Chapter Text
Time felt like an ill-fitting jumper.
It pulled and strained across Jon's skin, so itchy and glaringly wrong, so at odds with the general state of reality. It shifted, and there was a horrible slash in the spot where Jon's third rib would have been. Martin hadn't been too careful about placement, and the knife had glanced off the bone, before edging into the negative space between and nestling itself deep against Jon's heart. Time felt...awful, and altogether quite painful.
It was beginning to unravel, right where that gash began. It did not fit, it was broken, and it hurt.
Jon felt so, so angry. And guilty. He had done this, he knew. Had he been right? Had he done all that he could?
Martin, Martin, he thought. It was all he really could, in the end. There wasn't much else to do, except bleed and die, and neither of those options was particularly riveting, and so he chanted Martin's name like a hymn.
No. No, he had not done all that he could, because Martin was here, crying, and not leaving like he should have been. He was going to die, still clutching Jon's waist and neck like some lousy lifeline, and it was never going to be enough. They would both die, and it was still not enough.
Time felt like an ill-fitting jumper. Jon wanted to take a goddamn seam ripper to its fringes and remake it into something of his own proportions. His own invention, his own design.
The Eye was so faint, now. It hadn't been, right before Martin sank that knife in. It had told him exactly where Martin needed to pierce, and then, when he had technically missed the mark, how much longer it was going to take Jon to die because of it. But that was manageable, for the Eye, because it meant there were just that many more seconds to feast on the fear of a dying man. It was savoring him. He Knew this, and felt so, so revolted.
Of course, why should he be spared? Wasn’t that all he was, in the end? Another meal? Another goddamn victim, some vile ouroboros, voyeur to his own fear?
Time felt like an ill-fitting jumper. Perhaps it was due for a change, so to speak.
The panopticon was still standing, albeit shakily, when Jon felt the first tentative snap of thread. It felt, in the most horrifically kindred way, like a particularly staunch spider-web breaking. The comparison threw a full-body shudder through Jon, and he imagined how immensely smug Annabelle must have been, now. She’d won, hadn’t she? He was no more clever than some fucking fly, still caught in her web. The building was still standing when Jon used whatever vestiges of strength he still had left to seize Martin’s arm and pull the other man in even closer than he already was. He could count his freckles if he had the time.
He didn’t, but he didn’t need to. Jon knew Martin inside and out. He knew Martin had thirty-one freckles on his face and neck, the same way he knew he had grey eyes and hated Oolong tea. He hadn’t needed the Eye for any of those things. He learned them by virtue of loving the man, and he absolutely refused to know, capital K or not, what it would be like to exist in any world without him.
The panopticon was beginning to fall when Jon pressed a kiss to Martin’s cheek, then moved to whisper something in his ear.
It sounded an awful lot like “I’m sorry”.