Chapter Text
The weeks after that are - it’s strange, Jon thinks, but he can’t really find the words for the exact feeling. It’s a combination of things. In some ways, things feel like they’re balanced on a knife point: the looming pressure of what the other Jon had told him about his own situation the day after the other Martin arrived - the wreck of the world, his place within it, his own struggles with humanity - the knowledge of it weighs heavy on Jon like a stone. That that’s a possible future for him is beyond the worst things that he’s let himself consider, before, and now the very real proof of it is living in his archive backroom and drinking all his tea.
And his other self had told the others as well, so now that the other Jon is able to be more open about who he is and the powers he possesses, it starts to intrude on their lives more - after a number of failed diplomacies, he openly reports destroying Jared Hopworth, for example, and there’s a dreadful two days where he and Tim and Sasha disappear to Yarmouth to neutralise Nikola Orsinov and her circus.
The exact nature of his other self’s power fascinates and terrifies Jon in equal measure - much as the rest of everything in the Archive does, he thinks, and immediately hates every implication that has - but the other Jon frankly refuses to demonstrate or extrapolate more than necessary, especially on anyone in the Archive. When asked, he tells Jon bluntly that it’s personal, and genuinely dangerous, and also none of his business.
Out of a sense of respect that he didn’t know he was capable of, Jon lets it lie and doesn’t push it, mostly. The very real debt that Jon owes him is hangs a little heavier over his head with every day that passes with Sasha and without further incident. A little peace in exchange for all his efforts so far in the continued safety and comfort of everyone working in the Archives - it seems like a fair trade, Jon thinks. Even if his burning curiosity about it keeps him up at night sometimes.
Because, on the other hand, things also feel bizarrely - comfortable. Jon hasn’t felt this happy in - well, more time than he’d like to admit, he finds. It’s like starting at the Archives again, that sense of comfortable camaraderie between himself and Tim and Sasha and Martin - and the other Jon and the other Martin, he supposes. Except this time he is, strangely, less stressed.
Supernatural horrors and the looming potentiality of an alternate apocalypse aside, it’s easier than it ever has been before. Something in the way that he doesn’t have to pretend he’s out of his depth now, that’s an expected fact - and that he doesn’t have to keep the weight of the whole Archives and its assorted mysteries on his own, solitary shoulders, not with the other Jon’s willing expertise.
Martin also helps with that. Martin helps with that a lot. Without meaning to, Jon finds that he’s spending all his time with Martin again, but it’s far, far different than it was before the other Martin arrived. Instead of the soft, clandestine strains of something maybe beginning, it feels like they’re standing on the precipice of something together, just waiting to see what happens next.
And now, it’s all so much, so loud. Like the conversation they’d had had given him permission to feel everything he’d been pretending he wasn’t, the force of just how much he feels about Martin takes him by surprise. It’s almost embarrassing, like being a teenager again: constantly thinking of Martin, having to drag his thoughts away when he’s supposed to be focusing on something important - and he thinks, heart-stoppingly, that Martin might feel similar.
As much as he can, he’s sticking to his promise to be honest with Martin, but it still feels like there’s so much left unsaid. Probably because Jon still can’t exactly be sure of his own feelings, if he’s being entirely honest with himself. It’s not that he’s not aware of the general shape of them, it’s more that the way that the other Jon looks at the other Martin is still a great pressure, and one he has to see every day - if they could have had that, and he gets it wrong, and he fucks it up -
So he wants things to stay like this: everyone he cares about safe, doing the best that he can. He likes this. It’s a strange thing, he thinks, to grow to be happy about a situation so full of dangers and future horror, but nonetheless he finds himself relaxing into it almost without meaning to. He wants it to last.
One morning he walks through the door into his office, and finds his other self sitting uncharacteristically at his desk. By the time he gets in, the other Jon is usually either still getting ready in Doc Storage, or working at the desk he'd set up for himself in the main office: he doesn't often come into Jon's office. A courtesy thing, Jon supposes, and he does have to admit it makes him feel better to have a space for himself to retreat to, sometimes.
“Morning,” Jon just says to him, accompanied by the more-and-more infrequent double take at the absurdity of this situation: himself by the door, his other self in the chair at his desk, flipping through some files. Your average day at work, he thinks wryly. It’s an old joke by now.
