Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

“I'm not really sure why I do it, but in this version you are not
feeding yourself to a bad man
against a black sky prickled with small lights.
I take it back.
The wooden halls like caskets. These terms from the lower depths.
I take them back.
Here is the repeated image of the lover destroyed.
Crossed out.”

—Litany in Which Certain Things are Crossed Out, Richard Siken

ii. crossed out

Jon doesn't leave the Institute much, nowadays. It's a culmination of things, really— he's more vulnerable outside, for one, and also, he has a deal now with his great new boss that he should be careful not to break. Additionally, it's not like he really has anywhere to go anyway, not anymore.

But he misses his favorite coffee shop, and he figures that, after everything, maybe he's allowed this. Just this one thing. Just this once.

And, well, Jon is loath to admit it, but he's lonely, and that's the point, he supposes. But he just… wants to hear chatter. Wants to see people. Have the barista acknowledge he exists. He supposes he's seeking reassurance against the feeling in his chest that says you're the only person in the entire world, now. And you will be, always. You will be alone forever and then you will die alone like a second heartbeat.

When he enters the café, the bell on the door jingles. It’s warm and the lights are warm and it smells of - of course, - coffee. There are a few people talking quietly at a secluded table and a college student tapping away at their laptop in the corner. Jon drinks it in, a relieved sigh falling from his lips without him even meaning. People exist. Even if he's not allowed to interact with them much, even just knowing they're out there is comforting.

The counter is left unoccupied, but Jon doesn't mind a little wait— he would stay here, just standing in this coffee shop, maybe forever if he could.

He's so enveloped in the place and the atmosphere - namely, a distractingly rowdy group of teens that has entered the shop, - that when the barista is back, he doesn't even realize it until they’re calling out. “Hello! Um, what can I get you today?”

Something aches in his chest because no, it can't be, but he turns to face them, and there he is. Martin, every freckle right in the place Jon remembers, warm, warm eyes and smile. Of course he'd be here. He always did enjoy making everyone hot drinks.

(of course he'd be here, the one place jon goes in months, the one place he searches out people. jon will always search and martin will always be there, arms outstretched, the biggest support. and jon will always put him in danger, always take advantage without even meaning to, would fall into his arms just to cause them both to hit the ground, hard.)

He can't be here. He's not supposed to be here. Oh, no. No. He stares, look blank yet edging on terrified, at Martin.

“Wait,” Martin says, eyes wide and lips parted, “Do I— Do I know you?”

Jon turns tail and runs, bumping shoulders with teenagers and pushing through, not even bothering with excuses, just filled with the wild need to get out.

i. you’re still right here

After the Unknowing, Jonathan Sims wakes up.

Basira is shaking his shoulders and it is dark and light all at once and all he can see is rubble and how thick the air is with dust as the crazy, bizarre colors of the Circus fade and his ears stop ringing.

“—on! Jon!” Basira is yelling, and something cracks in her voice, something he’s not sure if he’s ever heard from her before.

“Did—did it work?” Jon croaks, and she looks shocked, and relieved, and nods furiously. She's covered in debris and dirt and there's a wound on her cheek actively bleeding.

“Yes,” she says, the tone of her voice indescribable. “Yes, but we have to leave, Jon, we don't know what could've been attracted to the blast—”

“What about Daisy? Tim?” Jon says. Basira looks pained. “Oh god, Tim. I was with him, or something like that, and he— I have to find him—”

“They're not here or— We have to leave, Jon.” She says, and Jon knows she's the one with a level head, he trusts her judgement, but he also feels the way her whole body shakes when she takes his hand and drags him from the wreckage.

They sneak into the B&B through their windows, not wanting to explain their state, a mess of wax museum rubble and blood and emotion. The older couple who run the place would probably have subsequent heart attacks or phone the police, and neither are ideal.

The sight of him and Tim’s room, now without Tim, his possessions untouched, abandoned, brings about an emotion that Jon never wants to feel again in his life.

They call Melanie and Martin to come pick them up as soon as they can get to the phone, a simple, “It’s over,” from Basira before she hangs up.

For as grimy as they are, it seems like they're both too shaken to be alone to shower, so instead they patch each other up on the floor, using two of the four first aid kits they had packed. It takes the better part of their wait— Basira needs her hand, broken, set and wrapped, and Jon needs stitches on his lip. Basira thinks he has a mild concussion, but there's not much they can do about that.

“Jon!” Martin exclaims, as soon as they answer the knocking on the door, and suddenly he’s enveloped in the smell of vanilla and a warm jumper. He stays, stock still, shocked, hands hovering above Martin’s frame. It's been so long since someone last hugged him, he's not even sure he remembers how to reciprocate—

But Martin’s nuzzling into his shoulder, holding him tight like he's something precious, like he's happy he's okay, and says, “I was worried sick about you.” And what is Jon to do other than melt? He wraps his arms around Martin’s shoulders and enjoys the closeness while it lasts.

When they break apart, it's clear Basira has already broken the news to Melanie, who leans against the wall looking exhausted, unlit cigarette already tucked between her fingers. Like she's lived a thousand lifetimes full of pain. Jon supposes she has. They all have.

“Where's Tim?” Martin asks, still on the casual side. No one knows how to break it to him. When he doesn't receive an answer, he looks around the room, a little frantic, and says, panicked, “Guys?”

He looks between Melanie and Basira and Jon, and when the latter make eye contact, Jon simply nods.

“Oh god,” Martin chokes, his hand coming up to his mouth, face crumpling. He makes an awful, wretched, sad sound and sits down on Jon’s bed, trembling.

Jon hurts, for Martin, for Tim, for Basira, and Daisy, and Melanie, and Sasha. His chest twists and aches.

It's not fair. Maybe for Jon, it is— a bit more, at least. He knows no one deserves what they've gotten into, but at least for Jon, a somewhat callous man, it makes a bit more sense. But Martin, Sasha and Tim— he worked with them for years and they were some of the most kind, courageous, enthusiastic people he had met in his life. It's not fair.

He's known Melanie, Daisy, and Basira for far less, but they still deserve better than this, too. Much, much better. Unfathomably so.

He's the Archivist. He should be able to fix this.

He looks at his friends, grieving, and decides he is going to fix this.

ii. crossed out

He really doesn't know why he's here. He shouldn't be here. But Jon has always been prone to terrible ideas, and there's no one around to really call him an idiot anymore, or at least try to talk sense into him.

He feels so guilty. He feels almost nauseous. He has found out something he shouldn't have, a sick curiosity turning in him, but he longs. And he waits.

It's been nearly a month since his first visit to the coffee shop, and against all better judgement, against every part of his mind yelling in a loud, cacophonous discordance that he shouldn't go back, there's something that tugs him back, like a caught sleeve on a door, like a hand on a wrist, snagging, pulling.

He's felt that way around Martin for a long time though, some sort of gravity. Martin is the Sun, a magnet, a blackhole. Jon may be lost to orbit around him forever, even if unseen.

Because it's been so long, part of Jon hopes maybe Martin doesn't work there anymore or it's his day off and he can dismiss it. Can pretend he has no idea where Martin has gone off to like the rest of them, like there's no chance for Jon to ever find them, even with the way he looks for glimpses of them in every stranger he sees.

But when he enters, Martin’s there, resting against the counter, cheek propped up by his hand. He looks more peaceful than Jon has seen him in, well. Probably before the Corruption tried to stake its claim.

Jon should leave. He should let him live his life. Wherever Jon goes, danger follows. He did all of this so danger wouldn't come to Martin— to any of them. He doesn't want to undo it, even if parts of him ache, late at night, wishing he wasn't the sole keeper of all these memories. Wishing, for just a moment, that one single person who means something could look at his face and register meaning in turn.

Jon’s never been good at turning away from things he shouldn't know though, never been good at putting a statement down halfway, at leaving a mystery half solved, ever since his first encounter he has been unraveling and picking at the truth. Or perhaps, really, the truth has been picking at him. Jon has never been good at leaving the past in the past, paranoid and inquisitive, filled with a need to know. When he saw the ad for the Magnus Institute, interest piqued, he should have kept walking and chalked it up to crazy people and bullshit, instead of taking it from the bulletin board just to walk in for an application a week later, getting hired on the spot.

He often feels like a mystery himself. Maybe that's why he's so drawn to them, an attraction. A recognition. He considers that, perhaps, he wants to be solved. To be known himself.

And Martin’s always been good at that, hasn't he? An investigator, a believer— never a skeptic, not like Jon. Which makes the investigation even more valiant, because Jon knows that even when Martin must have been scared out of his mind he continued. Martin, with his gentle hands, and his warm eyes, and voice like pulled honey.

Martin looks up.

Jon's breath hitches, a red string pulled taut.

Martin reanimates, customer service face plastered on and hand removed from his cheek. Jon scowls. He much prefers the real, relaxed Martin. He's not used to seeing this one. It's uncanny, but not in the paranormal sense, despite what Jon would usually fear. He knows nothing can touch Martin, not as long as Jon doesn't push it too far. “Hello!” he cheers, “How are you today?”

Jon grimaces. This was a mistake, he thinks for the 400th time since leaving his flat. “Quite alright. Yourself?” he forces out. It's funny, really. His whole job is being able to pull the words out of people like taffy, even through hundreds of different languages, and so many times, they fail him himself.

“I’m good, thank you. How, uh, how can I help?” The smile on his face is easy. Jon’s heart aches. He has the urge to reach his hand out and touch him, to prove it's real. He's lived months believing he'd never see Martin again.

“Uh, a black coffee with caramel, please,” he asks, handing over a 10 pound note. Martin tries to give him his change but Jon just shakes his head and tells him, softly, to keep it.

He can't tear his eyes away from Martin. He knows he probably seems unsettling, a stranger now, unable to look anywhere but the man he's not supposed to know and the man who doesn't know him.

His mannerisms are all the same. It's not like Jon expected them to be different, but he's so.. Martin, the way he's always been and was always supposed to be. So right. Something Jon’s been missing settles in his chest. It's still the same Martin, even without Jon. It's relieving, but it leaves a part of him feeling like he missed a step on the staircase; gut wrenched and misplaced.

It doesn't take Martin long to make the coffee; it's an extremely simple one. His movements are rehearsed and familiar. Easy. Jon has long wished him an easy life.

Martin hands him the cup, looking sheepish. “Try it before you leave? I want to make sure I got it right.”

Jon nods, a little embarrassed to have Martin’s full attention after so long. It was always a bit strange to him— never unwelcome once he got to know Martin better, but always… a lot, his full undivided attention, the way he’s always looked at Jon, like he means something. All that to say, he had struggled with it even back when he was used to it, even when he hadn't spent months missing it, so it's harder now. Jon closes his eyes and takes a breath, the scent of caramel and coffee filling his senses. He takes a sip.

It's bittersweet. It's just right. It's just like it used to be, but feels all new— Martin has always made it right.

He exhales, relaxing. He can feel the small smile on his face, “It's perfect, Martin. Thank you.” When he meets Martin eyes, he's staring, a light blush coloring his cheeks.

Jon is suddenly incredibly grateful this shop requires its employees to wear name tags.

“Are you sure I've never met you before?” he blurts, and Jon chokes, almost spitting out his second sip of coffee.

He shakes his head vigorously. “No,” Jon answers, “No, I'm rather sure.”

“It's just—”

“Thank you,” Jon interrupts, quickly. “Really. I must be going now, though, or I’ll be late for my… job.”

He rushes out the door, leaving a confused, sad-looking Martin in his wake.

i. you’re still right here

Peter Lukas takes over the Institute, and suddenly, everything seems.. more far apart, somehow.

The hallways are longer and they echo with each footfall, and Jon swears he spends about 20 minutes one day trying to find his way from the break room to his office where it's regularly a 5 minute walk, and he's never Not been able to find it before.

Because of the Lukas’.... reputation, Jon makes an effort to check in on everyone every day, much to Melanie’s annoyance. Well, better annoyed than Lonely, Jon supposes, even if her glares make him wince on occasion.

Something possessive curls in his chest at the thought of Peter trying to touch his friends, and he can't tell if it's him or The Eye— perhaps both. Probably both, really. Or perhaps they're indistinguishable at this point, a thought that makes Jon want to revolt wildly.

Martin still brings him tea, but most days now, Jon asks him to stay.

It had made Martin look at him bewildered the first time he had asked, simply, “Stay?”, had seemed like his brain was sputtering— like Jon had said the most surprising thing ever— but now he just smiles and shakes his head softly, almost affectionately, a light color in his cheeks, and sits. And they talk, about Fear Gods and Jon’s theories and the things that are too big for them, sure, but also about lighter things. About Martin’s plants or Jon’s latest cooking disaster, about their days, their lives away from this wretched Institute, which have started to get less and less. Jon has started considering moving in, honestly.

(his favorite conversations are the ones where they talk about light things. it feels like everything is okay, even just for a bit.)

Martin becomes his steady. He keeps the clutches of the Lonely far from him. He keeps something (Jon is too doubtful and also too scared to call it hope) bright alive in Jon’s chest. He makes Jon feel more human than monster.

So Jon spends his days working on figuring out the next rituals and doing everything he can to keep his friends safe from Loneliness.

He spends his nights, almost a mirror, trying to figure out how to free them from the Institute, pouring over statements and wandering the halls. He feels Watched. He feels like there's an answer.

He doesn't like the way Peter looks at Martin, a plotting, deranged type of glint in his eye. He also knows Martin is the only one who's spoken to him directly and that Martin has spent much of his life lonely.

Something convulses protectively in his chest. Something else, something like misery, something like guilt, wails from behind his ribs.

Jon is going to fix this.

ii. crossed out

He thinks about Martin's bright eyes and relaxed face every night, dreams about it most times. In some worlds, Jon reaches out and touches him, banishes every supernatural thing with the strangest power of all: love. In others, Martin says, “Are you sure we haven't met?” and Jon says, “We have. And we have a lot of catching up to do,” and they work together to defeat every evil power encroaching on their world. In others, they meet, for the first time, in that coffee shop and there is nothing complicated, nothing sinister. They meet and they fall in love and they're happy. Jon likes those ones. The ones he can't have the most.

Peter hasn't found out. Of course he hasn't. He has to do all his spying manually, and Jon has half a mind to bet that with his too many eyes he could sniff Peter out a mile away. But he could find out, really. The Lonely is nothing if not a numbing agent, wrapping Jon’s head in a fog, awfully good at making him believe that no one is there, forever, not even Peter. It's not worth risking Martin’s safety.

He thinks about how Martin recognizes him. And it's wonderful and awful because even after the literal removal of his memories, Jon means something enough to Martin that despite all odds, Martin remembers. But it also brings up how easy it may be for Martin to remember everything and become a monster beacon and open himself up to horrors unmatched, horrors he doesn't deserve, and has never deserved, and will never deserve.

He resolves to not go back to the coffee shop.

Knowing Martin is out there, that he is sometimes peaceful… That's more than enough, even if it aches.

i. you're still right here

Martin stays later now. Where he had once been eager to clock in and leave, he's more tentative now. Not that that's new— he had always been more hesitant to leave after Prentiss, but something has shifted further. He lingers in Jon’s office as opposed to out at his desk or the lounge. He helps Jon with whatever research he needs, but mostly, he is a warm, comforting presence.

Jon doesn't pry. The Lonely is overbearing, and the feeling of being alone. He doesn't really think any of them want to be alone these days— him included.

Additionally, he likes being able to keep Martin in his sights. To know he's safe. He’s still similar. He's breathing. A stable point in Jon’s uncertain world. An anchor in a tumultuous ocean.

Usually, towards the end of the night, much longer than they're supposed to stay, than they were told back when this was a Normal Job, as much as it ever could be, Martin will put on the kettle for some more tea, and Jon will light candles - the overhead light much too harsh for that time, - and they'll pour over documents and talk in hushed tones and laugh fondly.

It reminds Jon a bit of when storms would roll over his grandmother’s cottage and occasionally knock down a power pole, causing a black out. They would light all the candles and she and Jon would usually read in silence together. He liked power outages, back then.

He likes this more.

As routine leads, Martin will eventually grow tired of statements, and Jon will read him like a book, leaving the paper strewn about his desk haphazardly so Martin doesn't fully think he's stopped, so he doesn't think he's making a big deal of Martin’s exhaust, but Jon will be done for the night. As much as he… craves the knowledge, he craves Martin’s company more. Or something. After all, Martin is his most valuable assistant. He shouldn't overwork him.

(although, he's gone too far for that, hasn’t he? many times before.)

(—Such loyalty to someone who really treats you very badly—)

They talk, softly, about things too vulnerable for the daytime. Jon loves this too— and hates it. He feels safe with Martin. Things feel right. It makes him forget about the things larger than them— larger than just simple humans with simple human thoughts and feelings. He loves and hates the time late at night with Martin the same way he loves and hates his humanity, for as much as he's started to doubt it. Loves the soft bits of him, the bits that feel, the bits that wish and yearn and crave good. The bits he's becoming more and more sure he needs to erase, the parts that are terrifying to bear when dealing with monsters and even scarier to show when dealing with humans. The bits he's becoming more and more sure will be taken whether he really wants them to be or not. And yet, he clings to them. An impossibility.

He clings to these nights with Martin, for the paradoxical comfort and fear he feels when sharing bits of himself. He is always hungry for knowledge around him— he doesn't usually deign to give it, in turn. And yet, he is hungry to be solved. Humanity and its contradictions, its burdens and its gifts and the other things it saddles us with, frees us with.

The fear he feels when divulging who he is with Martin is different than the type he feels when he's preyed upon. It's the type that makes him feel all flesh and blood. Human. Just a man, small and fragile.

One night in particular, Jon’s hair falls limply over his face, around it, bun already undone— he and Martin may be working, but it is far past work hours, as usual. This hasn't been a normal workplace for a long time, anyway. They haven't been Normal for a long time.

Martin huffs softly. “You're hopeless,” he says, but there's something under it, something fond and alive. He reaches over and tucks Jon’s unruly hair behind his ear, not even really considering what he's done, the consequences of his actions: the speeding up of Jon’s heart as it ricochets around his rib cage is seemingly none of his concern. It's too late for that— Martin seems bolder, now, where he once would have blushed and stuttered out an apology and fled Jon’s office, he stays seated firm across from him, the same man refusing the fear. Jon feels. Something. Jon feels.

Jon’s wide eyes looking, lips slightly parted, and yet Martin doesn't have the slightest reaction to it, completely unashamed. The only thing out of place is a furrow in his brow that Jon desperately wants to reach over to smooth out. To fix.

(give me your worries, he thinks. let me take them all. let me carry them. those burdens aren't for you. i'm the archivist. i'm the one who is entangled so deeply in this place. those are mine to bear. to hold. to carry. i'll take care of them. i'll take care of you.)

The crinkle in between his brows stays when he says, “That one's new, isn't it?” lightly tapping the skin under his ear with the pad of his finger. Jon wouldn't believe he had actually touched it at all if it wasn't for logic telling him otherwise. He's so dazed he's not even sure what Martin’s pointing to until he remembers the scar.

He curls a piece of hair around his finger meekly, nervously. “I suppose so.”

Martin just stares, for a bit. Jon feels so vulnerable.

He slides his hand gently, slowly, almost as if so not to catch Jon by surprise, to his chin, thumb brushing against his lip in a way that Jon’s surprised he doesn't shiver under. “And this one? From the Unknowing?”

He can’t stop looking at Martin, beautiful but surprisingly unreadable. Jon had never thought of him as bold. Never thought of him as unreadable. He loves this martin, too, but he grieves the loss of a man who didn't have to learn to guard his emotions, to hide, to go so far.

Jon opens his mouth, closes it. He can feel Martin's thumb, feather light, when he does. He bites the bullet, clearing his throat, against the protests of the fluttering thing in his chest, “Yes,” he says roughly. “Basira had to stitch it up for me. She ended up with a broken arm, Tim and Daisy….” he trails off, eyes flicking away from Martin, as if they don't even realize how hard it is to look away from Martin. “And yet, I made it out with a split lip and a concussion. No lasting symptoms longer than just a few days,” A hollow laugh, a pause, “Well, other than our hearing I guess. I assume Basira and I will have trouble with our hearing for the rest of our lives, likely.” He smiles ruefully, still refusing to look Martin in the eye, resigning instead to watch the candle’s fickle flame.

“Jon,” Martin says, and Jon loves the way it sounds in his mouth. “Jon,” he says again, and his words are shaking, the hand still on his chin shaking. “That is… kind of a miracle. You say it as if you’re not— as if—” He's shaking his head vigorously when Jon lifts his eyes, a blur. Jon thinks he may be harder to read now, but still, all he does, all he’s ever done is make this man tremble like a leaf in the wind, ready to break, to let go. “It is an incredible thing that you and Basira made it out of there. Point blank. Period. Regardless of whatever else was lost, that is incredible. And it isn't a bad thing that your wounds weren't more severe? It's—” It's both of his hands on Jon’s cheeks, grasping, desperate, it's his eyes looking into his eyes, grasping, desperate, like he needs Jon to get this, to understand, “It's wonderful. That you are alive. That you survived that. That you have survived so much. You can't dictate what's happened to others, and you're not responsible for that. You just— just think about you, Jon, for once. Please. It doesn't matter who suffered, you did as well, it just matters that you're here.”

Jon can't breathe, too scared of breaking this, whatever it is, with Martin's warm, warm eyes staring softly and yet fiercely into his. Jon shakily takes in a breath, entire body aflame, and reaches up, placing his hand over the one Martin now has settled over his cheek. “Alright,” he says, quietly, barely above a whisper. “Alright.”

It's hard to make out in such a dull light, but along with the twitch in his fingers, Martin seems bashful, now, eyes flicking away. Come back, Jon wants to say, but the words die before making it out of his lungs. He seems flushed, but Jon thinks it's likely he is as well, so he would be hypocritical to judge.

When Martin continues sheepishly avoiding his eyes, Jon drops his hand gently and slowly from the other man’s, as if giving permission for him to take it back. Martin does and Jon misses it immediately. Come back.

There is a moment of stillness, an intimate kind of quiet, of something lovely and too much all at once.

“So, uh,” Jon says, all wry, deprecating smiles, “I assume you don't mind the scars, then? Even though they're sort of an eye sore.”

Martin looks at him, a bit surprised, before snorting. Then bursting out into full, but soft, laughter. “Jon,” Martin says, a gust of air. “You sweet idiot. I love them. They're proof you're alive and that's— that's something to be celebrated. I just wish you didn't have so many because they're also proof that you have fought, so much, to stay alive.” His voice softens at the end, the laughter leaving him. Come back. Martin’s smile should never feel like it has to leave him.

(scars, another paradox of humanity, that he has fought, that he is not currently fighting.)

“Well, I won't stop fighting any time soon.”

Martin smiles, sadly, and Jon has a terrible feeling he's missed something.

(They don't talk about it, after. The next day things are normal but there is something in Jon’s chest that grows and grows, like a flower, like a forest fire. Gentle and violent. Soft and fierce. There is something, there, in Jon’s office past midnight, lit by candles and wrapped in hushed laughter. There is something there, between them.

They don't talk about it.

There are so many things they don't talk about.)

ii. crossed out

The Archives feel even more vast once they're empty. Jon isn't quite sure whether it's because they're empty, or because the Lonely has far more hold now that they are. Now that it has a constant supply of food in Jon.

It probably doesn't help much that he's officially moved in. He rarely goes outside these days. He rarely sees anyone. He doesn't do much other than pour himself into work. Doesn't do much other than try to avoid that seizing, gut wrenching fear through productivity.

He feels like he's being haunted.

Of course, in his realm of work, that would be normal. It would be a real possibility. But no, that's not really what he means. It's the memories that linger.

He'll pass one of their desks, or the kitchen, or any other place of note and he can almost feel the memories embedded there, almost a physical, tangible thing. He can't tell if they are just serving to make him more lonely or if they're the only things keeping him sane.

It hurts, either way.

He had something once and he doesn't anymore.

i. you're still right here

After that, Jon realizes that things are different. Things have been different, for a while, between him and Martin. He considers Martin as likely the closest person to him. An anchor. A siren song. Two ends of a string.

There's something unspoken between them, something bright but weighted. Something that leaves Jon feeling like he's falling through the sky but so stable and so connected to the place where his legs meet the Earth.

It changed so slowly, a drip thick like honey, like lava, Jon hadn't even noticed. But the smiles they share now are soft, secret; intimate.

Martin pops his head in his office in the mornings and waves, “Morning, Jon,” smiling wide and soft and bright and even though its been happening for weeks, it catches Jon off-guard, and he goes warm and weak and barely stutters out a “Good morning, Martin,” hand half-raised and then he’s gone again. It’s ridiculous. It’s wonderful. It has Jon feeling like a lovestruck teen; some overdramatic lovelorn poet.

Martin does this— thing, now, where during Jon’s nervous rambles which is, well, almost every time he opens his mouth these days, isn’t it, he’ll place his hand on Jon’s, soft, keeping him from shaking it the way he does when he’s panicked. He says nothing of it, acts like he didn’t do it in the first place, like nothing has changed, and it makes Jon’s stomach do this weird contortionist motion, a choreography ingrained into it. The first time it had happened, it had startled Jon into stopping, words slowing down before stumbling to a halt, an engine sputtering: “And, so.. That’s…. Why.” Jon’s eyes, impossibly wide, staring at Martin’s soft, wide hand covering his, a source of impenetrable emanating warmth.

“That’s why what?” Martin said, gently, coaxing, not looking away from Jon once, looking completely innocent other than a slight teasing aspect to his smile.

Jon had looked at him, and then his hand, and then to him, before slowly continuing. If Martin wasn’t going to acknowledge it then, well, Jon certainly wouldn’t. He wanted it to stay. Just like that. That was perfect.

And if he decidedly could not stop thinking about Martin’s hands since, well. Well. That’s quite his business.

That happens a lot in general, now. Their hands touch, mostly on accident, but terribly, amazingly, on purpose as well. Sometimes Jon is reading a statement and Martin just. Just, reaches over and starts playing with fingers, as if it’s easy, as if it’s a completely normal thing to do, sensible, and it’s almost enough to take his attention away from the words. From the Beholding.

Almost, but not quite.

They orbit around each other, fall into each other’s space. Jon seeks him out in break rooms and archives and everywhere, everywhere really, and he can feel where Martin is subconsciously more often than not, a secondhand knowledge held by Knowing tucked by the little corner of his mind dedicated to the man— the place in his brain where Martin has made a home.

They’re not so much ships in the night— rather, two people, in the day time, hurtling towards each other at an alarming rate. Exhilarating. Terrifying. Everything Jon wants and everything he can’t have compacted into a ball inside his chest.

(but maybe this, he thinks, maybe i can have this. everything is terrible, the world, the universe, big in its cruelty, but martin is not. his friends are not. maybe he’s allowed this. just this one thing. just this once—)

Jon gets everyone coffee every Wednesday, just a way of making them feel cared for, and he does it over and over again until he gets all their orders right. And he makes sure they know he did it because he cares. They’re not alone, and Jon is rubbish at words, but maybe this will help them know it.

Martin, surprisingly, is the hardest one to decipher. Martin, who is guarded in a lot of ways, but never in the things he loves, because every time Jon hands him a coffee he beams, like Jon has just handed him a plate of gold, or the world, or his own smile, all the invaluable things. It’s - Jon admits, it’s adorable and lovely and makes him weak, a bit, but that’s beside the point. Mainly, it’s infuriating. How is he supposed to find out Martin’s favorite if every time he gives him a drink he looks like it’s the greatest gift he’s ever been given?

He figures it out, eventually— caramel macchiato. It’s horrendously easy: Jon hands it to him, and Martin smiles, wild, unalloyed and says “Oh! This is my favorite coffee!” And Jon wishes, strangely, desperately, to kiss the corner of his mouth, the mole on his chin, his hands, him, him, him.

So. There’s something there. Between them. Inside Jon’s rib cage. Filling up his lungs. In Martin’s home in his mind. In secret smiles and held hands and lunches.

Jon just runs a hand through his hair and says, roughly, “I’m, ah. I’m glad.”

(—but no, no, he thinks. that can’t be right. everything is terrible, yes, but him most of all.)

ii. crossed out

Even though he might crave the empty safety of the Archives forever, for all time, the heavy blanket of Lonely that suppresses his… less important, less productive (emotional) thoughts and the endless supply of tapes to make him Feel alive, the unfortunate truth of the matter is that Jon still has to feed his body as well. He is still that much human, at least.

This is how he finds himself in a nearby Tesco, almost as soon as they open, because in the light he can See better, and in the morning crowd he might even blend in as something normal.

What he doesn't plan out is bumping into someone and spilling half of his groceries and having that certain someone - who has always been a morning person, really, - reaching to help pick them up, only for them to meet eyes and Jon’s throat to go incredibly dry.

“Oh,” says Martin. “It's you.”

Of course Martin is there. Fuck. Of course Martin’s there, because the universe would never be kind enough to give either of them a break.

Please stop finding me, he wants to say. I love you, he wants to say even more. I love you and I miss you and I hate living without you.

“It's me,” he says instead, dryly, throat straining around the syllables and Jon realizes he can't really remember the last time he talked to someone.

“Funny running into you here!” Martin says cheerily, handing Jon his last item, which happens to be tea, and he finds a cruel sort of humor in it. “I was hoping you might come into the coffee shop again, but, ah, well. You never did. At least not while I was on shift.”

“Right,” Jon says, simply, as if Martin will go away if he’s just dismissive enough. As if that has ever worked before.

“You left so abruptly the other day, I couldn't ask, but, uh,” Martin starts, blushing, stuttering. It's cruel. Jon knows that look. It's so incredibly familiar. He feels toyed with. Tortured. He yearns to reach out. “Um, would you want to get coffee sometime, or something? I’m not sure what it is exactly but I feel such a draw to you. If you say we haven’t met before— well, —I have no reason to not believe you, but I—” he stops, sheepish. Starts, meek and brave and hopeless sounding all at once: “I don’t know, I can’t stop thinking about you.”

Jon’s heart pounds. That would be, wow, um, lovely, actually, he wants to say. I truly want nothing more in the entire world than to go out for coffee with you, he wants to say, All I do is think about you. All I do is miss you, helplessly and wretchedly. All I want is to have you back, gets caught in his throat, just barely trapped. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Oh,” Martin responds, face carefully blank. “Um, because I already work at a coffee shop and it would be weird to get coffee, orrr…”

Or because you don’t want me? hangs in the air, palpably, painfully. If the world was kinder and Jon was allowed, he would pluck it from the space in front of him, crumple it into a ball and tell Martin he’s all he wants. Would press their palms together and tangle his fingers in his own. Would kiss his temple, softly, and do everything he could to make that worry go away.

But their meeting is proof that this world is anything but kind.

