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It takes eight days of forced confinement for Jon to start hallucinating. He’d asked for this. Well, he’d suggested it as a counterproposal to being killed which is sort of a non-choice, but he’d gone along with it willingly. Handcuffed to the cot in document storage. Twice daily meals, twice daily written statements. Neither brings him much satisfaction. He thinks a lot about Elias in his prison cell, about the guards only keeping him alive for the potential of useful information. Two sides of the same coin, even now. Inextricable.
It’s Martin, though, that his exhausted brain conjures, because of course it’s Martin. After all this time, of course it’s Martin.
“Um, hi,” says Martin. He’s wearing a huge, oversized t-shirt with the superman logo and just his pants, showing off the impossibly wide expanse of his pale, blotchy thighs, scattered with freckles and moles. “You’re, uh, kind of in my bed?”
***
“Oh, Martin. I forgot you would still be here.”
Martin looked out of place in the empty Institute bathroom. A purple plastic toothbrush dangled from the corner of his mouth, and his feet were bare on the chipped tile. The lights were half off, they dimmed after five o’clock to preserve power, Jon was used to it after all of his late nights forcing his way through the never-ending mountain of statements. But walking into the mens and seeing Martin alone, surrounded by empty sinks and stalls, his plastic bag of toiletries Tim had bought him from the corner store balled up and balanced next to the faucet, he seemed very small.
Martin pulled the toothbrush out of his mouth and leaned over the sink, spitting out dry. His feet squeaked against the floor as he turned towards Jon, and Jon couldn’t pull his mind away from the mold in the corners and the thin, bruised skin under Martin’s eyes.
“It’s almost half ten, Jon, what are you still doing here?”
“I was just finishing up a bit of cross-referencing. I didn’t want to put it down and lose my train of thought before tomorrow.” Jon stepped up to the nearest sink and turned on the tap. It always came out cold here, no matter how you turned it. Martin’s curls were dripping wet spots onto the shoulders of his t-shirt. Jon filled his hands with water and splashed his face.
“You should take better care of yourself.”
Jon smacked his cold cheeks with his cold hands and stood upright, reaching for a paper towel. “Can always count on Tim to have a sense of humor.”
Martin scrunched his face up in confusion. “I’m sorry?”
“The shirt he bought you.” Jon tapped meaningfully on his own chest and Martin looked down. When he grabbed the hem of the shirt and pulled it out so he could see better, Jon could glimpse the fat of Martin’s side rolling over the waistband of his pants.
“Oh,” said Martin. “Because I heroically cowered in my apartment for weeks?”
Jon winced, and then forced a smile that sat uneasily on his face. “I meant...I didn’t mean it like that. I meant it as in how you’re so...thoughtful.”
“Right.” Martin dropped his toothbrush into the plastic bag and shuffled all of his things together. “If I had a superpower, I think it’d be to go invisible.”
“We thought you were sick,” Jon said, but even he could hear how pathetic it sounded.
“Get home safe, Jon,” Martin said, and shuffled past Jon out the door.
***
“That’s fine though, if you want to use it.” Martin rubs the back of his head and nervously shifts his weight from one bare foot to the other. “It’s late and all, and I’ve sort of taken up your overnight place, haven’t I? I’ll just, I’ll just sleep at my desk.”
Jon tries to reach out his hand to Martin but can only make it halfway before he hits the end of his chain and is yanked to a halt. “N-no, please. It’s your bed, of course you can use it.”
Jon watches Martin with wide eyes, terrified that he could blink and miss some crucial piece of information. He wants to memorize every curl of Martin’s soft red hair, the slight wave of his hips as he walks, the angry flush of his skin as he scratches at the bottom of his ear. Had he really looked this much younger, only a few years ago?
Martin sits down on the bed next to Jon and he swears he can feel the heat of his skin as if he really was just inches away. He shifts nervously, his chubby cheeks filling up with an endearing flush. His fingers toy with the hem of his t-shirt. “J-Jon? Are you, uh, are you staying?” he laughs, too high and too tight. Jon drinks it in.
“Martin.”
“Yeah?”
“You’re a hallucination.”
“Oh.” Martin looks down at his fiddling fingers. “Yeah, sorry. Is, um, is that okay?”
“Christ, Martin.” Jon cradles his head in his free hand. “You’re a figment of my imagination and you’re still asking permission to exist.”
