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There was a time before everything went wrong, back before the Unknowing, where Martin felt the gentle warmth of flame inside him. Nowadays, he wasn’t quite sure if it was still there or not. You get used to your own temperature after a while.
Now, he sits in the new office he’s been given, secluded away from anyone in the Archives. It makes his job a bit easier, he’ll admit. It isn’t like anyone comes in and out of his workspace anymore. At least, no one other than the new Head of the Institute. Even then, though, that’s tentative. He only ever really shows up if he needs to tell his assistant something. Luckily, he isn’t here now, so Martin continues to type away at his keyboard as a cup of tea rests on the tabletop.
The work is simple, monotonous. It’s the closest to infinite boredom Martin gets, but at least it’s something to do. Half the time, he doesn’t even realize how deep he’s gotten into the same thing over and over again, to the point everything is a haze, even with the ginger locks of hair that fall over his eyes momentarily obstructing his vision.
Such is the same today, just the same routine. Although, something decides to intrude on his space. A click cuts through the empty air, and Martin momentarily stops his typing.
“Oh, hello,” he greets the sound. He doesn’t need to do much to know what it is, he recognizes the hiss, he wouldn’t ever be able to erase it from his mind. Still, he glances over to a clearer part of his desk, and lo and behold, there’s a tape recorder, already running without anyone ever touching it. They always show up at times like this, and, quite honestly, Martin’s given up trying to resist them.
“There isn’t much to hear right now, I’m afraid,” he rambles off to the tape, before focusing his gaze back on the screen in front of him. “I mean, unless you want to hear just work, but that’s not why you’re here, is it?”
He types out a few more words before he stops again, and picks up the tape recorder. “..Fine. I don’t have a statement on hand, there isn’t really a reason for you to be listening.”
The tape stubbornly continues to run in Martin’s grasp, spooling away. Of course, he muses, it isn’t going to stop that easily. “Okay,” he mutters, half sighing. If only it could be easy to get rid of this thing. Stopping the recorder won’t do anything, though, and he doesn’t think he wants to check the batteries.
So, the old fashioned way it is, then. Martin glances around, and listens to his surroundings. All he hears is the ticking of a clock, and the hiss of the demanding tape. Testing the waters, he calls for Peter, but there’s no sound of familiar static marking his arrival. Still, Martin is alone, the slow tick tick tick filling the room starting to lodge itself in his mind.
“Of course,” Martin remarks, unamused. “You know, I’m not sure why I try at this point, it’s not like anyone’s coming. No one really talks to me anymore in the first place, so I doubt there even would be anyone on their way. I guess that’s my fault, though, isn’t it?”
He laughs, hollowly. “It’s weird. I suddenly get wrapped up in this mess, and can barely find the effort to care. I probably should care about that part, I just—“ Martin sighs, holding his face in his hands. There isn’t a spike of warmth with the first second of contact, just the pressure that comes with the motion. “It’s complicated.”
The tape continues to run, the air hanging empty of any response, any little click to tell him he can get back to what he was doing. Martin glances up at the little object in his hands, and purses his lips. Right. You can’t leave an audience hanging. “You still want more, don’t you? Fine. I’ll say more, but we’re making a deal. I’m not giving you to Jon, or Peter, or anyone. I know it’s probably not a good idea at all, but I’m going to keep you right with me. I really don’t want to have to risk anyone hearing, especially Peter. If he found you—“ He pauses, cutting himself off. “Actually, on second thought, I don’t want to imagine that.”
He does, still, imagine it: the passive aggressive lecture that comes with telling him ‘you’re doing it again, caring too much.’ It isn’t like he wants to. He’d gotten into the habit of it over his life, people-pleasing and thinking far too much about things like these. Even if it’s still there, at least the distance is helping a little. It feels safe, and he’s getting used to it.
“..Anyway,” he begins again, forcing himself out of his internal monologue, “I should probably say something. Just talk, and all. Lay out my thoughts I’ve been having, I guess.”