“It’s nothing personal,” Jon says, sounding forced. “I’m just—”

“Oh, God, are you straight?” Martin blurts, going pale. “I’m so sorry, I just— with the piercings and the clothes and— I assumed—”

Jon chokes on his own spit, almost laughing. “No,” he responds, horrified. “No, I’m attracted to— uh, everyone, I guess,” he says, because usually he’s attracted to everyone in the sense that he’s attracted to no one in equal amounts. “And I’m attracted to you, really, it’s just— I have a lot going on now. Dating would be…” with Martin? Wonderful, lovely, but selfish, dangerous, and— “...a bad idea. I’m sorry.”

“Ah,” Martin says, a sad smile on his face. “Too bad on my timing then, huh?”

“Yes,” Jon agrees, quietly, “Too bad.”

(because there are plenty of times where jon has laid awake at night, thinking about timelines where none of this exists, or him and martin had found each other early on and weren’t lonely enough, curious enough, stupid enough, lost enough to get involved in all this in the first place, or after, if jon survives and is even half human— settling into a normal life when martin asks him to coffee and he can say, softly, yes. please.

bad timing on both their parts, really.)

“Well, in case it ever becomes… a better idea,” Martin starts, rifling through his bag. He pulls out a notepad and scribbles out something, then holds it between his fingers, out to Jon, hopeful and hesitant at the same time, “Here’s my number.”

Jon, shellshocked, takes it. “Okay.”

“Okay,” Martin repeats, soft. “Bye, stranger.” It's teasing, he's smiling, and then he leaves.

Jon stares at the curling script in his hand, so achingly familiar, a number that shouldn't be there in his hands, one different from the one he has saved under Martin’s name, that he’s called so many times before, for a half an hour before he feels like he can move again. Like he can breathe again. He feels like he fell down a flight of stairs.

i. you’re still right here

It’s stupid how it happens, really. Jon makes some awful joke that isn’t even funny and Martin laughs, all crinkled eyes and teeth, high pitched giggling that spills from him like they’re too much for him to contain and he leans too far into Jon’s space ever so slightly, shaking against his shoulder, full and flushed and unguarded. “I hate you,” he says, struggling through giggles, in a tone that suggests anything but.

Oh, I’m in love with Martin, Jon realizes belatedly.

ii. crossed out

It starts slow.

It’s something he should have expected, really, with the Lonely’s cold talons sunk so deep into him, feeding on him the way it does. Looking back, he’s surprised it’s taken as long as it has.

After his and Martin’s conversation in the grocery store, Jon had eventually made his way to the register to accomplish what he had originally come there for: buying fuel for his body. He waited for a few minutes, the cashier staring blankly at him before he finally cleared his throat, a rough “Excuse me?” tumbling out. This caused the cashier, who had been staring directly at him, or, Jon supposes now, through him, to jump and clutch at their heart.

“Christ, you scared me,” they had said, apparently not even realizing he had been present for a while.

He had simply resolved to use self check-out in the future. Sure, it was odd, but, well. In his line of work, he had become sort of desensitized to the smaller oddities that could just be human.

He can’t shake it off as much when, a couple days after, the girl at the front desk of the Institute doesn't recognize him until he's embarrassingly waving his hand in her face.

“Oh! Jon!” she says, shocked. “How long have you been there? I’m sorry, I must be spacey today.”

It gets worse at the library, where it seems like the assistant repeatedly forgets what she's looking for or even that she's helping him at all.

“Look, I'm sorry, this is going to seem rude,” she says, after the fourth time of Jon reminding her what he needs, “but could you stand over there a bit? You're making my thoughts all hazy.”

Static, Jon thinks. That's how Lukas has always manifested himself on the tapes.

He's had quite enough when a car nearly hits him at a crossroads, barely swerving out of the way in time. When they get out to look and make sure they didn't hit Jon, brow furrowed in confusion, eyes wide, they don't seem to see him.

It leaves Jon shaking, adrenaline pumppumppumping through his system, swift and jarring. He's afraid. Whether from the situation, or the fact no one can see him, he's not sure. Maybe both. Probably both.

All he knows is that his state is what led him to such a bad decision, but at the time it really seemed like the only option. It was the only place he could think to go.

He stumbles through the door of the coffee shop, bell chirping wildly from the violent way it was jostled. He must look crazy, really, all gasping breaths, long shaking limbs, dark bags and wide eyes; hair an untameable mess. But no one pays him any mind.

They can’t see him.

He feels sort of like he’s going to pass out, so he slinks his way over to an empty booth, very much on autopilot and out of sheer necessity to keep himself from collapsing. Jon is going to be alone forever, and then he will die, it’s all just this, just watching the world from the outside, the rest of his life, never being known, forever—

“Jon?”

Jon startles, and it feels like a bubble bursting.

Suddenly everything is vibrant again. Everything is real. The sounds of the coffee shop patrons chatting floods in, the smell of the coffee, the feel of the booth beneath him and the warm air of the shop, the dim lights reflecting off the table and the person who addressed him, Martin with his blue blue blue eyes looking at him, equal parts surprised and concerned.

“Martin,” Jon says, winded, wide-eyed. Relief seeps into him but so does overstimulation. The most wretched, feasted upon part of him almost wants to crawl back into the Loneliness, just so everything stops being so much. So Jon stops being so much. But the bigger part of him is so, so incredibly relieved that life is real again, that he’s here, that someone can see him.

“Are you, uh… are you alright?” he asks, looking Jon up and down, examining his state, eyes round and full of worry. Fussing, Jon thinks, fondly. It’s been so long since Martin fussed over him, and for a long time toward the beginning of their relationship Jon would have done anything to get Martin to stop mother-henning him, but. But. He’s missed it. He’s missed everything about Martin, he thinks, really. When Jon opens his mouth to respond yes, I’m fine, everything’s fine now, for a second I was just deep in the clutches of an entity who wants to trap me alone forever but now, I’m safe, or well, as safe as I can be these days, nothing comes out, predictably enough. “You’re shaking,” Martin points out, “Let me get you some tea and then we can talk.”

Jon shakes his head furiously and forces, voice rough from disuse, far too quiet, “I don’t have any money to pay for it, I didn’t bring—”

“It’s on the house,” Martin interjects, simply, a wan smile on his face. “And we don’t have any customers right now, so really, you’re just giving me an excuse to do something other than stare out the windows and watch people go by.”

Jon doesn’t have the energy to protest, and he knows all too well just how hard-headed Martin can be, so he concedes, nodding. “If you insist.”

The world becomes slightly more manageable in the few minutes it takes Martin to prepare his tea, he becomes more used to his sentences being intact and slowly, every part of him becomes a little less taut, although there is always the underlying tenseness— his body, a spring wound tight, ready to run at any time. The wariness is just a part of him at this point, as deeply embedded as his bones.

Martin returns with two mugs of tea, one that Jon recognizes immediately as Martin’s usual milky chamomile, and one that, as soon as Jon smells it, he recognizes as his own ginger tea with just the littlest amount of honey. The kind Martin always used to make him. Something inside his chest aches, heart feeling like it’s just been through the wash, tossed around and scrubbed clean, raw. The whirlwind of everything he feels starts to get to him and he, embarrassingly, recognizes that signature prick in his eyes, desperately trying to keep away the tears.

“Do you think it would help to talk about it?” Martin says, softly, prodding but only in the gentlest way, eyes all on him, his undivided attention. Like Jon is the only thing he sees. It’s a gaze so familiar Jon thinks he starts trembling again, a bit, filled with a want that washes over him and swallows him whole.

Jon takes in a shuddering breath and asks, instead, “How did you know my name?”

Martin blinks, taken aback, like that was the last thing he expected to come out of the other man’s mouth. “Did you not tell me?”

Jon shakes his head, a bit more vigorously than completely necessary. “No,” he says, “No, I didn’t.” It starts strong, but ends soft, a string unspooled. He’s just so tired.

“Are—” Martin stops, but it dies on his lips, hanging in the air. Are you sure we haven’t met? Jon knows he wants to ask, but it seems Martin has thought this not an appropriate time for it. Jon appreciates it. “I just knew it, I suppose,” he says instead, lamely. “Was out of my mouth before I even knew what I was saying.”

Jon nods, short, brusque. He’s scared. All he wants is for Martin to know him. But the main thing Martin needs to be kept safe from is him, is from his memories, from the world that lives inside them.

He thinks about how Martin had seen him, the way he is now, and had still looked at him softly, had still reached out, had still wanted him, against all odds. Had seen him and wanted to know him. The world has a sick sense of humor. It makes him giddy, stupidly, but mostly it just hurts. The warmth of spilling blood for the same twisting of a knife.

“Thank you, regardless,” Jon says, a bit bashful, running a hand through his hair. “I, ah— I don’t think I can fully, uh, explain the situation? I wouldn't know how nor is it—” safe, “Anyway, this has been. A huge help. More than I can say. So, thank you, Martin.”

“See, that's the thing,” Martin says, something bubbling over, a cup filled passed its brim, “I feel like I’ve heard you say things like that to me before? Something about you is so— so—” His ears go red, as if realizing his boldness, his heart on his sleeve, open honest unguarded Martin, truly one of Jon’s favorite things. He wishes, for the millionth time, an infinite amount of times, that the circumstances were different. Martin is passionate, all hands flailing, all determination, headstrong, certain, eyes stern and soft. He is a beautiful contradiction, brave in his fear. “Sorry,” he says, sheepish, tugging at his ear. A nervous tick Jon remembers. “Not really the time for that, huh?”

Never the time for that, unfortunately. Their timing is terrible. The universe won't allow them a place where it's not terrible.

“It’s… quite alright,” Jon responds, struggling. He hates lying. He’s always been told he's a terrible liar. He wishes he could tell Martin the same way he wishes to reach out and run his fingers through his hair or make him laugh— the way he wishes to go out on a few dates, to visit Martin's flat, to listen to him talk for hours— he wants it desperately, but knows it's an impossibility. Knows that it's better for Martin if it's impossible. “Maybe you've just met someone similar?”

Martin’s brow furrows, and he stirs his tea, slowly. Jon wants to hold his hand. After a long moment, he shakes his head. “I dunno,” he starts. “It's not like you look or behave similar to anyone I’ve known in a long time. If I’ve known someone like you, it just feels like—” He looks like his head hurts. “I know you from somewhere, but I can't remember. It feels important,” he says, sounding miserable. “I’m sorry.”

Jon has never been good at comfort, especially not after going months without seeing another human being show emotion. He awkwardly pats Martin’s arm, warmth and liquid fire filling him the moment he does, electricity running up and down his arm. He wonders, briefly, if he's touch-starved, but stamps it down and pushes through the feeling. He sends Martin a sad smile. “I don't mind. If it's any consolation, I don't, I don't remember you either?” He's a terrible liar, oh God.

Martin looks skeptical, but he smiles back, soft, probably willing to leave it after watching Jon nearly cry for the better part of an hour. “You're still shaking,” he says, sounding a bit reprimanding, the way a doting Martin always does. “The tea didn't help warm you up?”

Jon doesn't know how to tell him that the reason he's shaking is because this is the first time he's really felt something in days, that he's shaking because he misses and he wants and he is so scared all the time, that everything is too much and not enough, that—

In the end, he just shrugs.

Martin makes a disapproving noise. “That won't do. I’ll be right back.”

Jon almost protests, but he doesn't even know what he's protesting to, so it would probably seem silly. He simply takes another sip from his tea, savoring the comfort and nostalgia it brings. He had something once and he doesn't anymore.

Martin comes back with a jacket, something pastel and slightly shiny. It's one Jon has seen before, one Jon has touched before, one that smells like Martin and makes his heart ache. Martin just shakes his head when he refuses, says it doesn't fit him right anyway, really, Jon, but Jon knows for a fact it's a lie.

Instead of listening, Martin drapes it around his shoulders and says, “Oh, you've finished your tea. Let me get some more.” Smiling bright.

Jon hates himself for making a run for it the moment Martin disappears into the back, taking his jacket, leaving no evidence he was ever there at all other than a messy note of “thank you for the tea. and everything else, really”.

He feels bad about the jacket, really, but, well. He is still just human, in some regards. In this way. He is still selfish, and he wants. He wants—

He wants Martin. But this will have to do.

i. you’re still right here

Some days are worse than others.

Who knew that grief, that responsibility, that despondency were weights? Things that crush and smother, that feel heavier than a thousand boulders, than the entire world carried upon two shoulders.

This is a war they are actively losing— a war they have already lost so much to. There are, what, some 14 odd all powerful Gods who feast on their fear and about 4 or 5 (counting Helen) people at the Institute with good intentions, and even then, the only way for them to get the slightest leeway comes at a sickeningly high cost, and what hurts one entity tends to feed another, and on and on it goes, a never ending, hopeless, convoluted enigma. It is the imminent End of the World, End of All Things, and it is far too much for a handful of shambling, traumatized people to bear.

But Jon’s never been good at turning away from things he shouldn't know, never been good at putting a statement down halfway, at leaving a mystery half solved, ever since his first encounter he has been unraveling and picking at the truth.

It gets worse when they finally find Tim’s remains.

It's simply a confirmation of what Jon had already suspected— what he thinks most of them suspected, really. It's been weeks. Tim should have found his way back to the Institute by now if he was still in one piece, and, well.

The office is quiet for about a week. Even when they do talk, it's hushed. Almost muted, somehow. The Lonely grows, Jon feels it, overarching, tangible. The Institute fills with weird pockets of silence and more distance than had ever characterized it before.

Jon misses Tim terribly— like a wrench inside is chest unwinding something, with much difficulty. Something stuck, something turning. It hurts, knocks against his bones. They have lost so much and none of them have deserved it.

Tim should have made it out of that place.

He was so angry towards the end, a wrath unbridled that simmered quietly but noticeably. And he had every right to be— loss manifests itself in different ways and if there was one thing worthy of rage, it was the situation they were all caught in.

But he was still Tim, even in his vindicated anger. He was still brave, unabashed, a kind heart under biting words. He was still Tim. And he should have made it out.

(sometimes, on his worst nights, on his most selfish ones, jon wishes it had been him. that he had been the one to press the button and receive the brunt of the wreckage. on his worst nights, jon wishes that he could have traded tim places. he is a monster. tim is not. his friends don't deserve to keep losing. his friends don't deserve to die, for fuck’s sake, and they don't deserve to keep dealing with death either, to fear, to be fed upon. to lose themselves.

the desperate need to fix becomes unbearable, a heavy weight on his chest. jon is paranoid, investigative, he pulls at threads and unravels and he has always needed to know. to see. to find. to fix.

he needs to fix the world. he needs to fix his friends.)

They can't go to his actual funeral. It stings, but Jon doesn't think he'd be able to look at the people who knew Tim outside of this without throwing up, a crushing weight, guilt is. Grief is. Lying would just be hard on all of them.

(a greater worry is that the funeral would be empty. did tim even have anyone left? jon doesn't want to know. tim deserved a lot of normal people to grieve him— he doesn't want that image shattered.)

So they have their own funeral. A small thing, just wearing black, giving a few last words, a tribute, a few candles lit. Tim would've hated it, probably— he never was much of one for solemn affairs. But in the end, Jon don't think he would've minded the tears spilled over him. He always pretended to roll his eyes and huff when Martin or Sasha fussed over him, but Jon remembers the soft grin on his face, the fond tone.

Martin doesn't speak much these days. He still sits with Jon, but the grief is getting to him. They're both broken. The air feels too heavy to break with conversation. Just Martin and Jon, together but apart, and then fully apart when Martin stops coming, fumbling excuses that Jon knows aren't real.

Jon thinks he feels like a burden sharing his feelings when he's always been the positive one. He doesn't have the words to tell him he’s wrong. That he would give anything just to lighten Martin’s load. That he would give his eyes if it meant Martin never saw anything bad again, that he would give his lungs if it meant Martin easier air, his heart if it meant Martin’s would keep tempo the way it should.

(give me your worries, he thinks. let me take them all.)

Without his anchor, he is lost in a Lonely sea.

He knows he's probably losing it, but when he walks through the Archives and they creak, it sounds like they're speaking to him. It could be any of them next, it says. Sometimes it sounds like weeping.

He keeps finding Basira crying. She swears she hasn't given up on Daisy, they still haven't found the body, after all. But Jon knows the way her brain works, head over heart, logic oriented. He Sees the lines under her eyes, darker by the day. She looks so tired. He knows she knows the facts. The human body, while more durable than people often give it credit for, is a fragile thing. The chances of the two of them making it out of that explosion alive was incredibly low, but the three of them? Even more so. The chances of Daisy living also went down significantly when him and Basira ran out of that place, much less weeks after.

He has to fix this. He owes them all that much. It's the least he can do for the living.

ii. crossed out

When he wakes up in the Institute that morning, something is different.

The air is still. It's been alarmingly still for months. Jon has. Jon has gotten used to that. To the feeling that no one has ever existed in this space before him, no one will exist after him, and, especially, no one will exist with him.

Except the air is still, but there's breathing. Many monsters still have lungs, Jon supposes. Even he still needs to breathe, after all.

But when he looks, he doesn't see anyone.

When he Looks, however—

“Alright, alright, you caught me,” Peter crackles, suddenly in the corner. “Y'know, you don't make hiding any fun when you cheat like that, with all your… eyes.”

Jon's vision goes funny, stomach falling, feet falling. He wonders how long Peter was watching him sleep. Shivers at the thought. "Oh, excuse me, I'm terribly sorry that I'm really not the fondest of being watched," he snaps, voice tired and weary and defensive.

“That's rather ironic, isn't it, I mean considering what you are,” Peter says, white noise spilling from his mouth, deadpan. “You know, because—”

“Yes, Lukas, surprisingly I am aware that I am in the Beholding's clutches.”

“Ah, not in a joking mood, I see. That's alright, Archivist. You already know why I'm here— I'm sure that much is easily deduced even without your special skill set, right?” Peter blinks down at him, still from the corner, with big, empty cold eyes. Looking at him for too long gives Jon a headache. He constantly looks like he's… shifting, there, not there, somewhere else, back again. The light smirk on his face makes Jon nauseous.

He debates whether or not he should lie, not sure of how much Lukas knows and not too entirely eager to catch him up to speed on what he's not aware of.

“What exactly have you come for?” he asks, carefully. Something in the air bristles.

“Ah, you are quite good at that,” Peter says, sounding really rather pleased. “I had no intent of lying even if you hadn't taken my choice from me, but you and I both know this is about the coffee shop and your… attachment to it. We have an agreement, dear Jonathan, and that was not part of it.” Jon shakes a little. He wasn't careful enough. It's all his fault, if he had just been strong enough to deal with the Forsaken— “But,” Lukas says, derailing his catastrophizing, “I'm sure you and I both aren't happy with that agreement coming to an end, so. Let's just call this the first strike, yeah?”

Jon nods furiously, an icy type of fear running through his veins. He needs them protected. He needs them safe. He needs to do something right, for once, needs to keep everyone who's ever gotten involved with him from meeting some terrible fate. “Yes,” he says, soft, voice breaking, and bloody loathes himself for it. He clears his throat, steeling himself, and says, more firmly this time, “Yes. Thank you. It won't happen again.”

“Glad we resolved this issue then,” Peter says, beaming, and there is something so fundamentally wrong about his grin. “It's always a pleasure, Jonathan.”

And then he's gone, and the air is still.

Jon sighs. He'll be a good little boy for the Lonely. If that's what it takes, then, he supposes it's easy enough. It's worth it.

i. you're still right here

It probably wouldn't have been evident if things were still the way they were pre-Unknowing. If Jon and Martin were two people who had been through Hell together, tentative friends. If they were still just coworkers who were finally finding their footing as something new— Jon as someone more open, more honest, more to fear but less to hide, and Martin, who was learning to know him anew. Himself, anew. Trying to find how he fit into this crazy mess, how much fear he could afford to lose.

But as it stands, him and Martin, two orbiting bodies, two people who are… close, as they are, tentative friendship blossoming into fierce allyship and gentle companionship and something, something that burrows itself into Jon's chest and lives and sings, well, Jon notices. When Martin begins to drift, when Jon stops getting “morning”s and tea and lunch invites under the preface of “sorry, Jon, just really busy today. Maybe another time?” he notices. Notices when Martin stops being at his desk altogether for hours at a time. Notices the way the bags under his eyes deepen and how much more mussed his hair has been.

(he has to push down the urge to just Know what's wrong. has to further suppress the urge to fix martin's hair, running deft fingers through it. the urge to hug him. the urge to set him a bed and a mug of tea and promise to keep watch; to be there when he wakes up, so maybe he can get some rest. to tell him that he misses him.)

It's only been about a week, after all. Martin is his own person. He's allowed to have space. Jon just worries. That's they're job, isn't it? And the Lonely is so close, a looming presence— so a bit of worry is understandable.

But then it keeps going, and it becomes unbearably clear that Martin does not want to be found. He’s actively avoiding them. He’s actively avoiding Jon, namely. This feels like more than simply needing a bit of space to grieve.

And maybe Jon's being paranoid, but he'd rather be paranoid and talk to Martin than let him slip away without trying, just like everything else Jon has ever wanted to keep.

So he starts looking. Starts searching. He's never been good at letting sleeping dogs lay. Never been good at leaving a mystery half-solved. The Archives are his terrain, almost an extension of himself, at this point (or is he an extension of them?) and he feels them like a secondary limb in his mind— and it's exhausting sometimes, but he Knows. He Knows where they all are.

It's a few days after the week mark when Jon finds Martin, skimming a section of the Archives and muttering something under his breath. “Martin?” he asks, unsteady.

The other man startles an alarming amount, causing him to bump into one of the cabinets. “Ow,” he mutters, rubbing his head before his eyes flit up in recognition. “Jon?”

“I'm sorry, oh, I, I didn't mean to startle you,” Jon stumbles out, “I just—”

“It's fine,” he grits, harsher than Martin is usually. He sighs. “It's fine,” he says again, but softer, more resolute.

“Well, I apologize either way,” he responds. “Let's get that looked at, shall we?”

Martin stares at him, a bit surprised. A laugh bubbles out of him: “Jon, all I did was bump my head. I've been through far worse. You've been through far worse.”

Jon feels his lips pull down into, dare he say, a pout. The closest he can resemble one, at least. “You're hurt,” he states, simply. “Doesn't matter what you've been through previously. Doesn't matter, especially, what I've been through. You're still hurt and—” you're still hurt and it's my fault, and it's different when you're hurt than when I am. Getting hurt is my job. I'm a reckless asshole with no common sense. Your job is to be kept safe from it. Your job is to be safe. “A-Anyway,” he digresses. “Let me at least do this, Martin. Please.”

Martin closes his eyes, tight, as if pained, hands clenched at his sides. Maybe it's worse than Jon thought. He takes a shaky gulp of breath. “Okay,” He blows his breath out, something inside him crumbling, eroding. “Okay. Just this, though.”

Something in Jon's heart aches. Just this. He's allowed this. But at the same time, this is all he is allowed. There are things he can have and things he cannot.

(and what an awful paradoxical feeling, love is, to have him completely contented, grasping, always holding his moments with martin like they’re precious, and yet always, always yearning for more? he is perfectly happy to take anything he can get and yet, selfishly, he wants martin, for the rest of his life, for whatever comes next, for all the parts of him, the broken mottled ones and the ones perfectly whole that shine, that sing in their resonance.)

He grabs a stool from the corner that is reserved for staff to reach the taller shelves of statements and ushers Martin onto it, sit, sit, please, and bends down next to him, all pointy too-long limbs at odd angles and every one of Jon's eyes on him. Martin is so… reserved. Shy. It feels like a thousand steps back; a thousand miles away. Jon slowly unfurls his clenched hands, notices but tries to conceal the shaking of his own, and goes, finger by finger, until Martin is breathing normally. Until his face has softened a bit, his very being untensed. He sighs again, soft and long and tired and relaxed all at once. Jon wants to take every worried crease from his face and hold them, wants to take every worry and bury them in the deep earth until they grow into something beautiful and fragile in the summer.

He works in silence, not wanting to shatter this. It's too important. Instead, he focuses on the thin cut on Martin's head, barely even a cut at all, the bump surrounding it, the heavy curve of his neck, the concern Jon has for him but mostly, the honor he feels to be able to take care of him, even if it's just like this. Just this.

“I need some supplies from the medicine cabinet,” he admits, quietly, mournfully. “Promise me you'll be here when you get back.” He says it like it's not a request. Jon and his guard.

“I'm not a baby, Jon,” he spits, and the other man recoils, just a bit. He regains composure nearly immediately. As if he were never hurt to begin with, despite the dull throb in his sternum. "”Sorry. Just meant that I still have working legs. I'll come with, if you'll have me,” he says, weakly. Apologetically. Quietly.

I would always have you, if I was allowed. “I'd like that.” He stands, a hand outstretched to Martin, who takes a moment, looking at it wearily, before taking it, allowing himself to be pulled to his feet. A guide. A steady.

Jon expects him to let go once he's standing, but he doesn't. Rather, he clasps it with surprising fierceness, like a lifeline, like a rope knotted to an anchor, like a lifetime. Jon hopes he never lets go, unrealistically.

They find their way there without trouble, Martin swaying a bit on his feet, but whether from his injury or something else, Jon can't be sure of. Martin sits precariously on the counter while Jon rifles through the cabinet.

Martin breaks the quiet, asks softly, “Why are you doing this?”

Jon nearly bumps his head against the cabinet, thanks the universe he didn't, because then they'd both be there with moderate head injuries and that simply wouldn't do. “Looking for bandages and neosporin? Because you're bleeding, Martin,” he says, not quite serious, not quite a joke.

“Why do you keep looking for me?” he asks instead, firm, but his eyes won't meet Jon’s and he’s tugging his ear with one of his hands.

Jon isn't sure what to say to that, so he makes a considering noise, looking for the right words. Looking through the cabinet. “Because you— ah, I’m not good with feelings, Martin. I’m sorry if this is too much, or not enough, but, you deserve to hear it, I suppose,” he says, quietly, meekly. “You matter to me.”

Martin does look at him then, startled. Jon can feel himself heating and makes himself busy, finally spotting the bandages and salve in the very back. “Ah,” he alerts. “Medical supplies acquired.” A weak smile to Martin, who is still staring, looking at him with blue eyes deep and unreadable. Jon ducks his head, flustered and embarrassed, heart pounding, vulnerable. He hides behind the few stray strands of hair coming loose from his bun. He wants to be known. It's all he wants. And yet, it's his biggest fear. Humanity, beautiful and stupid, humanity and its contradictions, its burdens and its gifts and the other things it saddles us with, frees us with.

He gives himself a few moments to breathe, feeling terribly exposed, but determined. So he steps closer, a silent question, and Martin nods. Jon wants to run a hand through his hair. Instead, he grabs his jaw, soft but firm, wonders in it internally, forcing himself to push through despite the heat radiating into his fingertips, the weird seasick motion of his stomach. Martin inhales sharply. Jon consciously does not look him in the eye. He thinks he would combust.

“This might sting, a bit. Apologies.” He applies the neosporin and Martin winces, just a tad. It's a small cut, really. Easily enveloped by the butterfly bandage Jon applies after. “All done, but.”

“But?” Martin asks, breathy, soft. Jon can feel the air from his mouth against his cheek and represses the urge to shiver.

He looks into his eyes then, emboldened. This is important. Jon can do this. “Can I… Know? I want to make sure you don't have a concussion.” Do you trust me?

“Oh,” Martin says, a little pink. “That's it, right? Just to check for a concussion?”

Jon nods.

“Okay,” Martin agrees. “Of course. Uh, how do we, um, do it?” I do. I trust you.

Jon stifles a laugh, but can’t rid himself of his smile, just a soft quirk of the lips. This is the Martin he knows, here, the gentle, curious man. “It depends, I guess. Sometimes I just Know. Sometimes I have to think about it and then it comes. Sometimes it's… more difficult, but.”

“Right, then,” Martin says, a touch nervously. “Guess we’ll just have to give it a go.”

Jon realizes his hand never left from Martin’s jaw, distantly, and he's pressing his forehead to Martin’s, almost unconsciously, before he even knows it. Like an inevitability. Eyes closed, he takes a deep inhale, and focuses on Knowing. On only Knowing enough.

Everything seems normal, according to the Ceaseless Watcher. Martin is fine, just a scratch and a bump and a bit of an ache.

They both come back a bit shaky.

“That was…” Martin trails off, biting his lip, a bit flushed.

“A bit invasive? I know, I’m sorry,” Jon responds wobbling, coming down from a high he only ever gets from knowledge, pulling back a bit, hand fallen to the place where the side of Martin’s neck meets his shoulder, thumb slotted loosely to his collarbone.

Martin just shakes his head, pupils a bit wide. Jon isn't sure what it means, but he feels bad for leaving Martin in such a state regardless.

(he's always doing this, isn't he? jon will always search and martin will always be there, arms outstretched, the biggest support. and jon will always put him in danger, always take advantage without even meaning to, would fall into his arms just to cause them both to hit the ground, hard.)

Jon brushes his thumb against Martin’s neck, in a way he means to be soothing, and it seems to work, because Martin leans into it, shakes a bit less with each passing moment. “Thank you,” Martin says.

“Of course,” Jon says, a bit stiff, a bit awkward. He thinks he should be the one thanking Martin, really. He should be apologizing to Martin for making him startle and get hurt in the first place. “You're not concussed, by the way.”

“I-I know,” he says, sheepish. “I felt it.”

Jon blinks. “You felt it? Me Knowing?”

He wrings his hands, a bit, looking anywhere but Jon. “Yeah. Might be my tolerance to the statements, or something, but I felt it. I felt, um, I felt you, really, there, in my mind—”

“Oh,” Jon utters, soft, and wonders what that means, really. That's. That's quite intimate, is it not?

Suddenly, the color drains from Martin’s face, eyes looking passed Jon, where he knows there's a clock. “Shit,” he hisses. “I need to go.” He's up off the counter in one motion, dislodging Jon’s hand, scrambling for the files he had brought.

“Ah, yes. Make sure to ice it, alright?” he says, awkwardly, something shifting painfully, tightly in his throat. He doesn't want Martin to leave. His hands twitch, so he runs one through his hair to keep him from doing something stupid, like reaching out, like come back, like stay, like I love you and I miss you and I hate living without you.

“Stop,” Martin says, shaky, hurt in his tone. “Please, just… Stop.”

Jon hurts, and something inside him cracks, a bit. Defensive, snappy, hurt: “Stop what, exactly, Martin?”

“Being so—” he cuts off, shaking his head frustratedly. A beat. “Just, stop looking. Stop finding me.” His voice sounds wrecked, and upset, and pained.

“Okay,” Jon concedes, deciding, resolutely to do anything but that. Something is going on. Something bad. “Okay.” Martin hardens, eyes icy, Lonely. I’m in love with you, he thinks, hopelessly, oh god. I love you and the thought of something happening to you makes me sick. I can't not find you. I can't watch you destroy yourself and turn yourself into parts for a fear entity. I need to do something. I need to keep you safe.