There is something strung on the air between them, and Jon thinks perhaps it’s his own mania. The hunger is there, the hunger is always there, but it hangs back, bubbles and twines behind his molars, fizzing gently in the bones of his jaw. There is nothing to learn from this Martin. He is empty, a pile of memories laced together with string. He is formed from a thousand half-remembered moments, years of Jon’s one-sided opinions, and a handful of hopeful delusions. It feels a lot like cheating.
“I thought about you, you know,” Martin says, sliding his hand thoughtfully along the rough blanket of the cot. “Back when I was staying here. The sheets still smelled like you, at first, and I would lay alone in the dark just imagining you were there with me.”
“I just want that to be true,” says Jon, though his eyes hungrily follow Martin’s hand as it slides back and forth, back and forth. “I can’t know that. I can’t remember what you were thinking.”
“You don’t know what you know, Jon. You don’t know how much you skimmed unthinkingly off the heads of everyone around you and fed to your god.”
Jon shakes his head, scooching away from Martin, further up on the cot, pulling his knees in tight to his chest. “I would, no, if I’d known that about you I would have, I would have…”
“What would you have done, Jon?” Martin is on his hands and knees now, crawling towards Jon. The neck of his t-shirt hangs down, the space behind it dark and enthralling. “Do you really think you would have acted on it? You? Or would you have just covered it with cruelty and cowardice?”
Jon opens his mouth and his throat is dry and cracking. He licks dry tongue over dry lips and struggles to force out some kind of explanation. Martin smirks, his soft face contorting in unfamiliar ways, and rests his cheek on Jon’s knee. “Or maybe you would have been curious. Maybe you would have wanted to know what else I did, lying in your bed, thinking about what I wanted to do to you…”
***
When Jon walked into the breakroom in the morning, Martin was already there, busying himself at the sink. The broad slope of Martin’s back seemed to be hunched more than usual, but maybe that was just Jon’s imagination. Jon walked up to the cabinet, opened it, and frowned at the empty expanse he found inside.
“Sorry, no clean mugs yet, I’m just doing them now.” Martin turned from the sink and saw Jon and straightened up instinctually, “Oh! Jon. Sorry.”
“You already said that.”
“Right, right,” Martin laughed and it was brittle like glass as it dangled in the air. “I just know how you feel about your morning tea. Was hoping to get this done before you showed up. You’re even earlier than usual, are you feeling alright?”
“Just want to get to work. Sasha told me about an odd encounter of hers yesterday and I’d like to cross-reference the creature with the rest of the archive.” Martin swallowed and Jon peered past him at the pile of dirty mugs in the sink. “I should really have a talk with everyone about doing their washing up before leaving for the day. We don’t need another reason to attract bugs.”
Martin flinched visibly and Jon pursed his lips. “Ah, no, this was me, my fault, actually. I wasn’t...last night wasn’t really a sleeping kind of night, so I figured I’d make myself a cup of tea but then the archive was so quiet and empty and I just couldn’t get out of my head and one cup became six, seven, eight cups and…” Martin stared down miserably at the pile of mugs as his voice trailed off.
“Ah.”
“I don’t know what I was hoping it’d do,” Martin said, exhaustion and hysteria warring in his voice. For a terrifying moment, Jon thought he might start crying, and he glanced back at the door, wondering if it was still possible to escape.
“Listen, Martin,” Jon took a step forward. “How about I give you a hand?”
“No, I couldn’t possibly—it’s my mess.”
“I would personally really like a cup of tea, and the sooner this gets done the sooner I get one.” Jon reached over and snatched the mug Martin was holding right from his grasp. For a brief moment, their fingers slid against each other, and Martin’s gaze lingered on Jon’s hands even as he pulled the mug free. “And besides, we’re not paying you to stand around and clean mugs. Even as atrocious as your cross-referencing is, two and a half assistants is still better than two.”
Martin was still looking at Jon’s hands, his eyes glazing over a bit with barely restrained exhaustion. He licked his bottom lip nervously and nodded. “Okay. Thanks, Jon.”
***
Jon brings his free hand up to cover his ear, but his other is yanked short by the handcuffs. He squeezes his eyes shut, and yet somehow he still sees that twisted parody of Martin’s face with its dark, hungry eyes.
“You’re not the real Martin.”
