#‘ & i lidded my eyes with pennies each night & saw the question haloed above ▬▬ [ answer . ]

[behld]

@killmeorfuckoff.      no one should have to feel responsible for the entire world.

should means less than nothing nowadays when their reality is such as it is;      he is exhausted,      atlas’ burden pressing on his tired shoulderblades,      towering tape recorders pushing him down until he is entirely buried beneath their weight,      unable to even reach towards the surface      —

he hasn’t slept in some time.      it’s probably the only reason tim’s gotten through to having a conversation with him;      jon’s defenses are not what they would be were he well-rested.      he can’t summon the energy to put up walls between them,      and is having trouble remembering why he bothers to in the first place;      in this haze,      it is both an undeniable fact and an impossibility that tim could be trying to kill him;      don’t they have matching scars from prentiss’ worms?      doesn’t that mean something?      whether it means trust or not,      that’s beyond him,      but it must mean something.      everything must.

‘      doesn’t matter,      ’            jon says,      voice weighed down with his sleeplessness,      the wry laugh that emerges nothing short of depressing.      of course he has to be responsible for the world.      because everything is real,      all of it,      every goddamn tape-recorded statement in these archives.      because his childhood demons are coming back to haunt him.      because he’d seen prentiss and seen mr spider and seen the thing calling itself michael and probability means that there is so much more out there,      so many deadly things out to kill them all,      and if he is the only one with the accumulated stacks of knowledge to stop it all,      then      ...      he has to do something,      right?      he has to.

he tries to smile at tim,      but it comes out more of a grimace.      he stops trying.      too much everpresent fear gnawing at him to form an expression even approaching happiness;      jon should know that by now.            ‘      maybe you’re right.      maybe nobody should have to be responsible,      but i would argue,      as well,      that nobody should be attacked by whatever prentiss was;      nobody should be       —      anything that happens here,      anything the fools who wander in to give their statements suffer through.      so of course if i’m      —      if i’m in a position to study it,      to find out anything about      —      about any of it,      don’t i have a responsibility to do so?      ’

christ,      it isn’t the job he signed up for,      not by a longshot.      it always did seem strange to jon that he,      underqualified and quite content in his research position,      should be chosen as archivist.      he’d hidden his qualms beneath a mask of false confidence and dismissal,      but that facade has long since cracked.      he’s so tired.            ‘      i can’t do anything else,      tim.      ’

[arcvist]

@revoide​      :      ‘ i’m lost and i don’t care at all. ’      *

there was a time in jon’s life that he would consider this a contradiction:      would insist that a person would not declare themselves lost if not for a wish to be found,      that otherwise,      they would simply be namelessly content in whatever nowhere they’d found themselves in.      he’d been a pedantic sort of man,      stressing over words removed from their contexts like this,      not considering whether or not he himself had ever truly felt found.      insufferable,      he thinks in hindsight.

he’s met enough people who thrive in contradictions to not question it anymore.      he has spent time in the space in-between sensibility himself.      he has been resolutely unable to map it,      but he’s been there.

the back of his mind,      the part that’s half-beholding and half-him in the spaces where he is not yet synonymous with archive,      provides questions.      do you want to find your way?      being lost implies a starting point and an intended end point:      where were you going?      is there something i can do to help?      do you have a statement to give?      (      tell me,      tell me,      tell me.      )

‘      physically lost?      ’            he forgoes beholding’s queries,      though he’ll fall back on them sooner or later.      static hisses somewhere unhappily.      hungrily.            ‘      or spiritually?      mentally?      ...      there are a lot of ways a person can be lost,      i suppose.      ’

[lifeinpoetry]

I haunted

each river I passed until it stilled into mirror, I lidded my eyes with pennies each night, & God said O honey & I said well finally, & when I told the night to cool it with those darks I saw

the question I had haloed above me, are you are you are you, I saw the asking was its own answer, I saw God nod & ask it back to me.

