#bcos kim coralreefskim has a galaxy brain

[equalseleventhirds]

Pilgrimage

I made a fun & friendly post about considering all the fates worse than death for a tragedy, and I got to talking to myself about it. Self, I said, if you were asked to write a terrible fate worse than death for these boys, what would it be? Well about that…

 - - -

Georgie hasn’t been to visit Jon since the apocalypse ended. Or, before that probably, she certainly hadn’t been popping in for a cuppa when she was trying to cut him out of her life. But then the world ended, and then unended, and Melanie has been insisting on having him around for dinner, or to go on a shopping trip, or just to visit the Admiral. Because they’re friends. Because this is what friends do: meet up, talk, and make sure their other friends aren’t alone.

Melanie’s been to visit Jon. Georgie hadn’t gone with her.

The… place where he lives is too creepy, she thinks. It was probably creepy back when Smirke built it, it was extra creepy when it was some impossible tower, and it’s still creepy now, even if it’s fallen down to earth. The Eye’s tower.

-

“So this is it? The Panopticon, or whatever?” Georgie felt Melanie’s hand shaking, and tightened her grip.

“…yes. I’m afraid so.”

Martin rolled his eyes. “See what I said about him being ominous?”

-

Jon opens the door before she knocks. It’s either some remnant of power in him, or he’d been watching out the window after Melanie called him. Georgie doesn’t ask.

“Hey, Jon.”

“Georgie. Hi.”

She steps inside, then stops. “Shoes on or off?”

“Oh, er… on. I haven’t quite finished cleaning all the… Shoes are probably better on.”

-

Jon was panting, standing over the nearly-empty chair where Jonah Magnus once sat. Martin laid a hand on his arm. “You did it, Jon. He’s gone.”

“That’s it? All done? You killed the big bad guy, so the apocalypse ends?”

He barely even winced at her tone. “It’s—I don’t think it’s going to be quite that simple—”

“Then why are we here—”

-

“Melanie sends her love, by the way.”

“Does she?”

“Yes.” She holds his gaze as levelly as she can. He just grins at her, holding his hand palm-out until she rolls her eyes and reaches into her bag. “Fine, and she sends her latest batch of halwa.”

“Thank you,” he says, plucking the container out of her hand and immediately popping it open to try a piece. “Mm… you can tell her she’s almost as good as my grandmother now.”

Georgie can’t hold back her laugh at that, short and disbelieving and a laugh, which she wasn’t sure she’d ever accomplish here. “Your grandmother always bought halwa at the store, you told me so—”

“Ah, yes. But I haven’t told Melanie, have I?”

“Jonathan Sims!”

-

It hurt. She’d thought she was immune to fear, to the fears, and maybe she was, to smaller ones. Normal ones. Real ones. But every ounce of impossible, enormous Fear that had clawed its way into their universe was bearing down on the tower at once, and Georgie wasn’t afraid, but it hurt.

“What now? What do we do? Jon, Jon, what happened, what do we do?”

“I…” She could see a trickle of blood coming from his nose… his eye… Hadn’t Martin said Jon couldn’t See anything about the Fears? Was that what he was trying to do? “I think… we can still stop it, maybe, but it’s… the tower, Jonah’s throne…”

“What do we have to do?”

-

They make it through about an hour, sharing out the halwa between them and chatting, about the books Jon finally has time to read, about the podcasts Georgie’s gotten Melanie into, about the really huge rug Jon’s planning to order when he gets everything cleaned up enough. It’s… it isn’t normal, but nothing’s really ever going to be normal again, is it? But it’s almost nice.

Except then she has to go and say the halwa’s made her thirsty (and it is sweet and dense and perfect, Melanie did an amazing job and she’s going to rat Jon out as soon as she gets home, and Georgie really cannot eat something that sweet at her age without something to wash it down). And then Jon gets up to make tea. And stops at the cupboard, and pulls out three mugs.

He doesn’t look at her, keeps his eyes on the kettle, on the mugs, on the tea bags, on his hands. But eventually he says, low but clear: “Whenever I make tea, I. Um. Bring some to him. He can’t really drink it, but it helps me feel better.”

And what can she say to that?

-

Jon stared at the seat, the throne, horror dawning on his face. She could tell—they all could tell—that he Knew what to do. He just had to tell them.

Martin grabbed his arm, shook him, spun him around to look at them. “Jon. I know this is—hard, for you. But what do we need to do?”