“Nope. I’m better.” Jon can feel Martin pick up his head and press a kiss to the inside of Jon’s knee. “I won’t leave. I won’t ask hard questions. I’ll just be here, worshipping you, taking care of you, as long as you want.”
“I didn’t want him to worship me.” Jon’s mouth is bitter like over-steeped tea. He hadn’t asked for this. He hadn’t told Martin to dote on him, ply him with plates of biscuits and freshly warm mugs. He’d been rude and dismissive in the face of earnest attempts to help him sleep, to keep him eating. Jon hadn’t wanted Martin to lay down in the mud for Jon to walk on his back.
“No. You just let him,” says Martin. “You just took advantage again and again. Your guilt doesn’t help the people in your dreams, and it doesn’t help Martin.”
***
Jon knocked lightly on the door to document storage, looking down at the file he was flipping through. Twice is a coincidence, three times is a conspiracy, and Jon was beyond overdue finding what historical accounts he could of this Michael Crew. The fact that Martin had yet to move out of the archives despite the recent demise of Jane Prentiss was usually an annoyance, harder to work late when someone was wandering around half dressed, but Jon had been feeling rather run down lately. All of this had been getting to him. He wouldn’t mind someone giving him a hand with this research, even if it was Martin. And he could go for a late night cup of tea.
“Yes?” Martin’s voice sounded off. Shaky, perhaps. Jon didn’t notice at the time. He pushed open the door without looking up.
“I need some old files, if I could have a bit of your time to help me look.” Jon shuffled some of the papers in his hand, squinting down at them, trying to read his own rushed handwriting. Further into the room, he heard Martin hurrying to stand up in a nervous tizzy. Jon took another step inside and his foot hit something, kicking it skittering across the floor. He looked away from his papers, annoyed, frowning down at the offending object.
“That damn corkscrew, Martin, when are you going to get rid of it?” Martin sat back down on the cot. Jon could hear him breathing heavily from across the room, but it couldn’t pull his attention away from the corkscrew on the ground. He knelt down and picked it up, inspecting the dark, wet sheen across its surface. “Is that blood?”
“It’s not a big deal, Jon.”
Jon looked up, finally, at Martin where he sat clutching his arm to his chest. Blood welled up beneath his fingers and his usually pale skin was even paler where he pressed hard against the wound. Jon stood up sharply, glancing about the room in alarm.
“Are they back?”
“No, I,” Martin forced a weak laugh, “I was just being an idiot. I saw a stupid, just, a stupid normal freckle, and I thought it was a worm, and I just panicked.”
“Christ, Martin.”
“I just need a second, is all. Just, leave the file and I’ll find the documents for you in a second.” Martin brought a hand up to his face and scrubbed at the shiny tears smeared all over the curve of his cheeks.
“That’s…” Jon stopped. “That’s not important. I can, I can find the file tomorrow. You need the first aid kit.”
“I have it. I brought it in here,” Martin said. “Don’t worry about it. I know it must bring back bad memories. I mean, I didn’t even get any worms in me this is, this is nothing.”
“It’s not nothing,” Jon insisted. “You’re bleeding.”
“I’ve had worse.” Martin looked terrible, holding his wounded arm, eyes red and bleary, snot dripping slowly from his nose. The dark blue of his t-shirt was stained black with drying blood. The cot beneath him was thin and impersonal, worse than a hospital room. The only thing worse still was picturing him there all alone.
Jon cleared his throat, awkwardly. “I keep a spare change of clothes in my desk. Let me at least fetch you a change of shirt.”
The genuine gratitude in Martin’s eyes at this offer of bare minimum courtesy plunged a knife into Jon’s stomach. The sinking relief at having an excuse to leave the room and stop looking at Martin’s bare-faced emotion twisted it. By the time Jon came back from going to his office and grabbing his spare shirt, loitering unnecessarily to brush off non-existent dust and fold it neatly, Martin had dressed his wound, cleaned his face, and pulled on a professional expression. Jon handed over the shirt, gave a courteous good night, and pretended he wasn’t fleeing from Martin Blackwood.
***
“I get it,” Jon says. “I’m selfish. I know I’m selfish.”
“And that’s okay.” Martin reaches out and takes Jon’s hand that isn’t handcuffed to the bed. “I like that you’re selfish. I want you to use me.”
Jon shakes his head, even as his exhaustion longs to give in to the simplicity of this hallucination. “That’s not right, Martin. That’s not what love should be.”