Martin nods, all business again. Cold. The air is still. “Thank you, then.”

Jon, curled in on himself, eyes firmly on the floor, just nods. He hears the door shut.

I’ll fix this.

ii. crossed out

Lukas’ sneaking ability of late is worrying, sure, but it is hardly anything new. He is just one of 14 Powers that Jon tries to keep tabs on at all times, tries to keep in check and almost always fails.

But he can't sit by and do nothing.

On the topic of Powers other than the Lonely, the one who has marked Jon the most, even if it wasn't his first, the one that took him, flesh and blood man and turned him into Archivist, the Beholding has not been happy with the Lonely’s developments. Of course, it is still powerful, still a common fear, still feeding, but the fact that the Lonely has invaded upon its stronghold— its lair— has left it quite displeased. Jon feels it in the Archives sometimes. A discontent of something beyond full comprehension.

“I miss them, too,” he says, quietly, stupidly, because the Beholding only misses all of the people that Peter Lukas “let go” to make this place more empty the same way a farmer misses their escaped livestock that were going to be sent to slaughter.

Why won't you do something about this, Archivist? Jon doesn't-quite-imagine it saying. In the end, all letting the Lonely take over the Institute does is make us - make you - weaker.

And he feels it, the possessiveness, almost. Jon knows he is nothing more than a pawn for the Eye, he's not special, he is simply an enabler stuck in a terrible situation and unsure how to cut himself free while also keeping enough power to save his friends; while also keeping enough power to not feel the aching withdrawal in his bones that comes when he's away from it. He knows it's not healthy and he knows he's not special and it's not a good thing to belong to the Eye or to any entity but he feels the curl in the back of his mind, the possessiveness, and it almost feels like… Jealousy. Jon has been spending too much time doing the Lonely’s bidding and it doesn't seem like the Ceaseless Watcher is happy about it.

They rarely get fresh statements anymore. And while Jon reads the ones they have on file, still, it is not enough to fight the Lonely for hold of the Institute. And Jon is the only person who works in the Archives these days, and there are so many less people in the Institute overall. It's become a space, similar to a pocket of loneliness, an open maw, an abyss. Jon wonders if this place might be becoming vulnerable to the Vast. Knowledge has shifted from priority; Watching. Instead, it's the stifling still air and underlying static. A feeding ground for a different entity.

The Archivist, hungry, resolves to do something about it.

i. you're still right here

He isn’t sure what causes the Archives shift further into the clutches of the Lonely, whether it's due to Martin’s absence from everyone else, or from Martin’s cooperation doing its bidding— but either way, it’s happening and it’s definitely something to do with Martin.

Jon knows that for him, the loneliness, whether or not it’s Loneliness or just the normal kind, roots into his stomach and twines its way around his ribs, choking him, squeezing, caused directly by his absence, rather than his newfound loyalty to another God. He feels Martin's absence like a yawning chasm along his spine, a dull horrendous ache that goes all the way down.

Either way, the Lonely tightens its grasp and Jon is pretty sure everyone in the Institute feels it.

They spend a lot more time together now, which of course is far from immunity - being alone and being lonely can be two very different things, - but it helps. Jon thinks it does, at least. It makes them all feel a bit more safe if nothing else. It’s easier to get lost in the winding, huge, emptiness that is the Archives nowadays if they live separately, after all. And after getting lost a few times, it’s more than enough to push them all together.

Martin may just be one person, but that being: he was still a quarter of the Archives’ regular population. The number going down is brutal. He was also the most talkative— the most willing to reach out— the most emotionally conscious. Jon loves him, and it hurts, and he wants. He just… wants.

And ever since Martin has gone, Jon feels his presence clearly. His Knowing has made the decision to hone in on Martin, and he can feel him wandering Archives, in back rooms, empty offices, or sneaking around the breakroom when he's sure no one’s nearby. It's a gentle prodding on constant. He’ll be reading a statement and his mind will provide, unprompted, oh, Martin just entered the Library. I wonder what he’s looking for. and he’ll recoil, because he didn't even try to Know that, he just does.

It's nice to know he's still okay, though. That he's still around. Even if he’s not accessible. Even if he's not for Jon. Never for Jon.

The little home in his mind manifests to a constant presence and a constant Knowing.

He looks for him, consciously or not, always searching, in the Archives, in the Institute, in his memories, in pieces everywhere, in places Martin would never be. He misses him.

When he tries to follow him, though, to actually reach out physically instead of just in his mind, Martin is always gone as soon as Jon gets there. An empty room. Nothing but Jon and his heartbeat, beat, beat.

So, he focuses on the in-betweens.

They all do what they can to revolt. Jon takes the place of tea provider now that Martin has made himself scarce (but he never makes it for himself. It doesn’t taste right. It never feels right either. Martin has been making him tea for as long as he can remember and it always tastes better when it comes from him, really. Just one of many things that seem magic about Martin. Something special. All the things that are only him and that only he can do). Basira will stiffly recommend Jon books, Melanie drags them out for drinks twice a week, of which Jon almost always orders a water much to her chagrin. (But it means that whenever he does order something alcoholic, it becomes a whole affair with Basira clapping his back and saying “good man!” and Melanie full out whooping).

He feels pathetic and stupid for it, but all he does is sit around and pine like some stricken maiden waiting for their lost love to return from sea. He also feels like a terrible person for being so damn melodramatic over something like this, over his silly little wants in the face of actual apocalypses.

He tries to focus on his work with the Eye and his work on keeping the team safe but he can’t focus, a static flooding his brain and keeping him stagnant and an attempt at using his abilities just draw him to Martin, tell him things like oh, he's drinking tea now, oh, he’s reading a statement, oh, he's sadder than usual today, oh, he saw a butterfly on the way to work this morning and he hasn't stopped thinking about it, oh, oh, you miss him, don't you?

He reads Basira’s books when it gets too much thinking about Martin. When all it is is endless agonizing over someone who begged him to stop, when it feels like an ocean, high tides, rough and choppy and tumultuous, stormy on the horizon. He discovers, through this, that some byproduct of the Beholding is he can now just brush his hands along a book spine and know the summary. And regardless of how many pages, the maximum amount it takes him to get through an entire book is an hour. So. He goes through a lot of books. And when he asks Basira for more recommendations, she looks at him, surprised, like he's trying to pull her leg, and says, “You got through them all already?”

He reads poetry when it’s not enough. When he longs, instead, to be with Martin, rather than think of him. When he is remembering too much, when he is feeling the phantom touch of Martin’s hand on his, hearing his tinkling laugh. When the ocean is too quiet and all he can do is Remember Him. When he is nothing but yearning.

He wonders what Martin would think if Jon told him he started reading poetry. How he'd react. He wants to know. He wants—

He wants Martin. But this will have to do.

Of course it happens one of the times Jon isn't even consciously looking (because he never stops, not really). He tumbles into the breakroom just to find Martin, standing in front of the kettle, head whipping around to meet him. “Jon,” he breathes, sounding genuinely shocked.

“Martin,” Jon responds, and feels like that one word has given away everything, with the weight of how he says it. Oh, it's you. I found you. I've missed you. I love you. Come back, please. I’m dreadfully worried about you. It hurts. The world is scary no matter what but it was more manageable by your side. I thought you might want me once. I had you once. I’m scared you'll never come back.

“I-I can't—” Martin says, eyes wild.

“Wait a moment, please,” Jon asks, and hates the desperation in his voice.

Martin says, “I have to go,” but he won't look Jon in the eyes.

“Please,” he says, sounding more tired now. He knows he's fighting a battle he can't win.

Martin sighs and makes the mistake of looking at him. “Okay,” he says soft, but he doesn't look away, and Jon doesn't either. He wants to close the distance but it feels physically impossible.

Jon breaks eye contact first in fear that if Martin looks long enough he'll do something idiotic, like spill his guts, like close the gap, like hug him, like start crying, like kiss him. If he starts he knows he'll never stop. If he closes the distance he doesn't know how he could ever go back to it ever again. He clears his throat. “I have an ice pack, for you. I picked one up from the store. It's been a bit, so, there's probably not much swelling anymore but. It's been in the fridge. It'll stay in the fridge. If you want it. It's for you.”

(i got it for you. it's always for you. please take it. please.)

He fears that even that has already spilled his guts, a bit.

“Oh,” Martin says, mouth a perfect ‘o’. His lips are blush pink. Jon wants. Ridiculously. Futilely. “You really didn't have to.”

“Yes, I quite know that, Martin.”

“Right,” he says, and his teeth click when he closes his mouth, jaw set and steady. “I, um—”

“We miss y—” Jon starts, brokenly. “We miss your tea. Um, Basira, and Melanie, and, and me. I've tried to make it for them but I never get it quite right. I don't even bother making it for myself, really, it doesn't—” He's making a fool of himself. He might as well strap a neon sign to his chest that lights up in big, electrical red letters: I MISS YOU. “Anyway. Just so. Just so you know.”

“Oh,” Martin says, quieter and sadder, softening further. He has to re-set his jaw to look firmer, to feel firmer, likely. “I am sorry, uh, about that. I…” He fidgets, wrings his hands. Jon wants to still them. He tugs his ear. Jon loves him. “I miss making it, I suppose.” A pause, a heartbeat, a silence that Jon isn't sure what to do with but he tucks the words I miss making it, I suppose in a place right next to his pulse for safe keeping. “I should go. Have, um. Have a good day, Jon.”

“It was nice seeing you, Martin.” Would be nice to see more of you. I miss you.

“Yeah. Yeah, you too, Jon.”

Martin gets a bit better at disguising himself, after that.

Jon can still feel him in the building, the gentle, constant presence in his mind, but the details are fuzzy. Is he in his office or the halls surrounding or a room beside it? It's harder for Jon to pinpoint. It feels like another piece of Martin from his life dissolved, gone.

So he does the next best thing to reach out. He leaves notes.

It becomes a routine, every day when he can, when the Lonely doesn't stretch the Archives out enough to make Martin’s office unreachable, Jon will tape notes to his door. It starts, simply, with I trust you. Don't do anything stupid.

It quickly devolves into something else, into tidbits about his day, about what Melanie and Basira are up to, about the books he's read or the statements. Things they would have talked about, probably, if they were still talking. Sometimes he asks Martin questions. He never gets a response. That's okay. He didn’t expect any. He leaves him fragments of poetry, sometimes. With a: This reminds me of you or a Have you heard of this poet, Martin? I think you would like them.

It takes a long time but eventually the I miss yous start creeping their way in to many of the notes. Jon supposes, really, they were there all along. It just took a while for them to be said explicitly.

He finds himself writing I love you and has to cross it out. That's not how he wants to tell Martin. It doesn't feel right.

At night, when Martin has gone back to his flat (he is the only one who still lives at his own place, remarkably) it's easier for Jon to focus. He still thinks of Martin but without the bits of him that seep into his mind unprompted - courtesy of the Eye, - he can busy himself. And he does. He goes back to wandering the Archives in search of a tool, of some magical pair of scissors to cut them all free.

Losing Martin, when Jon’s head is a little more unclouded, has brought about a sense of urgency to fix. He's lost another one of them to an entity. Martin is in danger. Martin is bearing the brunt of a weight he shouldn't have to carry in the first place, and all by his lonesome, at that. Jon promised he wouldn't let this happen to any of them. He is already running out of time.

He feels hopeless, but he clings to fixing, to saving, finds himself spilling in between cups of cold undrinken coffee and unresponded notes and statements that allude to something, but not enough, just out of reach. He misses Sasha. He misses Tim. He misses Daisy, strangely. He misses Martin. He had something once and he doesn't anymore. Life becomes a blur of static and scrambling panic and want, and want, and want.

ii. crossed out

Between the Beholding’s unease and their lack of archival assistants, field work just seems like the obvious choice.

So Jon starts sneaking out. Lukas has been watching him, lately— that much is evident, but Jon really is only doing his job. The problem is that parts of his job requires follow-ups on statements which oftentimes require talking to people.

He does his best to stick mostly to follow-ups that don't require contact with others’, the checking of certain sites or tracking of certain phenomena and he tries to limit most conversations to the phone. Appeasing two Gods at once is exhausting, but paying the Beholding its attention leaves him on a high, gives him a rush in his veins that he both loathes and craves, always. He's a monster. At least he can't say he's not self-aware.

He does a lot at night, searching for the things that go ‘bump’. Less people are out during the dark, so it makes his connection with the Lonely less complicated. It's also… harder to see, though, leaving him vulnerable.

The days blur into each other, horror and adrenaline, and missing, and distracting from missing, and the things we do when we feel. When we aren't allowed to.

i. you're still right here

After weeks of agonizing over tapes from when it gets dark to nearly the first light, desperately searching for something, anything to save his friends, Jon finds himself on the floor of one of the rooms, practically begging a higher power for help.

I will do anything, he thinks, brokenly. Anything if it means saving them. If it means a safe place for them, a safe life. I'll trade my ribs, my humanity, anything, just don't hurt them anymore. Don't hurt him. Do what you want with me but please, don't hurt them anymore.

He feels a prodding at his mind, intrusive and omniscient, ancient. The feeling he has become more and more familiar with, Knowing.

Knowledge, the Eye says, offers,
as much as an ancient power can really say anything.

An exchange. Knowledge for freedom.

Oh, Jon thinks. Oh.

ii. crossed out

Not all of the missions go well. In fact, most of them don't— if it's a statement worthy of being recorded rather than complete hogwash then, depending on the situation, it's more likely than not that Jon will find Something. And sometimes it's just a room filled with webs or meat or a trap door that when he drops a rock in never hits the bottom, things dangerous but avoidable, but other times, things go very, very badly.

(but jon’s never been good at turning away)

There is a room on the third floor of a certain hotel that exists in a constant state of fire. They keep it unable to be booked and you can't tell from the outside, but when Jon had tried the doorknob, it had burnt his hand. It was worse when he had gotten it open— all flames leading towards him and crackling in a way that sounded like brittle laughter. It had been hot enough Jon’s skin still stings. It feels more like a sunburn than a traditional one, thankfully, but it still hurts and left him frightened. It had singed his clothing and a couple of flames had reached out, licking pieces of his skin.

So, Jon sits in an alley outside the hotel, shaking, burned, trying to collect himself enough to walk home. He knows the longer they go untreated it's probably more likely the worse they'll get, but he doesn't feel like his legs would work now, anyway.

He Knows more than thinks to lay back and elevate his legs, the last thing he needs right now is to go into shock. He's just there, in the alley, eyes closed, steadying himself, willing himself to heal (burns have always been one of the hardest) for… far too long, really, when someone bumps into his legs and sends him into a blur of pain. He groans in it.

For a moment, he's terrified that it's another monster come to hunt him down, to try to stake their claim on the Archivist the way they all try. Stupid, he thinks, I should know by now not to loiter in the dark, not to be out when vulnerable.

But then he hears “Christ!” someone yelps, startled and surprised, “I’m so sorry, are you—” Martin cuts off, Jon can barely make out him squinting in the darkness from the light of one of the hotel windows. “Jon?”

“That is my name, yes,” Jon says, dry, but the strain is audible. He moves himself to sit, leaning against the brick,

“Oh God,” Martin says, kneeling now, looking him over. “What happened to you?”

“I got burnt,” he says sarcastically.

Martin huffs. “Thank you, Jon, but since you're seemingly not aware, I do have eyes.” Martin grabs his hand gently, a movement Jon is so used to that he doesn't even try to pull away. A hiss of pained air escapes him. Martin’s eyes soften. “You don't need to tell me what you did, but please, please let me help you. You need to go to hospital, Jon.”

The thought of doctors checking him up and down makes him want to vomit. The fear: he's severely injured, weak, vulnerable, still human. The greater fear: he's not. Jon shakes his head vigorously. “N-No, no I can't, I can't, Martin—”

“Then we’re going to my flat,” he snaps, leaving know room for argument, eyes ablaze and determined when he looks at Jon directly. “Look, you're in no state to fight me on this— you don't, you don't even have to come inside, although it would be more convenient, but I live just down the road and you need medical attention as soon as possible. That's a second-degree burn on your hand, Jon. You're lucky I'm not dialing 999 as we speak.”

Jon concedes, because it hurts, the burn on his hand and the tightening in his chest. It hurts.

Martin helps lift him, and his body burns, white hot and abominable. Martin takes as much time as they can, an apologetic look as he jostles Jon, but he supports him with as much care as he can in their situation.

Down the street, Jon closes his eyes, trying to keep his mind anywhere but the pain, and imagines a world where they’re walking home together, two scrambling men in alleyways and down darkened streets going to Martin’s, going home, following the lamplight, the candle in the window, rather than two not-quite-people who have lost so much, heading to a flat because the monster had been exploring the paranormal. Because more-human, heart-too-big Martin is left to take care of him again.

He likes that thought better. The one he can't have the most.

They walk in silence, tumbling up the stairs of Martin’s apartment building. Jon is grateful for the late hour of night. It's not likely for any other tenants to leave their rooms and see Martin treating a strange, singed man in the middle of the hallway. The lights in the hallway glow a sickly yellow that hurts Jon’s head. He still lives in the same building, he realizes belatedly.

Jon must be more out of it than he thought because he doesn't realize that Martin has gone until he's back. “Okay,” he says, inhaling, and Jon notices for the first time that night that Martin is shaking. That he's pale. Worried. Jon wants to smooth down the crease between his brows, to kiss away the shake in his knuckles. He wants to take everything that's burdening him away. He wants to reverse time and never walk back into that coffee shop, because Martin was supposed to be far away from this, living his life free of the paranormal, free of danger, free of worry, free of Jon. “Since you're a stubborn arse, we’re gonna have to do this the hard way. I have compresses. Where. Um, where does it hurt, other than your hand?”

Jon blinks. Tries to tell. But everywhere stings, a bit. His hand the most, so he tries to use that as a gauge, although nothing quite hurts that much: “My ankle and calf on my right leg and also the bridge of my nose.”

“Okay,” Martin says, nodding shakily. “Okay.” It's soft, but his face says, helplessly, oh Jon, what have you gotten yourself into now? “You're okay if I move your clothing a bit?” Jon nods, and Martin, soft, hesitant, rolls up the cuff of Jon’s pants and places two compresses there. He places one in Jon’s uninjured hand. “Okay, hold that to your nose, and let me know when the pain subsides, yeah?” He places one in his injured hand and Jon winces. It stings, hurts like I love you and all I want to do is tell you. All I want to do is be with you. You're all I want. “That one needs to stay for 15 minutes.”

They sit in silence— Jon’s first-degree burns stop hurting quickly, probably some sort of evil healing power, and Martin gets to work applying a type of ointment and bandage. There's not much to be done for his nose and cheeks, though Martin tries, but Jon doubts they'll be a problem for long anyway. He realizes distantly, bitterly that both his hands will have burn scars now. He wants to laugh. What's more a sign of getting too close than that? “You'll have to redo the ointment,” he says, simply. Quiet. “Just. Just take mine, before you leave.”

By the time that's done, Martin moves onto applying a mass of bandage and gauze to his hand.

Martin looks at him speculatively, dozens of questions hiding just behind his lips, but he doesn't ask. Jon thinks that, if he did, now, he wouldn't be able to keep from answering. He's glad he doesn't.

“Jon—”

“I should go,” he says, clambering painfully to his feet, swaying a bit.

“Are you sure that's—” Martin starts, immediately standing, steadying him. “I really don't think—”

“I need to go, Martin,” he says, miserably. It hurts. Something inside him feels like it's tearing, splitting, fibers disconnecting roughly.

Jon shrugs his hands off. “Thank you. I've troubled you quite enough.” Martin makes a grab for his wrist and it takes everything in Jon to pull it away. “I need to go.”

“Jon! Jon!” Martin calls after him, following, but Jon turns a corner and. One moment he's there, and the next, Jon watches as Martin looks around, frantic and confused. Ah. He can't see him.

If Jon stands and waits, invisible, until Martin, face fallen and crumpled and sad, turns back and walks to his apartment, well. No one else needs to know.

His hand hurts.

i. you're still right here

“Jon,” Martin sighs, tired, rubbing his temples. Jon fidgets, standing across from him, the other side of his desk. Oh how the table turns. "I thought I—"

"Have you been getting my notes?" Do you know me? Do you know how I've been feeling?

A pause. Martin draws a little pattern on his desk with his finger. "Yeah," he says, softly. Clears his throat. "Yeah, what about them?" He still won't lift his eyes from the grain of the desk.

"I—" Jon chokes. For someone who can read a thousand languages, who commits himself to reading words and learning their meanings, he struggles with his own. "I miss you."

"Jon," Martin says, sounding wounded, looking wounded. "You know I can't."

Jon nods, says, voice watery. "Right, of course. Surely."

"Was that all?" Martin asks sadly.

"Yes," he says, quiet. Moves to leave, but when he gets to the door, hand on the knob, every part of him protests. His heart feels a tug, a squeeze, a need to stay in the room. To stay with Martin. Jon takes in a shaky breath and steels himself. This is probably not going to go the way he wants it to but well, it needs to be said.

"Jon?" Martin calls from behind him, sounding uneasy. "Is, is the door stuck?"

Jon whips around. "Okay, Martin. You want to know why I'm really here? I'm tired of this. I'm keeping my distance, because I trust that you know what you're doing. I trust you. But I will be frank and say that I do not trust Peter Lukas or the Lonely and I know that the easiest way to keep us in submission is to separate and isolate us, and that taking you was the most successful way of doing that. I'm sure you have your reasons, but that doesn't mean that— that—" he falters for the first time, the anger and desperation and worry carrying him through, leaving him winded. "I can't lose you, alright? We've all lost so much already and I can't lose you. So you better damn well know what you're doing."

If Martin says anything, Jon doesn't hear it, the blood rushing in his hears too loud. He does, however, keep eye contact for a solid few seconds before he walks out, head high, and closes the door behind him with a sharp click.

He slumps on the wall outside, shaking, and hopes to God Martin listens.

ii. crossed out

It keeps happening.

Martin keeps finding him in alleys, backroads, on park benches outside closed shops. Like some sort of sixth sense, Martin is right there when he needs him. He almost always has been.

After the second time, Martin starts carrying a first aid kit on his person at all times and Jon, desperately, wants to tell him stop, stop trying to help me, stop succeeding at helping me, turn around and forget you ever saw me, run far, far away from me. from this. you could have a better life but also please never leave, please never look anywhere else, please stay here, you and me, forever. i love you. i would do anything for you. and also but i need you safe. i wish things could be different. id do anything for them to be different.

And he does protest, at first, a broken record of Martin, this is too much trouble, really, you’ve done enoughs and I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myselfs and the less frequent you should leave. Please stop doing this. Please take care of yourself. Worry about yourself. There are better things for you to be doing. Please stop finding mes. But Martin, as Martin always does, persists.

The day he stops protesting is a particularly bad one.

Sometimes, field work is a bust. More often than not, it's because the statement Jon is doing a follow-up on has gone a little stale and a place that once housed something supernatural has been vacated in favor of a new location. This means that while these cases do much less to sate him and the Eye, they are usually fairly safe. Almost always, really.

Almost.

Old houses are unpredictable, and sometimes the degree to which a place is weathered isn't as apparent by just a glance, so when Jon takes a step onto the second to last step of the stairs, he doesn't realize the rot right beneath his feet until it has already fallen through. A sickening crunch, a sharp pain in his wrist, in his knee, and a dull ache everywhere else. He's scraped up his palms pretty bad, likely cut some parts of his body on the rough wood, and he’s fairly sure his hand isn't supposed to bend like that. He's only thankful the staircase hadn't gone higher than it did.

He sucks in a sharp breath and hobbles out of the building, knee aching. He thinks he landed on a loose nail. It had been a rough landing— the abandoned house full of rubble. It hurts. Every piece of his body feels rife with ache, like Jon is the house; is the rubble.

He barely makes it out of the house, clutching his side, when he collapses again.

“We have got to stop meeting like this,” Martin says, and Jon looks up in the dark, he thinks the man is scowling— not in a way that implies disgust, really, but one of displeasure, of sadness, disappointment; grief.

Jon gives him a wry smile. “Hey there, Martin,” he grunts, loose lipped from pain. That's not good. The world is blurry.

“Christ alive, Jon. Can you not stay safe for once? It's like you come out here at night looking to be hurt,” Martin chastises, but rather than angry, his voice comes out shaky and almost pained.

“Are you okay?” Jon asks, a bit slurred.

“Am I okay? Yes, Jon. I'm not the one with debris buried in at least three spots of their body,” he snaps, but he's still shaky. The world spins and Jon realizes late that Martin has shifted his position to a less painful one. He hears a sharp intake of breath.

“How bad is it?”

“Not— not that bad,” Martin says, but he sounds like he's trying to convince himself as well as Jon. “Not good, but it doesn't seem like anything that won't heal has been injured.”

Jon nods and regrets it. He feels funny.

“Can I— sorry, but— can I— um, I need to lift up your shirt to treat you,” Martin stumbles.

“That's okay,” Jon says honestly.

“Okay,” Martin says, so quiet Jon barely hears. He gets to work, and there is something small stuck right below his ribs, and something in his thigh, and another above his knee and of course, his hands are roughed up. But he's alive, and he'll likely be fine, so Jon takes it as a win.

Martin goes about the whole ordeal, meticulously removing pieces of rock from his skin, cleaning and bandaging it, chastising Jon the whole time. He still sounds scared and Jon hates the tremor in his voice. He wants to put it in a bottle and throw it into the sea.

(give me your worries, he thinks. let me take them all. let me carry them. those burdens aren't for you.)

Martin gets to the nail impaled in his thigh and Jon shifts in pain, groaning, hands curling into fists.

Martin makes a sad noise and says, “You're doing so well, Jon, this is the last one. Talk to me, yeah? Talk to me.” Stay with me. Let me know you're still here. You're still breathing. Still conscious. Still safe. Stay with me. Talk about something, anything, because talking lessens the pain.

“Talk about what?” Jon asks, strained.

“Anything, Jon,” Martin says, honest, “Anything. I’d listen— I, I will listen.”

“This was stupid of me, wasn't it?” Jon laughs hollowly. “If I had just been better at keeping everyone safe I wouldn't have to do this all alone.”

Martin blinks at him owlishly. “What?”

Jon ignores the urge to run. He doesn't think he could if he tried. He's right. He is incredibly stupid. Martin is allowed to know this. “Forget it. Please.”

Martin looks at him, like he can read him like a book, like someone looks like a butterfly pinned, displayed behind glass. Jon wonders if this is what being compelled feels like, but quickly discards it, because that's something terrible monsters do— he does— and spilling his guts to Martin, even when he doesn't want to or isn't supposed to, is something natural. Something he is never forced into but always finds himself doing anyway.

“Talk about something else then,” Martin says, simply. “The first thing that comes to mind.”

I love you, comes rushing to the forefront of his brain. So much has changed since you've gone. And yet, it has all been a haze, nothing stands out. It is just fog, static, sadness. It feels like I have an abyss, a swirling, yawning, thing that starts at the base of my neck and follows my spine all the way down, leaving spiderwebbing cracks in its wake.

“When I was younger,” Jon starts, breathing heavily, “My grandmother and I used to go to the farmer’s market every few weeks, and she would let me pick out whatever I wanted, detailing how she could use it to make food for me. She had always wanted to teach me to cook, but, never got around it, I was too— fuck.” Jon cries out in pain as the nail is ripped from his body.

“You did so good, Jon. That was a lovely story,” Martin says, soft, honest. He touches a cold hand to Jon’s clammy cheek, just a brush of knuckles. “Sorry for interrupting.”

Jon’s eyes are still screwed shut in pain and life is swinging wildly back and forth between seeming real and fake.

“This is gonna sting,” Martin informs him just a moment before dabbing rubbing alcohol onto a cotton swab and cleaning the wound. Jon swallows back a noise he feels would have been wrecked. He bandages it gently after with deft, capable, soft but calloused hands. “You're all done.”

“Thank you sweetheart,” Jon says blearily. Martin looks at him, mouth agape, eyes wide, cheeks slowly deepening into a sweeping red that looks lovely. One of Jon’s favorite sights. One he hasn't seen in a while. When his mind catches up with a brain, his heart drops out of his body. He feels himself starting to sweat again. “I-I mean—”

“You've called me that before,” Martin says, like he's fighting a headache. “Not here. You've called me that before, but not in… But not. Not in this. This Life. How is that possible? How have you called me that and yet not? How—”

“Martin,” Jon says, despairingly, helpless, desperate. “That's not—”

Martin sighs, shaking his head. Jon wants desperately wants to reach out. His hands hurt like I love you and all I want to do is tell you. All I want to do is be with you. You're all I want. “No, you're right, that's impossible. I'm being silly. It's, it's been a long day.” The smile he sends Jon is sad and something in him breaks. He wants to leave and never come back. He wants to pull Martin into his arms and never let go. He wants to protect him, just in two different directions that are always tugging.

Jon doesn't know what to say so they sit there for a while until he feels a bit less woozy. Martin doesn't protest when he leaves but Jon knows he doesn't look away from his retreating back once.

Martin is going to, somehow, find him anyway. It's not even on purpose. He's going to find him. Jon should at least be as kind as he can. Martin has been through enough.

i. you're still right here

If it means keeping them safe, it's worth it. If it means keeping them safe, he'll do it. Even if it means he'll be alone forever. Even if it means completely ridding himself of trust. Being haunted. Being the sole keeper of something. Having something, and losing something, and not having it anymore. Love, loss, and the place those two things intersect right between his ribs.

It's a big choice and it's one he probably shouldn't make on his own but Jon has never been very good at sharing things. At asking for feedback. For help. It takes him a long time to deliberate whether or not it's worth it and— well, at this point, Jon assumes that for most of them almost anything is worth it for freedom, isn't it? For safety? It's worth it to him. Keeping his friends safe is worth a high cost and Jon. Jon is only going to help paying it, really, he supposes.

They should get to make their own decisions but now that he knows there's a way out he's not sure he could stand letting any of them not take it.

So even though it's not his choice, it is his fault, and it's his job to make it right, to fix it, he needs to fix it, to keep him safe, to keep them safe, the way he has failed over and over again to do—

But then the incident with the Dark happens, where the Forever Blind invades the Institute and Jon defends them, fends it off and is even able to destroy their core.

And then Martin is back. And things get so much more complicated.

There are two steaming mugs on his desk when Jon walks into his office after lunch. A sight he hasn't seen in… weeks, or more? More importantly, though, somehow almost blending into the background of his office and crisply visible all at once, is Martin, sitting in the chair across from his.

“Martin,” Jon says, breathless, surprised.

