#eyesolate

jonathan sims is not in the habit of saying the first thing that appears fully formed in his mind,      and he is suddenly thankful for the thought that comes before his words,      preventing him from saying his first instinct:      i think i’d miss you.      sickening-sweet and utterly embarrassing and      ...      not even relevant,      given that they’re discussing absolute impossibilities,      looking at the stars with several feet of space between them like that short distance dissolves the romantic cliche of the moment.

it’s just that they’re so clear here without the light pollution london brings.      and jon had mentioned that he’d known the constellations by heart as a child,      had mused idly on whether or not he still remembered them      —      he could Know them,      he’s sure,      but that ruins the challenge of it,      so instead he’s focusing very hard on locking beholding out and pointing at andromeda and perseus as he spots them.      he tries to tell himself he is not thinking at all of how close martin is      —      how blessedly unlonely this feels,      this intimacy,      despite all between them remaining unspoken.

        ‘ what do you think about corgi themed throw pillows for the couch? ‘ she glanced back towards tim, holding up a pillow with a very pleased corgi surrounded by flowers. ‘ i mean, i don’t want to give mr. peanut a big head, but these would go really well with the coasters we picked up. ‘

eyes closed , martin breathes slow and deep , steady despite the distant howl of outside horrors.   he guesses jon already knows , in that awful reflexive way of knowing , the answer to the question , despite his lacklustre attempts to feign sleep and put the other man’s mid at ease  –  a night , perhaps jon might think , of whatever brief peaceful slumber martin could manage with the world as it is.   just once without his every nightmare – of thick , swathing fog and the cloying smell of rot and smoke , and the feeling of insects beneath his skin squirming and itching – being broadcast straight into jon’s mind like some godawful guilt trip from the universe.

“  well , you’d know if i wasn’t , wouldn’t you.  ”   a slow sigh and martin rolls onto his side ,  offering his response not unkindly into the cool space between their bodies. he can’t see in the darkness if jon is looking at him , can only barely make out the long silhouette of him in the dull flashes of lightning or beholding which make up the skies now ,  still managing to penetrate the otherwise blacked out room.  their going to bed together is more habit than necessity by now , just some semblance of keeping time , keeping routine , keeping each other grounded.

martin’s hand instinctively searches for jon’s , laces his cool slender fingers with his own , warmer from beneath the woollen blanket ,   “  everything ok ?  ”

jon’d hoped martin was peacefully and dreamlessly asleep the same way he hopes that all of their friends in london are safe and that this changed world will be proven a horrible dream in the morning      :      with full brutal knowledge of the foolishness behind it.      hope isn’t kind nowadays.      he’s not prone to the easy denial martin falls into,      cannot imagine the ruins being put back together by any hands,      particularly not the ones who’d caused the destruction in the first place.

the village below is far enough that it had been a chore to walk there,      when walking anywhere was still an option,      but not far enough to elude his everpresent sight.      tonight he’s watched a hunter attacking.      the few remaining people stand their ground but their petty knives and guns are hopeless in the face of such sharp teeth,      gnawing and tearing and gnashing and      —      jon thinks of daisy and wonders if she,      somewhere in london,      is doing the same.      clawing her name into the bones of the city.      it isn’t the first time such destruction has forced its way behind his eyes,      but it’s the first in a long while that this particular comparison has come to him.      enough to make him dislike being alone with his thoughts.

@eyesolate​      :        i’ve learned to like it here. it’s quiet. i can be alone.      *

there’s a faint hum in the air      :      far - off wind,      or static,      or simply the absence of sound,      which in itself must be a noise,      right?      vanya’s always been good at picking up things like that.      music where there is none.      the life of a musician,      right,      she’d laughed once,      after she had pointed out the melody in a then - almost - girlfriend’s voice      &      been met with a blank stare in return,      as if there was nothing musical to comment on at all.      as if a voice was ever only a voice.

speaking of voices      :      it is nice to hear one.      nice in that far - off way things are here,      nice in the way she is trying to cling to with both hands      —      please,      don’t stop being nice,      because if she can’t even think a thing is nice anymore then she is truly gone,      isn’t she?      as a child she’d dreamt about being a ghost,      wandering through the halls unseen and unheard,      and now she wonders if she is still dreaming.      martin’s existence seems to confirm she is not.      and it is because of him      —      because there is another person here,      because she can hear a voice and think it is nice to do so,      because she is still gripping her violin in her hand with a strength she’d forgotten she possessed      —      that she is able to stop drowning in the nothingness for just a moment of clarity.

‘      do you really?      ’            like it here,      she means.      she can’t imagine liking it here,      even if the concept of liking anything didn’t feel so distant.      (      she lists things she likes in her mind in an attempt to bring it closer.      she likes music,      the kind of classical music that sounds angry,      the kind of modern music that sounds calm.      she likes the way the sun comes through her window and turns the buildings across the street golden,      and she likes coffee with cinnamon on top.      )            

in an ideal world,      this conversation would have happened at any other time:      weeks ago,      maybe,      the last time they’d pushed their desks to the side to dance around the office after everyone else had gone home,      research foregone in favor of something that is both so much simpler and infinitely more complicated.      jon has never been the best at identifying his own feelings,      but tim has made a home in jon’s heart.      cleared out a space for himself,      hummed distant waltzes that stick to jon’s ribs and feel an awful lot like love-love-love.