It’s probably the most he can do, he surmises. As said, still, there’s no one here, and maybe it’ll serve as a good log of things. Or, maybe, he’ll just destroy the tape later. Destroying it sounds good. Even so, he’s starting to understand why Jon used to talk to these things so much. “It’s not like you’ll judge me,” he says, “so I should probably just start from the beginning, shouldn’t I?”
“Things used to be a lot more lively here. And, I know, isn’t that obvious? How could the atmosphere not be dreary after everything we’ve been through? With Jon, Daisy, and Tim appearing to be dead, Peter taking over, all the attacks, and then six months being stuck alone… I guess that’s a rhetorical question. I’m pretty sure all of us know the answer by this point.”
“Working for Peter doesn’t exactly make it better. I mean— It’s okay, I guess? Not entirely bothersome. I never had a problem being alone, it’s a comfort for me. Sometimes the silence feels better than all the noise, and honestly, I’m starting to think that I’d probably take being alone doing work for Peter over sitting in my flat, scared out of my mind over supernatural worms for thirteen days straight.”
He sighs, and slumps over his desk, still holding onto the recorder. “In a way, it does make me miss Jon, though, even with the weird circumstances we were stuck together. Don’t get me wrong, I really don’t want to relive everything with Prentiss. I’m just thinking about those late nights in the Archives.”
An image comes to his mind, the nights he spent staring at the ceiling, familiar loneliness clutching him. At those times, he had usually gone to see Jon, against his better judgment. The Archivist had always been a workaholic, and thus was usually still around, even when it was very late, tending to whatever he hadn’t gotten done throughout the day. Back then, he had only barely allowed Martin to stick around while he continued working, but Martin liked the company, even if it meant sitting in gentle silence.
He quickly pushes the thought away, though. Now, there’s no room for thinking that way, for reminiscing on the past they lost. Things are different now. “Anyway,” he begins again, “I suppose that’s why you’re here, isn’t it? You miss him too. He’s suddenly back, and you keep listening. Feeding? I don’t know. Still. I haven’t seen him in,” he pauses, trying to count the days before giving up, “a long time. However long it’s been since I last had to run from him. I know I’m not supposed to, but I still feel kind of bad about that.”
“I really shouldn’t, but sometimes I feel like I’m losing my mind over it. It’s like– get over it, Martin, you have new rules to follow if you’re going to make this work! And most of the time, that’s just fine! I can ignore Melanie’s shouts, I turn away anyone who just wants to talk, and I can pass through the Institute without anyone even noticing me. But when I see him, an entire wave crashes over my head. And that’s both good and bad, because well– One, it means it’s harder to do my job. Two, I can’t breathe, and, in some way, it’s exciting, but I also dread it. Which, thinking about it, that’s probably the most terrifying part of it. They don’t tell you when you sign up for pledging your life to whatever these entities are, especially when pledging your life to Peter’s patron, that even the slightest bit of interaction starts to feel strange. If you’re like me, you start to feel detached from everything. Pushing people away has never been easier. But sometimes, you panic. Sometimes, you want to latch onto that wave of excitement, something you haven’t felt in ages, and other times you don’t want to be anywhere near it, because you don’t want to drown. It burns, and I don’t know how. I just know that things got a lot chillier recently, but I’m starting to like it. If I could stay with Jon, I probably would, I think, at least, but there’s too much in the way of that right now. I barely have the energy to do most things, and I know I can’t stay around him. Not if I want him to live.”
“So,” Martin continues, reaching over to his freshly brewed cup of tea, “I guess I’ll just sink into the fog more, and try not to feel any waves over my head.”
He takes a sip of the beverage, expecting warmth in his throat, but finds it feels like it’s been sitting out on a cool winter morning instead. Martin chokes, coughing until his airways are clear. “Ugh— I swear, I just made this a few minutes ago! It shouldn’t be this cold.”
The mug sits unalarmingly, just its usual faded blue ceramic, but Martin continues to stare at it. Suddenly, he remembers the tape recorder, the soft sound of it still running meeting his ears. “Oh– uhm– sorry. That’s all.”