“Who cares?” Martin pulls Jon’s hand to his chest and cradles it gently. He leans down and kisses each knuckle, letting his lips linger warm and wet against the tender skin. Jon’s heart trembles in his chest. “What about our situation is what it should be? What about you is what you should be?”
“I’m a monster,” Jon chokes out.
“Not to me,” Martin kisses the words into Jon’s palm. “Never to me.”
“I know you know what I did. You know what I did to that woman, to Floyd, to all those people before them. I can’t stop myself, Martin. I don’t want to stop myself.” Jon pulls against the restraints keeping him locked to the bed. “I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t dangerous.”
“I don’t care about them, Jon. I only care about you. You’re more important than anyone.”
Jon laughs, coarse and disbelieving, the air ripping at his throat as it comes up. “Martin wouldn’t say that.” The Martin in front of him cocks his head in sweet confusion, a single red curl tumbling over his eye. Jon aches to shift his fingers through it. “The real Martin cares about people. The real Martin hates me for what I’ve done.”
“The real Martin this, the real Martin that.” Martin drops Jon’s hand and pushes himself up off the cot. Jon shuffles up against the wall to keep watching him, ignoring the sudden aching cold that settles in his leg where it used to be pushed up against the warm expanse of Martin’s thigh. Martin paces around the tiny room, his eyes stormy like when he found Jon still in his office at nine at night with neither lunch nor dinner in him. Like that time Jon saw him through the crack in his office door forcing Tim back into his seat instead of letting him pick a needless fight. Martin wheels around to face Jon and throws his arms open wide in a dramatic gesture.
“What has real Martin done for you lately? Where is he now? Where are the four mugs of tea he’s left you over the course of an hour? Where are the little pink post-it notes with smiles on them? Why isn’t he lingering outside your door, peeking in to make sure you’re alright?”
“He’s doing something important,” Jon protests. “I have to trust him.”
Martin steps forward again until his knees meet Jon’s and he’s looking down at him. He doesn’t cast a shadow, and Jon can see his face too clearly, those soft blue eyes and mess of freckles he’s never dared to reach out and touch. And now it’s too late.
“Where was he when you woke up?” Martin asks, so quietly Jon doesn’t think he could possibly have heard him, but he knows exactly what he said. “You were dead, and you came back for him and where was he?”
***
Ever since Jon stumbled back into the archives through a buttercup door where his office used to be, Martin had not stopped hovering. Every time Jon stepped out of his office he nearly tripped over Martin waiting anxiously just outside the door with yet another cup of tea or Jon’s favorite half sandwich or a new circus based statement as a thinly veiled excuse to come in and putter nervously over the colorfully blooming bruises Jon couldn’t quite entirely cover over with his shirt.
Jon’s ears were going to start bleeding if Martin asked one more time if he was really really actually okay.
Because he wasn’t. Okay. But it wasn’t the kind of not okay that could be fixed by tea and good intentions.
“Jon, what are you doing!”
Jon picked his head up from his desk to see Martin take three long strides across his office and grab the pen he’d been scoring across the lines of his palm. He made an affronted sound as Martin snatched it.
“It’s clicked,” he protested. “I’m not trying to stab myself or anything.”
Martin crossed his arms, burying the pen away in the crease of his armpit. His other hand gripped his arm tight, forcing the skin white. “That’s sure what it looked like, Jon.”
“No, I,” Jon shifted nervously, flexing one hand and then curling his fingers to dig his nails in tight, “I itch. My palms. They itch and it’s very...distracting.”
“Oh.” Martin unfolded himself, the slight burst of anger fading quickly back into his irritating aura of concern. He drew his eyebrows in tight and pursed his lips. The only thing separating him from an overbearing cartoon nanny was a frilly apron and clucking sympathetically. “I keep some lotion in my desk if you...I can go get it.”
“No, Martin.”
“It’s really no trouble. I don’t know if you...I mean, the scent might be a little girly but it’s moisturizing so—“
“Martin, I don’t want your goddamn lotion.” Jon slammed his hand on his desk and Martin jumped at the sound. “I don’t want lotion, and I don’t want tea, I don’t need anything. What I want is for you to sit down for three seconds. You’ve been running around like you can fix things just by being helpful, and you can’t, so for chrissake can you please just sit down.”