— Emma Bolden, from “Plenary Absolution,” published in The Adroit Journal

[behld]

@vestieg, tim.      i just wanna talk about it. sorry for freaking out.

there’s a deep exhaustion in both of them,      these days.      it was only a matter of time before all of the anger and frustration fizzled out and left only that      —      only that bone-deep weariness,      that too-late grief,      that endless need to do something without anything concrete to act upon      —      but still it surprises jon to hear tim say it.

it’s not that jon doesn’t want to talk,      only that it sounds like defeat to hear a sorry from tim’s lips,      sounds wrong in a way jon doesn’t care to analyze.      it’s been so long since they’ve really talked.      before prentiss,      before sasha,      before jon’s mislaid paranoia and tim’s righteous rage      :      he can’t even fault tim for that,      much as he wishes it isn’t the case,      because jon’s well aware of how many foolish mistakes he’s made,      how much they’ve all lost because of him.      if he’d never asked tim to come to the archives with him      —      if he’d paid more attention during prentiss’ attack or found sasha’s tapes earlier      ...      there’s any number of things jon could have done differently,      but here they stand.      and here,      anger is the only thing tim has given jon in months.      it’s not comfortable but it’s well-deserved.

he’s not sure he knows how to talk to tim anymore.      it’d been so easy once,      hadn’t it?      late nights in research and being dragged out for after-work drinks and      —      it’d been simple.

but he sets aside the statement he’d been following up on,      slips its folder shut and gestures at the chair across from him.      sit,      then.      let’s talk.      please.      the furrow in his brow is something tim would’ve teased him for a long time ago,      all of his focus narrowed onto tim and looking for all the world like he’s trying to puzzle out something impossible      —      and maybe he is,      maybe that’s what they are now.

‘      it’s alright,      ’            jon says,      slowly,      like he’s taming something wild.      it isn’t and they both know it,      but what else is he to say?      he’s not expecting forgiveness but wayward apologies spill out anyways:            ‘      i’m      —      i know i’ve said it before,      but      —      i’m sorry.      for,      uh,      everything,      i suppose.      all of it.      ’

a sigh,      and he barrels along before tim can get a word in,      looking down at the desk rather than meeting tim’s eyes.            ‘      i know that’s      —      a rubbish apology,      really,      but.      there’s just so much.      ’            it’s all gone rotten.

[behld]

@vestieg, tim.      ‘ my drink is getting lonely, would you like to join me with yours? ’

jon has never attended the institute’s yearly holiday party before.      he is vastly unlikely,      he thinks,      to do so again      —      it’s only that tim had asked him to,      had pointed out that jon was still at his desk when it began and was unlikely to leave the building anytime soon,      anyways,      and was so far ahead on his research he may as well make an appearance.      jon almost didn’t.      jon very nearly muttered a no thank you and turned back to the stacked-up books on his desk.

instead he’d said maybe and appeared at the party an hour late,      lurked in the corner for another hour,      and he’s half a step out the door back towards the researchers’ office      (      a third-or-fourth glass of wine in hand and swaying lightly on his feet      )      when tim stops him.

it’s so cliche he snorts out a half-laugh,      one he would have hid behind a scowl were it anyone but tim in front of him.            ‘      your drink could probably find a partner with any other drink in this room,      i can’t imagine why you’d want my company.      ’            it isn’t depreciating,      just      ...      tim tries and tries and jon cannot sort out a reason for it,      not when tim could be spending his time with sasha or martin or countless other institute employees who’s names jon does not know but tim certainly would.      their eyes don’t quite meet,      but he holds his cup up in surrender:            ‘      i will,      though.      join you.      if you’d really like.      ’

[behld]

@eyesolate, martin.      i’d live on the moon probably except i think I’d miss the moonlight.      *

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.

he takes a moment to lock away all embarrassing thoughts that threaten to spill out before he speaks.            ‘      for a time,      when i was a child,      my biggest dream was to be an astronaut.      a very short time,      mind,      since i was insufferable about changing interests every week or so,      much to the dismay of my grandmother,      but      ...      something about seeing the earth from elsewhere seemed impossibly beautiful.      ’            he tears his gaze from the sky for a moment,      looks at martin.      bathed in moonlight martin,      impossibly handsome martin.      his tongue ties itself in knots for a moment,      and when jon speaks again it’s quieter,      voice stuck somewhere in the stars above.            ‘      the moonlight would be a loss,      though.      ’

[behld]

@auspicium.      "agony repeated so many times is a different kind of suffering."      gotta love a good statement that can be taken to reference Either Of Them! oliver is nothing if not homoerotic and vague... mayb Hospital Room But This Time No One Bursts In?