He quickly stops the tape, falling back into his office chair as the silence returns, only broken by the ever steady ticking of a distant clock. He takes a hold of his cup of tea again, eyeing it suspiciously. Okay, really, it shouldn’t be as cold as it is. It’s not like he made it ages ago, it was just before he came in here to get to work. Still, it feels devoid of warmth in his hands.
Martin opts to just drop the subject. It’s fine! He’ll just make new tea later, or suffer through the cold cup. Probably the latter, he doesn’t feel like getting up, and especially doesn’t feel like potentially running into anyone. Not now. Maybe he would’ve in the past, but he’s far past that.
He sighs. Unknowingly to Martin, his breath comes out like fog that swirls around the room he’s in. It’s not like he noticed it in the first place. As said, you start to get used to your own temperature after a while. So, in the end, he begins his work again, finding no point to do anything else. As for the tape in the recorder: he’d make sure to take it home in his jacket pocket, to deal with it there. It’s not like he’d want anyone listening, after all.
And so, the days continue to pass in the Magnus Institute, tendrils of the Lonely only further rooting themselves in Martin’s mind.
~{☁️}~
Sometimes the fog becomes an indulgence. Martin would know that well, with how heavily his heart became tied to it after so many days playing his game and intentionally isolating himself, so much so that it would transform even his ginger hair into cloudy puffs of fog at the ends. He’d know it well, considering his eyes are clouded, his mind is clouded, and he sees nothing but his failures, nothing but his deepest insecurities.
He’s lost in a vast, open space, where somewhere waves lap at the shore. Where that somewhere is, he doesn’t know. He can’t see it, only faintly hear the sound from some other part of his patron’s domain. Yet, still, he welcomes the silence and solitariness. The fog wraps around him, a gentle embrace, and he drowns in the freeze of Forsaken, barely noticeable to his senses. It’s a type of drowning he welcomes, the type where a voice whispers from deeper in the water, “stay here, stay where you don’t hurt, stay where you won’t be a nuisance ever again, stay, stay, stay.” Martin obliges. Maybe he was always meant to be in this place, alone where no one can hear him. That’s what his mind convinces him of.
But then, there’s Jon.
And then, Martin isn’t alone anymore.
When they finally meet again, in some empty part of the landscape, Jon’s touch feels like fire to his skin, warm, unpredictable, and yet, familiar. Even in the distant state of mind Martin finds himself in, where he barely senses a thing anymore, he finds himself gently leaning into the contact, basking in the way it burns. Maybe, if it burns, then some part of him is still alive behind his clouded blue eyes.
Jon doesn’t stagger or falter in the way he holds Martin’s face in his hands, like he’ll never see him again if he retracts his touch. “Martin, look at me,” the Archivist pleads, staring back at him with desperation in his unnaturally green eyes, “Look at me, and tell me what you see.”
And there it is: that familiar wave crashing over Martin’s mind. The wave that drowns him, and yet he welcomes with open arms.
“I see…” He pauses, his voice quivering as something cuts through the fog in his mind. Maybe it’s the burning, maybe it’s the way he’s shivering in the chill. “I see you, Jon.”
He chuckles softly, the burning singeing his skin, reminding him of life. Martin’s clearing gaze meets that of Jon’s, watery sky blue peering into verdant expanses of green, and a smile creeps its way onto Martin’s lips. “I see you!”
When he collapses into Jon’s embrace, it’s a feeling Martin’s been waiting to lean into for the longest time. The idea that he can let go, that he can feel again. “I was on my own,” he whimpers, tears welling in his eyes as his body is scorched by the heat of another. “I was all on my own.”
“Not anymore,” says the Archivist. When he lets go of Martin, allowing him to stand, it’s all too soon. “Come on. Let’s go home.”
“How?”
“Don’t worry. I know the way.”
When Martin takes Jon’s hand and starts walking with him, it feels like touching flame again. He’s too tired and scared to do anything but go along with it. Maybe if he were more aware, he’d do something. Move his hand away? It burns. It’s unpredictable. But still— it’s Jon. And Jon being here means it’ll be okay, right?