this is not an ideal world.      last week,      jon had been called into elias’ office.      offered a promotion      —      one he isn’t sure he wants,      isn’t sure he’s qualified for,      but is in no position to even think about refusing      —      and told to choose assistants to move down to the archives with him.      and jon had thought,      immediately,      of tim.      had asked tim,      in that glanceaway way of his that does nothing to hide how he is trying and failing to not look like he cares about the answer,      if tim would follow him there.

the consequence of that      —      that jon would be tim’s boss,      and it would be entirely inappropriate to keep doing      ...      whatever it is that they’re doing      —      didn’t bother to rear its head until that night,      the thought springing fully formed into jon’s mind and refusing to disappear no matter how he willed it away.      alright then,      he’d thought.      they aren’t dating.      it isn’t as if jon has to break up with tim,      he just has to      ...      put some distance there.

so they’ve moved their pens and staplers and exhausted selves down to the institute’s basement.      so jon’s holed himself in his office,      given himself the shield of a closed door with an archivist nameplate on it.      he has work to be doing.      it’s the work that makes him shut everyone out,      he says,      not the people behind the door      —                 jon isn’t hiding,      he just      ...      doesn’t want to have this conversation.      not now.      not when every answer he could give is a wrong one.

now tim’s standing in jon’s office like it’s casual.      like he’s asking a normal question,      here’s your papers,      boss,      like jon hasn’t been avoiding him for the entire week they’ve been down here,      but jon sees something flicker behind tim’s expression.      what are we?      jon wants an easy response.      jon wants to leave this office      —      he is laughably out of his depth here,      has nothing remotely near an archivist’s training      —      and go back to soft dances and sweet kisses and the feeling of tim’s arms around him.      jon wants      ...      but that doesn’t matter,      does it?

‘      tim,      ’            jon says,      and he hates the way he sounds;      he has schooled his voice into something prickly and reprimanding in the hopes it will disguise his floundering,      but tim doesn’t deserve that.      even so.      jon doesn’t change anything.      can’t allow himself that vulnerability,      that softening.            ‘      we both know that it would be entirely inappropriate to pursue a      —      ’            relationship,      he nearly says,      but that’s presumptuous.      who is he to say that that’s even the path they were headed down?      he replaces it quickly:            ‘      anything,      now that i’m your boss.      ’

even with all of the knowledge of beholding at his fingertips,      there is a part of jon that had thought      —      foolish,      in retrospect,      always clearer than the thoughts of the moment      —      that this would be easier.      that they would      —      what,      escape from the lonely and live happily ever after?      that this would be a storybook ending,      free from all of the things that have tried and failed to kill them for so long?      perhaps just that they would be allowed a moment’s reprieve before the next catastrophe.

but the lonely clings like a bur tearing at a wool sweater.      sometimes jon sees the mist creeping in through the windows and can reach out,      take martin’s hand and remind him that he belongs in this world.      sometimes he wakes to see the glassfog outline of a man next to him      —      and still jon reaches,      of course he does,      through however many realities and however many horrors,      through the freezing cold of loneliness until his scarred hands find martin.

(      that determination always laced with such intense fear it threatens to choke him:      that martin is truly lost this time,      that he has weighed his options and chosen the lonely over jon.      the terror of losing and losing and losing.      )

‘      martin,      i am.      i swear to you      —      ’            through the frozen nothingness he finds martin’s hand.      they are back in the lonely as much as they are side-by-side in the safehouse bed,      morning sun coming through the blank uncurtained windows and failing entirely to warm anything,      and in both places jon squeezes martin’s hand tight enough to feel both of their pulses.      (      some romantic notion of their hearts beating in time flits through his mind,      but presently jon’s is going much faster.      )

          it was early in the morning and the few cold rays of sunlight that had made it through the clouds had streamed through the curtains, painting her normally yellow room a pale blue. she’d have expected him to be gone when she woke up, not because it was something he did, but it was because it was something she could do. in the future she’d remember that if they went to her place instead of his, there was nowhere to escape to.

          slowly, she cracked open her eyes to look at him, head still resting against her pillow with her hair splayed out in unruly waves. there was no skip of her heart or turn of her stomach like there had been before, but now it was just a feeling of rightness. that he belonged there. for a brief moment, she imagined what it might be like to have that feeling every morning.

            ‘ i think your dream might have been lying to you. ‘ sasha murmured, her voice soft as she moved over to gently trace a finger along his jaw. ‘ i’m a big old scaredy cat. can’t even watch ghostbusters without getting nightmares for weeks. ‘

christ,      tim makes it sound so easy,      so real:      like jon could reach out and touch that idealized world in which such a thing were possible.      within reaching distance here,      in this world in all its pain and hope,      is a tape recorder.      recently paused.      instructions for blindness contained within.      also within touch’s range is tim.      it is still hesitantly that jon even allows himself to think of tim as someone within his reach;      so recently,      it seems,      there was a chasm of distance between the two that was utterly impassable.      there are days that illusion of space falls between them,      catches jon in its grip with nothing to do but fall.      more often,      it’s the closeness that’s terrifying.      reconciliation is a difficult beast to master,      but how they try.

this is,      jon thinks,      the most hopeful he’s seen tim in ages.      he’s come right to tim with the tape,      hasn’t given himself time to process the information within,      but he knows his own choice.      (      perhaps it’s a sign of how far the beholding’s hooks have sunk into him;      perhaps it means tim was right to think jon was entirely different now,      tainted in some way by the eye’s influence      —      but there is so much still that he does not know.      so much he can only find out so long as he is tied to the archives.      )      it seems impossible to say that,      now.      like it would break the sanctity of this moment.      something so holy should not be interrupted.