six months of dreaming and six months of beholding and six months of the neverending watching of other peoples’ worst terrors,      and all he can think when he wakes up is i thought this would be worse.      the waking.      in everything he knows about comas,      it should not be nearly this easy to sit up,      to run his hands through his hair despite the iv and the heartbeat monitor that’s suddenly started up after six months of silence.

on the other hand:      there’s not much could be worse than the nightmares.      after a normal night of sleep,      dreams do not seem to take the entire two-six-eight hours you are sleeping;      their edges blur and condense and slot nicely into the five minutes before waking,      just fresh enough to be remembered but not to stick throughout the day,      mostly.      a splash of water onto a face and they’re gone.      the eye’s are of a different sort.      they aren’t dreams,      after all:      they’re real,      some part of him truly wandering through those landscapes and gazed down upon by the unblinking sky,      some part of him soaking in all of that fear and all of that terror until the victims wake and he remains,      remains for six months,      remains forever if not for       —

well,      if not for oliver.      seems only right that a statement should wake him up.      he’s not sure how to be grateful yet,      not sure how to form the words to thank,      but it doesn’t look like oliver’s looking for that.      after all:      oliver dreams too.      (      or does he still?      antonio’s statement was so long ago,      and jon’s never seen his face in these nightmares.      )

‘      i,      uh      —      yes,      it      ...      it is.      ’            jon’s voice is hoarse,      though not as hoarse as it should be after so many months.      a half-year of his life.      god.      he wonders if oliver knows about the nightmares,      or if he’s still speaking of his own experiences only.      if this is still a statement.      no:      jon wouldn’t be able to interrupt a statement so freely,      or wouldn’t feel the need to,      would be devouring every word with no room for his own speech.      if it’s a statement,      it is joint.      a duet.      isn’t that poetic?

‘      i’m      ...      i’m not sure if i could have endured much more of it.      ’            there is a thank you embedded somewhere in the syllables.      balanced on that precipice between eye and end:      die a human or live      ...      something else.      a monster?      an avatar?      is there a difference between the two,      really;      is he bound to become something like nikola or michael or prentiss,      did all of them make this same choice?      oliver is sitting across from him,      on the stiff hospital chairs that jon knows,      automatically,      are the most uncomfortable thing to ever grace the earth,      near worthy of being a torture device in their own right.      oliver,      surely,      is no monster.      he looks      ...      like a person.      does jon,      still?      he’s of half a mind to rush to the nearest mirror and see      —      has he sprouted extra eyes everywhere,      has he shifted nearly imperceptibly,      or would it be the same face staring back at him?

(      is it worse if this change,      whatever form it takes,      is echoed somewhere concrete,      or if everything different lies invisibly within him?      )

‘      i      ...      don’t mean to put the onus of all answers on your shoulders,      but      —      you’re the only one here,      and i.      there isn’t exactly a,      a wealth of information on these subjects,      nothing google or a trip to the library would give      —      ’            less than an hour out of a coma and he’s already started rambling.      maybe it’s to cover up just how many questions he has.      (      could oliver tell him who among his companions had died in the unknowing?      avatar of the end,      and all?      )            ‘      —      what happens now?      i mean      —      i,      i made a choice,      i know,      but      ...      what then?      ’            

the one good thing about the nightmares,      he thinks,      was always knowing what the future would hold.      more horrors,      marching one after the other.      he would like to think the waking world is not so simple:      and that is as much a relief as it is terrifying.

[behld]

@crueless.     you’re a monster just like the rest of them.

mabel martin does not hold a high opinion of him.      jon has never been good at reading people,      but he knows this      —      or perhaps knows it,      as the two hold little distinction these days.      he knows-knows-knows that mabel martin thinks his knowledge is worthless.      every last shred of it no match for whatever lies underground;      he has tried in his desperation to skim the edges of her mind and come up with nothing but incomprehensible labyrinths.

does that make him a monster?      

(      melanie would say yes.      basira would say yes.      tim would have said yes,      were he still here,      if he had not died with a final reminder that jon had never earned anything approaching forgiveness.      )

(      jon,      himself,      on some days,      would agree with all of them.      )

here he is under the ground,      here he is having clawed himself out of gravedirt and come to somewhere far from the coffin in the institute’s storage room.      here he is,      a monster,      like the rest of them.      but      —      but he doesn’t want to be,      and doesn’t that count for anything?      (      no,      a chorus of voices resounds in his ears.      )

the tape recorder whirs on in his pocket.      the sound is a comfort amongst the strangeness.      its ever-questioning hum urges on questions in response to questions,      the web of answers growing ever deeper,      and so he speaks defensively,      as if it could change the immovable stone of her mind.            ‘      the rest of who?      ’            wrong question,      says the eye in the form of a spiking headache.      try again.            ‘      are you any different?      if i      —      if i am as much a monster as you say.      do you know how many entities are vying for you?      i do.      i can      —      i can see them,      and if nothing else,      that makes us the same,      i think.      ’

[behld]

@eyesolate​, tim.      what are we?

