Simon Lewis and The Avengers

Choice

But Simon so desperately didn't want to open his eyes, not on Asmodeus, not on hell. They were glued shut but when he did seem able to awaken. His limbs weren't connected to his body as light pressed against his eyelids.

Hang on! Asmodeus, hell, light? He remembered that, he remembered hell, and he remembered that it was dark.

He sat up quickly, hands reaching out for whatever, anything really. Because to touch was to feel, and to feel was to be alive.

"I'm alive." Simon whispered hoarsely as his fingers held cloth.

"Woah, yes Simon you are. That's no reason to undress me though." Magnus laughed. Simon's eyes gradually focused and he found he was clutching Magnus' shirt with what would have been ripping force had he still been a vampire. But at the moment, his muscles felt like sand; weak and heavy. Human.

Wait.

"Human?"

"You? Yes." Magnus said. "You wanna feel?"

What? Simon looked questioningly up at Magnus' blurred face. Simon squinted in frustration, as if that would somehow force his vision into focus. The human weakness of his eyesight was fairly comforting though.

Magnus slowly pried Simon's hands from his pink collared shirt  and for the first time in years Magnus' hands were as warm as his own. The warlock looked at Simon cautiously and very carefully moved the two forefingers of Simon's right hand and put them against the inner wrist of his left. A rhythmic pounding through his blood vessels hummed to the surface of his skin. Simon's eyes widened and he glanced up at the monitor beside him. There was an unmistakeable rise and fall of a pulse.

It suddenly hit him; his heart was huge in his chest, beating like a drum against his lungs. His lungs. They took in air and dispelled it automatically, he breathed and he'd thought he'd forgotten how. He had, hadn't he? Oh god, he couldn't breathe. He needed to breathe, he was human. If he didn't breathe, he'd die. He couldn't die.

"Simon, woah." Magnus gripped his hands, grounding him. "Simon, its okay, just breathe."

how?

"Count with me. Okay? You can do that. Breathe in for 7." Magnus breathed with him and Simon copied. "And out for 8. Well done." Magnus smiled as Simon calmed himself. He hadn't had a panic attack in 3 years, now he remembered just how much he hated them. If only his vampire self had let him keep the dimmed anxiety.

"Thank you." Simon gasped.

Magnus furrowed his eyebrows. "Thank me? Thank you, Simon. You saved me. Remember?" Magnus ducked into Simon's line of (crappy) vision.

"Sort of. But why do I remember?" Simon squinted harder still.

"When your memories were taken, their shadow or footprint was still fresh in your mind. Soon enough after they were removed, I was able to call back some of them." Magnus explained.

"Won't Asmodeus know?" Simon croaked.

"Some power will have left his palace but there's nothing he can do about it now that we aren't on his land." The warlock reassured him. "What do you remember?"

"I don't know." Simon replied. "How should I know what I don't remember?"

"Fair point." Magnus laughed. "You said you remembered  Asmodeus - hell?"

"Bits of it." Simon rubbed his head as if trying to ease the memory into certainty. Flashes of the dark came to mind. The sharp thorns. The ... fly cufflinks? The fly cufflinks that flew closer, and buzzed in through Simon's ears. They had feasted on his brain, devouring what they chose - what Simon shouldn't remember. Then pain. Pain like Simon couldn't remember and won't imagine. "You can't really forget it."