“We’re going home tomorrow morning,” the other Jon tells him, with absolutely no warning, and Jon turns his head so fast his neck cracks. There's a tone in his other self's voice that Jon can't place. “Out of your hair. You can have your document storage back, you’ll be pleased to know.”
“You - you, uh, you what?” Jon says, succinctly. “God, you actually found what you came for? That’s -”
“No,” the other Jon says bluntly, and his hands shake slightly before he folds them neatly in front of him. Jon draws in a fast breath, but doesn’t interrupt him. “I - I don't think we will. All this work, and we haven't found anything. And we - Martin, he thinks we can’t stay here forever while people are suffering, back where we came from. At some point, we have to go back, and see what we can do by ourselves. This was only ever a - a faint hope.”
“Are you going to be alright?” Jon says, because he can’t think of anything else to say. He puts down the papers he’s holding and leans over against the desk.
“I don’t know,” the other Jon tells him lightly, a faint line of something heavy running underneath it. “Very possibly not. But - I’ll never know for sure, unless we go back. And Martin will never forgive either of us if we don’t. So. We just have to hope.”
“So what about - here?” Jon asks blankly. “There’s no hope for us, either? For me?”
The other Jon looks at him softly.
“Yes,” he says. “There is at least that. Like I told you, Elias - Magnus - caused what happened to our world, and I’ve done my best to make sure he won’t be a danger to you. I’ve left information for you, tapes - with everything I think might be useful, anything at all. And already you know far more than I ever did. It won’t be easy, and there will be other dangers, but you have Tim and Sasha - and - “
“Martin,” Jon finishes wryly, and the other Jon chokes out a laugh.
“Yes,” he says. “It seems you do. And so, thank God, do I.”
Without thinking, Jon reaches out to put a hand briefly on top of the other Jon’s. It’s the first time he’s ever touched his other self, he realises - and it’s surprisingly grounding to feel the same worm scars under his fingers, even surrounded as they are by the swirls and whorls of the unfamiliar burn scar.
“How are you going to get back?” Jon asks him.
“How we came. Michael’s doors again,” the other Jon tells him, grimacing. “A little bit of uneasy truce with Michael, but also I had an - encounter - with our Spiral, back in our world, which left me with more than a little understanding of how they work. As much as it can be understood. We should be able to open a door, and then - well, we’ll find a way.”
“Good luck,” Jon tells him, with as much earnestness as he can muster. He swallows, hard. “Truly, I -”
“Thank you,” the other Jon says, when he doesn’t continue. “And - if you should happen to find a way to sort it all out, please don’t hesitate to come and find us, alright? No need to be polite, just come straight over.”
“Of course,” Jon tells him, but he thinks they both know that’s more of a pretence than a promise. The other Jon nods in accession anyway.
“Well,” he says. “Thank you, for everything. It might be - strange, to say, but it has been a pleasure to meet you.”
“And you,” Jon tells him, and means it.
It all happens horribly, unbearably fast after that: after everything that's happened, it feels like he blinks and it's the next morning and he's stood in the doorway of the main office, watching the gathered crowd. Everyone is in before him, for once, and Sasha and Tim are clustered around the opposite side of the room, talking quietly with the other Jon and Martin. Martin is a little ways off, silent and drawn, his hands fisted in the bottom of his jumper.
When Jon makes eye contact with the other Jon from across the room, they share a small, strained smile. The other Martin notices, and places a solid hand on his counterpart's shoulder, and all three of them just look at each other.
Jon doesn't know what to say: the mix of emotions in his chest deep and painful enough to be impossible to put into words. So he just crosses the room and, after a second of hesitation, hugs them both. The feeling of his own small, solid frame under his arms is something he thinks will stay with him for a long time, but when he draws back, he thinks his other self looks at least a little calmer.
Then Tim moves in for a hug of his own, and they spend the next few minutes just aimlessly talking: but Jon thinks that they're all far too aware that they're just killing time. The other Jon definitely does, if the way he gets more and more quietly agitated as the minutes pass is anything to go by.
"Are you ready?" the other Martin asks eventually, far too loud in the muted hush of the office, and the other Jon straightens his jacket a little tighter and just nods.
In front of them, the yellow door appears out of nowhere: blank wall one moment, yellow paint the next. There's no sound - it feels like there should be, Jon thinks stupidly. Like some great clap of thunder, or something, anything other than this awful quiet.
