Title: When In Doubt, Doubt
This is not a story about Martin and Jon. Though they averted the Apocalypse before Jon could read that statement. Peter Lukas doesn’t know how or why he is alive, and why he feels alive enough to worry about one Elias Bouchard, Jonah Magnus, really, who is not conscious for most of it.
Find it on Ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26668369
Full story under the cut :)
Another sickfic! Yey! Or, in other words, whumptober is approaching and of course my brain gave me a complete different idea. Still. Also, this is a gift for @nosiize , since I haven’t done this in a long time and since you are responsible for bringing me into this ship, please have this lightbulb.
Title: When In Doubt, Doubt
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There is a room in the Lukas mansion. It’s special, different from the other rooms. Not in its interior - there are a lot of perfectly ordinary rooms there. Far enough apart to hide, dark enough to swallow all noise. Even if the house were full of people, they would rarely meet each other. It’s supposed to be that way, enough space for every single person to be alone in. This one room, however, has two people in it. It’s the only remarkable aspect about it, the windows are the same as everywhere else, with thick curtains covering them by night, and sometimes at day too. Today they are covered, and they have been for some time, almost as long as the two people are inhabiting this room. One of them is an impostor, hiding in a stolen body, always hiding, always scheming, always lying. The other is just distant enough to seem disinterested, but close enough to make a mistake. One fatal mistake. One of them lies in the bed the room provides, tucked under thick covers and still shivering. The other left and entered the room a few times in the last almost 12 days. But it’s not the one you might think. And Peter Lukas can’t leave. He tried. Wanted to and found he couldn’t and found he didn’t want anymore. At first he told himself it’s because Elias has to be responsible for this - for how he woke up under the institute, fog in his lungs, choking him, a sensation he never had before. The fog had always been so welcome, then it had been painful. He can’t go back. But nobody is in this house besides the servants.
So he stays.
On the other hand, Elias Bouchard, or Jonah Magnus, actually, can’t leave. He can’t really do anything, can’t even die, and if he could think, he wished he would. He has done little besides shivering, hallucinating and throwing up a brutal amount of blood and ink in the last week, crying out for people who don’t exist anymore with a voice like tearing paper, and for one who is sure he should not exist anymore. Who doesn’t leave, even if it is what he always did, and what he suspects he should do. He sits in a chair, that Peter Lukas, and if you didn’t know better, you’d almost think he was human. He isn’t sure himself. The concern he feels certainly is, and he is not used to this human emotion anymore. For the first days, he didn’t have the time to dwell on that, and it’s ironic, really, since he only couldn’t because he cared. But he stayed, and he sat beside Elias, held him when he started fighting invisible forces, tried to cool him down all while telling him that he is more trouble than anything else. He held him until thrashing and screams turned into almost inaudible whimpers and until he exhausted himself enough to fall back - not asleep, but unconscious. He gave up on pretending after two days, when his own exhaustion and concern were the only emotions he had left. Or maybe not the only ones, seen that they are connected to one he doesn’t think about. One that is more powerful. It’s not an emotion but a promise, that only makes it worse.
“Barnabas don’t!” He sighs and leans forward, puts a hand on Elias’ chest. He knows the story of Barnabas. Poor young man, long gone now. Fed to his god. His god? Even now? He is not sure. There is a dissonance between him and the Lonely, something he can’t really place. He thought about the possibility that this is what made Elias sick. He has seen him before, unable to stop seeing, unable to stop feeding the eye, but this is different. The only pain accompanying it had been a migraine then, now he screamed like he was ripped apart from the inside. So the only other option? His ritual. His Archivist. His stupid stupid genius dangerous plan. Elias’ eyes are closed, but open they were unseeing too. His voice has gotten weaker, he screamed, those first days, now it’s barely more than a whisper. Quiet like the whirr of a tape recorder, though he tries to banish that thought. Peter doesn’t know for how long he’ll stay like this, trapped in a nightmare born of what? There is a lingering fear that says until he meets the End and he hopes it won’t come to pass. Not now. Though it seems not far from the truth. He is as pale as the bedsheets, eyes hollow and bruised. A body can endure a fever only for so long and even if Elias still were an Avatar of the Eye - and Peter suspects something went dreadfully wrong in that department - it should be over by now. He’s been like this since he found him, on the floor to his office, every piece of glass inside the room smashed and paper ripped apart like a storm tore through the room, and in the middle of it?
