Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Back and forth and back and forth, Simon rocks against the marble floor.
He’d always hated marble, so prone to rot. He didn’t have to remember himself to remember that. He witnesses that sight every single day, every single time they nudge him back into his sadistic abode. He wishes it comforted him, but his trembling neurons would only able to muster up a tinge of relief, not for being in a place he recognized, but a place where he was alone.
Every interaction now.. it feels predatory. Violent. He wants to remember, but the electricity coursing through his brain, his chest… it leaves him fragmented, scattered across himself in bits and pieces. He doesn’t tug on his hair anymore when he feels his mind lose itself, a pseudo-somatic shock coursing through his body anytime his fingertips interact.
His only reality is his doctor.
From the first day itself, watching him, his trial, the conviction.

90 days, they told him. 90 days to fix him.

Simon’s heart fluttered. It's better than prison, at least. He may even catch some rest there.
Hes always been a fool. His naive, young palms brought him into this situation. His foolish tongue runs faster than his brain, and well, here he stands.
It should’ve been okay. He almost had it all figured out.

He doesn’t remember what they would do to him, but the sight of metal brought shivers down his spine. His doctor… his doctor brought him back to reality.
His doctor wasn’t a fool, not like the jurors, no. His doctor knew Simon was conniving, a player of the heartstrings. He wanted to prove it. Simon didn’t know this, but he gave him the freedom to.

He kept telling himself he isn't ill.
He knew he lost himself sometimes, he knew the sight of deconstructed buildings left him breathless, gasping but... is such a minor reaction worthy of such an abhorrent state?

He stares out of the cold, cracked window. It’s been too long. He knows it’s been too long because the buildings start to crumble and crush the vegetation that grew around and around it’s base and it’s length and the insides and god… he's too late, the fear he felt was akin to him being in the crumbling building himself.
He trembles.
The flowers gasp out, heaving towards him, but they didn’t want water, or aeration, they wanted answers.

He cried out suddenly, the sensation of another resting on his body. Pain, a thousand volts shoot straight into his mind. It was his reality. He really did try talking, answering in the same manner as he used to, but he could swear his voice kept crackling, shuttering and buzzing in and out as he spoke.
He'd hear tunes ringing in his ears as he spoke. He'd lose focus, too much stimuli for his practically fried mind to handle. Instinctively, to ground himself, he'd look at his hands, trace the lines of his palm. Static, that's all he could see. His fingers, they'd keep falling out of the outline of his hand and his palm lines, he remembers his life-line, it'd crack at so many intervals and was always too short, his palm lines now stretch, stretch beyond his hand, some extending towards his arm, some stretching out of bounds itself.

"The staircase awaits,"

The cycle never ends. He needed this to change.

Something must have gone wrong. He remembered walking along this path, but the lights, they make no sense. He saw the octopodes outlining the children's infirmary, he felt the tendrils grasping at his fingertips as he moved; each touch transferring an erratic feeling through his body. Despite the overstimulation of being felt by the tendrils, his voice would hum... he was drawing near the edge, yet his anchor wouldn't meet the floor, it would keep falling, extending towards infinity.
His doctor must have been in a bad mood. The metal scorched his cells, he could feel it, it all came back to him- he could see it all,
Death is all they ever wanted from the world, for one reason or another. He couldn't bear to see his own being forced to fall, he didn't want to be forced either. She just wanted to escape, she saw it in her own skies, she saw her aspiration. She'd poke his brain, metaphorically, pricks and needles, just like...- she'd hope one of them would make the first move. It was not enough. It wasn't enough on the ledge, it wasn't enough in the forest. She wanders lost now. Did she make it? She hoped a new existence awaited her, but she was met with hollow. More confused than disappointed for her heart still beats, she still breathes. He still breathes too, barely through the machinery. They're almost in the same state... could they meet once again? Does he know?

His mind spirals now just as it used to when he had autonomy. Magic, he'd call it- he could see anything he wanted to see, be wherever he wanted to be. She knew it was a curse. What kind of blessing would leave a man trembling in fear for something that is not real? When he saw the murder, when he saw his body break through his malleable mind despite it's eager desire not to, he felt as though he was truly dying. A cruel mockery that he was not, an awfully painful state, but she needed him to stay this time, to remember why he was in that rotting palace in the first place.