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.      ’

jon keeps his desk between them.      it is not as much of a shield as he wants it to be.            ‘      i      —      i’m sorry.      ’            he tacks an apology on quietly,      like it’s an afterthought.      he cannot assume that this matters to tim,      and maybe it’s easier to convince himself that it doesn’t,      that this won’t wrench out two hearts.      if he distances himself enough,      he can convince himself it doesn’t matter      —      maybe,      maybe,      maybe.            ‘      i need to get back to work.      if that’s all.      ’

[behld]

@portraiyal.      you know some of my secrets, i know some of your secrets.

jon has had time aplenty to think on the nature of the eye,      and here is the conclusion he has come to:      there is no before- and after- that his life can be neatly portioned into,      no way to separate jon-of-beholding from the pre-institute version of himself.      this need to know has always been at the heart of him.      questions have always clawed their way up his vocal chords;      it’s simply a matter of the weight behind them,      the staticlaced power that begets answers.            he does not know if he was always so hungry,      but he has always wanted to know more and more and more.      felt the lack of information like an ache.

if anyone’s to understand the starving hollow of beholding,      the way it has settled in his stomach,      it’s sasha      —      co-chosen of the eye,      gold where he is silver,      both gleaming metallic in the light of the institute’s god.

so where with anyone else he may hide that instinct in him to carve out every secret and make it his own,      with sasha he doesn’t need to.      it’s echoed,      isn’t it?            he smiles softly.      speaks honestly.            ‘      is it awful i still want to know more?      ’            surely it’s the eye making him feel that trading hidden truths back and forth is the holiest of rites.      moment’s pause,      then that familiar anxiety catching up to him:      oh,      this is strange,      and there’s not much normal in their lives but that’s no excuse to be so odd.            ‘      not that      —      you don’t have to tell me any if you don’t want to,      of course.      obviously.      ’

[behld]

@eyesolate, martin.      i know you’re real, you’re right there — only you aren’t, you’re not even close.

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.      )

‘      i’m right here,      right next to you.      look at me,      martin.      ’              i love you,      on the tip of his tongue      —      unsaid.      if jon has his pick,      he wants the first time speaking those words to be in joy,      not heartwrenching terror.             ‘      i brought you out of here once,      i will do so again if needed.      ’

[behld]

tags 01.

[behld]

@eyesolate,   tim:      we could go anywhere we pleased, to the edge of the world if we liked, and come back when we wanted to.

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.

instead,      he smiles,      soft and matching some of the rare optimism shining from tim’s eyes.            ‘      where would you want to go?      ’            maybe they still can,      even if jon doesn’t blind himself.      if he brings enough statements along.      it doesn’t hurt to dream.

[behld]

@ofvast.      i won’t fight you. i just don’t want you to get hurt.

back at camp,      they’d spar from time to time.      neither of them were good at being vicious with each other      —      it wasn’t educational,      not in the way sparring sessions with jude or with daisy were,      but it was fun,      running around with their wooden swords and pretending,      for a moment,      that they weren’t training because it would save their lives someday.      like they were still in bournemouth,      chasing each other with nerf guns around jon’s grandmother’s backyard.      things had changed but they’d still had each other and that,      it seemed,      was all that mattered.

things have changed more.

now,      when jon fights he has to aim to kill more times than not.      now,      he has friends but no best friend,      not at camp      —      it’s been a while since mike left and his absence still stings each and every time jon passes the zeus cabin,      every time a thunderstorm strikes the camp perimeter.      every time they come face to face it’s an ache in jon’s heart:      they’re on separate sides,      and jon should find that betrayal unforgivable,      but mike is still his best friend.      jon is no longer convinced he can bring mike back to camp halfblood,      but that undoing of hope isn’t enough to sever the ties between them.

jon’s no good at sneaking around,      and it’s a miracle mike’d found him before anyone else could      —      jon’d drawn his sword the moment he heard footsteps,      but he knows he would’ve been too slow to dust any monsters that may have struck.      he sheathes it again the second he sees mike.      there’s still so much trust there.      maybe it’s foolish,      but jon clings to it as tightly as he can,      like hope and trust alone could be enough to keep mike safe surrounded by so much danger.

