( precious few relationships could actually be said to have survived hell itself. even fewer of those included such other elements such as one of the parties being sort-of that hellscape’s Antichrist and also the other party technically murdering him at one point. but theirs was never going to play by any standard rulebook, even before the end of the world. it was probably best to not even bother attributing any normal expectations to them, either individually or together.
the moment of strained silence following his comment is one which arises from a disconnect in tone and understanding of that time. really, john recalls the time during and immediately after his coma through a lens of warped perspective; six entire months had been compressed into a unit of space and time that, while he wouldn’t necessarily be able to put it into standard temporal terms, had felt far more immediate than anyone else would have perceived. to him, it is just one link in a long chain of personal failures and shortcomings; it wasn’t that anyone who had visited him hadn’t managed to properly incentive him to wake up (martin most of all), but that he’d been too afraid of what the result might be if he did decide to abandon his humanity and live on. what if he’d gotten over himself and made that decision much earlier in that slow, circuitous process of deliberation? surely he would have been of use in fending off the attack the agents of the Flesh had made on the Institute. perhaps he wouldn’t have allowed peter lukas to get his hooks so deeply into martin; deep enough that he’d had to chase him down through the halls multiple times after his return before being rebuffed strongly enough to change tactics.
it’s not that he looks back on the time that they were preparing for the Stranger’s ritual attempt with nostalgia, but… it had been a time when they had all been together, working together. sure, it might have been under duress and without the option to leave, but there had been camaraderie. there had been shared purpose. he’d awoken to find the Archives team broken irrevocably in his absence. tim, dead; daisy, buried; martin, absent; melanie, practically homicidal; and basira, desperately trying to hold everything together. even his efforts to put things back together in ridding melanie of the Slaughter’s influence and bringing daisy out of the Buried hadn’t helped as much as he’d hoped. even together, they had suffered in disjointed, misled isolation.
the influence of the Lonely had suffused deeply throughout the Institute, in that way.
internally, john thinks over how it could be construed as very romantic, to fatally pierce the one you love through the heart—how many poems and love songs said as much in as many words? but, ah… well, by their perspective it had basically just happened, and it was far easier for john (as the “victim”) to attempt to make light while martin (the “perpetrator”) was still in the grip of guilt and consequence. he should have more sympathy for that. and so he keeps such comments for later. like… hm, in a few weeks’ time? as it is, he just makes a vaguely uncertain sound. )
Maybe,( he speaks slowly, as if he’s mentally working through his thought process at the same time that he voices it, ) It all happened exactly the way Annabelle said it would, except—well, I wasn’t supposed to be the one acting as the pupil of the Eye at the time. ( yes, he’d made that bloody swap with jonah magnus shortly before martin had arrived. ) Since I was… closer to it. Maybe that pulled us in along after it.
( because he’d been connected to the Eye, and martin, by way of a knife, had been connected to him. kind of? he lapses into a brief pause before continuing in a softer, more earnest tone, ) …If we can assume it worked along those lines for us, that means it should have worked back there as well. Maybe—maybe everything’s back to normal.
( there’s something wistful and warm in that. it’s a comforting thought, even if they’re not there to share in it. ) …Because of you. ( after all, john had been content to consign them all to the End. )
It is a good thing. I’m here, I’m—present. ( there’s some tension in how he says that. when severed from the Eye completely, he tended to… lose himself. he’d worried he’d end up like how he was when he spent too long in the tunnels beneath the institute—or how he’d ended up in salesa’s manor, though he didn’t even remember that at this point. to john, this makes sense. when he’d made that choice to live on as an avatar, he’d closed the door to living as he had previously. that had been part of what had scared him into inaction for so long. ) Even if I am back to how I was before, we know how to deal with that. …So, hopefully we can avoid anything too extreme.
( no, he’s not looking forward to making this a recurring thing. he can only traumatize his boyfriend so much. )
no subject
the moment of strained silence following his comment is one which arises from a disconnect in tone and understanding of that time. really, john recalls the time during and immediately after his coma through a lens of warped perspective; six entire months had been compressed into a unit of space and time that, while he wouldn’t necessarily be able to put it into standard temporal terms, had felt far more immediate than anyone else would have perceived. to him, it is just one link in a long chain of personal failures and shortcomings; it wasn’t that anyone who had visited him hadn’t managed to properly incentive him to wake up (martin most of all), but that he’d been too afraid of what the result might be if he did decide to abandon his humanity and live on. what if he’d gotten over himself and made that decision much earlier in that slow, circuitous process of deliberation? surely he would have been of use in fending off the attack the agents of the Flesh had made on the Institute. perhaps he wouldn’t have allowed peter lukas to get his hooks so deeply into martin; deep enough that he’d had to chase him down through the halls multiple times after his return before being rebuffed strongly enough to change tactics.
it’s not that he looks back on the time that they were preparing for the Stranger’s ritual attempt with nostalgia, but… it had been a time when they had all been together, working together. sure, it might have been under duress and without the option to leave, but there had been camaraderie. there had been shared purpose. he’d awoken to find the Archives team broken irrevocably in his absence. tim, dead; daisy, buried; martin, absent; melanie, practically homicidal; and basira, desperately trying to hold everything together. even his efforts to put things back together in ridding melanie of the Slaughter’s influence and bringing daisy out of the Buried hadn’t helped as much as he’d hoped. even together, they had suffered in disjointed, misled isolation.
the influence of the Lonely had suffused deeply throughout the Institute, in that way.
internally, john thinks over how it could be construed as very romantic, to fatally pierce the one you love through the heart—how many poems and love songs said as much in as many words? but, ah… well, by their perspective it had basically just happened, and it was far easier for john (as the “victim”) to attempt to make light while martin (the “perpetrator”) was still in the grip of guilt and consequence. he should have more sympathy for that. and so he keeps such comments for later. like… hm, in a few weeks’ time? as it is, he just makes a vaguely uncertain sound. )
Maybe, ( he speaks slowly, as if he’s mentally working through his thought process at the same time that he voices it, ) It all happened exactly the way Annabelle said it would, except—well, I wasn’t supposed to be the one acting as the pupil of the Eye at the time. ( yes, he’d made that bloody swap with jonah magnus shortly before martin had arrived. ) Since I was… closer to it. Maybe that pulled us in along after it.
( because he’d been connected to the Eye, and martin, by way of a knife, had been connected to him. kind of? he lapses into a brief pause before continuing in a softer, more earnest tone, ) …If we can assume it worked along those lines for us, that means it should have worked back there as well. Maybe—maybe everything’s back to normal.
( there’s something wistful and warm in that. it’s a comforting thought, even if they’re not there to share in it. ) …Because of you. ( after all, john had been content to consign them all to the End. )
It is a good thing. I’m here, I’m—present. ( there’s some tension in how he says that. when severed from the Eye completely, he tended to… lose himself. he’d worried he’d end up like how he was when he spent too long in the tunnels beneath the institute—or how he’d ended up in salesa’s manor, though he didn’t even remember that at this point. to john, this makes sense. when he’d made that choice to live on as an avatar, he’d closed the door to living as he had previously. that had been part of what had scared him into inaction for so long. ) Even if I am back to how I was before, we know how to deal with that. …So, hopefully we can avoid anything too extreme.
( no, he’s not looking forward to making this a recurring thing. he can only traumatize his boyfriend so much. )