“Elias,” Peter’s voice is hushed. He is tired himself, the question how he is alive still so vivid in his mind. He wants to know or maybe he doesn’t, “It’s alright, it’s just me. Sleep” he sighs but leaves the hand where it is. After days of this, he just sits here. At one point he considered taking him to a hospital, but how would he explain his husband throwing up ink and blood and still be alive? Would they even be able to help? His most powerful enemy seems to be dehydration, and their family has a doctor who helped with that. He is the only one who entered and exited the room except Peter in the last week, the servants leave trays outside, used to it. He is used to the quiet. To being alone with his thoughts, he is used to it but now, it feels wrong. He rarely craves company, even when he does so with Elias, it’s different. Because with Elias, he never feels fully accompanied. If he does, he craves him when he is away. But now he is right here and the fear of losing him is like a block of ice in Peter’s chest. He is not used to that, it’s not alright. He wants it, no, needs it to stop. But the only way it could stop is with Elias finally getting better, and it all ends in a vicious circle. He sighs deeply and looks to the bedside table, glasses and cups with tea and water, half of them untouched except for the occasions he managed to get Elias to take some. There is a thermometer there too, but it’s not been long since he last checked. He always itches to, but doesn’t. Instead he runs a hand through Elias’ damp hair, damp from sweat, though he put him in a cold bath in between. He’d hate it, he thinks, he’d hate to be in such a state of disarray. If he hated it, at least he would be awake. Annoying as always. To his surprise, Elias sighs at the contact and turns his head to the side.
“Peter?” He leans closer, it’s not a scream, not a whimper. It’s a question, whispered and rough, but there. He doesn’t dare to hope. Hope has no space in this house.
“Here” he catches a weak and shaking hand in his when Elias tries to get it under himself, more out of reflex than of actually supporting him he guesses, “don’t” and he gives in immediately. He blinks, and his eyes are clear in the dim light, they dart around until he finds him. Peter moves a hand to his cheek to help him with it, and again he leans into it, skin burning on Peter’s cold, “Easy now” they stay like that for a moment and Elias just looks at him, though his eyes are not as piercing as they were once now. They take him in, it’s a weak echo from what he is used to, but still, “Easy. You’ve been quite ill, still are. Take it slow”
“Peter” Again, not a question this time, more breathed than said and sounding far too scared. He gave up on trying to ignore or mask the feeling of concern and actual worry days ago, there is no witty reply, no sarcastic remark. It’s the most lucid he’s been in over a week of fever chills and pain, and Peter won’t lose the opportunity with something he doesn’t mean in the end.
“You’ve been dreaming” he says and it cuts through, though Elias wants to ask what the dream had been, what of it had been reality because he doesn’t know. He knows different things, however. He knows he no longer serves the eye, serves no entity anymore. He knows he is trapped here since his ritual failed, broken by one person loving another one, and isn’t that too painful? He knows he wishes he could die because he can’t focus on anything but the pain every fiber of his body is in. He knows that Elias Bouchard is gone and Peter Magnus is gone just as James Wright is gone, and he is now what is left. Elias. Jonah. And he is trapped because he didn’t want to die, he didn’t want to be a mere mortal so his punishment is exactly that. All these are things he doesn’t want to know. They are etched into his mind and he wishes he could forget them, but they burn in his chest and in his head. He wants to know if Peter is real. He’s seen too much in the past eternity, and was it one? He can’t even ask because he is in pain, he is tired, he is too weak to actually keep his grip on Peter’s hand and it’s the other who holds it for him. It’s frustrating and that hurts even more. He wants to die, but not even the End will take him now. That he lives is punishment enough.
“I’m glad to see you awake” He missed words in between, it’s too out of context. He frowns or tries to, but his muscles refuse to listen. He tries to grasp the hand tighter but can’t. He tries to say something but fails. Peter looks somewhere he can’t see, and then he is stroking over his cheek with a thumb and talks, and Elias looks at him, because he knows facts and one of them is that Peter Lukas died. He can’t be real, or maybe he is, but he doesn’t actually care. If it is another cruel game, he’ll just let himself be fooled. Even if it’s a twisted memory, seeing Peter like this is better than being alone. So he pretends that he is real, at least.
Peter of course knows Elias is not listening to him. He can see it in his confused looks, but the fact that he looks and sees and is here is already enough. It’s so much more than in the last week. He moves onto the bed, climbs in next to him. He is still far too warm, but maybe - and he hopes, he never hopes because hope has no place in his heart, but Elias does - maybe that he woke up is a sign. It solves nothing, of course. But it is something.
When he thinks him back asleep, he tucks him in again. The shivering subsides at some point. He nods off too some time later.
Elias only wakes again when someone knocks. He is not really aware of his surroundings, but only of the cold next to him. He tries to get at least a little more upright, but moving sends daggers through his veins and a sound escapes his lips. Peter’s hand is so cold, it almost hurts when he strokes his forehead. Still, he helps him.
“What does it take to keep you in one place?” he asks but it’s gentle. It’s also not a real question. Peter knows fully well that Elias won’t move away from him, that this already took all the effort he could muster. Instead he tucks a pillow behind his head and helps him with a glass of water, concerningly without protest. His fingers shake too much, and yet still he did expect it.
“Where?” He leans his head back against the pillows and Peter puts the glass aside. There is still no color on his cheeks or any tension, it looks like the pillows being everything keeping him upright. It’s closer to the truth than Elias wants to admit even to himself. Even this hurts, but the room does only spin for a moment. He is fine as long as he doesn’t move, and takes the room in as much as he can. There is a needle in his hand, and he just looks at Peter. He doesn’t need to ask, there is a different question brewing.
“The mansion” Peter doesn’t explain that it felt like the only place nobody would find them, that he felt the strangest sense of security here. He doesn’t explain that he needed exactly that after retrieving Elias’ limp form from the Archives and realizing that he wasn’t waking up. He doesn’t say it’s because he thought him dying and at least wanted to be in a quiet place then.