As they walk across the vacant landscape, Martin’s mind stays hazy in the empty spaces. At least it’s clearer than it has been, but that’s not saying it’s completely restored. When you get used to the way the fog holds you, the way your mind falls back on it, it’s hard to sense anything else. Maybe he’s able to see now, able to think for himself, but that doesn’t mean he’ll escape unscathed. He knew that since he started to be tied to this place, and he knows it now, even in the half-haze.
Still, at least he’s going somewhere. And somewhere is better than here , because it means he won’t be tempted to stay. Even now, walking at a pace that feels almost routine, part of the Lonely whispers to his deepest fears: stay here, you can’t hurt him here.
Martin simply hangs his head, and continues walking, counting each step and trembling breath he takes. He doesn’t look up, and tries not to think too hard. Maybe that’ll do. He’ll be outside of the Lonely’s hold soon enough, at least, left to try to make do, and find a way to build a new reality.
And when Jon shivers by Martin’s side, a feeling that travels into their interlocked hands, Martin doesn’t even notice it. It’s cold out here in the fog. That’s all it could be.
~{☁️}~
When they finally make it out, it isn’t all sunshine and rainbows. They never can have a good ending like that, can they? That would be too easy, and in their little horror tragedy, easy is never the answer to these things.
They drive up to a safehouse after it all. Their coworker Daisy’s safehouse, to be exact, all the way up in the Scottish Highlands. There, they can rest, and hide away from prying eyes. They can learn to be human again, if that’s worth anything at this point.
Martin doesn’t exactly think there’s any “being human” anymore, but he won’t say that to Jon. Not when he knows he’s thinking the exact same thing. He doesn’t need supernatural powers to see that, Jon’s gaze straight forward throughout the long and silent car ride as well as his reluctance to mention the terrors following them says it clear enough.
And yet, despite the way they’ve run from the Institute, the fog follows them under the door.
Martin often finds it’s the worst in the nights. It’s always the worst then, but to be fair, Martin’s had his fair share of sleepless nights. Back then, the cycle had even started to become routine. Lay down, try to sleep, find that he can’t sleep, try to sleep again, and then lie awake.
The loneliness would hit hard in those times, and he’d always find himself doing something he’d regret come morning, most notably calling someone in the middle of the night just to hear another person’s voice, or writing a particularly heavy-hearted poem. He still wishes he could make it up to Tim and Sasha for all the times they picked up when he was too scared to call Jon. Not that the Archivist would’ve picked up back then, anyway.
You’d think the problem would be fixed by the fact that he now lives with the man who was always on his mind both those nights and now, but that notion is only half-correct. Rather, those impulses to reach out have been replaced with staring at the ceiling, feeling nothing but apathy and the ambient chill of the night, even when covered in what are supposed to be comforting blankets.
He and Jon have avoided talking about the Lonely these first few days, so they’ve actively found themselves separated. It’s not that they don’t want to talk about it. It’s not that Martin especially doesn’t want to. It’s just that it’s hard. They’ve finally gotten somewhere safe, and Martin’s been finding it increasingly difficult to return to feeling. He looks at Jon, feels like his heart is drowning, and half of him wants to kiss him until he can’t remember his name. The other part of him simply doesn’t have the energy to move, nor make the conversation that stunt would call for. That’s the part of him that keeps winning as of late.
And thus, every night, when the moonlight shines through the windows, Martin only sighs, watching the way his breath briefly appears in the open air. The cold seeps in from outside the cabin into his bones, and he’s left in a haze of remembrance, that of who he is now, and how he still feels as if there’s nothing left in him. Maybe there’s nothing he can do about that. Maybe the Lonely will always have a hold on him. Alas, he stares up again, another night alone. He’ll sleep when it finally takes him.