‘      i’ll be fine,      ’            jon says.      all the overconfidence and bravado and brushed-off-concern of a teenager who knows death better than he knows himself,      by now.      mike’d dragged them out of the way,      out of earshot of any of kronos’ other lackeys that may be skulking around,      but jon keeps his voice low regardless.            ‘      i’m much more worried about you.      i’m not      —      i’m not going to try convincing you to come back again,      i know your thoughts on that argument.      but      ...      ’            he hesitates.      his eyes flick around absent-minded,      not quite looking for danger but not comfortable with the thought that there is none,      either.            ‘      if you don’t fight me,      won’t they punish you?      i don’t want you getting hurt,      either.      not for me.      ’

[behld]

@ofvast​.      ‘ we could go anywhere we pleased, to the edge of the world if we liked, and come back when we wanted to. ’

jon’s cabin is good for thunderstorms:      windowless and cozy and with all the blankets and quilts jon’s been able to gather over the last few years piled high atop his bed,      more than enough to burrow under together and wait out the lightning.      it’s over,      now,      the only sign a storm had even passed the hanging rainsmell in the air,      but mike’s still there.      neither of them much like being alone.      if mike weren’t here,      he’d be with jude,      but something selfish in jon yearns to keep him close;      jude’s not jon’s biggest fan,      and jon’s not a fan of being left out.

so they sit side-by-side and they read the books they’ve borrowed from the athena kids’ library and jon tries to ignore how restless mike’s been lately,      how much he’s been talking about wanting to leave,      until mike brings it up.      it’d be the folly of a daydream were it not near-midnight.      it’s impossible.      mike must know that.

jon feels a knot of guilt in his throat for even daring to question mike’s dreams,      but he fears that if he doesn’t mike will do something stupid,      like run off into the world and leave him alone here.            ‘      mike,      we’d get eaten by monsters within thirty seconds.      ’            says it like he’s responding to a joke and not a heartfelt wish,      because it’s easier that way.      (      jon isn’t lying,      after all.      they are small and neither of them is a skilled fighter.      they wouldn’t make it more than a kilometer out of camp.      )

he nudges mike’s side with an elbow,      then thinks better of it,      shifts to lean his head against mike’s shoulder.      softly,      with the kind of solemness a thirteen year old can only truly summon at midnight in a flashlight-lit sleepover:            ‘      why d’you want to leave so badly?      we’re safe here.      safer than we would be out there,      at least.      i’m not saying that should be enough forever,      but      ...      for now,      isn’t it?      ’

[behld]

@baseyra.       ‘ define becoming. ’

i’m becoming      ...      something else,      he’d said      :      heavy sigh,      head in hands and elbows on desk and everything weighing atlas-immense on his shoulders.      what changes can come in the span of six months.      a week out from the hospital      &      he feels,      miraculously,      as if he’d never been in that coma at all.      but then he looks at any of the others;      basira with her wariness,      melanie with her rage,      martin with his distance,      and it's as if he will never recover all he’s lost,      his own dwindling humanity an entry in an ever-growing list of misplaced necessities.

‘      i don’t know,      basira.      ’            christ.      he could laugh right now,      with the weight of all he doesn’t know.      it’s crushing him.      it’s all the worse for what he is      :      this hunger for knowledge that has always been in him but now gnaws through his ribcage and burrows deep,      the rumbling of not-knowing eating away at him from the inside.            ‘      i      ...      i made a choice,      when i woke up from that coma.      i can’t remember what it was,      but i know it was one      —      and if i hadn’t,      maybe i’d’ve stayed asleep,      or maybe i would have died,      but i chose to wake up and suffer the consequences.      and now      ...      i don’t know the extent of it,      exactly,      but i’m      ...      if i was hurtling towards inhumanity before the unknowing,      i think this amounts to throwing myself into it.      ’            it frightens him,      how right it all feels,      how nicely this new hunger slots into his organs.      am i still human,      he’d once asked elias.      he knows the answer now.