Reality's smile fell that day. Disappointment for not receiving the answers he deserved. He sighed, seeking comfort within his mind. He always gets what he wants and this was no exception.
'Clean this up.'

......

Chapter Text

The ocean is vast and scary. Movement is the only thing that distinguishes it from the empty void.
Loneliness can really capture a man at sea, especially one predisposed to dreadful thoughts, but not tonight.
Simon feels different. He feels control, unlike before. No more did debris crashing into the soil, meteors decimating the seas or predators lurking behind the trees. He wasn't afraid it'd happen anytime soon either, it wasn't real. It… wasn't real.

Sheets of paper fluttered around the boat, threatening to fly away. Simon didn't want to think about it right now, his thoughts captured him.
He feels different.
When they found him, deep in the trenches, he remembered seeing the stars dim above him. It took away all his hope- everything he remembered and felt, all of it for nothing at all. The only thing that would invigorate, revitalize his mind was the physical voltage applied to his chambers, but in theory, he felt as though he died that day.
Now, though the stars were there, he knew this wasn't it. They weren't what he expected, they're not her. He'd know if it was her. His body fell weak against the deck, the boat swaying towards a fog. Was he really never going to see her again?
Yearning lumped against his throat and interrupted his breath, except only metaphorically this time. He missed her. Maybe she's just not ready yet. Maybe, when time permits, when she permits, he'll find her and they'll be together. He has been through so much, surely it is bound to end in bliss.
Gently, he lifted himself off of the ground and made his way to the pages. Dozens of maps, written by his own hand, different paths, spiraling and collapsing into the same spot. A tiny dot, a common point, an 'X' on every single map.

No, no. None of this made sense, he is too tired to make it make sense. He just wants to see her, they never spent time together when they were contingent, too caught up in worldly agony to ever properly appreciate each other.
This was a stupid plan, he wishes he could forget about it like he used to. What were they thinking? Neither of them knew what'd await them, let alone expect it to support their love. He felt exhausted.

The fog created an atmosphere for the sudden loneliness, it really sunk in the idea that he could spend the rest of his eternity like this, in the vast seas, under false stars, spiraling into the unknown without her. He felt his eyes begin to tear up. His sobs were drowned out by the thick clouds.

...

He must have lost consciousness at some point in his fit.
The skies were different when he woke up, like a page ripped straight out of ex altiora, hollow and starless. The atmosphere was thick, weighing down on him and making him lose his breath.

Suffocated by the vastness of his surroundings, gently, he felt his brain, that temporal disconnect severing completely as sirens rung, shaking up the silent sea.
That's when it became clear to him, he succeeded. He is dead.

It was all so divine, a sight he hadn't seen since '01, beams, obelisks so tall they extended into another realm- he understood now why she couldn't call out to him, she was confined in her mind, she never understood that becoming a star is redundant, the stars fall just like you and i.
The boat creaked pleasantly, winds rustling the sail and thrusting little snowflakes against the body. He was in awe. All that lied beyond the atmosphere, more than life itself was standing in front of him, tall and proud and fragile- geometrically perfect in the sky. He yelled out her name, she must be near.

Exhausted is a word to describe her. Maybe she was a fool all along, trying to bring the broken foreigner beyond. She didn't attain peace in death, she doesn't even know she died, but until he was alive she could still feel something. She would spend all her seconds in his scattered mind, trying to bring him back to reality. When he entered sub-consciousness- she thought they'd see eachother once again. Waiting keenly, she watched his brain as his body gave away in the nursing bed, hoping that he would find her before he died and get her to her star. That's when he died. Now, lost between worlds, lingering near the trees where she died, she is brought back to her reality.
She stares at the octangulas dotted beyond the canopy in jealousy, her hands shivering as they yanked blades of grass from the ground.

The boat was bound to spiral, that is what the map said after all, but he did not expect the winds to be this strong. His hands grasped the ropes of the sail and shut his eyes as the boat shoved itself against the land.

Soft sand resisted the boat's push, allowing the man to stumble out of the gentle wreck. The stars were so bright.