The first few nights after they eventually address the things they’ve wanted to say for forever, Martin flinches from Jon’s touch. It feels like burning, it feels almost dangerous, and when they’re stuck like this, it means it’s not going anywhere. Still, the Archivist is patient, and lets Martin slowly crawl to him, where it’s warmer. Martin isn’t used to the warmth, after all, not when it’s been noticeably absent from his life. Even his own body has become one with its absence, each tentative touch like ice. But if patience and a rare, yet soft smile is what it takes to comfort Martin, then Jon continues to play the role. Sometimes, Martin’s mind wants to tell him it’s a lie, but he pushes it away. With time, he learns to welcome some of the touch again, as it fades into gentle heat.
Such is the case one morning, yet another day alone together. Before the lit fireplace, Martin sits wrapped in a soft blanket, an attempt to warm himself up. Jon sits with him, taking Martin’s hand into his, resting in a gentle hold. It’s a routine of theirs, an effort to try to keep each other comfortable despite the hunger that comes from separation from their respective entities.
“You’re so cold,” Jon murmurs, half to himself, gently brushing his thumbs over the skin of his partner’s palm. It feels like fire, and Martin flinches, but lets him continue.
“I don’t feel it,” Martin says. “Everything just feels… normal. Except hot or warm things just feel hotter. A side-effect of being tied to the Lonely, I guess?”
Jon hums. “Not anymore,” he says, but Martin can’t bring himself to repeat it. The way his palm is cold to the touch should say enough, and the way the tips of his hair have become an icy white should confirm it. Instead, he moves his hand to bring one of Jon’s own up to his lips, where he places a gentle kiss to the knuckles. The warmth prickles, and he can see the Archivist shiver.
“Maybe someday, I still, uhm– feel the impulses, I suppose. That, and I still know that I’m a bit chilly.”
Jon chuckles. “Yes, I… I know the feeling. And for the record, I don’t mind the cold.”
Martin smiles, one of the few times he’s been able to in the recent days. A thought appears in his mind, and for the first time in a while, he actually lets himself give into the want to let it pour. “If you ever want to know when it started,” he begins, “because I feel you would probably know the timeline a lot better than I know myself, then– uhm– there’s a tape in my bag.” He glances away, softly laughing to himself. “Although, I do talk about you in it, I remember that.”
“I’ll listen,” Jon says, a little too hastily, and Martin can see the way his partner’s eyes spark from brown to unnatural green for a moment. Quickly, realizing his mistake, the Archivist reels himself back in. “My apologies,” he clears his throat, “Yes, I’ll listen. I won’t deny, I’m a little curious–”
“Hungry,” Martin teases, watching in amusement at the way his Archivist quickly shuts up. “It’s okay. I don’t know if you can really do anything to me by listening to that one. It’s not like you’re digging into my head if I’ve actively told you to listen. I’ll be happy after you’ve heard it, though.”
Jon smiles again, one of those little rare ones that are slowly becoming more common for Martin to see. He savors each and every one. For a second, the room feels a little less cold, especially with the way that within a few moments, Martin’s lips tingle with the sudden heat of a gentle kiss, and his Archivist has gone off to find the tape.
For now, Martin muses, he’ll allow himself a little bit of warmth.
~{☁️}~
Even after what should have been peace, the world is ending. Both Jon and Martin know that well. They were its end, after all, and that’s something that’s just made the days worse and worse. But Martin had long since given up mourning a world that never cared for him, and tried to help his Archivist along the way.
Finally, they’re going to leave soon, and venture across whatever’s left of their wasted world, a horror show for them to find a solution to. The cabin isn’t safe anymore, but really, nowhere is. Nowhere but the place at Jon’s side, somewhere Martin has found ever more familiar and comforting.
And so, Martin grows more accustomed to the warmth. He stands now with a smile on his lips, bag slung around his shoulders and a dull jacket over his torso.
“We’ll do this together,” he tells his Archivist, extending a chilled hand out to him. When Jon takes it, pulling himself up, it doesn’t sting Martin anymore. Rather, it feels like sunbeams.
“Right, together,” says his Archivist, and the two face the open door. The sky may be looking back, but Martin Blackwood isn’t lonely anymore. Slowly but surely, the fog and frigidity will turn back to life-giving heat in his blood, starting with today.
Starting with hand in unlovable hand, standing at the end of the world.