πππ πΈπ£ππππ§ππ€π₯ (thearchivist) wrote in wtnvgame, @ 2021-07-18 15:24:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | !action/thread/log, -player: ashe, -player: caitlin, the magnus archives: jon sims, the magnus archives: sasha james |
LOG | JON & SASHA
And her head was full of things she had no recollection of personally experiencing, but she knew they were real. Memories of another world, memories of their world from after she'd been killed. How was that even possible?
She pushed herself up, sitting, her head aching with the abundance of information that had been crammed in there. And then the weight of it hit her. Everything she'd seen and lived, somehow, it overwhelmed her and a sob rose in her throat that she had no control over it. Except she slapped a hand over her mouth to muffle in, unsure of the hour and not wanting to disturb the rest of the household with her crying.
It stayed that way for a short while, and she let herself cry it out into a pillow, needing that release. Eventually though she climbed out of the bed and changed into one of Tim's shirts and pajama bottoms before quietly heading toward the kitchen. Because right now? A nice cuppa was an absolute necessity.
The power felt right. Like it was made for him. Like it had always been meant for him. It felt, in a sense, like coming home. He'd spent so long running from what he was. Denying the reality of it. He was the Avatar of the Beholding. The Eye's Special Boy as Melanie had so crassly put it. This was what he was always meant to be. And it felt good, even as he knew he was going to take everything from his God. Maybe this was what the Eye had always wanted. Apotheosis and oblivion.
He wondered, briefly, if this was how Agnes had felt. So inexorably tied to and chosen by her god. So fulfilled and consumed and burdened. He imagined it was.
He'd been resolved to what he had to do. Yes, he would die. Yes, they would all die. But countless other worlds would be safe with the end of theirs. Their deaths would bring the death of the ears. None of the others had understood that. None of them had wanted to. Sasha would have. Tim would have. They would have gladly given their lives to stop the Fears. And this would, even if it wouldn't change their deaths, give them meaning.
But the others were selfish. That wasn't a judgment. Not really. People were selfish. Jon himself was selfish in his own way, putting his feelings above theirs - but the difference was he was right. This was what needed to happen to put an end to the Dread Powers once and for all. He was resolved to it. It was the only fitting end. Nothing would stop him from following through with it. Nothing.
Except Martin was there. Martin. His reason. His one unforgivable weakness. Willing to die just to be with him at the end of all things. And Jon couldn't. He couldn't sacrifice Martin for the sake of the world, much as he'd told himself he could. Maybe if he hadn't been right there, looking him in the eyes. But he was. And with the Panopticon coming down around them, and the world torn between two opposing ends, there had only been one choice. He didn't know what would come of it, but he knew he loved Martin.
It didn't hurt. Not really. You would think a knife to the heart would, but he didn't feel anything. Just Martin. He supposed there was something dreadfully, disgustingly poetic about it. His love killing him with a kiss. It was almost clichΓ©. But it didn't hurt.
Right up until it did. Until it felt as though he was being pulled apart. The feeling of it consuming everything that was him in a blinding, screaming agony - tapes unspooling and screeching static and so much pain - that abruptly stopped.
It took a moment to register that he was back in Night Vale, two realities warring in his head. For a moment, he thought perhaps it was a dream or a premonition. But that was quickly dismissed as he stared down at the still red wound in his chest. He wondered if it would close. He doubted it would.
He could still feel the Eye under his skin, stronger than before. He'd thought it might leave him, after what Martin had done. But it was still there. It was still a part of him - it still was him. He blinked his eyes (all of them in turns) and took a shaky breath.
Right then.
He made his way back to the flat, trying to come to terms with all of it. He wasn't sure he could, but he had to try. Opening the door, he froze at the sight of Sasha. He'd all but forgotten her - the real her - with the time spent in the apocalypse. And here she was.
"Sash." One word. Quiet and wretched. He'd missed her so much. He'd just seen her a few hours ago. But it had also been an eternity.
Now she knew what the Not Her had turned into, wiping the real her from the memories of everyone that she loved. Tim's spiral and subsequent death by suicide, of which she'd already known but had never been able to picture. Now she knew. She knew all of it, from Melanie and Georgie, Elias -- Jonah, Martin, Jon. She'd seen the end of the world through their eyes and she knew it would haunt her.
When the door opened, she was sat on the couch in the living room just staring at nothing in particular, the cup of tea wrapped in her hands and hot, though she paid no mind to the feeling it caused against her skin.
After a moment she blinked, tears that had pooled in her eyes falling down her cheeks before she turned her head enough to look over at where her name had come from. It was like seeing a ghost, almost. Except wasn't she the ghost in this scenario? Or perhaps they both were now, considering she'd just seen Martin kill him. That image played on a loop in her mind as she looked at him, disheveled and his chest covered with blood. "Jon," she breathed, her voice shaky.
He felt horrible taking it to anyone, but Sasha was there and he'd missed her terribly for so long. And she was here now. Here and real and not that awful thing that had taken her place. And it was something at least. It wasn't much in the grand scheme of the world ending and becoming the Eye and dying to set things right, but it was something.