“How long?” He doesn’t ask the exact date, likely because either, he could not remember, or just didn’t care. It’s not like he’ll be able to do much in the near future, both of them know that.
“Twelve days. Thirteen at this point” Elias doesn’t answer. Almost two weeks. He feels like he slept that time, but also like he needs far more to ever recover the strength he had before. He won’t get all of it back, he realizes, because he doesn’t serve the eye anymore. He concentrates on it, needs to know, is he really cut off? Is it really gone? He knows it is, in a strange way, he just can’t believe it. Tries to grasp the concept and fails, there used to be so much in his head when he only concentrated-
But it’s just another dagger in his head now. Static follows, and he is distinctly aware of how he is slipping away, out of reality but not in the way he is used to. The world turns grey and then has color again, shifts between it. There is a hand, a face, but he can’t focus - the static drowns it out.
“…foolish. You should know better than this, for- Elias? Are you with me again?” He finds himself lying on his side again, Peter holding him by the shoulders and he wants him to remain that way. He doesn’t want to be alone, irrational, his brain provides, even more so married to Peter Lukas. His head spins and he is still panting, but he is here. The static is gone.
“I’m fine” he sighs and closes his eyes. The pain ebbing away is a sweet relief, he wants to fall back asleep with it, but doesn’t, yet.
“You are not, but lie if it feels better” The old anger is back in his voice, Peter realizes, but is it anger? How would he call it if it’s not? Is it another aspect of being concerned? Elias doesn’t answer, and maybe it’s better that way. Peter wants to slap him square across the face for being like this - beholding in this condition? Can he even? They stay quiet until Elias’ breathing has evened
“You are far from fine. I thought you might die, and how dreadfully boring would that be?” The huff of air is a weak laugh, “I mean it” and now the humor is gone again, as fast as it appeared. He strokes the hair away from his forehead, frowns at the warmth. Just that he is awake doesn’t mean he is suddenly well. This is not how it works anymore, “You’re still running a fever. Can’t even be angry with you that way” Elias reaches up and catches his hand. He is too tired to answer, but Peter’s voice distracts him from the pain at least. 12 days. 13, almost. It doesn’t sit right with him. And Peter stayed the entire time? Begrudgingly, he would suspect, but he remembers waking up earlier and there had only been relief.
“Do you need anything?” He grasps the big hand tighter and holds it close, he can’t get closer to Peter, though there is not much room left. Still too much. There is a certain comfort in it, in the way Peter is so much taller and broader. He feels… safe.
“You found me?” he asks instead of all he is thinking and Peter nods.
“In the Institute. At first I thought you were dead. You only barely missed the edge of your desk, you know” There are unspoken words after that, they both feel them, heavier than the blanket tucked around Elias. But it passes.
“I still don’t know how I am alive. Something is wrong with the Lonely, but all the Entities seem to be strangely distorted” Peter continues.
“It’s my fault” He calls it his fault, and it takes a lot to get him to admit that. Still he puts it so simply and without too many words.
“The ritual failed?” Elias just nods and Peter decides to not press the issue further, “But the Eye didn’t kill you” he instead states. It’s a question nevertheless.
“Punishment” he sighs again and Peter can feel his heartbeat getting faster from where Elias is still holding his hand to his chest. He wonders if he even realizes it, “The one who wanted to be more… Now a mere human existence, cut off from the Gods” his voice breaks in the end and Peter inches down to lay next to him, facing him directly. His eyelids are almost transparent, his face pale like chalk and eyebrows and lashes a thick dark contrast. He blinks at Peter and his eyes, dulled as they are, are still the same. He knows who he is. Jonah Magnus, James Wright, Elias Bouchard. But it’ll end here, one day. It’s not pity that drives him, but something else. Maybe it is love if one is so desperate to believe in these things, still so romantic even after everything. Maybe it’s just the fact that they know each other by heart by now. All the tricks, all the bets. All the divorces and new marriages. They are still married, or at least didn’t get divorced before he died. It’s the fact that they are too much the same to be apart. He lets the fingers of his free hand trail along Elias’ cheekbones, his warm face and then through his hair. Like a cat he relaxes at that.
“You need to sleep,” he finally says. There is no answer to the unspoken questions, no plans or schemes or grand rituals. There is just them, in a room, in a big house, far away from everything else. It’s too early for existential dread.
“Rest. And get better. You won’t accomplish anything when you’re half delirious” Elias wants to protest, he is not delirious. He is hurting in more ways than one, but he is not delirious, or so he thinks. One glance at Peter’s face shows the mask. It’s the only solution they have for now, barely enough for a person too used to Knowing everything. But it is a solution. He closes his eyes and relaxes into a touch he thought he would never feel again.
“Don’t you get tired of me?” Peter actually laughs as answer. He did say that, once, as a reason for their fifth divorce, or maybe seventh, he only really remembers the sixth at this point.
“It’s my turn with the rings, isn’t it?” Though he says it to the creaking room and the thick curtains, because Elias certainly does not hear him anymore.