“Hello,” Martin says, almost chipper, like it's ordinary. Like he never left. Like he's been just a room away, at his old desk this whole time, or simply gone making tea in the break room for five minutes. “Uh, sit, please?” he asks, gesturing to Jon’s seat across from him. Jon takes it, wearily, suspicious. Martin’s face falls for a minute but he quickly schools it. A flash of something else and then gone.

“Not that I'm not—” delightedecstaticrelievedsoothed “...pleased, ah, pleased to see you, Martin, but, but what—”

“Basira told me what happened. About what happened last night when the Dark attacked you lot.”

“Ah,” Jon responds simply.

“I think we need to talk,” he says, hands shifting nervously around his tea. Jon wants to still them. Jon, miraculous and terrifying, wants to hold them. They're nice hands.

(there's so much he wants to talk about. there's so much they don't talk about.)

“Of course Martin,” he's quick to say. “Of course, I’m always here, I always want to listen.”

“I thought a lot about what you said,” Martin blurts, like he can't contain the words. “And it made me think about what's really important to me and what I think, what I think will actually help keep everyone safe, keep you safe, and I don't— I was so close, to it being too late, but— that wasn't the way to do it. I-I’ve always hated when you rush into things on your own, head first, it feels like you're going out of your way to put me in an early grave and I just— I've been doing a lot of thinking about loss. About what I've lost and what you've lost and what we've all lost but— but, um, but also what we haven't lost yet, probably, definitely, and just— you're not something I want to lose.

“And I, I don't think I’m something I want to lose either? Maybe? It's so foggy, the Lonely, and while it was still me— all the bitterest, most petty, sad and mottled parts, while all that was still me, the distancing and the mean words— it was those parts of me? And, and it was like the rest of me just… poof." He pauses here, taking a shuddering breath. “Gone. Washed away with the static. And… for as much as Lonely felt safe, in a twisted way, it wasn't. It didn't feel like living and I don't. Um. I don't think it was worth it. I don't think I should do it,” he finishes lamely. He smiles crookedly, in a way that's half self-deprecating, but also half-hopeful. “Besides, someone needs to be here to keep you from doing something stupid.”

It's so soft it makes his heart ache and Jon— Jon wants, suddenly, unusually - or not that unusually, not at all, not when it comes to Martin, - to spill his guts. Wants to say I missed you so much. I can't believe this is real. I want you safe. I want you better. I don't want you alone. If anyone deserves support it is you. I can't even dare to hope that you're back. I want you safe, did I say so already? It feels important. It is important. The most important. I want to keep you and the others safe so badly that I think I’m about to end up doing something horrible, probably. You mean everything to me. You have made life bearable, and when the apocalypse - the End of the World, the End of All things - is ever looming on the horizon and awful becomes the new norm that means more than I could ever possibly say.

Instead, he says something worse, impossible as it may seem.

“I love you,” he says, and even as the words have tumbled from his mouth without his permission, they sound steady. Jon sounds more sure than he ever has in his life. Jon is more sure of it than he ever has been in his life. For as impossibly complicated and muddled as Jon’s emotions almost always feel, being in love with Martin just feels like a given. An inevitability. He always would have loved Martin. How could he not?

Jon, even with all his eyes, can’t bring himself to make eye contact. His face feels like it's on fire. His skin feels like it's on fire. His blood pumps through his veins loud and unrelenting and his heart feels like a rush in his ears. He chances a glance up and sees Martin, mouth hanging open, gawking, flapping uselessly. Throat dry, he forces out, refusing to eat his words but feeling a need for explanation: “I-I mean— that is to say— you can pretend I never said that. I mean it's true, but, but I, I’m just so happy you’re back, Martin, and I got a bit carried away, and I, I’ve wanted you to know, but it's okay if you don't—”

“Me too,” Martin says, rough, a rush. He's so red Jon almost feels bad but it's— it's Martin, finally so close, finally looking something other than sad. Jon could reach out and touch him if he wanted. He feels more at ease than he has in what feels like an innumerable amount of days.

“Pardon?”

“Me too. Um, I do too, you know, I— God, I can't believe you said it first. That's just not fair, do you know how long I've— how much I've wanted—” He's a blur of words and gesticulating hands but also bright, bright eyes and winning smiles, and the pounding of Jon’s heart makes him very aware that he is alive. It goes crazyfast but less from nerves, this time, and more from Martin. His existence, across from him. Rosy and grinning. Just… Just a happy Martin. Just Martin, in general.

“I don't really understand what you're trying to say,” Jon says, honestly, but even so he can't help the soft grin that plays on his lips. Martin, close. Martin, smiling and safe and happy, for a while. Martin, and him. Together.

“Jon,” Martin tuts, going for monotone, serious, comically deadpan, but it's ruined by the way his grin seeps into his voice. It's so wonderfully Martin. “I'm in love with you. Unbearably so. For— for so long, I don't even remember how long, these days, it feels like I was born with this— with this love for you— like it was there all along I just had to find you.” He’s blushing madly, but he makes fierce eye contact, as if challenging Jon to refute him, to scoff and call him corny.

Instead, Jon is flustered into silence, biting back a grin in what he's sure is an unsuccessful manner. “God, Martin, I'm— I don't even—” he trails off. “God.”

Martin fidgets with a lose string on his sweater sleeve. “Very eloquent, Jon,” he says, smiling shyly. “Did you. Did you mean it?” It comes out equally shy. So quiet.

Jon grabs his hand and stops his fidgeting, leaves no room for worry or doubt, and meets Martin’s gaze with equal intensity. “I meant it. I mean it. I love you, Martin. I love you, I love you, oh, I, I love you, I.” He says, helplessly, so unspeakably soft, because now that it's out, it feels good and right and now that he's said it, he never wants to stop, especially if Martin keeps smiling like that, keeps looking at him like that, so awed, like he's won the lottery, like Jon has handed him the universe when really he has just handed him his heart, a dilapidated unspecial thing.

“I want to kiss you,” Martin blurts. “I want—”

Jon pulls him in by his shirt collar and doesn't let go, feels Martin’s pulse against his fingertips, a reminder that he is alive and safe and right there, under his hand, against his lips. Their noses bump awkwardly, on the verge of painful, and it's a terrible angle over a desk, a desperate, passionate thing, a dam of want and yearning and pining and missing all breaking when Jon pulls him close the way he's wanted to since he left, since. Since much, much before really. It's objectively an awful kiss. Jon wouldn't change a thing.

Martin is laughing too much and Jon is smiling, all teeth, too much for it to be much of a kiss, much more than a chaste brush of lips, but it makes his heart so warm and liquified that he can't find it in him much to care. “Jon—” Martin giggles, awed, breathless, lovely, lovely Martin, “Jon—” Jon pulls away, begrudgingly. “Let's do this right, now, okay?” And then Martin is out of his chair, and around his desk, and leaning down so he's level with Jon and— oh. Oh.

That is much better.

Martin’s hand is on his neck, gentle and firm and guiding, and the other is clutched in the front of Jon’s turtleneck, as if he's afraid Jon will disappear if he doesn't hold, and the press of his lips is so, so soft but insistent, wanting and Jon— Jon doesn't think he wants to do anything but this, ever again. Jon could die happy. Or maybe not, because maybe he needs to kiss Martin again, for eternity. His hands find their place on Martin’s back and gently planted in his hair and he sighs, kissing back eagerly but gentle. He tries to say everything he fails to with words. Tries to convey every bit of love and need and terrible, awful yearning. Every wonderful bit of care, as well. Everything. Martin makes a noise high in his throat - surprise, maybe, but pleasantly - that Jon wants to hear again and again. He muffles it against his lips, wanting to keep it, and the way their lips slot together is perfect— feels like home, like comfort, like safety. Like being with Martin amplified.

“I love you,” Martin says when they break for air. He presses his lips to his temple, his ear, his brows, his eyelids, the slope of his nose, his jaw, the corner of his mouth, and punctuates each with “I love you.”

It's coming home. They're both crying and hugging and happy.

(if only that could be the ending. if only it could've all been wrapped up there, in a nice bow, hopeful. They Lived Happily Ever After And The Power Of Their Love Conquered All. if only.)

ii. crossed out

Jon, paranoid as he is, starts digging through his mind for explanations of how he and Martin keep meeting.

It feels like something pushing them together, like they're meant to orbit each other, to find each other and be found. A terrible part of him thinks maybe it's the Web. It does have an original claim on him, in a sick way. Maybe it's jealous of the Lonely as well.

But the whole reason Jon is playing the part of good little Lonely pawn is because Peter Lukas had promised all of them protection and wouldn't the Web influencing Martin count as breaking that?

Maybe it's simply coincidence, although the chances of that are near astronomical. Jon loves it and hates it. Misses Martin: wants him close and far away all at once.

i. you're still right here

“You didn't used to live here,” Jon states dumbly, peering around the little flat.

“Oh, really Jon? I wasn't aware,” Martin says, completely soft, the sarcasm barely seeping through. There's a little smile painting his face and there's a sparkle in his eyes even as he rolls them at the other man. Jon, for his part, can repress his smile for just about long enough to glare at Martin. “This is your first time visiting the new place, yeah?”

Jon nods, breathing in heavily. “Mm, when Tim started growing distant, none of us really— anymore— y’know?” Martin nods, a bit sad. “Why? Has everyone else seen it already?”

Martin tilts his head a bit. “I think I had the girls over for drinks at one point? I don't know, things are— are fuzzy, lately.”

Jon wants to comfort him, and realizes, delighted, overjoyed, that he can try. He's allowed to do that now. He places a gentle hand on Martin’s shoulder, who jumps a bit and whips to face Jon, blushing a little in that lovely Martin way. He sends him a small appreciative smile, wringing his hands.

“So,” Jon prompts.

“Oh, right! Dinner,” Martin says, brought back to the task at hand. “Of course, let me just—” And then he's gone, skittering away to the kitchen. Jon’s hand misses the contact and warmth.

Jon stands, unsure of what to do in Martin's space sans Martin. He has art all over his walls and scrawling lines of poetry hanging around in crannies. There are plants scattered throughout the entire room, on the coffee table, the telly stand, windowsills and bookshelves. Books are stacked neatly on his table but there are pens and scraps of paper all strewn out and Jon’s heart swells, a bit. It looks lived in. Loved. But Jon supposed that really seems to be the case with everything Martin touches, really. Color and light seem to follow him everywhere he goes.

He can't really imagine this place feeling dull and grey and lifeless, feeling Lonely, but he's sure having such a nice sanctuary honestly probably just made Martin feel even more like there was no point in leaving, when he was safe and comfortable and drifting. Just barely living. Just being pulled with the tide, not getting swept under but not fighting to go in the right direction either.

It fills him with a sort of sadness that makes him feel waterlogged.

He walks into the kitchen, gentle steps but hopefully enough noise that it won't surprise Martin.

“Oh! Jon!” Martin says, eyes shining, looking delighted in a way that makes it seem like Jon has been gone for weeks rather than just in the other room. He supposes, in some senses, that's true. “Did you need something?”

“Ah, I was actually wondering if you would like a hand,” Jon asks, smiling, feeling a bit sheepish.

“Can you cut those peppers for me, actually?” Jon nods, practically tripping over his feet to get to the cutting board. To make himself useful. To help. “Thanks, Jon,” Martin says, and his smile has turned to something soft.

Jon, smiling like a fool, says, “Of course, Martin,” and means Anything for you. I’m glad you're back. I missed you. They leave so many things unsaid.

They cook in comfortable silence and it all feels so terribly domestic, so abhorrently comfortable that Jon can barely stand it. It just feels.. right. Like this is where he's supposed to be. Feels like somewhere he can relax, for once. Somewhere he doesn't have to worry about the world outside for at least a bit.

Jon wonders if this is what it feels like to be home.

When they bring the food to the table and Jon tucks in, he smiles. “This is amazing, Martin,” he says, meaning This is amazing. You're amazing. Is there anything you can't do?.

Martin, looking flustered, scratches his neck. “It's just a stir fry. Nothing special.”

“It's perfect.”

And maybe— a terrible part of him whispers, small with clenched fists, small and vulnerable, small and human— maybe Jon is allowed to have this. To be happy, for a bit. Maybe it's okay.

But maybe not. It feels selfish, after what is going on around them. After everyone has lost so much, and a lot of it has been due to Jon’s inadequacy or callousness. Does he deserve to be this happy? Is it okay to be this happy, even if he doesn't deserve it? If the universe really does have some sort of natural balance, this is surely going to be pulled away from him anyway—

“Jon?” Martin asks, quiet, concerned. “Hey,” so unbearably soft, “Jon,” Jon doesn't outright refuse to look up, it feels like he can't, fists curled in his lap. Martin makes an unhappy noise and says, “Darling.”

Jon’s head snaps up, which makes a soft smile cover the other man’s face even if his eyes are still saying I am worried for you because I care about you are you okay.

“I just—” his voice cracks embarrassingly. “I’m just not sure how to let myself be this happy, I think,” he says, smiling painfully. “Because I am happy. You make me really happy, I just don't feel like I deserve—” He leaves it hanging there, unfinished.

He doesn't even notice his eyes falling again until they are already fixated firmly on his lap. “Can I touch you?” Martin asks, closer than before.

Jon nods stiffly, says slowly and deliberately, “Always.”

Martin grabs his chin gently and raises it, making eye contact, eyes soft and determined. “After all we've been through, Jon, I think we all deserve a little happiness? We all— we all deserved that, even if we didn’t all get it. Just because we got the opportunity to be a little happy in the face of some terrible things doesn't mean we should feel guilty. It's not our fault. We didn't choose any of this— all we can choose is what we do with it. And, and I honestly think it's pointless choosing to not live our lives when we've been given the chance that… some people haven't been, really.”

Jon isn't fully convinced, but he looks at Martin, all caring eyes and round cheeks and freckles and doesn't want to fight it, not enough. It doesn't get rid of that terrible self-sabotaging twist in his chest, but it does dull its roar, if only for a little while. Martin isn't something he wants to lose. He wants to be happy with him. He wants to give him happiness in return. He allows himself to lean into his hand.

“Ah,” a pause, “I love you,” he says, soft and languid, like they have forever. Like he'll be able to say this over and over again, for eternity. He really hopes that's the case, but he also knows he needs to take every day for what it is— another chance at life, to live, and what might always, very very possibly, be his last chance.

And though words are hard, loving Martin is easy. And though words are hard, letting those ones spill out, easy as water fills from a tipped glass, it's worth it to see Martin’s reaction, sharp intake of air, eyes wide and face flushed, quickly ducking his face, averting his eyes, but not removing his warm warm hand from Jon’s cheek, not even wavering once. It's a beautiful sight. Jon wants to dedicate the rest of his life to making Martin blush like this. He slowly and deliberately wraps his own fingers gently around the man’s wrist and presses his lips against the open palm on his cheek, leaving a kiss there. “Pretty,” he murmurs into the skin.

“Jon,” Martin says, a strangled noise. Jon grins, which he's sure Martin can feel against his hand.

“Yes, love?”

Martin makes another noise, high in his throat. He takes his unoccupied hand through the waves atop his head, swallowing. “You can't just—” his voice comes out weird. Throat cleared, he tries again: “You can't just— just say things like that and do things like that, Christ, Jon, you're going to murder me.”

“I'm so sorry for assuming that I would be able to do more romantic things with my boyfriend,” Jon says, sarcastically.

He expects Martin’s petulant rebuttal, pouty and petty and cute, but instead he gets a pleasantly unexpected starstruck look, Martin blushing all the way down his neck, meeting his eyes unafraid, looking a bit like he's struggling to breathe; a bit like he's gotten everything he's ever wanted. “God,” he says, laugh bubbling out of him and into the world. “I don't know how I’ll ever get used to that.”

Jon, feeling a bit like the wind has been knocked out of him, a bit starstruck himself, breathes, “Well,” a heartbeat, a clock tick, “We have plenty of time.”

“We do,” Martin says, smile making its way into his voice. He strikes his thumb against Jon’s cheekbone. “I love you too.”

Then Jon is surging forward to kiss him, and it's all wonderfully awkward angles and Martin’s giggling into the air and colliding limbs and teeth and they are happy, they're so unbearably, unfathomably happy.

ii. crossed out

The thing about vampires: They suck blood. Jon knows this. Jon has prepared accordingly. He had a plan.

The thing about plans, when the supernatural is in the picture: they often go awry. Specifically when it's Jon, it seems. Even when the end goal is accomplished, there are mistakes along the way and sometimes it's very hard to convince him the ends justify the means.

This is how Jon ends up slumped against a crying Martin, dragging him back to his flat as he bleeds out. The world is a dizzying blurry mess around him and under any usual circumstances he would protest because this was his one job, to keep Martin safe, to stay away, but his mouth won't work— feels like his throat is made of sludge. So he goes without protest, doing his best to use his legs to make the weight easier on Martin, but, well. His body does not feel real.

A part of him is extremely panicked by this. Not because he fears death, not really, not anymore, but because it reminds him of how the Unknowing had felt, all jumbled and confused and being unable to do anything he needed to. Helpless and terrifying in the most bizarre of ways. But Martin is by his side, a solid warmth, and he feels real.

Jon doesn't even remember getting to the bed by the time he's there.

Martin works quietly and quivering. There's an urgency to his hands as he applies pressure and bandages Jon’s neck. It's less of a cut so at least he won't have to steady a hand for stitches, but Jon knows he's lost a lot of blood and has also probably gushed it everywhere and he's embarrassed, distantly, but he's having a hard time focusing on anything really. Even the sharp pain on his neck feels distant. He knows it's bad because Martin hasn't chastised him once so far.

“’M sorry for making you cry,” he murmurs after the bandage is secured, wanting to reach a hand out, but the strength is simply not there. “Can I help?”

“Can you— maybe focus on not bleeding out on my bed.” He laughs wetly, bitterly. He sounds tired, bloody hands raking through his hair. Jon feels a twinge of guilt, a wrack of it really, at staining Martin’s hands all over again. At getting him involved. At showing him something he will never unsee.

“I’m sorry,” Jon says, with a sense of despair he's not sure he's ever heard come out of his own mouth more than he can count on one hand. I’m sorry for ruining your life before. I’m sorry for ruining it again. I’m sorry I can never stay safe and it has always been your job to pick up the pieces. I want to stop that. I’m sorry you're involved again. I’m sorry about the blood on your bed and under your fingernails, the type that never fully comes out no matter how hard you scrub, and for the same stain that will sit on the back of your eyelids if you stare hard enough. I’m sorry for all of it.

“Then stop,” Martin says, pressing trembling hand to his forehead. “Stop being so reckless. I lo—I appreciate— I'm happy I keep finding you, but. Stop making me find you in this state. Stop making me worried. Stop scaring me like this and leaving me confused because, because Jon, there is no way these marks were caused by a human but I don't know what animal could have done it.” He pushes the same hand into Jon’s unruly hair, and scratches just barely against Jon’s scalp. Jon nearly makes a content noise, nearly curls into it, nearly closes his eyes and sleeps forever with Martin so close, all he needs to be happy. He could have done that once. He feels a sudden wave of anger, bitter as wormwood and clove, take over him.

He can't promise stopping, although he wishes he could. He feels heavy. He wants Martin to stop finding him like this. He wish they could court each other normally. That will never be a possibility, though, he knows. Instead, he says: “Do you think it'll be okay?” blearily, eyes barely staying open.

Martin hums, hands still carding through Jon’s hair. It's a sad little sound, but considering. Jon knows he's won— Martin will answer and he won't push. Something in his chest presses down further, becoming heavier still. He should be relieved, though, he knows this. He’ll convince himself he is tomorrow. He can have tonight. “I’m not sure but I-I, I think. I hope. It's terrible, really. I was so worried and I still am. There was— was so much blood, I don't think I've ever seen so much in my life, but I did everything I could and it seems like the bleeding has stopped and you responding so coherently is a very, very good sign, so. So. I am slightly less scared.” His smile is wobbly, askew, tired, but genuine and hopeful. Jon knows he'll be fine. He'll probably be healed with a few hours sleep, he knows. The Eye won't let him suffer for long.

“Thank you,” Jon sighs quietly, little more than a small gust of breath from his lips. His eyes threaten to flutter close but he forces them to stay open. He has tonight. Tomorrow things go back to being hard and Martin goes back to being Future Martin, Safe Martin, very much Not His Martin, so tonight is important. Tonight he can have this. Just this one thing. Just this once. Just for now.

“You know you don't have to stay up for me, right?” Martin asks, which is a sweet but incredibly misguided notion. Jon snorts and the motion sends a stinging pain down his spine. He groans.

“I know. I'm not. I'm—” staying up for me. For incredibly selfish purposes. To pretend everything is normal, well, “normal”, and you're still mine. And we're okay. And it's okay for me to be with you. To have you. He flounders a bit, gives up. “The place looks the same.”

Martin scrunches his nose, disapproving and confused. “What place?”

Jon makes a vague gesture with his hand, before it stills, choppily, because the blood loss and adrenaline of the night had made him forget he's not supposed to have ever seen this place before. And it would be pretty creepy for him to know a place he hasn't been, the inside of Martin's apartment, for Christ’s sake. He just shakes his head.

It is, though. It's almost exactly the same. It would be easy to convince himself that nothing had changed, if he wanted. He is just bleeding out on his boyfriend’s bed after being stupid, he is allowed this, he can slump into Martin’s bed and hold his face and call him darling. He can say sorry and Martin will understand and Martin will know he means it and exactly what he means.

Martin makes a discontented noise, but doesn't stop the movement of his hand on Jon’s head, so Jon doesn't elaborate. He probably just seems like a loopy fool anyway which, well, is exactly what he is. Which is why his body feels the need to, of its own accord, reach up and grab Martin's wrist, leaning into the touch. He sighs contentedly at it, eyes closing.

They don't open again until what the clock on Martin’s bedside table says is 5 a.m., and he is flooded with panic, because oh, God, that was real, and oh, God, he's in Martin’s home, doing the one thing to possibly jeopardize his safety the most. He sits up so suddenly it makes the wound on his shoulder send a splitting pain through his body and he winces, biting back a pained sound. So not fully healed then. Good to know.

The bedroom is dark and empty. There's water and painkillers on the bedside table, and a chair still by the bed, but no sign of Martin.

Jon creeps out, silent as he can, careful to make his feet light. He wills the Lonely to help him and feels himself become not quite real, as if floating through the world. He opens the door to the living room as softly as he can.

And there is Martin, too-big frame curled on the too-small sofa, sleeping peacefully, face slack and restful and he looks so— so small, but so comfortable. So vulnerable and yet so unworried. It's all Jon has ever wanted for him, for Martin to have a little bit of peace, of safety, and so as much as he wants to kneel down and kiss every single one of his freckles, to intertwine their hands and play with his hair, to crawl up next to him because it's early, they can sleep a bit more, surely, and then wake up with him, kiss his nose and make him go cross-eyed, causing Jon to laugh, and then Martin to laugh, and finally getting up and making breakfast once the laughing fades, still bright-eyed and grinning.

But this is not the timeline for them, and not the timeline for that, so as much as Jon wants that, all he has ever wanted for Martin is a little bit of peace, a little bit of safety, and the only way he can have that in this world is if Jon decides to leave.

It hurts to pull away, a twitch in his hand, a chasm down his spine; in his chest.

There's pens and paper scattered around his apartment, little note pads with scrawled, unfinished thoughts, like the rain pitpats against my umbrella to a rhythm all its own, just and in his eyes I see everything I’ve ever loved, a sunset, a hospital door, a warm cup of tea, etc. because Martin has always been a writer, always seen beauty in the little things or at least wanted to transform them into something beautiful. He feels kind of terrible in leaving his own fragment in the same place, something decidedly not beautiful. Something ugly and gut wrenching. Jon writes I’m sorry. I’m so sorry for all of this, Martin. and Please stop looking for me. Please stop finding me. and stamps down the urge to write, instead, All I want is you. All I’ve ever wanted is a life with you. I love you and I miss you and I hate living without you. He leaves a wad of money with it, as much as he can for sheets and medical supplies and whatever damage he's left that isn’t physical.

When he leaves the apartment, he closes the door softly. If he said he hadn't spent a long time looking back, he would be lying.

i. you're still right here

“How did you deal with Lukas?” Jon asks, trying for nonchalant; casual, the way he's never sure if he actually succeeds at or not when it comes to Martin. He certainly rarely feels it. Emotions are not small around Martin, not for him.

“Hm?” Martin says, actually casual and nonchalant, slowly making his way through his sandwich. They're in his office and Martin has taken to packing them both lunch. It's incredibly sweet and endearing and, well, just cute, really. Martin is all that and more and Jon— ridiculously— hopelessly— extremely adores him.

“Like, like how did you leave, did you have to—”

“Oh.” Martin blinks, looking a bit sheepish, a bit nervous, considering. A moment. “He let me go.”

“He what?”

“Right? He just… Let Me Go. Said that he had bigger plans for the Institute, now that, now that I ‘couldn't seem to stay away from the Archivist’.” He puts the last bit in finger quotes, face scrunching up like he ate something sour. It would be cute, under different circumstances. “Weird, isn't it?”

Something chills in Jon’s bones, fog curling around his ankles, cold slowly spreading throughout his lungs. “Yeah,” he replies, flitting his eyes down and away. “Weird.”

ii. crossed out

It's an early and chilly Sunday morning when Jon meets Martin's eyes at the park. Eyes caught, breath caught, Jon feels ensnared, tugged, and Martin nearly walks into a tree when he sees him, cute and amusing, but Jon understands the feeling. He's bundled up in a scarf and his skin is a lovely rosy color, eyes standing out against the cloudy weather, and Jon wants.

“Jon,” he breathes, startled. “I'm sorry, I wasn't looking, I promise, I, I don't even know how—”

“I believe you,” Jon says, laughing wetly, tiredly, almost a little hysterical. He sounds hoarse and miserable, disbelieving. Of course, of course Martin would be there, because one of them will always run and the other will always follow, finally catching up, just to get caught back up in the chase again. Because the universe decides to dangle all the things Jon wants and all the things he can't have in front of him, taunting, tearing him open slowly.

Martin shuffles on his feet, a sad smile on his face. Jon doesn't like it there. Martin always looks so sad around him and he knows it is all his fault. “Do I, um, do I have to leave?”

Jon doesn't answer because he doesn't want him to leave, not ever, but they both know he can't stay. Martin sits down next to him on the bench anyway, hands splayed on his knees, rubbing a bit nervously.

So instead, he asks, “Why are you always out so late at night?”

I could ask you the same thing, is what Jon expects the answer to be. He's more surprised when Martin simply doesn't answer at all. After a bit, he looks to his side to find the man looking contemplatively at the trees, as if looking for the words among its branches.

“I have nightmares, sometimes,” he answers, slow, steady and deliberate. Jon nods consideringly and half expects that to be it, for Martin to leave it at that, walls put up and Jon shut out. It would be fair. But he continues, clearing his throat. “In them, I wake up, and I'm in my flat, but it's completely silent outside, like the— like the whole world is gone, and I’ll check my phone and no one is active anywhere, and when I step outside, every light in London is out. It's like I’m the only person in the entire world who still exists. Like everyone else just got up and left and I missed the memo.”

He takes a shaky breath in, shivering, and Jon’s not sure if it's from the cold morning air or the memories. But the drop of his heart, the way he can almost feel the fog, almost hear the ocean far off even though it's roughly 40 miles away. Martin might not be Lonely anymore, might not even have the memories of being Lonely, but the feeling of loneliness is something all its own, and sometimes it is strong enough to become a part of someone, to make a dull, aching hole against someone’s ribs and call it home, curling up there. Jon wishes, aches, to keep him safe. To shelter him somewhere he can never be harmed.

But that's impossible, so instead he says, quietly, genuinely, “I'm sorry.”

“It's okay. Well, it sucks, but there's not too much I can do, can I?” He shrugs. “At least the walking helps. And, and finding—” Finding you helps, Jon isn't sure if he knows because he knows Martin or if it's the same way he Knows so many other things. Martin sends him an apologetic smile. “Anyway.” It drops into the air, unfollowed. Martin’s shivering intensifies a bit. Jon itches to reach out, hand clenching and unclenching into itself.

It feels like a terrible sort of progress. They're not supposed to make progress. They're relationship isn't supposed to get any closer in any sense. There are not supposed to be developments.

Still, because Jon hates making Martin feel like this could ever be one-sided, he spent enough time hurting him like that, even if it might be better to go back to that in this situation, Jon says: “Thank you for trusting me, Martin. I do hope the nightmares stop.” before he walks away, his own type of Loneliness consuming him.

i. you're still right here

He starts spending more time at Martin’s, to the point where it starts to rival the amount of time he spends at the Institute. It is both wonderful and terrifying. Wonderful in every way that one would imagine— it's his boyfriend’s flat, after all. Not only is he with Martin but surrounded by a physical place that he pours into, walls lined with poetry books and plants and color. Jon doesn't know if he's ever felt more at home.. anywhere, really.

Terrifying because Jon doesn't even have his own apartment now. He has a cot set up in his office, and that's his new “home”. The Institute really is just.. All he has these days. An all encompassing part of his life— it is his life, and Jon is not deluded enough to say for better or for worse, because it is obvious enough that the latter is true. Still, though, he can't help the anxiety that pushes through him being away from the Archives for substantial amounts of time, the withdrawals of no longer being able to See every nook and cranny or be able to feel the rush of knowledge through his veins at any given moment.

But Martin makes it easier, always ready with distractions or just his open arms to wrap around Jon, to ground him, steadying. And Jon is ready in turn. It reminds him of what makes continuing worth it. It's not a guarantee, but it is a promise of what could wait on the other side if he keeps going.

They both want to get better.

And while it's possible to recover on one’s own, and it is still just as important whether someone is alone or not, it is undeniable that support makes it easier, and Jon takes Martin’s enthusiasm and loyalty and holds it gently to his chest, a constant reminder that if they keep going, someday, they might be okay. And that it's okay, to not do everything on your own. To share and to trust. And when he fears being Known less, the Eye has even less of a hold on him.

“There are so many reasons to get better,” Martin murmurs into his hairline on a particularly bad day, hand rubbing patterns into Jon’s trembling back.

“Like what?” A hollow chuckle taints the question. Nothing feels right. He feels weak and light-headed and terrified, like he is slowly being consumed. He's not sure how to live if he’s the one with all his secrets on display rather than being the other way around.

Martin hums consideringly, choosing his next words carefully. “You know, I stopped writing when I was Lonely,” he starts, slow and soft. Jon feels the rumble of the words releasing in his chest.

Jon takes the bait, ever curious. He pushes further into Martin’s chest, a shaky sigh leaving him. “And now?”