For a moment, everyone just looks at it.
“Are you afraid?” the other Martin asks the other Jon quietly, and this time it's like they're the only ones in the room. Hearing him speak so softly, Jon feels almost embarrassed; like he's witnessing something achingly private.
“Yes,” the other Jon tells him, and he doesn’t sound like he’s trying to hide the emotion thick in his voice. Jon watches a shadow of discomfort cross the other Martin’s face: but then he takes a deep breath and laces their fingers together, tugging the other Jon in close.
Seeing them move together so gently feels like a physical ache as it never has before: Jon is acutely aware of Martin on the other side of the room, watching quietly with wide, inscrutable eyes.
“Me too,” the other Martin says softly, and Jon watches his other self relax by inches, as if sharing some great weight. “But it’s alright, love. We'll do it together, okay?”
“Together,” the other Jon repeats, squares his shoulders, and opens the door.
Jon watches until long after the door fades entirely into dull white wall, and then he turns and walks back into his office.
When Sasha and Tim go quietly back to work, Martin’s still staring at Jon’s office door - as he has been since Jon walked through it and half-shut it. Behind it, he can see the vague shape of Jon, shadowed at his desk. He hadn’t liked the look on Jon’s face as he’d gone. The shape of his own fear and grief for the other Jon and Martin still sits heavy in Martin's own stomach - but something about the way Jon looked had been beyond that, he thinks.
When he pushes open the door to Jon’s office quietly, Jon’s still just sitting quietly. He glances up at Martin, and then back down again at something on his desk: a file, covered in his own spiky writing. Behind him are boxes and boxes of tapes Martin’s not seen before, all marked up in the same script.
Jon’s staring down at the file in front of him, almost mesmerised. The look on his face is nothing so much as it is barely concealed panic.
For a moment, Martin isn’t sure what to do: if he says something he shouldn’t, if he gets it wrong and messes things up or hurts Jon when he’s already stressed - all the same thoughts that have been going around and around in his head for weeks.
But then he thinks about the other Martin: for all that brashness, still so worried about something breaking that he never touches it at all. He’s right about some things, Martin thinks - his brazen confidence, saying what he thinks, passing up politeness for honesty where it matters, but. But now that Martin’s seen that in himself, he thinks, he knows what that looks like and where it falls down. And he finds, simply, that he doesn’t want that: to let his own fears and hesitancies get in the way of someone he cares about.
Quietly, he crosses the room to stand just on the other side of Jon’s desk.
“It’s so much,” Jon tells him after a moment, still staring down at the sheet, and Martin wonders when the very act of Jon disclosing something to him became an expression of fondness. “I used to think I was only going to be relieved when he left, but where they're going, what they're facing, I - and I didn’t realise how much I’d just assumed that he would take care of. How much I have to do myself, now to - to protect myself and everyone, the whole world, what happens if I fail. I mean, just look at all this, I -“
Martin takes a deep breath. He lays his hand carefully on the top of Jon’s desk, just an inch or two away from Jon’s loosely curled fist.
“Well,” he tells Jon, softly. “In that case. It’ll be good that you’ve got me, right?”
For a few moments, Jon still looks ill at ease. His brow is slightly furrowed, mouth gently pursed: like he’s in the midst of making some decision. Martin knows that look. He doesn’t speak, doesn’t move. Just lets Jon think it out: make his own choice.
Then Jon straightens out his fingers very carefully, so the sides of them just brush against Martin’s own.
“Yes,” he murmurs warmly. He closes his eyes for a long moment, and then he meets Martin’s eyes and smiles, gently, and finally it feels like Jon is just seeing him - not the stack of tasks Martin’s failed at, not a younger other Martin or some vast conspiracy of expectations against him - just him, and the dear love and loyalty that Martin holds towards him, despite everything they're facing.
Purposefully, Jon folds his fingers over Martin’s own. He looks, for almost the first time Martin might ever have seen, steady. Comfortable. Sure. Because of me, Martin thinks, and in his growing surety he flips his own hand over to tangle their fingers together.
Jon smiles wider.
“Yes,” he says again, in a voice suffused with warmth and gratitude, and Martin feels the sight of it mix with the grief and fear inside him and light him up with warmth - like the small and burning embers of some great, potential happiness, bright against everything to come. “You’re right. I think it will be.”