Martin dropped into the chair in front of Jon’s desk like a sack of potatoes. Like someone kicked out the back of his knees. Jon slid his hands to the edge of his desk and began dragging them up and down, trying to work the sharp edge into the stinging flesh of his palms.
“I’m sorry,” Martin said, pale and quiet.
“Don’t.” Jon shook his head. “Don’t, it’s not…”
Self-consciously, Martin leaned forward and dropped the pen into the little metal cup on Jon’s desk. The clink of plastic was too loud, and Martin nearly flinched with it. Jon scrubbed his hands faster, the vibration radiating the itch up the inside of his forearms. Inside his shoe, his heel began to demand attention and he caught it against the foot of his chair and tried awkwardly to rub some pressure into it.
“Do you ever feel like your skin doesn’t fit you anymore?”
“Yes,” Martin answered without thinking, and then blushed and waved his hands, trying to pull it back. “I mean, probably not in the literal way that you mean it. After all the horrible things that happened with the circus and all, I couldn’t even begin to imagine what that was like.”
Jon frowned and dug his thumbnail hard into the skin of his other hand. “I feel like if I could just get my nails inside the crease of my wrist, I could peel off my whole hand like a glove and find what’s wrong.”
“I used to have eczema as a kid.” Martin drummed his fingers up and down the meat of his arm, making it jiggle. “Still do, a little, behind my knees and ears. My mother used to make me wear socks on my hands to keep me from scratching myself bloody.”
“It’s been like this ever since I came back. The itching. Like my skin isn’t right. Like a too-big coat, sagging in the back and shoulders.”
“Like your favorite shirt from high school,” Martin said, quietly. “You know you haven’t gotten any taller, haven’t gained any weight, but when you look in the mirror the fit is different. You don’t recognize yourself in it anymore.”
Jon paused in his scratching and looked up at Martin. “Yes. Yes exactly that. I suppose that’s why you’re a poet. I’ve only ever been any good with someone else’s words.”
The tips of Martin’s ears turned a pleased pink and he broke eye contact quickly. “I don’t think I’d call myself a poet, really. It’s just a hobby. I’m not very good.”
Jon turned his hands palm up and stared down at them quietly for a moment. “I woke up in the middle of the night yesterday. Everything itched so much I couldn’t sleep. And when I was dragging my nails down my thighs I suddenly couldn’t remember what it felt like to not itch. I couldn’t remember my skin settled, couldn’t picture fitting it, and I just thought, this is it. This is who I am now.”
“You’re still you, Jon.” Martin’s eyes were soft. He leaned forward to put a hand on the edge of Jon’s desk. “You’re more than whatever Elias is trying to make you.”
Jon met Martin’s gaze and he saw exhaustion. His soft cheeks were worn down with dark bags. His usually crisp blue eyes were muddy, and red around the edges. Jon wondered when the last time someone had reminded Martin to sleep was.
“Why are you still here, Martin?”
“Oh, well,” Martin pulled his hand off the desk and twisted it nervously with his other. “I thought I’d walk you home. Just in case.”
Jon bit back his instinctual snappish comment about not needing a chaperone. History wasn’t exactly on his side here.
“No,” he said instead, “why are you still here.”
Martin laughed, and that too was threaded through with exhaustion. “We can’t exactly quit. This place won’t let us go.”
“But you could leave me. Tim has. And Melanie to a lesser extent. Get away from the slow motion car crash while you can and take care of yourself.”
“You’re my friend, Jon. I’m not going to abandon you. I would never.”
“I’m not the same Jon anymore.”
“And I’m not the same Martin who cowered in his apartment, hiding from worms. I’m not the same Martin who wandered through those never-ending hallways. When this is over, when we stop the Unknowing, I probably won’t be the same Martin I am now.” Under Martin’s solid gaze, Jon felt whole. Like he remembered where his skin should sit. “We all change, Jon. That doesn’t have to be a bad thing.”
***
“Of course I wanted him to be there when I woke up.” Slowly, Jon closes his eyes and hangs his head. He knows Martin is still there, hovering over him, the way you know where your hand is in the pitch dark. “It’s all I wanted. But it wasn’t fair that I expected it. He doesn’t owe me anything. He doesn’t owe me love, especially after what I’ve done.”
“But you’ve suffered!” Martin’s voice is high and whining, like a petulant child. “You’ve been through so much to save the world. Don’t you deserve someone who cares about you?”
