last time before finally letting go. He watches, once more, as the space swallows his beloved, with a love as deep as his own. Martin himself floats up and up, relishing in the feeling of flight. More and more bright stars encompass him, until the dark is exchanged entirely for light. As he begins to dematerialize, he feels so very loved.