“Not us. Me. What I need to do. Someone touched by the eye, and who more than me?” He was biting at his lips, and she recognized the rhythm, from when he was stressed from essay after essay and trying to calm himself. “I have to take his seat. There has to be a king.”

“If there’s a king—” Melanie’s voice was strained, from the fear or the Fear, and Georgie tightened her grip again “—then wouldn’t it just be the same? Someone ruling over this, this ‘ruined world’?”

Jon was already shaking his head. “No, not if it’s now. Not if it’s someone who wants to stop it. Dream logic, remember? Except.”

“Except?” Melanie prompted.

“Except they won’t be able to leave. They’ll be—be trapped in the fear forever. In everyone’s fears, forever. Like I was, with the dreams, but for seven billion people—”

Georgie couldn’t help the gasp at that. “The dreams like we—with you watching all the time—”

“—or, more like our journey here, when we went through all those domains,” he continued, as if he couldn’t hear her. Maybe he couldn’t, with all his attention locked on Martin, drinking him in like it would be the last time he ever saw his face. “Because, because it’s here, and I said—Martin, I told you at the beginning, the eye can’t see inside itself, so I’d be—”

“Alone,” Martin whispered. “Always watching, and alone.”

-

She goes with him. Of course she goes with him. On some level, that’s what this visit has been about—seeing Jon, sure, but also seeing… Martin.

Martin is the whole reason Jon’s here, after all. Living in the ruins of the Panopticon. Living at all.

Georgie doesn’t look away. Doesn’t wait in the other room (the little living space Jon had made with curtains and boxes and a folding divider Melanie found for him), safe and ignorant. She knows Jon wouldn’t blame her. Might encourage her, if she brought it up, even if she said she had to go.

She thinks she might blame herself if she did.

It’s still difficult to stand there and watch without some kind of distraction, though, so she does bring her tea with her.  Bobs the bag up and down (Jon remembers she likes to leave it in even after she adds sugar and milk, like some kind of monster, he’d teased back in uni, before that word became so damn loaded), clinks the spoon against the side.

She’s trying not to stare, but there’s not a lot else to look at, besides… there’s not a lot else to look at. He must have brought that little end table in here pretty soon after moving in, set it up next to the chair with a lamp and a book and… a pillow on the floor next to it.

She doesn’t ask.

Now Jon sets the third mug down and carefully, carefully pries Martin’s hand off the arm of the chair, pushes his fingers to curl around the mug, guides them down together to the table. He keeps one hand on the mug, like he’s afraid Martin will move suddenly and spill it. Maybe it’s happened before.

There’s only so long she can avoid looking, of course. And Martin looks… a lot like the last time she saw him, just after the end of the end of the world. Very, very still, sitting upright, although Jon’s gotten him some cushions and a blanket since then. His eyes are still wide, too wide, and staring at nothing. At everything. At everything but what matters.

And his lips are slowly, slowly moving.

-

“But why does it have to be you! It’s always you! The whole world is touched by the Eye now, isn’t it? Can’t it be—I wanted you to—”

“I’m—I ended the world, Martin, it’s only right I fix it.” He was pleading now. “I just—Martin, please.” Jon reached up, curling his hand around the back of Martin’s neck, and pulled him down until their lips just brushed.

He closed his eyes, and Georgie wanted to look away, leave them this one last moment together. She’d be glad, later, that she didn’t, that she kept watching, watched them kiss, watched their tears, watched Jon break away and head towards the chair. Watched Martin grab him and push him away, taking the seat himself.

“Martin, no—”

Martin turned his head, slow, so slow, smiling one last time at Jon. “When are you going to stop blaming yourself?”

-

“Is he… talking?” She moves closer, squinting. “What… what’s he saying?”

Jon smiles, brushing his thumb over Martin’s slow-moving lips. “The same things he said to people in the apocalypse, of course. No matter how many times I told him they couldn’t hear him.”

And Georgie can see it now, the minute shapes, forming words as familiar as any casual conversation.

Excuse me… Sorry about this… How are you?… You’ll get through this… Just hang on… Hi there…

- - -

End notes: Every once in a while (not every night, bcos he has 7 billion ppl to get through), if someone were to look at the unchanging body of Martin Blackwood, and if they were good at reading lips, that someone might be able to see him talking one Jonathan Sims through his fear dreams. Of course, no one does see that; the only person who’s close enough would be asleep at the time.