“I—“ Jon’s voice cracks and he opens his eyes, staring helplessly down at his hands in his lap. The skin of his wrist is angry and red, creased where the handcuff has dug in. Had he ever really deserved the things Martin had done for him? Had he even really noticed?
Jon looks up again at Martin, this conjured image of a man he once thought he knew. His eyes trace the earnest pull of his wide blue eyes, the soft pink of his lips, the fuzz of freckles blending into messy copper curls. He remembers this Martin, with his bloodstained Superman t-shirt and his clumsy, nervous hands. But this hasn’t been the real Martin for a long time. This isn’t the Martin who stood, silent and sure, drawn and cold, and told Jon to stop finding him. This isn’t even the Martin whose shoulders trembled as he took Jon’s lighter and drew it to his chest like a precious and dangerous secret.
“Martin cares. He cares about everything. He’s saving the world right now, and no one is there to give him tea. No one is leaving him pink sticky notes with smiles and encouragement. No one ever has.” Jon turns his head aside in shame. “I never did. I never deserved him.”
Martin cups Jon’s cheek in one warm, soft hand and Jon nearly sobs at the feeling of it. He draws Jon’s face up, forcing their eyes to meet. Martin’s eyes are kind, and so full of love, the way they always used to be. The way Jon craves more than anything in the world.
“But isn’t that why I’m here?” Says the Martin who is not real. “He might not want you anymore, but I do. I can take care of you, just like the old days. I can be anything you want.”
Jon swallows. It would be so easy to close his eyes now and sink into this warmth. Everything in his life is pain and sharp edges. His stomach twists empty, starving for statements, and his essence aches for one, singular kind voice to tell him he’s good. To forgive his mistakes. To say he was right to choose to live. To say they wanted him to wake up.
“You can’t,” Jon says, pulling away from Martin’s hand. “Because you’re not the Martin I fell in love with. And you never will be.”
Martin takes a step back and the world feels suddenly so much colder. Jon can’t shake the feeling that his own hallucination is disappointed in him.
“Then why am I here, Jon?”
“I think…” Jon rubs at his chafed wrist nervously, but he knows what he has to do. “I think you’re here so I can apologize. Properly.”
***
[Well, I hope you’ve got something better than that pathetic dig at my feelings for Jon.]
[It’s baffling, really. Such loyalty to someone who really treats you very badly.]
[Oh, is that supposed to be, what, a revelation?]
The tape recorder squealed as Jon pressed the rewind key hard. He counted the seconds in his mind, knowing just how far to let it wind.
[—leave me a wreck?] Martin’s voice asked tinny, and distant.
[Yes.]
[Well, I hope you’ve got something better than that pathetic dig at my feelings for Jon.]
Jon let his head hit the desk. His fingers knew the shape of the tape recorder’s keys like the well worn strings of a beloved instrument. He didn’t need to look at them. His mind floated, wondering how much of this was the Beholding now. How much of him was still human.
[Well, I hope you’ve got something better than that pathetic dig at my feelings for Jon.]
Rewind.
[Well, I hope you’ve got something better than that pathetic dig at my feelings for Jon.]
[It’s baffling, really. Such loyalty to someone who really treats you very badly.]
[Oh, is that supposed to be, what, a revelation?]
Jon doesn’t relisten to tapes. There’s no point. He’d always considered it unnecessary, citing both an oddly good memory for them and his position as archivist not researcher. Once they were digitally filed, he had little need to reopen long dead cold cases. Now he wondered cynically how much it was the Archivist in him, always hungry to move forward. Not much nutrition left in predigested statements.
Tim had tried to get him to, once. Some grad students had noticed errors and he’d prompted Jon to re-record. It had felt so natural, so logical when Jon had brushed him off then. He’d been so assured of his own free will. It felt so long ago, now.
[—treats you very badly.]
[Oh, is that supposed to be, what, a revelation?]
[You know, I should have really gone for that. Found something that would finally manage to shatter that precious image you have of him. But as you say, I am very busy at the moment. So I suppose I’ll have to go with what I have prepared.]
[Do it.]
Jon had listened to this tape all the way through. It had been the first one he took when he made it back to the archives, despite Basira’s warning. He had to know. Maybe it wouldn’t be fair to Martin, but Martin wasn’t here, and the Archivist in Jon burned to know everything that had happened. He had listened to this tape all the way through days ago. There was nothing to be gained from listening again.