“I've started again. I'm not— I'm rusty. I was never particularly good to begin with, as you— you know. Anyway. I've started again, and I like it. I've started again because it feels like I need to do something with my hands, I have— I have so many thoughts now? And I actually, I actually feel things again in a way that's not muted and miserable. It's really bloody overwhelming but it's-it's better, I think. I know.” His hand stutters a bit against Jon’s spine in a way that reminds him of a fluttering bird, almost a mimic of Jon’s own heart. “It was easy. The Loneliness. It was numbing. Life was easy to float through. Healing is— difficult, but I don't think I want a life that's easy if it means being so numb. If it means existing alone and being cruel. I want to live and I want to learn to be happy, even if it’s hard along the way. Even if it hurts. And I’m seeing glimpses that it's possible, even this early on, so I just— in a few months, y'know? Imagine where I'll be.” He shifts then, and Jon makes a discontent noise before Martin’s finger is hooked under his chin, with the eye contact that always knocks Jon’s breath from his chest, seen. “It's not the same obviously, but I'd like to believe everyone can get better, and how hard it is now is only evidence of how hard we’re fighting. Because getting better is a fight. Life is a fight, but it is one we can fight with love. There is a life outside of this, if we keep going.” Imagine where we'll be.

“I love you,” Jon says, impossibly soft. “I really do.”

Martin smiles, brilliantly, like polished moonstone. “I know.”

Maybe if he can know Martin, and Martin can know him, that can be enough knowledge for the rest of Jon’s life.

That same night is the first night he decides to stay over.

The whole thing is so sickeningly domestic it makes Jon feel all gooey in the bestworst way possible. They're disgusting, and he can't bring himself to care.

Martin lends him pajamas that are far too big and he sets his hair into it's usual sleep hairdo (bun directly atop his head) and when he first exits the bathroom, Martin laughs loud and wheezy for a straight minute, causing Jon to scowl and scoff, and Martin to squeeze out, “sorry, you just look so silly,” Jon makes a noise of protest and Martin kisses him, and kisses him, and says, “you look adorable and completely non-threatening and it makes my heart seize up a bit that I get to see you like this, that you trust me like this,” and how is Jon supposed to stay angry, when Martin is like that?

Martin sleeps in a tattered shirt that says “I <3 Snails” and sweatpants and Jon understands what he means, really, pulls him close and presses a kiss to the junction of his neck simply because he wants to, and he is allowed, and oh, isn't that wonderful. It really is.

“You're sure you're alright with this?” With me? he asks, sleepiness taking over like a blanket, softening everything, relaxing everything, including his lips. Because Jon is, and always has been, needy, but years of walls and a constant state of tension keep that part of him quite well trapped and secured, until Martin and his ring of keys and chisel showed up, an answer to everything, a rainstorm to weather away slowly at the rock, an erosion.

“Of course I'm sure,” Martin answers with so much breathless shock it makes Jon stomach do something funny. “What makes you think I wouldn't be?”

“I don't know,” Jon says, who very much knows. Who almost always very much knows. “Look at me.”

“I am, always,” he answers earnestly. “I love what I see, Jon.”

And although Jon senses no lie, he snorts. “That can't possibly be true.”

“Is this the scars thing, again?” Martin says, and Jon more feels his eyes narrow on him, analyzing, than he sees.

Jon just shrugs, embarrassed. Because not entirely, no, looks aren't that important to him but also—

But also, Martin is pretty.

So pretty. Handsome. Stunning. Martin looks like the first strings of daylight that paint the sky at dawn. Like a cottage in the middle of the woods during night time, with a hundred candles in the window, welcoming. Martin has eyes like melting honey and lips like rose blooms. If Jon was the poet, he could write a thousand sonnets alone in dedication to what his boyfriend looks like, although he would probably write five thousand more about how he makes him feel.

So. It's not the only reason he's worried this isn't good enough for Martin, but he would be a liar to say it's not one at all.

Martin presses a kiss beneath his ear, fumbling in the dark. “I've told you before,” he breathes into the skin there, causing Jon to shiver. “I love them. They're just proof you've fought. You've made it out of things. They're just like— roadmaps, of sorts, of where we've been. Of what we've survived. Just stories, Jon. You and I love those.”

Jon feels his eyes well up with warmth, with wetness, as Martin presses one to the nick under his cheek, and the pocked skin left by Prentiss, the one of his lips, under his jaw, his hand, gradually tracking each scar down and kissing it. It feels like he's saying thank you, thank you for letting Jon live, for letting him still be here with me. Thank you.

“Martin?” Jon says, after a long while, sounding like a rusty door hinge, when he can trust his voice again. Tears have already fallen down his cheeks, he's not sure if they've ceased.

“Yeah, love?” His fingertips are tracing just a tiny patch of skin below Jon’s shirt, or Martin’s shirt, he supposes. Theirs.

He wants to stop hiding, at least a bit, at least with Martin. At least a bit.

There are so many things they don't say. Life is too finite for him to keep anything more trapped in his chest around Martin.

“I'm glad you came back. I'm glad you're here.”

A couple of heartbeats. Jon wonders if it was the wrong thing to say, or if Martin had fell asleep, when the other man finally, softly, responds: “You know, I’m really quite glad myself.”

Martin deserves a safe life. One without all this. One where he can truly be happy with someone he loves, without fear. Without hardship. Martin deserves a life of a normal person. Of a happy person. Jon doesn't know if he can ever give him normal.

Well. He could, couldn't he?

Should he?

If it means keeping him safe, he should, really, even if it means shattering his heart is a bundle of small fractured sharp shards, even if it means robbing Martin of a choice he deserves to make, even if—

“You're thinking so loud,” Martin whines against his chest, nuzzling closer. “Go to sleep, Jon. I promise it's more simple than you think. And either way, there's plenty more time to think tomorrow, so for now just. Just hold me, and stay here. Don't go anywhere else. You're so far away when you think like that.”

And just like that, he chases the thought away, forgotten in the night, because Jon can't even fathom wanting to be anywhere but here.

ii. crossed out

It is cruelly familiar, Jon back on Martin’s bed again despite every caution, shirt pulled up over his back for his injury to be examined. He brushes his fingers over the scarred tissue and lingers there, tracing.

“How did you— how did you get all these scars?” Martin asks, a tremor in his voice. “Wh—”

Jon brushes a shaky hand through his hair, and shakes his head. “The last couple of years have been… a lot, to say the least.” There is a cruel humor in his voice. Martin is quiet for a while.

“You've survived a lot,” he replies simply.

“I suppose.”

“Maybe you need someone to keep you from doing stupid things.”

He goes about cleaning the wound, just a small cut this time, and Jon wants to laugh and also cry.

“They're kind of pretty,” Martin says, so quiet Jon barely hears, hidden from where he is behind his back. “And at least they mean you're alive.”

Martin really hasn't changed, has he? He's still— he’s still Jon’s Martin, even if he's not really his anymore.

Jon swallows heavily. You were always the smarter of the two of us, even for all my flouncy academia and degrees and I love you and all I want is for you to know and there is the part of me that misses you, and the part of me that wants you safe, and the place where they diverge and connect and I’m not sure what to do anymore, you keep finding me, you keep finding me all get trapped in a mottled mess inside his throat when he tries to speak. He says nothing instead. Martin doesn't quite seem to mind.

“Right, you're all set. How about a cuppa to get you warmed up, though? You’re shivering.”

And Jon isn't sure how to protest, isn't even sure if he wants to, if he could, so he nods, weakly. “Okay.”

It's how they end up on Martin’s balcony, Jon bundled in his warmest blanket, one Jon knows Martin had gotten from his mother, because Martin had told him during The Before. There are warm drinks in both of their hands and Martin is staring up at the sky, silvery streaks in his hair illuminated by the city lights.

“You know, I’ve always wanted to visit the country. I want to see the stars fully, I don't know if I honestly ever have,” he says, tea curled close to his chest, steaming into his face. He blows at it softly.

“My grandmother had a place in a small town, for a while,” Jon shares quietly. Maybe, if he says it softly enough, Martin won't hear, and it won't count as sharing. It won't count as opening up; as being vulnerable. He still feels flayed open sharing regardless, though, and maybe that's what makes it real. “The stars sprawled on for miles, making the sky look huge but not in a—” not in a scary, paranormal way. Not like the Vast. “In a splendid kind of way. You would think it wouldn't be comforting, objectively, the sky so big above you, us so small, but it was. To- to me. I used to, to sneak out of my window and climb onto the roof and fall asleep there. Drove my nan absolutely insane.” He's smiling, softly and reminiscently. He takes a sip, warming his whole body from inside out. A comfortable pause, a drop of a smile: “She really loved that place, but I don't think she could afford it once she had to take care of me. We had to leave after a few years, but I never forgot the stars.”

I'll never forget the guilt of taking her away from them, either, rattles in his heart like loose change, like not enough.

When he looks back at Martin, he's already staring at Jon contemplatively, a little rosy, a little bit of light behind his eyes, but a little bit of something else, something sadder, too.

A crack in a door way, a leak trickling through, and Jon Knows there is a collection of things blocking his throat as well: I want to see them even more now, I want to see them with you and oh, my darling, you hold so much sadness, don't you? and is this a sign that you trust me, do you trust me and you could go back there. We could go back there and I know you, from somewhere, why can't I remember, I know you, I've known you and an overwhelming cacophony, a symphony, of I love you. I've loved you. I don't know how it's possible but I have, and I do, and I will.

“I'm sorry,” he says instead, soft and genuine. Jon shakes his head and wants to say no, you have no reason, I’m sorry, for accidentally reading your mind, for leaving you, for finding you in the first place, for finding you every time after that. For all of it.

Jon takes a long drink of his tea, humming contently. He misses Martin’s tea. “You make the best tea,” he says. You always have.

Martin smiles out at the city like they're sharing a secret. “It's funny, isn't it? That day at the shop when I made you tea it was like I already knew how you took it before I realized I knew it. I had prepared ginger tea like it was second nature without even thinking about it, and I remember being like oh, careful with the honey, Martin, you know Jon doesn't like it too sweet.” He shakes his head a bit. “Strange.”

Jon’s heart is racing, he can feel it lodged halfway between his chest and his throat. “Yes,” he chokes out. “Quite.”

“I'm sorry I don't remember where we met,” Martin says, meeting his gaze now, a ring of fire in a sea of blue. He turns back away, shifting in his chair a bit. “I feel like I should. I mean, you would think I would, all things considered, since—" Martin strangles his words where they are in his throat, letting them die. "I just feel like I've made you tea, before. Coffee. I feel like I had heard you say my name before you had said it, a thousand ways already. It's like— I had been looking for you, before I even knew you. I've always felt like there's been something missing? I'm always looking looking something, everywhere I go, I've been looking. For— for years, and then you walked into the café, and I thought oh, this is it. I've finally found you. There you are." He takes a sip, surprisingly unafraid, or at least, and what Jon suspects, surprisingly good at masking that fear. "When I'm with you, helping you, I feel like I'm where I'm supposed to be."

He rubs the back of his neck, ducks his head and pulls at his ear, and Jon can tell he's nervous. His ears themselves are flushed, but he doesn't take the words back, although he has a look on his face that says I-cant-believe-I-just-said-that when Jon catches a glimpse.

"Martin," Jon says, impossibly soft; helpless.

"You came in and I wanted to reach out and touch you, you left and it felt like I had lost something, I wanted to snag your wrist and keep you, isn't that weird?" he's laughing, but it's a sad sound, like a broken windchime.

"Martin," he says again, because nothing else feels right.

(nothing else has ever really felt right, the past few years. nothing but martin, soft and fierce and unyielding. unrelenting. an ocean, that jon loves at high and low tide, when the waves are so calm they lap comforting at his ankles but also so tumultuous that the sky is dark and the crashing of them against the rocks sounds like thunder.)

Jon's hand clenches against his thigh, fists into Martin's softest and warmest blanket, the one with the most memories attached, to keep himself from reaching out. His hand twitches like his heart, his heart twitches like I love you. I love you. It is agony that I am the only one who knows just how much I love you.

He reaches out without even giving his hand permission, aborts the motion halfway but Martin does snag his wrist this time, just briefly, enough to feel him pressed to his pulse, and then the touch is gone.

Jon fiddles with the rim of the cup. He hates uncomfortable silence, usually pushes people away before it can be a problem. He clears his throat. "How do you know so much about medicine?" Because he had never really known that Martin had a background in that.

He hums, fidgeting with his own mug. "Honestly? A lot of it came from having to take care of myself when I was younger. My mom has always— well. We had a complicated relationship," had, Jon notes, startled, something inside of him twisting, scraping against each other. "She was a single mother. She didn't always have time to take care of me, and even if she did— well, that's neither here nor there. A story for another time, I guess. So, yeah. Taking care of myself. And then, and then she got, sick, so I started looking into that, for a long while, but." A shaky intake of air. Jon wants so badly to reach out and hold his hand, to hold him, it hurts. "But I know a lot more than I used to? And I'm not sure how. I have a lot of gaps in my memory and I attribute most of it to, to grief, I guess, but it feels like I learned it for a reason. I think it was to help someone. Someone important." He looks at Jon then, and something clicks. "I—"

"I have to go," Jon says, "Thank you, I'm sorry, I have to go."

Martin laughs bitterly, Lonely, "Of course. Of course you do, of course."

"I'm sorry," Jon says again, voice cracking on the word, branches crunching.

Martin waves his hand and refuses to look at him. "Just go, Jon."

He nods erratically, lip caught between his teeth, feeling a bit manic, stumbling back out of Martin's flat.

His heart doesn't stop aching for a week after he closes Martin's door with a soft thudclick.

i. you're still right here

There are times when the Lonely creeps in, creeps up on Martin in a way that means he doesn't even realize it's happening until he's already shivering, head wrapped in a fog, so far away from everything. Jon wants to say wait, stop, come back, to say oh martin, my martin.

"You're cold," Jon notes instead, Martin's hand in his own. His fingers haven't gone limp, which is a good sign, but they're not clinging to Jon's like they usually do. "Let's go somewhere warm, yes?"

He drags along an unresponsive Martin and does his best to push his worry to the back of his mind, to pretend that he is not scared. He can do this. He can be brave, if it's for Martin. He would do anything, for him, would lead him out of the Lonely a hundred times and in a hundred different lifetimes.

(give me your worries, he thinks. let me take them all. let me carry them. those burdens aren't for you. i’ll take care of them. i’ll take care of you.)

Somewhere with a decent amount of people would be good, he thinks. With not too huge of a crowd because, sometimes that can be even lonelier than being by yourself, but somewhere where the presence of people is obvious. Somewhere focused on warmth and comfort, with warm lighting and warm drinks.

They wind up in Jon's favorite coffee shop, a booth at the back, chatter wafting through the shop and the smell of coffee strong in his throat but in a way that soothes rather than stifles. It feels like a blanket of all things good.

Jon knows he's got him back when Martin squeezes his hand, eyes clearing. "Where are we?" he asks, a bit husky and sounding tired, a bit surprised. Like he's pulling himself from a very long, heavy nap.

Jon squeezes back. "A coffee shop. My favorite one."

"Thank you," Martin says, quietly. "I was. I wasn't here, not really, and I was scared. Thank you for pulling me back."

"Of course," Jon responds, ducking his head, feeling a bit tingly as Martin brushes his thumb over his hand from where their fingers are interlocked. Of course, I would do it a hundred times for you. A million times. It's worth it to see you come back. To know you're back here. That you're okay.

Martin fiddles with the cup in front of him. "What did you order?"

"Black coffee," Jon says, a little reluctant, a little embarrassed. Disgruntled.

"No," Martin says, looking at him suspiciously, squinting. "You know what I meant."

Jon's eyebrows pinch. "It's— ah, a London Fog, with lavender and vanilla."

Martin takes a sip, and unfurls, minisculely, but Jon has spent so much of his time growing to know Martin, watching Martin, that he feels the hand in his relax, sees where Martin's shoulders have dropped a bit, where his jaw has unclenched a bit. "Did you Know I would like this?" His tone is accusatory, but still lighthearted.

"No," Jon splutters, fighting back a spit take of his own coffee. He rakes a hand through his hair. "I just— I thought something warm would be good for you, and I, I am... familiar with that particular drink—"

"How?" Martin asks, and because Jon is doing his best to face the fear of spilling his guts, all his vulnerable parts bare, his heart on his sleeve and all his eyes closed, responds.

It doesn't mean he's comfortable though. His jaw is set. "It's similar to what my nan would make me when I was sick. It's comforting. I wanted— for you, I wanted. I want. I, ah."

"You're bad at this," Martin says, grinning fondly. "It's really sweet and. Cute. You're cute."

Jon shakes his head. "You keep saying that."

"I keep meaning it. Strange, isn't it? I can't believe I would find my own boyfriend cute."

Jon hates himself for the warmth that creeps up his neck, threatening to engulf him whole, as Martin giggles and cups his cheek. "I love you," he says, brushing his knuckles against the spot.

Jon, who has never been a fan of PDA in his life, is unable to fight the urge to press a kiss to his wrist, to his absolute horror. "I love you too," he mumbles.

"We should come back here sometime. Under better circumstances," Martin says, reserved smile on his face, but eyes bright and unclouded, just the way Jon likes them. He can see the ring of yellow near the center of his pupil again and wants to bathe in it.

Jon resists the flood of words that invade his mind: for you, I would go anywhere, happily. Anything for you. I would take you here every hour if you asked it of me. I would gladly spend time anywhere if it meant spending it with you, to say instead: "Of course, Martin. Anytime you want."

ii. crossed out

(In the After, Jon can't find a good drink anywhere. He goes to countless coffee shops and tries countless combinations and ratios in his own time but nothing tastes like it did when Martin was around.

He hadn't wanted to go back to his favorite shop. They never had made right on their promises.

He can't help it when one day, the ache of missing Martin too much, the idea of a comforting good warm drink too enticing, the idea of not being so concretely alone too enticing, he caves and goes back.

And there is Martin, behind the counter.)

i. you're still right here

Melanie has a piece of the Slaughter festering inside her, nestled right against the bullet fragment in her leg.

Jon is reading a statement and then he just Knows it, which is terrifying in its own right, but the dread he feels thinking about Melanie is worse. Because they've all been shoved into an awful situation, but that doesn't mean he doesn't care about his coworkers. His friends. He very much does.

The need to fix, to protect, itches beneath his skin. And who is Jon to deny it?

He tells Basira because he knows she's always been the one who is willing to do what needs to be done, no matter what the cost. She is logical to a fault and cut-throat and exactly the person Jon needs when it comes to doing something so emotionally and morally devastating.

The aftermath is a stab to Jon’s shoulder and a broken, but un-Slaughtered Melanie who refuses to speak to him. It hurts. It hurts, but she's safe, and that's what really matters, right? Regardless of the fact that Jon went behind her back, she is safe, and it hurts that he hurt his friend, that she now gets as far away from him as possible, Jon feels it, the way he feels everything in the Institute, but that price— although, it Hurts— seems worth it.

He thinks about Tim’s empty side of the room, about Basira’s voice breaking when Jon had asked about Daisy, about Sasha being made into something not herself, about Melanie’s thousand lifetimes of pain looks, about the way Martin’s smile never quite reaches his eyes the way it used to, and he makes a decision.

ii. crossed out

The next time they meet, it's at the tube station, with Jon exiting after coming back from a bust of an investigation, one that leaves him exhausted and unsatisfied. There's a tired that aches in his bones and an itch that is impossible to scratch in any way that is good.

Martin looks up and breathes, “Jon,” and they are the only two in the station. And Jon isn't even surprised anymore, just. Just tired. So tired and so, so sad, heart a creaking, aching thing, rattling around in his chest, a sad noise.

Jon just sighs, shakes his head. “We can't keep up like this,” he says, and his voice is carefully blank. Martin is quiet, eyes on his sneakers. Jon moves to pass him.

He grabs his sleeve, fingers clenched in the fabric like a lifeline. “Can you just— please, can you just. Just tell me why? Help me understand? At least give me this, before you walk away for the millionth time?” Before I hand you my heart again, like I do every time, and you take it, gently, just to say nothing, just to leave me wondering, before you take and I have nothing to remember you by? Nothing to hold onto?

It takes every aching bone in Jon’s body, takes going against every protest his heart has, to wrench his hand away. “I can't do that. You know I can't do that.” I would've done it by now if I could. I won't put you in danger like that, not ever again.

“Why, Jon? Why can't you just— say what you mean, use your words, put all your studies to good use, all that knowledge?” His eyes, usually warm like the sky at morning, filled with birdsong, are cold and icy, like a wave crashing, like ice fracturing below feet before a whole body plunged into a frozen lake. Martin isn't supposed to know that. Jon hurts. Hurts. Hurts.

He shakes his head, throat cotton and barbed wire filled. “I,” he says, and nothing more, a thousand ways to end the sentence, a thousand ways he wants to; a thousand ways he can't.

“Please, my love, just let me help you,” Martin begs, grasping at his hand now, interlocking their fingers, and Jon feels like he's been burned. It bounces numbly around the cavity of his chest, echoing.

“Let go, Martin,” Jon pleads, desperately. Let go. Move on. Find that happy, easy life I wanted for you, maybe with a new place, with a garden, with a huge group of smiling friends and a lot of passion and poetry and maybe someone else, someone who isn't entangled with something so much bigger than them, something so horrifying, someone who can hold your hand and think about marriage with you. Who can act on their thoughts. Who can say what they mean.

“Why won't you let me help you?” he says, brokenly. “Why do you keep pushing me away?” he continues, with more fervor, eyes steeled in icy fire. Jon is pinned, a butterfly behind glass. He thrashes.

“Loving me means all of this,” voice a snapping fury of tongues and teeth, “It means worrying, it means being up late, it means feeling like you have to take care of me, a rotten job, because I can't seem to do even the bare basics myself, it means having to sit and wait while I figure out my emotions, my words, because it feels like they're all going too fast for me to catch all the time and I feel everything so I feel nothing at all.”

The words ring throughout the hollow space of the tube station. Martin’s grip hasn't relented, distractingly warm. He sways, continues, softer, “It means being put in constant danger. It means having a target on your back. And it means all that for someone who is not even worth it. I’m not good, Martin. Please just—”

“Stop finding you,” Martin says, a poor imitation of bravery. Nothing but a hoarse whisper leaving his throat. “What if I—” he chokes, “What if I don't care. About any of that? What if I think you're worth that?”

Jon looks up, startled. Martin is staring at their hands, obviously trying not to cry.

“I would advise you to think again,” Jon says gently. “You don't know the whole situation, Martin.”

“That's because you won't tell me,” he says, some unconvincing venom dripping into it.

“Why do you care so much?” Jon says, the words crackling in his mouth, a power, terrifying and all Knowing, seeping into them.

“Because it's you,” Martin says, instantaneously, eyes determined, like he would have said it either way. “Because I would do anything for you. Because I've known you, once, even if I can't seem to— to—”

Jon finally uses his words. “Let go, Martin.”

Martin looks like his fingers are being ripped from Jon’s against his will, like it's one of the most painful things he's ever done. He looks… devastatedhorrifiedconfused.

“How did you—?”

“Stop finding me. Stop caring.” Jon marches away, wanting away from his gaze, ironically. He doesn't give himself the time to be sad, to feel anything but numb, until he's back on his cot in the Archives.

He curls up into a ball pathetically. Sleep doesn't come.

Martin doesn't anymore, either.

He stops looking, seemingly, and it hurts more than it should because this is what's right, this is what will keep him safe. Jon has no right to hurt. His heart doesn't seem to care.

i. you're still right here

His time with Martin becomes something even more finite, even more precious. This has always been precious, as it is. A treasure, something shining gold, shining like flashlights and diamonds and filling up his entire rib cage until he's pumping glitter through his veins and exhaling stardust. It's overwhelming. It's wonderful.

The thought of it being taken away makes Jon ache, simply. Makes him hurt.

Every time Martin grabs his hand, or smiles, or ruffles his hair, or calls him, fondly, a right idiot, all Jon can do is grin, body filled with liquid warmth. This is all he has. This is all he is allowed, in a world against them. He has Martin and he feels like no matter what comes at him, it will be okay, because they have each other.

He knows he has to let go.

It makes his blood go cold.

Martin is the only place he feels safe. The only thing that has ever truly felt like home, the only thing that has truly quelled that ache in his chest.

Martin deserves the same and more, deserves to be safe, and who is Jon to hold him back from that? Who is Jon to be selfish?

(there are things he cannot— should not— have—)

This is the right choice, Jon thinks, the other man’s legs thrown over his own as he drinks tea from the other side of the sofa. This is the right choice, Jon thinks, Martin doting over him and bandaging him. This is the right choice, Jon thinks, Martin pressing a kiss to every one of his knuckles. This is the right choice, Jon thinks, when someone mentions the ocean, and Martin flinches away like he's been slapped. This will keep him safe. He deserves safe.

So: the great temporality of life, and Jon doing his best to grab everything, to make the most of his time with Martin, to not let a single moment slip by.

When he and Martin tuck into bed (because they do that, they do that now, because Jon is pretty much unofficially living at Martin's with the amount of time he's spent there, the amount of his own possessions that slowly start to litter the space), Jon wraps his arms around Martin and pulls him close, face buried into the crook of his neck, trying to memorize the exact way he feels against him, the sweet warmth of his breath, the way he giggles and says with exasperated fondness Jon, because at this point, Jon should know his neck is sensitive. He just smiles, pressing his nose further into it just to feel Martin squirm. Tries to memorize the feeling of Martin’s hands around him in turn, soft and warm and broad. Safe.

He doesn't start his day until he's given Martin a sleepy “good morning” and a dopey smile, which he is usually rewarded for with a smattering of kisses all over his face for. Everything that comes into his mind that he's wanted to say to Martin, he says it, even if it's stuttered and not-quite-right and leaves him flustered, it is better than the idea of having Martin not know. Of having him never know.

He tries doing anything he's ever wanted to, too. Asks Martin to take him to poetry readings, to which Martin is confused but pleasantly surprised. Jon spends the entire night, poetry going over his head in a blur of flowery language, trying to commit every single passionate light in Martin’s eyes to memory. Trying to commit the curve of him under the low pub lights to memory, the things that make him clap and whoop, and most of all, the way he squeezes Jon’s hand in his the entire time.

He tries making Martin tea, as well, because really, he owes him a cup, doesn't he? So he wakes up early, dropping a sleepy good morning into Martin’s ear and a kiss to his temple, before going to work in the kitchen and realizing suddenly that he doesn't even know how Martin takes his tea, and the statements he's been taking are too stale to give him the power to Know. So. Milky chamomile is the extent to what he knows Martin likes.

“What're you up to?” says a sleepy Martin from the kitchen doorway, rubbing his eyes. “Missed you when I woke up.”

And Jon’s heart swells to the point it feels like it might burst through his chest in the best way possible, like it might bloom into a bouquet of azalea and ambrosia and every color of cameillia.

“Tea,” Jon blurts out, because he isn't sure how to word I love you so much I’m drowning in it and I hope I never resurface.

Martin blinks in surprise. “You made tea? For me?”

Jon nods, not trusting his voice, because sleep rumpled Martin is one of his favorite Martins, because Martin in general is his favorite, leaves him feeling like he is tumbling off a high precipice, all air stolen away and all footholds and nothing but the sensation of falling taking ahold of him.

Martin smiles, soft and fond, sits at one of the stools at the counter, intertwines their fingers and takes the mug. “Thank you.”

Jon smiles, ducking his head, feeling a bit bashful. “Well, don't thank me until you drink it, I honestly have no idea how you take your tea.”

“Cheers,” Martin says, before taking the first drink.

Jon watches carefully as his nose scrunches, brows furrowing, before he breaks out into a wide grin. “Jon,” he says, amusement saturating his tone, “This is basically just a cup of milk.”

Jon feels himself heat, from the tips of his ears down, embarrassment filling him. He covers his face with his hands and groans. “Sorry.”

“Hey,” Martin says, laughing a bit, looping his hands around Jon’s wrists. “Hey, I didn't say it was bad, I-I mean, not that it— I think the gesture matters more than the tea itself, and the gesture was— is, really, quite sweet, Jon. You're adorable.”

Jon shakes his head, but he's smiling now too, because feeling stupid around Martin is better than feeling it anywhere else. “I rather think that you would be the one considered ‘adorable’ in this arrangement.”

“Nuh uh,” Martin protests, “I'm not taking that. My boyfriend is the cutest.”

And they're sickening, really, Jon is sickening, his stomach absolutely turned to jelly, he can't seem to bring himself to care when he finally meets Martin’s eyes, smiling so wide he feels like it might break his face. “You're an idiot,” he says, but there is no malice. In fact, it is utterly lovestruck.

“You love it,” Martin says, eyes so light, looking so genuinely happy Jon can barely breathe.

“I do,” Jon says, so soft it barely sounds like him to his own ears. He reaches out to cup Martin’s cheek, grin replaced by something softer and more special, “I love you, Martin.”

And has the pleasure of watching as Martin blushes, cast across his neck and entire face, patches of pink. He presses a kiss to Jon’s palm, breaking eye contact. “You're going to kill me someday, Jonathan Sims.”

Jon just smiles, something in his chest beating painfully, dully, aching.

When Jon asks him the next day to teach him how to make tea the way Martin likes it, the man just looks at him oddly, and says, “Jon, I’ll always be around to make us tea. I don't mind, really. I find it relaxing?”

And Jon tamps down the urge to say, but you won't, has to bury the words but if I don't learn now, I never will, and that is one less thing I’ll ever get to know about you where they sit in his throat.

It continues like that: Jon starts taking Martin out on more dates, starts buying him gifts, starts doing more, doing everything he can with their time.

Martin mentions offhandedly that they should go ice skating sometime? Jon is quick and eager to say of course, what about next Thursday. There's a type of food Martin wants to try? Jon immediately hunts down the nicest restaurant and makes reservations.

(but it's an impossible job, really, because jon wants to know everything about martin, and terrifyingly, wants to be known himself. wants to experience everything with martin, have him by his side for his entire life, the good, and the bad, to make a home in the crook of his arm, the way his smile pulls on his freckled cheeks, the place right next to his fluttering heart. to make a home physically as well, somewhere safe. somewhere simpler. somewhere away from all this.)

“You're so.. spontaneous, lately,” Martin says. “Not that I mind, it's been— I mean, it's been fun, but it's not— it's not regular for you? I just wanna make sure this isn't stemming from, from anything we need to talk about.” He ducks his head, fiddles with his hands, his ear, looks back. “Have I done anything to make you feel like you're not enough? Like what you're doing isn't enough? Maybe I'm— Maybe I’m wrong, I'm more than willing to accept that, but I love you, and I feel like there's something you're not telling me, and Jon, you can tell me anything.” He grabs his hand, squeezes, and looks into Jon’s eyes. “We're a team, aren't we?”

(and they are, they are, and martin is so good, martin is so— but jon already has a plan, he already has a plan, and it's too late to go back now. jon already has a plan, and martin worrying is even more reason why he needs to go through with it, needs to keep him safe, needs to fix it, to make sure he has a good life with someone who can deserve him. who can use their words. who can lean on others.)

