2024-08-30 3:09:45 ¶ ● ⬈

somuchbetterthanthat:

> > Jonelias week day 4! I’ve been meaning to write this for soo long. So of course nothing will end up being satisfying. I wish I was going enough at poetry to write this moment the way it should be written :(.
> > Setting: hurt/comfort ; prompt: last words

> In the moment, Jon’s eyes are merciless, and they’re the most beautiful they’ve ever been. A perfect, dark reflection of what Jonah had glimpsed into mirrors for centuries and long learnt to embrace. His fingers find Jon’s sweater and the pain that bubbles up his chest is only second to the terror that grips him, the cold knowledge that, at last, he is dying, and he is dying despite everything he’s done, everything he’s given up, everything he’s ever tried to accomplish running from the end of it all.

> A minute, two at most, beholding whispers. It doesn’t turn its Gaze away, not yet, not fully – it will give Jonah that last grace and insult of watching the blood pour out of him until there is nothing else of its servant – but everything else is already slipping away as he coughs, tries to breathe, and wavers when he realizes he can’t without hurting anymore.

> When does Jon begin to tremble against him? When does Jon’s righteousness start to fade, as their God welcome home, at last, its favourite child? One moment Jonah is blinking, panicking, dying, the next he is staring back into Jon’s endless gaze and seeing, properly seeing, the magnificent creature that he’s become and the terrified man that had loved Jonah, once, before Jonah had led him right here to both their personal doom.

> A mirror, Jonah thinks again, but that’s not right. Jon might be swallowed by the Eye, might be trapped by the Web, but above all he is what Jonah has made him, what Jonah has chosen for them both. Yes, he is Jonah’s end – but he is also and foremost Jonah’s legacy. He’s his.

> It takes the last of his strength to raise his hand up to Jon’s cheek. Jon’s eyes flutter. In that miraculous second, in between two difficult heartbeats, as the impossible weight of a ruined world fades away from Jonah’s gaze and begins to gleam into Jon’s, Jonah leans forwards and kisses Jon, mouth filled with blood.

> This will be so much, without Jonah to share half of all of this with him. He Knows that Jon understands it now, from the desperate way he kisses him back, from the way he starts to weep, but Jonah isn’t scared anymore – certainly isn’t scared for his Archivist at all.

> Jon will succeed, whatever he decides to do. Jonah, after all, has made him perfect. He only needs the reminder; he only needs that one, last comfort.

> Jonah’s thumb brushes against Jon’s jaw. He is so, so cold, and Jon is so warm, so alive, so powerful. He opens his mouth; murmurs against Jon’s lips “good..luck..” and, with one, last, satisfied smile…lets go.