[It’s baffling, really. Such loyalty to someone who really treats you very badly.]
[Oh, is that supposed to be, what, a revelation?]
Rewind.
[—treats you very badly.]
Jon cradled his head in his hands. He knew what came next. He couldn’t tear the sound of Martin’s sobs from his head. His choking breaths as he crumpled up, small and broken and alone.
[Well, I hope you’ve got something better than that pathetic dig at my feelings for Jon.]
Rewind.
[Well, I hope you’ve got something better than that pathetic dig at my feelings for Jon.]
Rewind.
[—my feelings for Jon.]
[—my feelings for Jon.]
[—my feelings for Jon.]
***
“I’m not sorry I woke up,” Jon begins. “It was my choice, and I’d make it again even now after everything. I want to live, and I think I can be helpful.” Jon looks up at Martin who watches him with an empty, dispassionate expression. But his eyes are focused and waiting. “Maybe I can even still be helpful to you.”
Martin says nothing. The blue of his t-shirt darkens as the bloodstain slowly spreads, rolling down his side into the hem and dripping red onto the floor, quiet and steady.
“And I’m not sorry for taking those statements. I wish I was. Christ, Martin, I wish I could be, because I know I should. But I’m not, and I won’t apologize for it until I can say it sincerely. After all this time, you deserve the truth.”
Jon can’t stand to look at the bleeding, silent image of Martin anymore, so he drops his head and stares at his feet.
“But I am sorry, genuinely sorry, for everything I’ve done to you. I’m sorry for complaining about your citations behind your back, and for going to Elias to try and get you transferred, and for that time I spoke loudly about what a waste of time office products trying to be fun are and then later found a package of purple paper clips in your trash bin.”
Jon shivers with a sudden chill, his thin shoulders shaking as he grips his hands into fists on the edge of the cot.
“I’m sorry for being a pompous ass for so long, for seeing you struggling and scared, and turning away. For not looking at you, really looking at you, when that’s all I’m even good for, because I was afraid of what I would find in myself. Because I was afraid of how much I thought about you, and so I turned to childish cruelty. I’m sorry I don’t know what your favorite kind of biscuit is, because you always knew mine. I’m sorry for that time there was no milk left in the breakroom fridge and I just left because I assumed you’d get it since you know the type we all like and I didn’t even stop to think that maybe you were too scared to leave the institute after what had happened with Jane, and that maybe all you wanted was for someone else to notice the milk and go out and get it for you. I’m sorry I never took care of you. I wish I had.”
The white tiled floor of document storage starts fuzzing before Jon’s eyes, growing hazy and indistinct, and he can’t tell if he’s crying or if his mind is finally breaking down on reality. Maybe both.
“I’m sorry I never said thank you. I took you for granted. And I’m even more sorry I let you run yourself ragged trying to make me happy, put yourself in danger trying to impress me. I told myself you wanted to, that it was your choice, and so I just let myself benefit and ignored your pain. I’m sorry I didn’t come back. That I left you alone for so long. That you had to pick up after all of my mistakes.”
The floor is rising, swirling up in puffs of white that twine around Jon’s ankles and he wonders if he will be swallowed before he can finish.
“But most of all, I’m sorry that I’m doing this now. That it took me this long. That I’m not even saying it to your face. I’m sorry I didn’t say this six months ago, or two years ago, when it might have mattered. When I could have changed something. Before I was a monster, when you were here and still needed me. If you ever actually needed me. Maybe I could have helped. But I was selfish and backwards and I didn’t want to accept that I loved you. I...I love you, Martin.”
Jon closes his eyes and presses a hand to his face. “I’m so sorry I couldn’t say it when it mattered.”
The room falls into silence, cut through by the low buzzing of fluorescent lights. What had he even expected to happen?
“Do you mean it?” Martin asks. His voice is low, like heat thunder on a warm day, nearly unrecognizable. Jon peels his head from his hands and looks up. The soft, frightened Martin in his bloody t-shirt is gone and where he stood there is a new Martin. A Martin Jon doesn’t remember. His soft cheeks are pale, the freckles standing out starkly against hollowed cheeks and dark eye bags. He wears a dark green cable knit sweater that looks too expensive, and fits him too well. He stands still, fingers not nervously pulling at the hem of his jumper, eyes not darting around. Fog curls lazily around his thighs like a cat, familiar and assured of its welcome.