“Yes,” Jon says, shocked, a bit breathless. “Yes, Martin, yes. Of course we are. I— I know. If there was anything going on, I'd… I'd let you know.”

Martin smiles but it doesn't reach his eyes. “Good, then.”

(this is the right choice.

isn't it?)

There's a fancy restaurant Martin wants to try that Jon got reservations for as a surprise months in advance, but of course, of course, the paranormal won't let them have shit and always strikes at the worst possible time.

The next day when Jon and Martin wake up, wounds bandaged and both having escaped relatively unscathed considering their line of work, all Jon can say is, “I'm sorry we couldn't make our reservation.”

“Darling,” Martin says, urgent and sad, “Look at me.”

Jon meets up, green meeting blue, and it breaks his heart, just a bit, the way Martin looks at him. “It's okay we didn't make the reservation. I promise. I am more than happy that you are alive— I don't— I appreciate all the special things you do for me, but I don't need them. I would be just as happy at home with takeaway, as long as we are both alive, as I would be with a fancy expensive dinner. I would be happy with anything as long as it was with you.

“And hey, we have forever? I'm not going anywhere. We can make another reservation. We have time," he says, running a gentle thumb over Jon's cheek. He can feel his pinkie on his pulsepoint.

There is a lump in his throat he cannot seem to swallow.

Eyes escant, he nods. "Yes, you're right. I'm just happy you're okay. That always makes me the happiest." He wants forever so much it feels like every single bone is singing with the weight of it, vibrating heart aching want. Even heavier is the hurt that they cannot have it.

Martin's other hand raises to his face so both are cupping it, solid and warm. So secure. Jon can't help leaning into it. He's allowed this, for now. He will take as much as he can get.

"It feels like you're saying goodbye," Martin says, achingly quiet, ringing throughout the room and the space between Jon's collarbones. Jon doesn't think he would have heard it if they weren't so close and he wonders how something said so quietly could make his mind so loud. When he looks into Jon's eyes, it seems like he's searching for something, hands pressing into his cheek.

More urgently, rushed panic: "Why does it feel like you're saying goodbye, Jon? What is going on?"

This is how it could go: Jon tells the truth, and they navigate that together. The fact that there is an escape to the Institute but it comes at a terrible price. The fact that Jon has held all this knowledge for months on his own. The fact that he is almost certain he is going to take everyone’s memories no matter what, to ensure their safety. He gets Martin's feedback. He realizes it's not his choice to make, not his information to withhold either.

This is how it does go: Jon does not tell the truth and nothing is quite the way it should be from then on.

“I don't— I don't think I can tell you.” He says, full on trembling now, body wracked with shivers. “I'm worried for your safety. All I want is for you to be safe.”

Martin looks strained, but he wraps his arms around him and pulls him close. Just, holds him. Jon Knows there is nothing else he can say.

The right choice, he reminds himself, this is the right choice.

When Jon comes back from the shops and finds Martin sitting unresponsive in the middle of the kitchen, his first thought is this is the right choice and he hates himself for it, a bit, a lot, because oh god martin oh my beloved should have been his first and not his second.

He stays, coaxes Martin back into the real world, back into feeling, back out of the cold.

In his nightmares, Jon sees Martin, saying you're going to kill me someday, Jonathan Sims, bleeding from the same mouth that had spat his words, kisses his palm and leaves a stain as he bleeds out in his shivering arms, Jon sobbing and begging and no one around to hear him.

He wakes up saying, “I won't,” wildly, eyes wide and unseeing, “I won’t. I'll make sure of it.” And Martin, very real, blood all inside of his body where he's supposed to be, cradles him, saying, “you won’t what?” holding him against his chest, offering any comfort he can.

This is the right choice, the Ceaseless Watcher assures him, and Jon is too busy feeling like he's getting his heart torn out, ripped to shreds and lit aflame, that he doesn't even realize what that might mean.

ii. crossed out

There are times where the weight of Knowing is far too much.

It's not as if Jon had never felt overwhelmed by his abilities before— it is rather par for the course, being overwhelmed, being scared, being left shivering and terrifying in his bed. In the cold. It's all the same.

But this is different. This is the kind of Knowing that invades every crevice, until Jon doesn't know where the memories end and he begins, where all he has is glimpses of Basira and Melanie and Martin, of full mosaics, the fractured pieces cutting and tearing up his hands in the process of creating confusing art.

Ironic, isn't it? The same man who once thought he would have loved to make a little home in the corner of Martin's mind just so he could know everything about him, who had wanted to be known in return, who had wanted an eternity with him, to dedicate just to learning more about him, to experiencing everything with him, is now crushed with the weight of it. The same man who has been chasing knowledge his entire life. The one who, in the later days of the Archives' lifespan, was constantly asking his friends questions to keep them all grounded, to learn more about each other, to keep the loneliness away, but in the end had found it enjoyable for more than that (and for more than the deity he served as well.) The man who had collected every tidbit about everything like breadcrumbs been led to slaughter.

There are so many conversations on repeat in his mind and yet so many things he never got the chance to say. That now he never will.

Worse is the knowledge that he is the sole keeper of so many memories, because the Institute is efficient and clever in its techniques, is careful when choosing and isolating its victims from a world outside of all this. There are so many things he Knows now, that no one else does, that no one else will, and it feels like being stabbed, like his breath being vacuumed out of him.

All he will ever do is remember alone. And if he forgets, then all of these things, these important mundane things, like the quirk of Tim's smirk when a joke landed, or the way Sasha had liked her coffee, will never be known, will be lost permanently forever.

He makes lists. Everything he can recall written down into compact, numbered and organized lists, and he has one for each one of them. For as awful as Knowing is, he is far more terrified of forgetting.

Every once in a while he'll stumble across someone's belongings in the Archives— a plant Martin had never taken home, Basira's mug, a half-finished energy drink from Melanie.

And he'll do his best to breathe through it, the pieces of them clutched tight to his chest.

i. you're still right here

When Jon calls them all into the office, Melanie stands in the corner, refusing to make eye-contact with him the same way she has been, and Basira says, "Great, what now?" and Jon is reminded with pain-staking accuracy exactly why he needs to do this.

“I found a way to leave the Archives,” he states, simply, and like the quiet hiss of a firework before an eruption of color and sound, the room goes quiet before it explodes with questions. He holds a hand up, calling for some time to explain. He's not sure why he thought that would work.

Talking over him, talking over each other, the blur of the room makes his head a little dizzy. “Do you guys want to keep asking questions or do you want to hear what it is?” Jon snaps, and finally the room falls quiet. “Sorry,” he says. “Thank you.” Martin looks at him.. almost warily.

“So what is it, Boss?” Melanie says flippantly, in a way that reminds him of Tim and has his gut rolling.

“I... Well, there's no way around it. I'd have to remove any memories of the Institute from your minds. The Eye wants knowledge and knowing someone's whole experience, the ins and the outs, plus the added bonus on your end of having no contract in the first place, well. It's the only solution for an amicable end, if you could call it that.”

Melanie laughs, a stark sound in the otherwise quiet. “Yeah, okay. Good one, Jon.”

Jon just shakes his head. Basira and Martin are both quiet, the former estutely not looking at him and the latter colored with shock. And, maybe, realization.

“Oh,” she says, the word holding an incredible amount of meaning for just the one syllable. “Oh, you're not joking.”

“Is this—” Martin's voice breaks wretchedly. “Is this what you've been hiding? Is this why you've been pulling away?”

Jon can't meet his eyes.

“You've— you've known? You've known and you haven't said anything?” Melanie says, voice raising, enraged. “What, were you too scared to tell us? Too worried we'd realize it was a sensible bargain? That we'd leave you? That's rich, Jon. That's really—”

“No,” Basira says, voice hoarse, ever logical. “No, he hid it because he was worried we'd say no.” And she's looking directly at Martin, and Jon knows she knows. Basira had loved, once.

“You were never planning on this being a decision for us to make, were you?” She continues, gaze sliding to him now. He feels flayed open. “It's still not, is it? That's—”

“So fucked up,” Melanie interjects, eyes wild. “That's so fucked up, Jon. I— I want it, I think. I do. I want to be free of this and if the cost is forgetting this time? Well that's, honestly that's almost a bonus, I'm sorry, but— but I would want that to be my decision. This should be our decision—”

“I'd have to forget about the paranormal in general wouldn't I?” Basira asks, lip caught between her teeth, and Jon knows, simply. The real question she's asking. I'd forget about Daisy?. And watches, as she shakes her head, a silent war inside her, between logic and her heart. Jon knows that war. Jon has lived that war.

Melanie storms out, her ponytail swaying wildly with her, as Basira trails behind her, face unreadable but pained. The door slams and the room is explosively quiet.

He feels more like Gertrude in that moment than he ever has, tossing an innocent boy who trusted her to the paranormal wolves, willing to do whatever it took no matter what the cost— but he's not, he can't be, because he's doing this to protect them. To protect him.

(this is the right choice. it is. it has to be.)

Martin, who has been terrifyingly silent for the latter part of the conversation, finally breaks. “You know I'm not doing this, right?” and then again, when Jon won't meet his eyes, “Jon, you know I'm not doing this, right? You can't ask me to give up my memories. To-to give up—”

He's already a monster, really. He should at least try and do a little good with it.

He couldn't save Tim, or Sasha, or Daisy, but that doesn't mean he can't save the rest of them.

“Jon,” Martin says, on the verge of pleading now, face crumpling horribly. Jon hates when he cries. Jon hates being the cause of it even more. The sight alone is almost enough for Jon to come running, to cup his face and kiss away his worried to say no, Martin, never. Never, beloved, I would never want you away from me.

But instead he just shakes his head, and lets the feelings swallow him whole, gnaw at him from the inside out.

ii. crossed out

Breekon turns up, Hopeless, but bringing the first real hope that Jon has had in weeks. He knows it's a taunt - dangling someone he knows right in front of his face, knowing she's in that looming sarcophagus but not having any way to access it or pull her out without becoming lost to the buried himself - and even further, he Knows it once he takes the statement live, once he rips it free from Breekon's not quite throat and not quite flesh.

Daisy is in there.

It's only natural that Jon will fight, tooth and nail, to get her out. 
Always uncovering knowledge, ever filled with a need to fix, to protect, it's only natural. Jon is so sick of having what he wants dangled in front of his face, just out of reach, of having an ever-present undercurrent of can I have this? Can I have this? Just for now, just for now. No, surely not.

Daisy will not be another one lost. The Archivist has the chance to save her. Jon will.

i. you're still right here

“Ah, Archivist. What a surprise,” Peter says pleasantly when Jon steps into his office, shivering a bit from the cold.

“Is it?” he asks, a bit baffled, a bit snide.

“No,” Peter responds, perfectly polite, “No, I suppose it's not. I've been expecting you, really.”

Jon realizes this is the first time he's seen him, up close, all ice blue eyes and calm, detached demeanor. It feels like there is a humming in Jon's ear, the same kind that would happen if he ever got too close to a telly as a child. “So you know why I'm here, then?”

“You're so quick to get to the point, Archivist,” he says, blinking. “I never knew you as quite so bold, after all, when you left Martin—”

“Leave him out of it,” Jon snaps.

“Alright then, I can see that's a sore subject.” He traces the rim of his teacup. “I know why you're here. I felt the maw of opportunity in you, growing wide since that night you found out the possibility of breaking your friends free and felt the weight of the cost. Here to strike a deal, I assume?”

Jon nods, stiffly. “I'm not very happy about it, but if they're leaving here— if they're leaving the sick protection of this place— they're still going to need safety and I, I'm not entirely sure how to provide that for them. I've come to you, offering loyalty, fodder, for their guaranteed safety.”

Peter smiles, a cold, far off looking thing. Reserved, like he's not used to the way it pulls at his face, like he doesn't quite remember what it feels like to smile naturally. “I think that could be arranged.”

“This whole time,” Jon waves a hand, “you were expecting? That's why you let Martin go, isn't it?”

Peter cocks his head. “There's no compelling in your tone. If I don't have to answer, Jonathan, I'd much rather not waste our time on statements today. I don't know how Elias was, but I'm not big on chit-chat as a supervisor, nor am I into idle company. Kind of comes with my job description, doesn't it?" he adds, after a moment: "Plus, I believe you and I already know the answer to that anyway.”

“We have a deal, then?”

“We do,” Peter says, that same far off smile plastered to his face. “I would say we could shake on it, but, well, you know. Human touch isn't good for either of us — as people who feed the Forsaken.”

The Archives creak below his feet for the rest of the day, a sad sound, as if protesting. It's reminiscent of Jon's heart, although that particular sound is less of a creak, and more of a long, drawn out, sorrowful wail, that he can't seem to muffle, no matter how hard he tries, how lightly he steps.

ii. crossed out

There is a yellow door in the corner of Jon's office that he does not remember being there, but he does recognize.

Much more recognizable is the figure that comes ambling out of it, hair a crazy dark halo around her head and eyes so dark, all the light gone from them, and yet razor sharp. It leaves Jon feeling uneasy; reminds him of a low swimming shark.

“Oh, my dear Jo-on!” Helen sing-songs, reaching out a toolong hand to wrap her toolong toosharp fingers on his shoulder.

“We've talked about the touching,” Jon says drily.

“Right,” she says, cocking her head. No recognition in her eyes. “You don't much like the touching.” A grin, all teeth and wild. “But a little birdie told me you need something from me, so won't you humor me just this once? I barely get guests for fun these days.”

He huffs, but makes no move to shake her off. Her eyes shine. “Right,” she says, “Let's go pay good old Jared a visit, shall we?”

i. you're still right here

Their last words go like this:

Melanie, hot stinging unshed tears in her eyes, tells him: “Think about this, Jon. I know I'm the only one who's ready for this and— I suppose I should thank you regardless for getting me out, and looking after me. I don't want to spend my last moments angry at you; I've spent so long being angry. And every once in a while, you really did make this more bearable. But please use your fucking head for once in your goddamn life. Stop doing everything on your own. I had to learn that the hard way and now I'm telling you that it's okay to stop being a prick and to trust people and keep them in your life.”

It feels unearned that this is the first time he sees Basira cry without turning her face away. He hasn't done anything to make her comfortable enough with him to show vulnerability and he knows she's crying for the very opposite reason. “Listen, Jon,” she says, thick with something. “I know you're not going to take into account reason, and I'm going to keep my dignity. I am not going to beg in the face of a monster. But,” she fixes him with a steely glare, “But, and this is important, listen. If you find Daisy—” her voice breaks, the heavy weight of forgetting setting in. Basira, ever logical, the same person who Jon Knows has thought Daisy is dead for weeks now, still needs to make this known to him. “If you find her, Jon, you need to promise me that you'll keep an eye on her. That you'll keep her from doing stupid shit, whether that is endangering others or herself. You need to promise.”

And Jon, a thousand eyes crying a thousand tears, does.

“Don't do this,” Martin says, begging. “Jon, please, don't do this. This should be my choice. This should be my choice.”

“I'll find you again,” and the tone is angry, but sad, thick with sobs, and tender all at once. “I'll do it, Jon. I'll find you again. I always have and I always will. I was born to do it. It's the only thing that's ever felt right. You won't be able to get rid of me.”

The glass in Jon's spectacles shatters and for a moment they look like snow, or stars, or crystals. Something beautiful.

He realizes that he doesn't even need them anymore. His sight goes far beyond that.

ii. crossed out

The Buried is dark and damp, and only gets smaller on the way down. It's a terrifying sort of darkness. The kind that Jon can't See through, so thick and heavy, pressing down from every side.

It turns time, and distance, and all the little constructs humans use into taffy, pulled and molded into something with not the same shape that Jon is used to. Time has a weird way of coming together, like wax, or less gentle, like molten lava.

There is nothing but the crushing heavy suffocation of the soil. There is nothing but this. The Sun has never existed.

Breathless, heaving, tired, Jon calls out, “Daisy!”

And against all odds, Daisy calls back.

”You just wanted to prove that there was one safe place, just one safe place where you could love him. You have not found that place yet. You have not made that place yet. You are here. You are here. You're still right here.”

—You Are Jeff, Richard Siken

iii. there is a trail. i follow you

Jon reaches out into the dark, fumbling hands meeting rock and muck and impossibly, inexplicably warmth.

Daisy knots her fingers around his with thin, desperate, trembling hands. “Daisy. Yeah. Daisy,” she says, breathless, shaky. “That's me.”

And it's a softer Daisy than he's ever known— a more human Daisy than he's ever known. A Daisy who is more than her blood, despite the trauma she's faced, the trauma she is currently facing, pressing in on all sides, the one that leaves her trapped.

He has a plan.

The sweet siren song of flesh and bone and bone and bone, he thinks of the part of him that is himself, but not himself, and he realizes, dreadfully, oh. He is not human enough for that, anymore, even down here. His flesh, that he does not claim, will not come to claim him.

It's just going to be him and Daisy, down here forever. That's all life will be, him and Daisy, and the Rain, and the Choke, the no air between four lungs. And— and it's terrible, it's terrifying but he can almost make peace with it, as atonement for him, and while he didn't exactly accomplish what he set out to do, at least he didn't leave Daisy down here alone. He did get that bit right.

(and at least he's not alone anymore. for the first time in months, jon isn't alone anymore, and when daisy tightens her small hand— calloused but far too delicate hand for someone who handles a gun the way she does— whose hands are fists and claws more often than they are fingers— around his own, it's the first time he is allowed to touch someone without feeling like he needs to pull away. like he'll be hurting them if he doesn't.

here, the contact between him and daisy is the only thing keeping them grounded, as ironic as that is when ground is all that is surrounding them endlessly.)

But then Daisy says, brokenly, almost a whimper, somewhere throughout the sludge their timeline has become: “Jon,” barely even audible over the rain, the moaning, “I want to live. I don't want it to — 'm scared. Jon, I-I—”

And he focuses, the world fizzling and popping around him, and feels something. “I can get us out. I can feel it.” Jon, eyes aglow: “Daisy, Daisy, I can feel it.”

+

Jon and Daisy tumble out of the literal underworld alive, hearts beating and lungs finally, finally, fully breathing again, breathing in a world that is more than just dirt and darkness and mulch.

That's the first thing he recognizes: the air, finally clear in his aching lungs.

The second is the tapes, all chatter on top of one another, in what he's sure is discordant and disorienting for Daisy, but feels like— like a prayer, for him. A mantra. A beacon. He relaxes.

The third is Martin, precariously stacking another tape, wide-eyed and startled. “Jon,” he says, shocked.

“Martin,” Jon says, with an equal amount of shock. “How did you—?”

“I felt something,” he blurts, tape recorder falling from his hands with a plastic clatter. “I woke up and I just Knew. I was here before I even knew why, I-I broke in? I threw my anthology through the window? A-And, somehow I just— I just felt like you were in trouble, you were in there, you needed help and this was the way to help you, and oh God—”

“You broke in with an anthology?” Jon says, blinking, somewhere between impressed and discontented.

“Err, yes?” Martin says, a bit sheepish. “Wait, you literally just tumbled out of a coffin, how is that the surprising— what is—”

“Wow,” Daisy says. “You're a lot more capable than I ever gave you credit for.”

Martin looks over at her as if noticing her for the first time, and then down at their still linked hands, and then back at Jon, eyes going from bewildered to fierce. “Who are you?" Martin spits, protectively.

“Shit,” it comes out winded and taken aback. “How long was I gone?"

Jon realizes, horror creeping in, that he has explained nothing to Daisy. He shoots her a look that he means to be read as just play along, but she just scrunches up her pixie nose and he's not sure how to take that.

(the parts of him unobscured by surprise and also, a gentle terror, at daisy, memories intact, meeting martin, memories stolen, are busy screaming martin, and he's here, because he chose to be, not because he accidentally found me and got entangled with it. he's here because he wanted to help. he broke in, and jon feels guilty, because some part of him is twisting awfully at that, concerned and worried, but another part of him is so pleasantly surprised, verging on giddy. because martin chose to come back.

maybe jon can have this.

maybe he shouldn't.)

“You can't be here,” Jon says, snapping back to his senses, memories of Peter Lukas, the same man who tried to isolate Martin, flooding his mind. “You're not safe here. You have to leave. I have— I still have your number. I kept it. I'll call you, I promise, and if not you know where to find me.” You always seem to find me anyway.

“No, wait,” Martin says, pained. “Jon—”

“Please,” Jon says, something broken and pleading and urgent in his tone. “I promise I'll call. I promise. Please.” He can't lose him again. He can't.

Martin looks conflicted, an inner battle surely raging inside him, but he nods, after a moment, sighing. “Okay. Okay, fine. But you had better not disappear on me this time, you prick. We are going to talk properly and you are going to stop running away.”

Jon looks at Daisy, gaunt and covered in mud and still clutching his hand like a lifeline, and Martin, eyes vibrant blue and mouth set determinedly, standing back in the Archives, surrounded by tapes and says, quiet but steady, "I am. I'm going to stop running." A beat. “Go, Martin.”

“Right,” Martin says, a bit flustered, grabbing his anthology before fleeing, waving goodbye.

“Care to explain what all that was?” Daisy sneers, a look on her face like she's just eaten something unpleasant.

+

“Shit,” she says, simply, once Jon has finished filling her in.

“Shit,” Jon agrees, a cold chuckle falling from his lips.

“You have to tell him, Jon.”

“I know,” he says, pushing a hand through his hair, messy strands falling with the motion. Softer, but none less annoyed: “I know.”

“What you did was wrong.” Her arms are crossed over her body as she leans back against his desk, mouth a firm hard line, eyes glinting.

“But was it? Was it that bad? It was a hard choice, and it meant stripping free will, meant doing something awful, but— but the outcome, was it?”

“Yes,” Daisy snaps. “Always yes. Consent is important, Jon, you asshole. Basira and Martin are capable of making their own decisions.” She huffs, and if she wasn't.. a different Daisy, this is the point where Jon would be fearing for his life. It's strange, watching her now, finding comfort in her presence, her simple being-alive, being-here. “Listen, from one addict to another? I know that… I know it can be hard to think clearly. And— and while you are still responsible for your actions, the terrible and the good, I definitely think the Watcher had a pretty decent influence on your decision and I get it, I do, but this is just— you're accountable for your terrible behavior. You need to make it right.”

“You're right,” he says, a bit stunned. “God, Daisy, o-of course you're right, you're right. It was terrible. I don't know—”

“It's fine, stop babbling,” she says, scratching her neck a bit sheepishly. Jon can't tell if it's his imagination that her neck is a bit patchy with flush. “Just. I'd like to believe everyone can get better. I've never been an optimist but I.. Just put in the work, Jon. It won't make it right, but.” She stops there, words escaping her.

Jon nods. After a moment, a gust of air, “Right, so, I need to do some research and find out how exactly I can give their memories back, and what that will take, and we have to find Basira in general—”

“That shouldn't be a problem,” Daisy interjects. “I, um. I'm good at finding things. Things that don't want to be found, especially if I— if I really want—”

Jon just smiles. “Guess that's one thing made easy on our list then.”

+

He and Daisy spend the next week and some setting up a cot for her to sleep in, locating the long forgotten board games in a stowed away break room cabinet, and most importantly, most often, trying to work out the rough outline for a plan.

And it's— it's nice, really. To have some company.

(When Daisy wakes him up the second night she's back, and asks if he'd be willing to scoot over, Jon remembers the heavy pressing of the darkness, of the earth; remembers her tired eyes, lined with dark circles the morning before, and makes space for her without a word, without hesitance.

He hasn't shared a bed with someone since— since Martin. And it's awkward, at first, Daisy and him trying not to touch on a cot clearly far too small for one person, much less two long limbed people, but it's nice, knowing she's close, the animal part of his brain repeating safety in numbers safety in numbers, and eventually he falls asleep to the sound of the steady in-and-out of Daisy's breathing.

It makes it less conspicuous to Peter if they have only one cot anyway, really.

And when Jon wakes up enveloped in warmth, Daisy's arms curled around his waist, that's nice too.)

(“Alright,” Daisy says, an explosive whoosh of air leaving her. “I need a break. Do we still have those games in the break room?”

And Daisy boasts some big talk, saying that she used to beat Basira all the time, that she was always unusually good at board and card games but Jon beats her on their first go, and then again, and then again.

“You're cheating,” Daisy insists. “With your freaky eye powers, how am I supposed to compete with that?”

So they take to Bingo and use a random number generator most the time, a game that's nearly impossible for Jon to cheat at.

He still wins.)

(“Martin wasn't your original anchor,” she says out of the blue one day. It's not phrased as a question, but Jon knows it is one.

“Ah, yes. That's right,” he confirms, fingers impulsively reaching to push up his glasses and finding empty air, remembering oh, right. “I paid Jared Hopworth a visit.”

“The bone guy?”

“The very same.” He flashes her a grim smile.

“What did he…” she starts. Jon rifles through his drawers and pulls out his rib. “Christ.”

“Two of them— one for me, one for him.”

“You did all that? For me? I was— I was going to kill you.”

Jon just shrugs, same smile still playing at his lips. They fall into comfortable silence.

“Thanks,” she says, quietly, when they're both getting ready for bed that night. Jon just nods. Simple as that.)

Of course, as is typical with Jon's luck, the plan they're forming is set awry before they've even fully figured out the details, in the form of a determined freckled man with the power of a collection of anthologies at his disposal and a broken promise.

“Jon,” Daisy says, soft, shaking him awake, firm hands on narrow shoulders. “Jon, wake up. I think— I think there's someone in here.”

Jon comes to join the living slowly, groggily, cogs in his brain turning laboriously just to discern what Daisy is saying. “An intruder?” he asks. “A monster?”

She shakes her head. “Not a monster, I don't think. Not much of one, anyway— maybe touched by the powers, but not enough for an extreme lack of humanity.”

Jon is quick to get out of bed, doing so silently as possible. “Okay, then. Okay. How do we want to go about this?”

“We don't know whether they're hostile or not, or what their motives are,” she says, and Jon sees the glint of a knife already in her hand. “Can you See them? Because that would make this whole thing much easier.”

So Jon Searches, and he finds him. “Martin,” he groans. “False alarm, Daisy. Turn on the lights.”

“That boy never did know how to leave you well enough alone,” she muses, flicking the switch.

Jon suppresses a laugh, because Daisy has no idea about the Lonely period, where Martin would dance around him at best and take any chance to bolt at worst.

“You can come in, Martin,” Jon calls, feeling his presence outside the door.

“How did you—” Martin says, the moment he cracks the door.

“That's not important—”

“You said you'd call.”

“I was going to! I've— I've just—”

“You promised, have you really not had a single spare moment in the past week?”

Daisy's eyes dart back and forth from the two as if watching a tennis match.

“Can we please talk about this somewhere else—”

“What's to say you won't just run away again if we do that?!”

“I wouldn't!” Jon yells, finally snapping. “I told you I'd call you and I wouldn't run! And I was planning on it, but you're not safe here and you need to leave!”

“No!” Martin shouts back. “You keep nearly killing yourself! Every time I see you, you're injured! How am I supposed to leave you alone when you're like that?! I'm not going anywhere just because you have some— some weird inferiority complex or something!”

“Survivor's guilt,” Daisy corrects. Martin just shoots her a glare before continuing. She shrugs, hands in her pockets.

“I'm tired of feeling helpless,” he says, quieter, body still trembling with emotion. “I’m tired of worrying about you and having you feel like I can't handle the truth— coming to me bruised and battered but shutting me out.”

“Oh, I like you,” Daisy says, grinning. She turns to Jon, stunned into silence. “I like him.”

Martin eyes her suspiciously.

“Okay,” Jon concedes, “Okay, I'm sorry, you're right. It's about time you learned the truth. It's about time I was honest with you, you deserve that, at the very least. But can we please take this somewhere more secure?”

“Okay,” Martin agrees quietly.

An awkward silence falls over the room.

“Uh, I don't have a flat,” Jon admits, scratching the back of his neck.

“I mean, I did,” Daisy says drily, “but the fact that I'm reported missing and presumed dead means that I've probably lost mine to some new tenants.”

Martin looks a bit baffled at that, face almost saying how are you real? After a moment, he shakes his head and releases a long suffering sigh. “Fine, then. I guess we can go to mine.”

+

“This is…” Daisy starts, taking in Martin's apartment. Jon steps on her foot. “Cute,” she grits out, glaring at him.

Martin takes no notice of the happenings behind him. “Oh, really? Thank you! I've been doing something new with the shelving and I also recently switched—” He cuts off, tugging his ear. “Ah, sorry. Anyhow, make yourselves at home. Do you guys, um, would you guys like some tea?”

“Yes,” says Jon, at the same time Daisy says, “No.”

Martin smiles nervously. “The same as usual then, Jon?”

“Yes,” Jon nods. “That would be quite lovely. Thank you, Martin.”

“Of course.”

And then he's gone. And Jon and Daisy are alone.

“Sooo,” she starts, and Jon already has a bad feeling in his gut.

“What?” he asks warily.

“You two ever, you know, figure it out, then? Before?” She pauses. “The pining was insufferable, really. All that mushy, 'oh, when will my husband return from the war' type of—”

“What,• Jon croaks.

Martin decides that moment is the perfect time to enter, with his tray of biscuits and two cups of tea.

The silence is deafening and uncomfortable.

Well, for Jon, at least. Daisy is smiling, a dangerous glint of sharp teeth.

“Thank you,” Jon says, quietly, accepting his mug from Martin.

“Of course,” Martin says, smiling genuine, before they lapse back into silence.

A few beats.

“Right, so—”

“How long have you two been together, then?” Martin asks, a mockery of perfectly pleasant, hands gripping his mug so hard his fingers are going pale.

Jon splutters, choking on his tea. “Me and him??” Daisy bursts out, a hysterical tone to her voice. “You think we're dating? Me, obviously lesbian, and him, the one who's clearly head over h—” Jon steps on her toes again, and her hysteria is turned on him, eyes wild, teeth bared, ready to pounce. “Oh for the love of GOD, WILL YOU STOP THAT—”

Martin's smiling wide and soft, though. “I see,” he says, stirring his tea, as if this is completely normal behavior and he had no part in sowing the seeds of chaos. Jon guesses that it is normal, for Daisy. “So just good friends then?”

Daisy looks appalled, fingers still digging into Jon's arm, and shouts, “No!” at the same time as Jon says, “Yes, I suppose so.”

Daisy looks at him, searching, for a moment, before she sighs, exasperatedly fond grin overtaking her face. “Yeah, I guess.”

Martin giggles a bit, a sound Jon hasn't heard from him since— probably since the Before. Probably since he would kiss Martin where he was ticklish, or do something stupid like walk straight into a pole, or put his hair up into the bun at the top of his head—

Daisy steps on his foot.