"I killed him." It was quiet. Matter of fact. Because that was the most important part. Jonah Magnus had hurt so many people and ruined so many lives and now he was gone. He had suffered and died a pitiful, ignoble death filled with fear and pain. Everything he deserved after all that he had done. And Jon had been the one to give it to him with his own two hands. The blood was still there and part of him wondered if it would ever wash out. Part of him hoped it wouldn't. That he would always have a tangible reminder that Magnus was gone.
"I killed him," he repeated. There was no triumph in it. He felt numb and cold and small. The Eye was still in him, was still a part of him, but there had been a beautiful, infinite moment when he had been its center. When he had seen and felt and known so much. And that had been ripped away and he felt so terribly small. Like so much less than he knew he could be.
Her hand came forward to gently stroke her fingers through his hair, doing her best to soothe and just be present with him right then, despite her own emotions teetering on the brink. "I know you did," she replied, her voice hushed and tight with tears.
She wasn't sure how to explain the fact that she just⦠knew about everything that had happened, had seen it with her own two eyes without ever having been there. It was like a weird, far-too-realistic nightmare. "You did the right thing and I'm proud of you for that, in a way."
It was on the tip of his tongue to ask how she knew what he'd done, but he didn't need to. He knew in the way he knew so many things. The knowledge was a part of him. Sasha remembered Vallo. A place he knew even though he had never been there. He remembered it because Morgan had. Because Tim and Kate did. Because Sasha did now. It lived in his head even though he'd never been there himself - well, he had, but those weren't really his experiences.
He bit back a sob when she told him she was proud of him. It cut deeper than Martin's knife had. "You're the only one," he said quietly. Everyone else, even Martin, had ignored his perspective. Had told him he was wrong. Hearing someone say they were proud of the choice he'd made was a certain kind of agony.
She sat there and held him, tears welling in her eyes again as the seconds passed, before she finally sniffled and sat up a bit straighter. That English stiff upper lip sort of attitude, at least a little. "I'm sure Tim would be too, if he knew." But even if she was the only one -- he'd made the least selfish decision of the lot. Keep the Fears in their already ruined world to save how many other worlds from the same fate? She leaned over and pressed a kiss to his temple.
"I wish I'd been there to help you be a voice of reason. I really do." Of course, if she'd been there then she would have had to live through all of the same bullshit the rest of them had. It was bad enough that she could see all of it in her mind now, though she was trying desperately to not think about it right then. "Let's get you cleaned up, yeah?"
He wasn't sure how to feel. There was something so comforting about Sasha's presence and the way she was holding him. He'd missed her so much. But he also didn't feel like he deserved this comfort. He was the one who had ended the world and destroyed everything. He didn't deserve anything close to this. She kissed him and he couldn't help the broken noise that escaped.
"If you'd been there," he said, "everything would have been different." If Sasha hadn't died then maybe Tim wouldn't have hated him. Maybe everything wouldn't have spiraled so badly. "You were always the best of us." He took a steadying breath. "Right. Yes. Cleaning up sounds good."
Sasha was the nurturing sort, deep down. She'd never had the opportunity to be a mother and when she'd been alive in their world, she wasn't sure that she'd ever want to be one, but when it came to her friends? She cared deeply about their well being. She wanted them to be okay, to be happy, and if she needed to take on the Mother Hen role in their circle, then so be it.
"Shh, shh, love. Perhaps you're right." Her voice was soft, gentle, though still thick with emotion that she was trying to contain for his sake. "I'm not sure even you could know that for certain." Sasha was careful to move his head so that she could stand, crouching enough with her hands out to him to help him to his feet.
How different would things have been if she'd survived? If fucking Elias hadn't tricked her into ending up in the artifact room alone.
It was hard to say.
"Pop off your shirt for me," she said softly as they got to the bathroom. She started running water, warm, and fetched a cloth to use to try and clean the wound. Obviously he wasn't going to die from it, not here, but she needed to at least try to stop the bleeding. "I suppose it's not worth asking if we ought to take you to the hospital?"
And then she'd died. Because he dragged her into the Archives and all that came with it. Because he'd abandoned her. Because he'd failed her. He had failed them all. And he could only hope that maybe Georgie and Melanie and Basira had found something worthwhile in the aftermath.
"I missed you so much," he said quietly, letting her guide him to his feet and in the direction of the washroom. "I'm sorry I failed you. I'm sorry I let you die. I wish I could have stopped it. I wish I could have saved you." He leaned against her, feeling unsteady on his feet. "I killed it for you. I told you that, right? I killed it for you. And I killed Elias for you."
He numbly followed her instructions, stripping off his shirt. How long had it been since he'd changed clothes or showered or eaten? Right. He remembered the time before. He'd have to warn her that he was likely going to pass out for a few days.
"The hospital wouldn't do anything," he said, staring down at the wound in his chest. "There's nothing to be done for it. It won't kill me. But I don't think it's going to go away. Not for a long time. Maybe not ever. It's what I deserve, after everything."