“Martin,” Jon says, because it’s true.
“Hi Jon,” says Martin, who is real.
“How long have you been standing there?”
Martin shrugs, a tiny motion, and fog slides off him. “Did you mean what you said? That...that you love me. Did you mean it?”
Jon stares at Martin, terrified to look away or blink as though he’ll vanish again like a passing dream. Like just another hallucination. They are beyond the point of hedging, of embarrassment, of pretending not to notice. There is nothing left for Jon to say but “yes.”
“Christ, Jon.” Martin shakes his head, his mouth tightening into a line. “You can’t do this. You can’t do this to me. This isn’t fair.”
Jon tries to stand but his wrist catches on its cuff and he is pulled back down. He sits silently, watching with quiet desperation as Martin stomps his foot and paces in a tight, angry circle. He’s right there, so close, and still so far away.
“I didn’t mean for you to hear,” he apologizes quietly, his voice raw.
“Why now, Jon? Why are you doing this now? Before, this was all I ever wanted. Just a few months ago I would have given anything to hear you say that. I would have been so happy. But now—”
“Don’t say it’s too late.”
“But it is too late!” Martin crosses his arms tight over his chest, his eyes shiny with tears. “You were gone for so long. And I changed. I’m not the Martin you fell in love with anymore.”
“So?” Jon grips the hem of his shirt in clammy fists.
“So?” Martin parrots back, incredulously.
“You’ve always been changing. Since I started here, I’ve met so many different Martins. And I’ve fallen in love with you, again and again. I’d like the chance to fall in love with this Martin too, if you’ll let me.”
A tear slips from Martin’s overfull eyes as he stands, hands clenched, shaking and silent. He blinks and more tears fall, turning his head away from Jon and his eager gaze. The room is quiet for a moment as Jon sits with his heart twisted in his throat, like a man balancing on a tightrope between life and death. Finally, Martin takes a step forward. And then another. And another. And he sits down on the cot next to Jon, still facing away.
“I’m not as nice as I used to be,” he says. “And I won’t be around as often to bring you tea and such.”
Jon’s chest surges with warmth. “I love you for who you are, Martin, not what you do for me.”
“I’m colder too, and sometimes I’ll have to leave and you won’t hear from me for long periods of time.”
“As long as I get to be with you sometimes. And I know you’re safe.”
“And, and, and I can’t be in crowds. We might never be able to go to a party, or a pub, or a new movie release. I might have a panic attack in a museum and disappear and leave you alone.” Martin’s words bubble up like sobs, coming faster and faster. “I don’t think I’ll get along with your friends, and I can’t come back to the archives, and I don’t know how long I can stand to be around you and touching you before it’s too much.”
Jon nods, seriously, listening to Martin’s words. “But will you love me? Even when we’re not together?”
“Of course.” Martin looks over at Jon, eyes wide and pleading for Jon to believe what he could never doubt. “I love you, Jon. I always will.”
“Then I think that’s enough,” Jon says. He lays his unchained hand palm up on the empty space between them. Even now, he hopes for nothing and expects less. Even now he looks away, at the ground, at the handcuff on his wrist, at the familiar room where Martin used to live. A different Martin. A different life.
Martin takes Jon’s hand and interlaces their fingers.
***
“So you’re the new guy, huh?” Jon looked up from his desk and saw a towering figure with his shoulders hunched in and a nervous smile splitting his freckled face. “I made you a cuppa, just a little something to welcome you to the, ah, the proverbial neighborhood as it were.”
The man set a plain white mug down on Jon’s desk and promptly began to fidget with his fingers, as if unsure what to do with himself when not holding a cup of tea. He looked like he was waiting for something and Jon puzzled over what it could be for a moment before it finally dawned on him.
“Ah, yes. Thank you.”
The smile stretched into a full-on grin. Definitely far more bright than a mere ‘thank you’ deserved.
“I’m Martin,” said Martin. “Martin Blackwood.”
“Jonathan Sims.” Jon reached over and took the mug, staring critically into it. He wasn’t much of a tea drinker, but it was his first day. He could at least attempt to be polite. Jon took a sip and prepared a fake smile that dropped from his mind as he tasted it. It was warm, and sweet, and delicious. Martin’s smile glowed, as if he could read Jon’s thoughts just from looking at him.
“It’s nice to meet you, Jon,” Martin said. “I look forward to getting to know you.”