He glares, but clears his throat. “Right, we should probably stop skirting around the issue and get to the point.” He fixes his posture, hands placed together, elbows resting on his knees. “You know how, you've said you thought you'd met me before?”

“Yeah,” Martin responds. “You're so familiar, in such a strange way.”

“Well, you were right,” Jon laughs sadly. “You were right. Somehow you remember me. Alright, this is going to sound crazy, so bear with me. It's important that you don't just discard what I'm saying offhand. I need you to listen all the way through and I need you to trust me.”

“Why does— why does this sound so ominous? You don't need to be so worried. It's not like my memories were, what, stolen, or anything.”

A beat. Jon and Daisy share a glance.

“Oh, fuck off,” Martin says. “You really expect me to believe that?”

“You said yourself that you've known me before!”

“I, I thought maybe we had some sort of meeting at a mutual friend's party or something! Maybe we had a couple conversations on the tube! Hell, maybe you were in my class in secondary school or something, not— not whatever the fuck this is!”

Jon takes a deep breath. “You wanted me to explain, so here I am. You remember all the times you treated me, and how many of those wounds did not seem humanly possible? How I got third degree burns from a hotel room and was bleeding out because of a vampire?”

“Vampires are real?” Martin blinks. Then he begins to laugh. And Jon has missed Martin's laugh, but not like this. He's missed the genuinely happy one, full-bodied and unabashed. This is cynical, like oh my God, this is ridiculous, this is actually insane, kind of laugh. “You're fucking with me. How stupid do you think I am, really?”

Jon and Daisy glance at each other again, a knowing look passing between them. I don't want to, Jon's says. I know. It sucks. You have to, Daisy's say, and it's the closest to sympathetic looking he's ever seen her, which is to say that it's a tiny bit sympathetic.

“What do you think of me?” Jon asks, words feeling heightened leaving his throat.

“Right now? Mainly that you're a lunatic,” Martin blurts. “But something about you just— pulls. Pulls at my eyes and my heart strings and my memory, like I've known you, I know I've known you, and I have this crazy connection to you in a way that feels... like. Fate.” The last bit sounds like pulling teeth, like tearing, like Martin didn't want to say that, at least not now. He looks like he's been struck. “That,” he says, shaken. “That's the thing you did at the station. What is that?”

“Promise you'll listen this time?” Jon asks, feeling a bit guilty and less than hopeful at the man's answer.

Martin chews his lip, before scrunching his eyes closed, breathing, releasing. “Fine,” he acquiesces. “Fine. I'll listen.”

And he does.

Jon talks, for what feels like hours and also like the blink of an eye, the bat of a bird's wing, and throughout it all, Martin listens. He doesn't interrupt, even when it looks desperately like he wants to. Jon talks until their tea has gone cold and Daisy has started to bounce her leg a bit restlessly.

He takes a deep breath, steadying himself. “Okay then. Okay. Monsters, compelling, Fear Gods, the Magnus Institute, me, a life I've lived I have absolutely no memory of. All the things you know about me and I know about you that make no sense, that we've never told each other.” He goes over a list in his head. “Okay then.”

“You believe me?”

“You make a convincing argument,” Martin smiles sadly. “It makes sense, in an absolutely out there kind of way. I have way more scars than I knew how to account for anyway.”

A pause.

Martin wrings his hands. “Can you, uh, give them back? My memories?”

Jon grimaces. “I... I think so? Just, I'm not sure how, yet. I'm assuming I'll need an extra... some sort of extra power. But we could try, if you wanted to.”

Martin continues to fidget. After a moment, he nods. “Yeah,” he says, softly. “I'd like to try. I— sometimes I get this full-bodied ache in my chest, all-consuming, this— this overwhelming feeling something is missing, and, ah, a-and I'd like to. Try. To get it back. If I can.”

(and jon has felt that too, hasn't stopped feeling it, a chasm along his back, I love you and I miss you and I hate living without you, since—)

“Right,” Jon says. “Let's get to work then.”

+

Jon grabs a statement out of his bag and reads, and once he's sated, a pleasant electricity running under his skin, they're ready to try. Daisy makes herself scarce; lounging out on the balcony.

Jon and Martin sit facing each other on the couch, both clearly a bit anxious, but having laid out the rules bare: if Martin needs Jon to stop, he can communicate this at any time and Jon will. If he can't use his words, he can squeeze Jon's leg or arm twice, and Jon will stop.

“This... This will most likely feel very odd, and probably uncomfortable. Not dissimilar to being compelled, I assume. You're, you're sure you want to go through with it?”

Martin nods, determined through his nervousness, jaw set. “Let's do this.”

Clumsy, narrow hands find Martin's jaw as Jon presses their foreheads together and Sees.

Martin's eyes flutter closed and a ragged gasp falls from his lips.

It's light, inside Martin's mind— for the most part at least. It's dazzling blue, like the sky a bit after dawn, pale and bright. Though, there is a darkness that creeps in around the edges, as if threatening to snatch it away.

But for the most part, it's light. It's beautiful.

There is a certain sadness in the color, as Jon walks through Martin's mind. A feeling of being alone. Of self-sufficiency turned into a weapon, both one to be turned on others and one that carves into oneself. But it's still warm at his ankles, where something similar to water laps at Jon, wades around his feet.

Jon could stay here for a long time, he thinks.

He knows he can't.

He crosses scattered memories as he walks through. A school bell chimes somewhere distantly, there are tumbling notes that fall from the not-sky, pictures of a greying woman, mouth set a firm line, stray phone booths or mailboxes, and a mug with a cow on it floating in the water. Jon's heart squeezes at the sight of them, but the last in particular. He knows that mug, has drank coffee out of it a million times. He knows exactly which cupboard it collects dust in at the Institute, even now, as well.

He reaches for it, hands brushing it where it wades and then curling around it, pulling it from the water, when a searing pain makes his mind white out, a gasp ripping from his lungs violently.

Two pairs of eyes at once, he's aware of Martin sweating feverishly where his hands stay planted against his soft jaw, but he hasn't spoken, hasn't tapped Jon, and so as soon as Jon's mind comes back to him, he continues, turning the mug in his hand.

Pieces of a life they've known come through in camera flashes, shuddering and toobright, tooloud, snapshots of a fuzzy coat Jon recognizes as Sasha's, a sharp laugh that once belonged to Tim; a soft dimpled smile that Jon recognizes, after a bit of puzzlement, is his own.

And then—

Nothing.

It hurts, feels like— like having something once, and not anymore, like a chasm, and suddenly the blue feels less tranquil and more eerie, so incredibly empty, something missing, and when Jon goes to fiddle with the mug some more, he finds it missing from his hands, instead floating in the water a ways away, lower than before and precarious. There's a low sound, haunting and mourning, the cry of some distant water bird.

He walks, and walks, but goes no farther. When he looks to the mug, it's the same distance as it was before, and it's the last thing he registers before something wraps around his ankles, making Jon go cold, and pulls him down into the depths.

Jon is yanked from Martin's mind struggling for breath, feeling waterlogged and cold, so incredibly cold, his lungs burn.

Martin seems to be in a similar state, eyes wide and panicked, dilated. Jon, steadying his breath, swallowing a gulp, says, “Martin, Martin, are you alright?”

Martin nods, a bit frantic. “Yeah, I-I'm— I'm okay, I think, just— well, you can feel it too, I'm assuming—”

Jon, where one of his hands is still splayed across Martin's face, strokes his cheekbone gently. “I'm sorry,” he says, soft and winded. “I'm sorry.”

Martin smiles, a sad, grief stricken thing, face wet. Jon realizes belatedly that he's crying— that actually, they both are. “Don't be. I don't even— I don't even know what I've lost, what it felt like when it was there. I only know it's absence and it is palpable.”

“Still,” Jon says, feather light. He presses his forehead back to Martin's and together they catch their breath, haze clearing, life starting to feel real again. “I'm also sorry that I don't think I can do anything yet, not without…” something big, probably. Definitely something fresh, but Jon has a terrible feeling it will require something more.

“That's okay,” Martin says, reaching out to Jon's other hand where it sits shaking on his lap. He squeezes. “That's okay. I might get them back eventually and— and that's enough, and even if I don't, at least there's.. you.”

Jon has to hold back a pained noise, because he wishes that could be a good thing, but having him is something that could probably only ever be a rotten thing.

(—Such loyalty to someone who really treats you very badly—)

But he holds him, and he says, and it's true, “I'm not going anywhere.”

+

Jon does a better job at keeping good on his words this time, and although he's not the most... technological, he makes sure to text and call Martin, just to keep him updated; just to make sure he's safe.

(and jon thinks maybe, maybe i can have this, in a small voice. maybe this one thing is okay to have. maybe this can be mine. it tugs at him.)

From there, their next plan of action is finding Basira, which they both have a feeling will be more difficult than ideal. Jon had left her at her apartment at the end of the Before, but has heard nothing since. Martin is the unique case out of the three, after all. The goal was to hear nothing after— to sever ties between them and the Institute (and by extension, Jon) forever.

The flat is the obvious place to check, so they take Daisy's “well-loved” (beat to hell) truck, which has been left surprisingly untouched and untowed in the Institute parking lot for the past 8 months. It runs terribly, but it runs, so Jon's not exactly in a place to complain.

When they knock on Basira’s door, a short woman with her blonde hair tied up in a ponytail answers, looking startled at the two dark, looming, scarred figures at her doorstep. “Um, can I help you?” she asks, visibly confused.

“Ah, yes, we're here to inquire about a previous tenant,” Jon starts, politely. “Basira Hussain? Do you... happen to know where she's gone, or if she left anything behind?”

When the girl's brow furrows, Daisy butts in, flashing her old, useless police badge and her teeth. “We need to ask her some questions, see.”

“O-Oh, of course, I see. U-Um, I think she left a notebook? And a tape recorder, but, um, no tapes as far as I could tell. A couple old books. I have them all in a box already, if you'd like. I talked to the landlord about it but she never came round to get them, it seems.”

They both nod, Jon saying, “Thank you very much. You've been a great help,” when the girl scurries back with a mid sized box.

Daisy gets to work quickly once they're back in the car, using her nails to cut through the tape. The girl hadn't lied— exactly as she said there’s a couple notebooks, a tape recorder (no tapes), and some books, ones Jon recognizes because he had been recommended them by the woman herself.

Daisy grabs at a notebook, beginning to leaf through it. “Oh,” she utters softly, brow furrowing.

“What? What did you find?”

“She knows, Jon,” Daisy says, looking up and locking eyes. “She knows everything. She must have— she must have wrote a note, or recorded a statement, or something, because this is dated after when you said and she's talking about the supernatural.”

“Let me see that,” Jon says, snatching the book from Daisy. She begins rifling through the box some more as he looks through a few pages. She's exactly right. Basira knows what happened, and she did not seem happy about it. “Shit.”

There's a photo clutched in Daisy's hands now, her and Basira, side by side, in uniform. It's old if the lack of some of Daisy's scars are anything to go off of.

“Shit,” she agrees.

+

“Knowing Basira, she likely wanted to stay somewhere close to the Institute, but still inconspicuous.” Daisy behind the wheel is something Jon wishes he never experienced, he decides, clutching his seatbelt as she steps on the gas.

The door cracks open a bit, and Knowledge trickles through. Jon gasps. “I know,” he says, “I know where.”

He files off the address, as well as the name of the complex, and Daisy makes a wounded noise. “I know that place,” she says, and Jon can tell she's actively struggling to keep her tone steady. “We had a viewing there once, towards the end. We were— we were thinking of moving in, together.”

Jon doesn't know if there's anything to say, so he says nothing at all, but he does brush his hand against Daisy's shoulder, just once, just for a moment.

+

The moment Basira opens the door, she looks at Jon and the first thing out of her mouth is “You,” before she lunges, hand fisted in the front of Jon's shirt.

It's.. well, it's very different than Jon expected, and seemingly a lot more emotional than usual. He can feel the rare shake in her hands, the same one he had only felt once before, after the Unknowing. Basira has always been known for her steady hand in his mind.

“You remember me?” Jon manages to grit out, shocked and the wind knocked straight from his lungs.

“Not much, not all of you specifically, but I do remember the feelings. I do remember that I hate you,” she spits, raising a hand, and then Daisy is pulling her back, dragging her away, a mess of flailing limbs.

Jon can't help but find it funny in a terrible sort of way, because he can't recall a time when Daisy had to hold Basira back from something, rather than the other way around. Now both women have had to stop the other from killing him.

“Basira!” Daisy yells, and it rings clear in the hall. “Basira, stop!”

Basira glances at her, clearly about to say something snide back, but her mouth stutters shut, and she does a double take. “Daisy,” she says, voice completely unreadable, at least to Jon. She stops fighting.

“Hi,” Daisy breathes, soft.

Jon, feeling suddenly like he's intruding, tugs at the neck of his shirt and looks away.

Basira, eyes cold and calculating, put together so fast that Jon could almost convince himself that she had never attacked him in the first place, glances between the two. Jon feels like a puzzle being fitted into place. “Right,” she says. “I suppose we better talk about this inside.”

The sight of Basira's apartment would be comical if it didn't make Jon so sad. Literal red string connects photos on her wall, the place is tidy - Jon wouldn't have expected otherwise from her, - other than her coffee table, where documents are spread out haphazardly, covering most of the surface. Jon can see a box of tapes in the corner and a list of names of victims pops up in his mind unprompted, as well as statement recording dates.

Basira sinks into her chair, and suddenly, surrounded by all her work, Jon thinks she looks very, very tired.

Jon and Daisy sit opposite her, and the only thing that gives Daisy's discontentment at this arrangement away is the brief flexing of her hand against her thigh, the sharp cut of her eyes, and then it's gone.

Jon starts, stating the obvious. “So, I'm assuming you know then.”

“I left myself a tape,” she explains simply, pushing up her round-rimmed glasses. “I hid it on my person. I lost my memories, but I never stopped knowing about my past, not really. I filled myself in on the details. I trust myself, above all, so. It didn't take too long to come to terms with it.

“Apparently before you... took away my memories, I had come up with a few theories based on research that if I could increase my connection to the Beholding, it might be easier to remember, or even just being exposed to the paranormal again— something of the sort, the details are kind of a jumbled mess— I was kind of a jumbled mess, it seemed, at least by listening.” Basira nods to the box in the corner. “I still had some statements leftover from the investigation of the Institute, so I've been listening since.”

“And?” Jon asks simply. Daisy's leg starts to bounce.

“I... don't remember, not fully. But I'll get flashes. And I recorded a lot for myself, and left a very thorough note, so I know a lot more than I would have. Every once in a while I'll remember something out of the blue, it's a strange sensation.” Her eyes linger on Daisy for a moment. There is a notch in Daisy's neck that tightens and her hands grip each other where they're clasped together, tense. Jon knows what it feels like to have someone you love not remember you.

He just hates that he was the one who did that to Daisy.

(god, he's a monster. he really is terrible. not the right choice, he thinks, and this time, his heart thinks it along with him.)

I'm sorry, Jon wants to say, I'm so sorry. It builds and multiplies in Jon's throat until it feels like he is suffocating on it. “I— I might be able to help, if you're willing to let me,” he says, instead, because even though he is genuinely sorry, apologies will do nothing. Jon is a monster.

(You need to make it right, Daisy had said, and for once the need to fix is less suffocating and more hopeful.)

Basira exhales through her nose. “And let you dig around in my brain again? No thanks. Last time I made that mistake you stole my memories.”

“I trust him,” Daisy says, and the two women share a long moment of eye contact after a lifetime of distance, after months, after memory loss. The room is tense.

And impossibly, Basira, with the most calculating mind Jon has ever known, Basira, who has no real reason to trust Daisy, practically a stranger, who trusts herself above all else, Basira, whose risks are always well planned out, turns back to Jon, dark eyes glinting, and let's Daisy's words sway her.

“Alright, then.” She shifts, straightening her back. “How do we do this?”

Jon, a bit flabbergasted, blinking away his surprise, “R-Right, ah, right then. I'll have to do an assessment first? When I checked with, with Martin— I don't know if you—”

“He was very briefly mentioned,” she cuts in, looking disinterestedly at a patch of the room to the side.

“Right, ah, well, when I checked with Martin, his memories were too blocked off for reading a statement alone? I'll have to check if that's the same with you, if you, if you'll allow it.” Jon swallows, throat dry all of a sudden.

Basira nods, curt, lips pursed. “Alright. Do you need to read a statement first, then?”

Jon nods, a bit sheepish. “Yes, that'd be preferable. I... I almost always have one on me. Do you have a room I could…”

“Sure, yeah,” Basira says, and leads him to a spare room, not her bedroom, he notes, and then remembers, suddenly, that this was supposed to be a space for two people, once. For her and Daisy. “Try not to take too long.”

“Of course,” Jon replies, and the door closes. He releases a heavy sigh, before pulling out his statement, tape recorder just appearing with it. He's used to that at this point.

When he leaves the room, Daisy is gone, likely waiting outside or in the kitchen or elsewhere. She had been nervous— that much Jon knew, even if she was difficult to read, almost as closed off as he had once been. Basira is sitting on the couch, one leg tucked beneath the other, staring out the window.

Jon sits, a bit delicately, worried to jostle her or take up too much space in her presence.

“What should I expect?” she asks, head lazily swiveling towards him.

Jon considers for a moment. “Discomfort,” he lands on. “I'm quite literally going to be rifling through your brain, which usually isn't considered the most pleasant, so. It'll be an odd feeling, I imagine. If you need time to stop, you just tell me, or squeeze my arm twice if you can't seem to word it.”

A brusque nod, a determined and curious glance.

“Oh, and it might be better if you remove your glasses, probably. I-I. I need to get in your space in order to. See.” He wrings his hands, fiddles a bit with his fingers. She removes her glasses, places them folded on the coffee table, movements natural and fluid. She's not nervous. Jon is almost sweating.

“Well, don't wait all day,” Basira says.

Jon nods, excessively. He swallows. “O-Of course, well. Here goes nothing.”

He presses his forehead, a bit clumsy, to Basira's. Her skin is cool to the touch. He takes a deep breath, and reaches out.

He falls into her mind with a thud, and sees her wince a bit, in front of him, in the tangible world. “Sorry,” he whispers, before his voice is overtaken by a wonder of sorts.

Jon has always been explorational— always searching for answers, combing through places for the truth. An unquenchable curiousity that is wanting and willing to drink in everything he can about anything.

Basira's mind is beautiful.

Rows and rows of bookshelves, for miles, for as far as Jon can see. Their wood is dark and well polished and the books look worn but seemingly well cared for. While this, too, is beautiful, it would also be expected if Jon was to imagine what Basira's brain would look like. The thing that awes him, though, is the tall, dark, stretching pine trees that go on seemingly forever above him.

It's shady, shafts of light filtering through, and there is a mossy rock path below his feet. It smells deeply of pine, so fresh it makes his skin tingle a bit, and old library must, the kind of smell Jon had loved as a child.

When Jon begins to wander, it feels more like his feet moving on his own. He resists the temptation to pull open any of the books— those are private things. He doesn't have permission to touch those and he refuses to.

But when he comes to a shelf with a glittering book encased in gold, he feels like he has to. It is an inevitability, him reaching, trying to pull the book free from its shelf, when the mechanism instead opens the bookshelf backwards with a low and incredulous creak.

Basira lets out a bit of a gasp, but says nothing, moves not an inch.

Jon continues.

Behind the bookshelf, there is a small cove littered pieces of Basira's life, a badge, an entire flower bed of daisies, a miniature train, eulogies, a map stuck into the mossy ground, pins littering it. He realizes starkly that he doesn't know much about Basira. He realizes further that these are things, uncovered. Memories she had probably already worked to find herself.

In the center of the clearing there is a looming, dark oak door that is lodged in place by surrounding rock, demanding attention. It is ornate and sturdy, and when Jon tries the handle, it's locked, refusing to give way. But Jon catches flashes, him, paranoid and graying, covered in pock marks that were more fresh than they are now, eyes narrow and untrusting, but a smile slowly lighting his lips, Martin, staring in a way Jon has never seen before and does not recognize, Melanie, smiling and laughing, painting Basira's nails, pictures from the Force, Daisy's sharp teeth and out-of-tune singing, Daisy's bony hands wrapped securely around Basira's hand, Daisy, bleeding, Basira's hands covered in blood, Daisy, looking and looking and looking, Daisy saying “Listen, if we don't make it out of this—” and Basira saying “We will. We will. You can tell me after.” The weight of being the only one to stay conscious through the entirety of the Unknowing, and the yawning emptiness that comes after.

Jon pulls away as if being burned, but when he blinks a few times, he's still in Basira's mind. The door sits, still just a door. The library still feels safe and enchanting, not eerie or lonely or like there is something searching for him. There is no monster to drag him into the depths.

He pulls away from her mind gently, physically and incorporeal. They're both heaving. Jon thinks, embarrassingly, he might be crying again. Basira's lip is wobbling. She catches it between her teeth, blinking unshed tears. “Sorry,” she says, quietly, although Jon, for the life of him, cannot figure out why. She clears her throat, and her face is steady again. “What's the verdict?”

Jon chews the inside of his cheek, fiddles with a loose strand of wiry hair. “It's… doable,” far more doable than Martin's, “But I do think I'll probably need to take one live. I'll need the extra— anyway.”

“Take it from me, then.”

Jon smirks a bit, an unhappy little thing. “It doesn't work like that.”

Daisy opens the door, softly. “I'll do it.” Her gaze is steely and sure.

“You were listening?” Jon asks, surprised.

She shrugs. “I figured it would be better to keep an ear out. Just in case.” Always completely in tune with everything, always looking for danger. Daisy is not used to living a life of quiet, a life unobscured of blood rushing into her ears, heart pounding its own soundtrack.

“Are you sure?” Basira asks, sounding a bit concerned, but Daisy nods sternly. No further argument is made. Basira sighs, a bit. “Back to the guest room then.”

+

Daisy talks about her time in the Buried, figuring it's better to talk about something she already has nightmares about, and when the statement ends, tape stopping, she's shaking terribly. Jon asks if he can do anything, if he can help, but she just insists she's fine, snapping, more irritable then he's seen her in a while.

He hates how sated he feels from the statement, a satisfied thrumming along his skin. A dual sensation: Guilt and concern curling awfully in his gut, twisting.

It's enough, he thinks. At least it should be enough.

What happens when you open the door? Basira had asked him once.

Jon, standing in front of a different door entirely, thinks, Let's find out.

The memories pour out like a wave, like a flood, and Jon is pushed out of Basira's mind with the tide, still feeling caught in it. She laughs, and sobs, eyes wide but unseeing, at least in the physical sense, almost glowing, and Jon has absolutely no idea what to do with it other than hold her hand.

Eventually, she squeezes his, blinks once, twice, eyes returning to normal. She looks straight into his. “You,” she says again, but there's less venom. “You,” and it's soft. “I am so angry with you. But you've done something good. Thank you.” And then, she squeezes once more, and the relentless grip of her hand around his is gone.

Daisy slinks back into the room, blanket around her shoulders, still trembling and looking tired and fragile. Jon's gut continues to twist. “Did it work?”

“Daisy,” Basira sobs.

Daisy blinks, once, twice, before breaking out into a dopey grin. It's the softest expression Jon has ever seen on her, and he has to look away with the weight of it.

“I'll, uh, give you two some space.” He's quick to make his exit.

He sits in Daisy's truck for nearly an hour and a half before she reappears, hair mussed and eyes wet.

“Thank you,” she says, voice shaking, gripping his hand fiercely, looking at him with a ferocious kind of gratitude, a fondness so intense Jon feels it wash over him in waves. “Thank you.”


And for that night, things are okay. There is peace.

+

We need to talk, Basira sends in him and Daisy's group chat the next day. Bring Martin along too.

Jon has Martin's schedule screenshotted in his phone and knows he'll be working most the day. Daisy gives him a weird look when he asks her what they should do and says, “can't we just go to the shop?” And Jon supposes they can. He texts Martin that they need to talk, that they'll be dropping by, and sends Basira the address and tells her to meet them there.

The three of them sit down at a booth in the very corner, the furthest they can get from anyone else and the most secluded. Basira and Daisy sit together on one side, Daisy's arm spread on the back of the booth behind Basira, and Jon sits on his own across from them.

“Jon!” Martin exclaims. He sets down a mug in front of him. “Daisy,” he greets more subdued. His eyes flick over to Basira, as if asking ...and you are?

“Martin,” Basira says, “It's good to see you.”

Martin blinks, and then groans, looking at Jon in annoyance. “Another one? Really?”

Basira lets out a chuckle, before reaching out a hand. “Basira,” she offers. Martin shakes it.

“Martin,” he returns, smiling a bit. His eyebrows furrow. “W-Wait, but you already knew that—”

She laughs again, and Jon is just happy she's in a better mood than yesterday.

He looks up at Martin, apron around his waist, still standing. “Can you take a break?”

Martin looks at him, searching for a moment, before he smiles and nods. “Yeah, sure. Scoot.”

Jon does so and Martin slides into the booth next to him.

“So, what do we need to talk about?” Martin asks the table, a bit apprehensive.

The three of them share a glance.

“Right,” Basira starts. “As much as we might not want to admit it, things are gonna get more dangerous from here on out. Martin may be a bit safer than the rest of us, with his memory not intacted, but he's still been around the Archivist quite a bit and spent, - although significantly less, - time with a Hunter. And it's only a matter of time before Lukas realizes that Jon isn't isolating himself anymore and drops our protection completely, if he hasn't already. It would be best if we all find a place to stay together.”

Martin blinks. “I don't know what half those words mean.”

Jon interjects, “Basically, after I made the decision to... remove your memories, I struck a deal with Peter Lukas, avatar of the Forsaken and your former boss, to keep an eye on all of you and ensure your protection as long as I started to feed the Lonely as well.”

Martin scrunches his nose. “I suppose that clears it up, a little bit.” He taps a couple fingers against the table. “So, what? If this Peter guy finds out you're interacting with other human beings he'll stop protecting us from the other entities' powers?”

Jon nods. “And the Lonely itself.” He and Basira share a glance, both clearly the most worried about the Lonely and Martin.

“Well, that's fun, isn't it?” Martin says, sarcastically, scratching the back of his neck. “I'm probably vulnerable working here, huh?”

They all nod in tandem.

He frowns. “S'pose I better give my two weeks then.”

+

It takes them all of two days to decide that they're going to stay at Martin's for the time being. After all, there's no way they can all stay at the Archives, and there's no way that any of them are going anywhere alone now that the jig is most likely up. If Peter doesn't know by now, then, well. Jon must have severely overestimated him.

They really don't need any more time than that to pack everything up between Basira's flat and Jon's office. Basira has the most things packed, Jon has a box of clothes, a smaller one of little knickknacks in his desk, and two boxes of tapes loaded into Daisy's truck to keep him from temptations of worse things. Daisy has nothing, not really. Jon and her picked up clothes from the closest shop, the most they could get for what they can afford. A plethora of Hawaiian shirts now in her arsenal.

They all pile into Martin's living room that night, pushing the coffee table to the side and setting up bedding across the floor (for Basira and Daisy) and couch (for Jon). Martin had offered to take the couch, but Basira had grimaced at the prospect of the three of them sharing a bed, and Jon couldn't say he was all too fond of the idea himself. So the couch it was. That's alright. Martin has a lovely sofa that sinks to the touch to the point where it feels like it will swallow you whole, in a way Jon.. thinks is positive.

And yet, despite the way the couch hugs to his body, cushions threatening to hold him there forever in their soft warmth, despite the exhaustion of moving weighing down his bones and the comfort of having the people he cares about safe and close and in arms reach, Jon's brain does not get the message that it's time to sleep. He's bone-achingly tired, but his mind is running a mile per minute, startlingly awake.

Well. Laying on the couch clearly isn't helping him. Perhaps a glass of water will. His throat is a little dry.

He tiptoes around the sleeping forms of Daisy and Basira, curled up into each other, hands clasped against the duvet, and makes his way to Martin's kitchen. The glasses are in the same place they always were. Something about it is so familiar it stings, heart burning a bit, hands clenching.

He had something once and he doesn't anymore.

He sits at the kitchen with his glass and pleads with his brain to shut off enough to go back to bed.

And like some otherworldly pull, like fate, like a red string, like a guide, a steady, like all the things Jon wants and cannot have, like searching and finding and being found, all the words he knows but can't seem to get out of his throat, there is Martin, in the dark of the night.

“Shit, Jon!” Martin exclaims in a whispered hiss, stepping through the archway. He clutches his chest and takes a deep breath. “Care to explain why you're just sitting at my table in the dark at 2 a.m.?”

Jon blinks. “I couldn't sleep.”

“And the lights???”

Jon ducks his head, twirling a strand of hair. “I didn't want to wake anyone up and, ah, and these days I, I don't need them to see in the dark anymore, most of the time anyway.” Martin's looking at him a bit peculiarly, a moonbeam lighting up his hair. Jon desperately wants to touch it. An eye and some freckled skin standing out against the otherwise dark night.

“Right,” he says, tone unreadable. “Next time, maybe leave some indication you're there, though. Especially with all this talk of monsters and the lot.”

“O-Of course,” Jon rushes, “Sorry. I'll keep that in mind.”

“It's alright. It's just— it's just a lot, y'know.” He scratches his elbow, arms crossed, shoulders curled in. Martin is not someone Jon has ever really considered small in any way. He is soft and broad in stature, and his personality is large enough on its own to fill up the room, but standing in his kitchen, blanketed in gentle darkness, pulled in on himself, closed off and overwhelmed, Jon thinks he looks excruciatingly small. Vulnerable. He could tuck him close to his chest and keep him there, forever, shielding him from the world. He swears he could.

“I do,” Jon says, softly, hand twitching against the wood of the table. He wants. “What woke you up?”

“Nightmare,” he shares, looking somewhere Jon can't see. Where Jon can't reach. “The one where I'm completely alone.”

Something clutches Jon's heart with spindly tendrils and squeezes. “I'm sorry.”

“It's.” Martin shakes his head. “You said that was one of the powers right? Loneliness, or something?”

“The Lonely, yes,” he admits, gentle, as if he's going to break something if he speaks it too loud. As if he speaks it quiet enough it won't be real. “You had some experience with it, in the past. If that's what you were wondering.”

Martin chuckles, a hollow sound. A wrong sound. “That makes sense.”

“You came to check if everyone was still here?” Jon asks, already knowing the answer.

Martin nods, sharp. He tugs his ear. “It's, it's nice, having you guys here, really. It's easier to make sure that I'm not really in a world all by myself.”

“I can come back to bed with you,” Jon blurts, mind screaming idiot at him the whole while. “I-If you want. If you think it'd help, to— to wake up, and have, uh, someone right there? To know, right away?”