Still, she let him talk. Apologize. Say it was his fault and how he'd killed the Not Them for her, how he'd killed Elias for her. She'd seen it and had been both horrified and in awe. After everything, she hadn't been forgotten and neither had Tim. Their deaths had been avenged in the only way they could be.
Sasha gave him a small nod in response to his question, wetting the rag and finding some unscented soap to use to clean the wound. Bandages, tape, whatever she could find. He was likely going to bleed right through it over time but she'd rather not let it be an open wound if she could help it.
Her head snapped up from what she was doing then, brows furrowed tightly. "You take that back right this instant. You don't deserve this," she hissed quietly, gesturing a bit at his wound before starting to clean it. "You're a good man, Jon. Even if you aren't entirely a man anymore. Your heart has remained in the right place and you bloody well tried. You can't blame yourself for everything that happened. I know you will, but you shouldn't. We all got played like fiddles by Elias and those⦠fears or whatever they are. That is not your fault, okay?"
"I know you all don't want to hear that," he said, "but you don't know what it's like. You didn't say the words. You didn't feel them forced out of you like a sickness. You didn't condemn billions of people to untold horrors. I did that. I did that, Sash. It's my fault. And maybe it was Jonah Magnus's master plan, but I still carried it out. I'm still the one who brought about the apocalypse."
He ducked his head. "And now," he said, "because I wasn't strong enough to see it through, to end the Fears once and for all, countless others are going to suffer. I can never make that right. There's no atoning for that."
It was going to be a bit of a process, but she'd take as much time as she needed or that he'd allow. The physical and mental exhaustion of everything was going to hit him sooner than later.
It was only a moment later that the tears spilled over and she rolled her eyes at herself, giving them a quick wipe from her cheek. "You're being such a prat," she huffed, tossing the bloodied rag into the sink before wrapping her arms tight around Jon's neck to hug him. Whether she got blood on the shirt she was wearing or not (sorry, Tim), that didn't matter -- they both needed this.
"We still love you, Jon," she said, though her words were muffled a bit.
He felt tired in a bone deep way. Worse than before. But this time, at least, he knew it was coming and it wasn't taking him by surprise. He'd just need to sleep for a day or two to readjust to being outside of the Eye's gaze.
"I love you all," he said quietly, the words muffled by her shirt. Tim's shirt. That was Tim's. He could smell his aftershave and that eased a bit more of the tension. God, he missed Tim.
"I'm very tired," he admitted after a moment, not wanting the hug to end but also wanting to go and lay down. "It's been so long since I slept."
Eventually she pulled away though, just enough to gently brush back his curls away from his face, looking at him quietly, closely. "Just let me finish patching you up first and then we can put you to bed," she replied softly. He wouldn't be able to go to his own room -- not right now. Tim was at Kate's, so it would either need to be his room or her own for the time being.
Her work was quick, taping fresh gauze to him in an attempt to at least lessen the bleeding. She wasn't sure his wound would ever actually heal, but at least this would prevent him from getting blood all over the place. Sasha sighed quietly once she was finished and pressed a tender kiss to his forehead. "C'mon, lovey," she said then, her tone hushed.
Taking his hand, she led him to Tim's room and nudged the door open with her foot. She ended up choosing it because of how he seemed to react to his scent and that comforted her a little.
They ended up in Tim's room and Jon broke from Sasha to steal one of Tim's shirts and a pair of sleep pants, changing out of the clothes he'd been wearing for who even knew how long. Once he'd gotten some rest, he'd probably want to clean up more. But for now he was just tired.
He couldn't be around Martin, but he didn't want to be alone, and he stared at the bed for a long moment before glancing as Sasha. "Stay?" he asked. "I mean...you don't have to. Of course you don't. I shouldn't have even asked. I just...I'm sorry."
Poor Jon, she thought to herself. Everything he'd just gone through seemed to have broken him in ways she wasn't sure could be repaired. If he'd even want it repaired -- he seemed to think he deserved this now. Penance for his sins of, what? Being controlled by Jonah? Forced to become an avatar for the Eye against his will?
The question pulled her from her own thoughts and she looked at him sadly in the dimness of the room. "You don't need to apologize," she replied softly and gestured toward the bed. "Of course I'll stay." She didn't exactly want to be alone either and Tim was at Kate's. She'd had the thought of going over to where she was staying, waking them both up, and crawling into bed with them⦠but no. Jon needed her and somehow, she needed him, too.
And he needed sleep.
She moved around to the other side of the bed and crawled onto it, letting him get settled before she curled in against him. "Try to get some rest, lovey," she said soothingly, reaching a hand up to brush his curls away from his face. "I'm here and you're safe, okay?"
He shifted closer to Sasha, more an unconscious movement than anything purposeful. The idea that he was safe was such a strange one. He hadn't been safe in so long. Not in years. Maybe not since he was a child and the Web had marked him indelibly. Because yes, Jonah had chosen him for his awful purpose, but the Web had chosen him long before that. His life, as it was, had never really been his own.
But those were thoughts for later. For now he simply slipped into a deep and exhausted sleep. His dreams weren't pleasant, but then they never were. But the horrors were softer than the world he'd left behind and he wasn't alone.