Martin blinks, and Jon thanks the Eye, just this once, for allowing him good enough vision even in the night to see the patches of pink that crawl up Martin's throat and color his cheeks. “I— you wouldn't mind it?” His voice comes out high and pitchy.

Jon shakes his head immediately, feeling heat arrive to his own face. “No,” he answers. “No, I really wouldn't mind. I can't seem to sleep where I am anyway, so.”

“I'm sorry if the couch wasn't comfortable enough,” he says, genuine. “It's, well, it's definitely seen better days—”

“Martin,” Jon interrupts. “The couch is fine. It’s very comfortable. And your hospitality is more than I'd ever be able to ask for anyway, seriously, don't worry about it.”

Martin makes a noise high in his throat. “Alright, then.”

Jon tucks his hair behind his ear, smiles soft and sheepish. “Let's go to bed?”

Martin smiles back, blushing in full now. “Yeah, alright.”

(It doesn't fix things entirely, of course. Martin isn't an immediate and automatic cure for lack of sleep, but it definitely helps, having someone at his side, and having that someone be Martin. The fact of the matter has been, and will remain, that the best sleep Jon has ever had is in the same bed with Martin.)

+

Waking up next to Martin after months is surreal. Jon wakes first, streams of soft morning light filtering in from the crack in Martin's curtains, coloring him in warm pale tones, lighting up his hair in a way that makes a soft brown shon through. His eyes are closed and dreaming, eyelashes fluttering against his freckled cheeks. He wakes curled into him, hands sandwiched between them and pressed to Martin's chest; Martin's arms thrown over him securely, legs a tangled mess. He's the warmest he's been in a long time.

(and jon wants to know him, so bad he feels it pushing against his ribs, his throat, a constant stream in the back of his mind. he has fallen in love with martin all over again, has ached and pined and adored for multiple lifetimes' worth and would still keep giving more. he wants to know him, again. he wants, terrifyingly, the edge of a precipice, the soak of a deep sea, to be known, again. to be solved and understood. his greatest fear and yet his greatest once. he had something once. love, loss, and the place they intertwine, gently, devastatingly, around his heart.)

He catches himself reaching out before freezing in midair, remembering that he is no longer allowed that. They're not together, and for this version of Martin, they never have done. It aches, being the only one to know. Being unknown, and yet knowing so much.

Not that Jon deserves to be known, really. It has only ever served a burden, only ever been unpleasant at the least and awful, dangerous at the worst.

There are things he's allowed to have, and things he's not.

He feels the nauseating twisting of his gut, Martin's arms around him, vulnerable, unknowing of Jon, of all his terrible parts that collage him into the semblance of a human being. He shouldn't have this, he shouldn't, and maybe in another life he could, but not this one. He doesn't deserve the kindness, the warmth, the security of having his loved ones close enough to keep an eye on. To have loved ones.

He slips out of Martin's steady grip and mourns its loss, but the feel of the emotional knife in his abdomen is too much to keep put. Martin makes a sleepy disoriented sound of discontent. Jon pretends it doesn't feel like a sharp twisting, knife nestling itself further into his flesh.

Daisy smirks at him knowingly when he emerges from Martin's bedroom, which means that Jon gets absolutely no peace from the moment he leaves the room, ears already heating in the cold morning air.

Basira emerges from the kitchen, already frowning down at the mug in her hands, looking disheveled. When she sees him, she makes no teasing comment, though her eyes are sharp, “Oh, you're awake. Good.”

Jon just nods, nervously scratching the side of his neck, doing what he can to hide behind the curtain of his hair.

She plows on, taking a seat on Martin's recliner. “I was thinking we could start work on locating Melanie today. I do know where her previous flat was but I have a strong hunch she no longer lives there.”

Jon blinks. “Melanie consented, Basira. She— she thanked me.”

“She what.” It’s not a question, more of an exclamation.

Jon fiddles with a stray hair. Quietly: “Yes, she thought it would be better for her. She wanted out, regardless of the cost.” Basira's biting her cheek, looking contemplatively at her undrinken tea. Jon continues, “I do think it would be advisable to get a warning to her, though, since she is likely no longer under Lukas' protection or at least won't be soon.”

Basira nods, expression carefully blank and unreadable. “Yeah. That would be.. Good. But how?”

“I. ah, know someone she was close to? I think,” Jon stammers. “I'll go, I'll go make that call.”

The balcony air is cold against his face, but he breathes a sigh of relief, feeling less stifled. Although, there is a nervousness welling up inside him. It's been a while since Jon’s given her a call. He had forgotten to charge his phone the night before, but he has around 25% which he hopes will be enough to at least get through this call. It should be.

“Jon?” Georgie greets, voice startled and tinny through the speakers.

“Georgie,” he says, warmth flooding his tone without even allowing it. “Hey.”

“Wow, um, it's been a bit, hasn't it? How're— how're you? How is... Well, everything?”

Jon laughs, a complicated little sound, and more of a puff of air than anything. “I think there's too much happening to go into on one call, to be frank. Maybe we could— maybe we could grab dinner, sometime, and catch up.”

“Maybe,” she responds, and Jon isn't sure what to make of her tone. He doubts it will happen. He still likes the idea of it. “Did you need something, or?” it's not unkind, just genuine and to the point.

“Ah, yes, actually. Do you— do you still keep in contact with Melanie?”

“Melanie?” Georgie asks, a disbelieving laugh bubbling out of her. “As in, Melanie King? My girlfriend, Melanie?”

“O-Oh. Oh. I-I didn't—”

“Jon,” she chastises, but there's something found laced in her tone. “Yes, I keep in contact with my girlfriend.”

“Um, do you—”

“I know about the memory loss, yes,” she says softly. “I also know it was voluntary on her part. She, uh, wrote herself a note, before. And she's working on things. She's doing a lot better than she was, I think.”

“I’m happy,” he says, and it's genuine. “For her. And for the two of you. You both deserve that.”

“Thank you,” she says, and Jon hates how she sounds surprised. But she also sounds pleased, so it's not so bad. “Really, Jon. And— and don't be a stranger, okay? You're always welcome here.” She pauses, emphasizes: “As a friend.”

“I appreciate it,” Jon returns, so quiet he doesn't even know if the microphone will pick it up.

A soft silence. “Oh, right, what did you need with Melanie?”

“Right.” He sighs. “Just. Keep an eye on her. There's a lot to explain and— and I'm sorry. I am. I had a deal with someone to keep— to keep her, and all of them, safe, but we're— we're going to, ah, try and take him down, I suppose.”

“Always fighting,” Georgie says, unreadable again. Jon wishes he could see her face. Wishes he could know her, again. Not the paranormal kind, but the simple wanting Jon has been accustomed to his whole life. Always picking at the truth. Always wanting the things he can't have the most. “Thank you for the warning. And good luck.”

“Thank you. And you two be safe, as well, yeah?”

She hums a response. A beat. “Jon?”

“Yes Georgie?”

“Don't die, okay?”

He makes a surprise noise, involuntary and high in his throat. “I-I'm not planning on it.”

“Good,” she finishes, simply, and then she's gone, the hum of the dial tone filling Jon's ears.

+

It becomes routine, after that.

Their days are filled with research and planning, copious amounts of tea and after a trip to the market, coffee as well. It's exhausting and frustrating because these things are so much bigger than them. The End of the World. The End of All Things. Entities ten times more powerful than them.

(and who will jon be, when his powers are gone? who is he when he's not the archivist, when he's stripped of Sight? who will he be when the magnus institute is no more and the eye's greatest stronghold has fallen, when he is no longer the ceaseless watcher's favorite little piece?)

(“What do you do when you're struggling? When everything is— is too much?” he asks Daisy one day, both of them out on the balcony, Martin and Basira clattering away, making dinner inside.

“An anchor, Jon,” she says, giving him a meaningful look, before turning away, looking out into the city. “I have a few. You'll find yours.”)

Nights become Daisy and Basira in the living room, Martin and him in the bedroom.

Maybe it's okay, Jon thinks, treacherously. Maybe I can have this. After months of waking up reaching for Martin and instead finding cold cot and empty air, he's finally there.

(—jon will always search and martin will always be there—)

(—one of them will always run and the other will always find them— so is the endless nature of the chase, of the star-crossed— so is the impossibility of zeno’s paradox, of halfway, halfway always, half and half and half—)

(jon wants to know him, so bad he feels it pushing against his ribs, his throat, a constant stream in the back of his mind. wants all of him, his good and bad and ugly, half could never be enough, he wants—)

Jon puts his hair up, keeps it from hiding his face. He's not running anymore.

+

“We can't stay here when it's all done,” Martin mentions one day, and Jon knows that to be true, has known that to be true for a good long while now, but he still hurts with the confirmation of it. He has loved this flat and he has loved the memories he's made in it; the memories he is still making.

“I have a few places in Scotland,” Daisy mentions casually, like owning multiple houses at their age in this economy is a normal thing.

Jon and Martin look at her gobsmacked. Basira just smiles widely into her coffee.

“What? I have a lot of safe houses,” she says, and suddenly she's a bit defensive, a bit more tense. “I had to go into hiding a lot.”

Jon doesn't even want to touch that one, so he just shares a look with Martin and shrugs. Because yeah, of course Daisy has safe houses. Their lives are all literally ruled by fear gods. There are crazier things going on.

Scotland sounds nice, anyway.

+

It's funny the way it happens, really.

After hours' worth of grueling, tedious research, it comes when Jon is doing something as mundane as feeding himself. It's not that he didn't expect answers in the tapes but, well. It definitely wasn't the first place he would look to take down its own entity.

He just feels something strange when rummaging through the box. A kind of repulsion, like the thing under his skin really doesn't want him to pick up that tape.

So despite the screaming and twisting closed of all his eyes, Jon grits his teeth and gingerly picks up the tape, despite the splitting headache and sweating that immediately follow. Presses play, even through it all—

Afterwards, nausea running rampant in his stomach, enduring full body shakes, he emerges from Martin's bedroom, tape clutched in his hand, and says, unable to control the volume or the speed with which he shares it, “There's a panopticon below the Archives with Jonah Magnus' preserved body in it, who is currently inhabiting and controlling Elias.”

The three of them look at him like he's sprung an extra head. A moment of stunned silence and then:

“Of course there is,” Daisy says, exhausted, annoyed, a bit hysteric, “Why wouldn't there be?”

“None of those words are in the Bible.” Martin’s laughing, sounding like he's reached his breaking point.

“That's all well and good, but what are we even supposed to do with that information?” Basira asks, dry.

Jon remembers how it feels to have a piece of you lit on fire. Knows the burn of it well, knows the feeling of statements burning, an excruciating pain in a phantom limb.

“We watch the Institute go up in flames.”

The three of them blink at him.

“So what we just—?” Daisy makes mimics a bomb noise and does a small explosive gesture with her hands.

“I-I think it might work,” Martin says, wide-eyed, as if he's surprising himself. Basira and Daisy's expressions are similar. “I know I don't know much about these things, but I feel like... There's something in my head that says fire has worked against the Institute before. The complete obliteration of knowledge, especially if it includes the destruction of Jonah Magnus.”

Jon feels like his insides are being yanked, a startling remembrance of the tape altercation with Elias and Martin, lighting up statements to catch his attention. Of Gertrude, years ago, doing something similar.

(—Such loyalty to someone who really treats you very badly—)

And there's something more animalistic inside Jon that protests as well, a type of fear, losing hold of so much knowledge and power. It takes all his strength to resist it, to grit out, “He's right.” The Beholding is certainly not fond of the Desolation.

(—it's impossible, what destroys one power just feeds another—)

“It's the perfect timing with Elias in jail, as well,” Basira says slowly, absorbing the information. It's a bit too perfect, he knows she's thinking. He is, too.

(—there are things Jon is allowed to have, and things he is not. Where does freedom fall? Where does a happy ending—)

“Right, then,” Daisy says, wild smirk growing on her face like fire to sage brush. “I guess we'll need to find some explosives.”

+

It's decided that Daisy and Jon would be the most inconspicuous to sneak back into the Institute.

“You have explosives in the tunnels?” Jon asks, astonished.

Daisy just shrugs. Duh, why wouldn't I?

Jon just shakes his head, a frown on his face, but they're coming in handy so he doesn't protest, doesn't mention the absolute unsafety of leaving active explosives under the place where an entire staff of people work. A lot of innocent people there, less entangled with the Archives.

So. They're going in, despite the displeasure of Martin and Basira. They both know it's the most logical, so they've never argued, but it's clear neither of them like it.

“They really need to up security for this place,” Daisy says, when they come to the window Martin broke in through, to find it still broken weeks later. “Seriously, this place is incredibly vulnerable to attacks as it is, and they put absolutely no effort into securing it?”

(there are things can have, and things he cannot.)

Jon just says, “Be on guard. We don't know what's inside. And there's a strong chance things will be more difficult in the tunnels— closer to the beating heart of the Archives— and I think, well, I'm pretty certain the thing that took Sasha is still down there as well.”

Daisy blows out some air, and Jon can sense the itch under her skin, knows it in the same way he knows Basira's worried looks when Daisy isn't looking or Martin's loneliness, the way a butterfly and a bird both know the sensation of flying. Knows her hunger because it is his own, even if it differs.

He clasps her hand in his. “No matter what happens in there, I need you to promise that you'll still come out Daisy,” hard edged, soft cored Daisy, wild and wonderful Daisy, glinting eyed and feral smiled but in a way that breeds fondness in Jon's heart but not fear, Daisy, who he loves, startlingly and yet the most natural thing in the world, “Okay?”

She grips his hand back so hard it hurts, nails digging into the skin. She takes a deep breath, lungs extending her rib cage with the force of it, pushing out her chest, nods. “Okay,” exhales, “I can do it, yeah? I promise.”

“We can.”

She smiles, a soft thing, wild and untameable in the same way that a field of primrose are, “Give me a boost, Sims.”

Once they're inside, it's just a matter of getting into Jon's office where the trapdoor lays without getting caught. Between Jon's invisibility and Daisy's... experience, it's an easy task, and they're in within minutes, no sign of Lukas, no sign of anyone.

(where does freedom fall?)

The tunnels are dark and confusing, twisting and dank, and their footfalls echo in the quiet regardless of what they try to do to soften the noise.

They wander for a long while, senses completely jumbled.

He listens as Daisy's breath slowly gets more short until she's basically gasping beside him, trembling and picking up a grueling place. Jon needs to get her out.

He grabs her hand, again, squeezing.

(here, the contact between him and daisy is the only thing keeping them grounded, as ironic as that is when ground is all that is surrounding them endlessly.)

“It's the same,” she heaves, voice too small. “J-Jon, it's—”

—Too-Close-I-Cannot-Breathe—

and if Jon is having moments of lapse, of flashbacks, after being trapped for just three days, he can barely even imagine what Daisy is going through. His mind goes a bit frantic. He needs to get them help, he needs to get Daisy out, he needs her safe, he needs—

“Need a hand?” a crackling voice asks. Dark eyes glint in the darkness.

“Helen,” Jon breathes, more relieved to see her than he ever thought he'd be.

“Archivist,” she says, a laugh falling from her lips. “It's been a while. I can give you the way to whatever you're lost looking for down here but I can't guarantee it'll be safe. After all, Sasha—”

“Not Sasha,” Jon corrects, stern. “She's not— Don't call it that.”

She blinks, a rehearsed, voluntary motion. Somehow, something so human just manages to make her look even more wrong. “Not Sasha James—” she amends, “—is still around and its location is not under my control. There's a chance you'll be spat out in close quarters. Is that a risk you're prepared for?”

“Yes,” Daisy says, suppressing the desperation in her tone, but not well enough. “We can take her, if it comes to that.”

Jon isn't sure they can, but. He needs to get Daisy out. They need the explosives and Helen's help to do that. To be done with all this.

“Wonderful!” Helen exclaims, a bit pitchy. “Follow me then.”

The door squeaks and snaps shut behind them. Jon holds Daisy's hand tighter.

“I can give you a ride out once you retrieve your tools as well,” Helen says. Pauses. “If you're still here that is. Anyway, just consider it a friendly gesture. I have missed you, Jon. Not many people want to chat with me these days.”

Jon bites his tongue, because a ride home sounds nice. “I wonder why that would be.”

“Right?” Helen laughs. It sounds like barbed wire being scraped against metal. “I'm a very entertaining partner for conversation I'd say. Ah, here we are. I'll drop you two off here. Out you go. See you soon, hopefully, and good luck!”

Daisy's hand is clammy against his as they're discarded back out into the tunnels. She tenses, and her breathing is equal and measured, conscious. Jon wishes, not for the first time, that he could do more.

It's just their luck that the thing wearing Sasha's face would appear. Of course. Helen did warn them, he supposes.

He feels like his gut sinks from his body, terror gripping him.

Daisy growls at his side.

“Jon! My dear friend come to visit,” she exclaims, stretched long, so completely wrong Jon can barely look at her, but he also can't turn away.

“We should run,” Jon says, trying to will his legs to move. He lurches backwards, but Daisy remains firmly planted in place, low noise coming from her throat dissolving into a laugh, shoulders shaking. “Daisy.”

“She's the one who should be running,” Daisy says, and Jon can hear the smile in her voice, feels it as it turns his blood to ice in his veins. She lets go of his hand, but he clasps her wrist.

“No,” he says, horrified. “No, Daisy, we need to go. Now.”

“Does your new friend want to play?” Not Sasha says, “Oh, goodie, then. I'm sure we can find someone eager to snatch her up. Two of the Archivist's friends taken, one of them a Hunter— extra convenient for the Stranger, isn't it?”

Jon sees red.

“No,” he says, grip falling from Daisy, a thousand shades of crimson blinding him. “You're not taking anyone else close to me, not ever again.”

And suddenly, Jon opens all of his eyes.

(distantly, the most human parts of him recognize daisy whimpering, daisy bracing her hands against the gaze, but his eyes are open and jon cannot stop seeing.)

“What are you— Stop, stop!” The creature begins to sob.

Being Known is quite the worst thing for the Unknown, after all, isn't it?

The air cracks and surges around them, bright and wrong. “Statement of the being that is not Sasha James, taken live from subject by Head Archivist, Jonathan Sims, regarding being Known.”

Her statement comes bubbling from her lips in jumbled snatches, and Jon doesn't register much other than how good it feels to get revenge, finally. How good it feels to feed.

Not Sasha explodes into dust.

Jon barely notices, still drinking in the Knowing, still consuming, still looking. He can't seem to stop. He can't seem to care to be upset about that, either. It's been so long.

It feels good.

“Jon!” someone yells. “Jon, wake. Up.”

All of his eyes turn to Daisy, Daisy, who when she was younger, had wanted to do good, once. When she was younger, she had wanted to make the world a better place, so even in her violence, she focused on taking down the wrong people. Daisy, who didn't recognize it, but did feel something, some sort of wrongness, when suddenly, the Hunt took her. Daisy, whose parents were never quite as involved as they should have been, and whose community never really seemed to believe. Daisy, who fought so long to be recognized, to be believed, to be seen. Daisy, who once thought of killing Jon, whose first instinct when seeing the Lonely start to grip Martin was to seek violence as well, despite how much she despised that. Daisy, who has killed for Basira, who would continue to kill for Basira—

“Stop,” she sobs. “Stop. Stop.”

(An anchor, Daisy says from a balcony, from a precipice, up in the air, looklooklooking at him before she turns back away. You'll find yours.)

The Archivist does not stop. Does not want to. But the most human parts of Jon, the most broken and needy and fallible parts of him, love this person, knows he loves this person, even as he threatens to devour her whole.

(And Jon thinks of Daisy and her delicate looking hands, her pixie nose, the soft features that do not suit her, and Georgie, hot chocolate cradled in her hand, The Admiral curled on her lap, his makeshift home with her, and Melanie, the way she said she is getting better, the way she had said goodbye, and Basira and her beautiful mind, her unshakeable will, of Tim and of Sasha, of all the love he has for them and how he has no where to put it, of the lists he keeps for their memory, and Martin, who had stayed by his side despite his awful treatment, and Martin, bright-eyed and freckled, and Martin, laughing at his jokes, and Martin, petty and jealous and human, and Martin, who makes Jon's chest open and grow and bloom, and Martin, and Martin, and Martin.)

“Martin,” he gasps out. He blinks, seeing through only one set of eyes. “I need— I can bring him back. I have enough power to bring him back.”

+

“I'm so sorry, Daisy,” Jon says. “I'm so, so, sorry.”

Daisy says nothing, doesn't even look at him, but she still takes his hand and squeezes while they follow behind Helen, babbling about everything and nothing, curls bouncing in every direction. She doesn't stop when Helen cheerily drops them outside of the Institute. She doesn't stop until they're all the way back at Martin's.

+

This time, when he's back inside Martin's mind of endless sky blue, the solution seems obvious.

He never would have uncovered anything just walking around the surface, really, for as pretty and as bright as it is, as mesmerizing.

No, instead, this time, Jon finds a dark patch of water, takes in a deep breath, and dives.

It's dark: a murky, deep blue, the complete opposite of the surface, and Jon feels the intensity of something watching him, pressing down on him, bearing on his neck. Sees it in the corners of his eyes and swears he feels it in the water around him. And Jon is afraid.

Open water, wide and vast. Although Jon can barely see an inch in front of his face, he feels like it'll go on forever, like he is lost to the forever, he is really just so small in comparison, just a speck in a huge ocean—

(an anchor, jon, daisy's voice echoes.)

He shifts his hands, in his corporeal body, brushes his fingers against the tender skin of Martin's cheeks, soft and warm. There is nothing to fear, nothing that Jon can't handle, at least. He steadies himself before swimming deeper.

The further down he goes the darker it gets; the more threatening the cave walls are, going from sleek dark stone, to red, sharp, and jagged. The feeling of something right behind him, out to get him, only grows.

But suddenly, the twisting, enclosed cave opens out, widening, and when Jon reaches, just a bit further, just a bit more, he breaches the surface. He takes it in, the air and his surroundings.

It's so bright, he almost thinks he's back to the endless sky, before he realizes that the cave walls around him are shining, glowing luminescent and beautiful, all colors of the rainbow and then some.

Jon doesn't feel claustrophobic, wandering through the caves. Doesn't feel choked, nor watched— not with any eyes that make him shy away, at least. He wanders under the glittering light for a few seconds and an eternity all at once, the path under him shifting in the light. It's beautiful. He feels safe. Almost at home, even.

He gets to an alcove, and is greeted by another door, covered in coral and shells. That's it, he Knows.

Doubt comes in, nestling into his mind and attempting to build a home there. He's scared. He's scared selfishly, scared that Martin will hate him once he knows what he's done, once he remembers how he hurt him, once he remembers—

(someone who really treats you very badly)

But more importantly, more dire is the fear that Martin will be in even more danger after this. That the Lonely may come to claim him once more; that something worse will. All he has ever wanted is for Martin to be safe.

“You're sure about this, Martin?” he asks, with his real mouth, in his real body. “There's no going back from here.” It is painfully true.

Martin nods, a minuscule motion. “I'm positive. I'm ready.”


His hand wraps around the cool smooth surface of the knob, pearlescent beneath his hand. He knows the moment he touches it that this is one way. Once this door opens, Martin is about to know him, know him from the past and the present and where they intersect, know the inner workings of Jon's mind the same Jon knows his.

His breath stutters in his chest.

Jon's greatest fear, the one that feeds off him, the mortifying ordeal of being known. And yet, one of his greatest longings, to lay himself bare, to be understood, to be wanted, to share, to be solved.

He doesn't run away.

He steadies himself, instead. An anchor, a lighthouse, a guide and a control. He opens the door gently, intentionally, and walks inside. He brings the light from the outside in with him.

+

When he comes back to the real world, they are both crying, and shaking, and clutching each other, a mess of tears and limbs and human. Jon isn't quite sure where he ends and Martin begins, or if it even matters.

“Oh,” Martin says, soft, reverent, pressing insistent fingers to Jon's temples, his cheeks, the bridge of his nose. “You used to have glasses. I remember. I remember,” and they're happy tears, falling around an amazed smile.

“You're not angry with me?” Jon asks, stunned.

He laughs, thick with tears. “Oh God, no, I'm so— I'm bloody livid, and you'll hear more about it later, but you're here and I'm here and you're— we're—” Another laugh. “And that's enough for now.”

I love you, Jon tries to say, feeling like he is bursting from the seams, because it's Martin, it's his Martin, who knows him, who remembers him, who knows him and somehow, miraculously, likes him anyway. Who accepts him. Who he can have, because despite everything, Martin is still here, Martin has still kept finding him, Martin will keep finding him, Martin chose him. It pours out of him in every direction, words falling out of him in every language except the right one, a jumbled mess of te amo, jeg elsker deg, mahal kita, men seni suyemin, and still not the right language, but finally intelligible, kocham cię, like his hearts spilling straight out of his mouth, straight into his hands, like here, I'm yours, I'm for you.

“Tes cię kocham,” Martin replies, eyes shining.

It's bittersweet. It's just right. It's just like it used to be, but feels all new— Martin has always made it right.

When they fall into each other, it's a mess of too many teeth and too many tears and they're both smiling and laughing and crying too much for it to be a kiss, really, but Jon has him, Jon has him, and that's wonderful, really, isn't it.

+

Just because everyone's memories are restored doesn't mean that things are perfect.

However, though they are weary, there is still a certain hope that fills the flat, that comes filtering in with the morning light and seems to make a home there. The days are hard, most of the time they are scared and exhausted, but there is an underlying bit of faith, or at least the desire for it.

It's a slow going process.

Forgiveness is something that Jon has no control over, nor would he want it. If he has to work for it, that's what he wants to do.

Basira still avoids him. When she sees him, she still sees the man who stole her memories, and Jon is all of his parts: the terrible and not so terrible ones. If he said he was not that man he would just be shrugging the responsibility of his actions. But she brews the coffee in the morning, and smiles soft and wide at Daisy, and when she looks at him, there isn't just hatred there, anymore. It looks like she's trying to figure him out. It's still just as intense and uncomfortable, but Jon thinks it's.. better.

On the other hand, though Daisy still says good morning and goodnight, will still talk to him, she refuses to meet his eyes at all, these days. And sometimes, he will feel her gaze on him, but when he looks, she's not looking anymore, mouth firm and eyes focused pointedly on something else. Jon deserves it but it hurts.

At night, him and Martin don't talk about it. They slip under the covers together, still, and when Jon wakes up first, he still wakes up tangled up in Martin, but whenever Martin wakes first he's gone, leaving Jon in an empty bed. They don't fall back into being together— Jon isn't. Jon isn't even sure if they are, anymore. Nothing goes back to being romantic. Martin is quiet, most of the time.

But he's still amicable. Still makes Jon tea just the way he likes it. Still says good morning. Jon just.. Jon is just happy to have him. In his life, semi-close, even if the ache is tangible; physical, a chasm not quite closed, the base of his spine, the spaces between his ribs or the quivering absence of them. I love you and I miss you but at least you are here, at least I am living with you.

+

During the time they have dedicated to smoothing out the details in their plan, a question crops up, one that Jon has considered before but has tried not to pay too much attention to.

“What if.. what if you're more Eye than Jon, at this point?” Martin asks. “What if this kills you?”

“It will be worth it,” Jon answers, without hesitance. Not even a shake in his voice.

“What—” the other man begins, a bit outraged.

“He's right,” Basira cuts in, no nonsense, no sugar coating. “One barely-person at the cost of getting rid of one of the Fears. Of course it's worth it.” She shifts to look at him. “But are you okay, with that?”

If it means keeping them all safe, if it means they'll have better lives, that they'll be okay— Jon thinks anything would be worth it, for that. Basira's right, too, at the price of a monster, isn't it just a win-win?

But another part of him, the more human part, soft, fragile, stupid, wonderful, all the terrible needy magnificent parts of him want—

“I... I don't know, honestly,” Jon confesses, very quietly. “But I do want to do this. I don't know if I'm okay with it. I don't think I…”

Martin makes a strangled noise, looking upset, eyes fixated on the patch of the floor. He can feel Daisy's gaze on him again. He doesn't look back.

“Hopefully it won't come to that, then.” There's finality in Basira's tone. They don't bring it up again for the rest of the day. They work in quiet.

+

“You need to stop sacrificing yourself because you think it's the best course of action to protect us,” Martin says, after a few days, once the quiet of night has fallen. He would be a bit easier to take seriously if his hair wasn't a cowlicked mess and he wasn't wearing plaid pajama pants. His eyes are sharp, though, and his words sharper. Jon feels the edge of it, the threat of a cut.

“It's my decision,” Jon says simply, doing a good job of keeping any feeling from his voice.

“Oh, that's rich coming from you,” he snaps, crossing his arms.

A beat.

“I'm sorry,” Jon sighs, fidgeting with his bun.

“I don't want sorry,” Martin says quiet, a bit cold. But also a bit petulant. His eyes don't meet Jon's anymore. “I want you to stop making all these stupid decisions by yourself.”

“I just—” Jon's throat closes. “I want—”

He wishes he was the type who could get out the words, who could express his feelings better, but Martin's always been the poet, not him.

Martin's also always been the one good at reading people. “To keep us safe, yeah, you've mentioned,” It's clipped, but softer than his voice was before. “But consider that maybe we're capable of taking care of ourselves? Or even then, that it's our own decision, regardless.l He sighs heavily, wipes his eyes. He looks so tired. So small, and yet so large, the biggest thing in Jon's life, the most important, the still point, someone he knows is strong, but someone he wants to protect forever. An aching opens in his heart.

When Martin pulls his hands away, his eyes are wet and red-rimmed. “I told you once that I didn't want easy. I want something worth it,” he pauses, and his jaw is set stubbornly, tears unshed by pure will, and Jon thinks he loves him terribly. “If it means miles of hell to get to it, then so be it. It'll just make the ends even more justifiable to the means. If I'm to be safe I want to be safe with you. I want to be more than safe. I want—” he makes a frustrated noise and cuts himself off. Jon yearns for something he's not sure how to aptly name. “I spent so long being helpless and scared out of my mind with nowhere to put it. I don't want that, not anymore, not now, not ever.”

“Alright,” Jon says quietly, just taking in the information. Just taking in the man in front of him, a bit wondrously. Perhaps incredibly wondrously.

“It wasn't your choice to make,” he repeats miserably.

Jon let's the edge of the knife sink in, slice him open. He accepts it. He does not fight, just feels the metallic sting against his bones. “I know,” he says, chest squeezing painfully. I know.

“Setting yourself on fire to keep us warm is stupid,” Martin says, a sardonic little smile on his face.

“You're right,” (it was the wrong choice, wasn't it? wasn't it?) “I... trust you. If you think it's stupid, I believe you.” Thank you for trusting me, remains caught in his throat, netted and contained and flailing to escape.

They go to bed quietly still, but this time, Jon doesn't have to wait until Martin's asleep for his arms to wrap around him. He holds him the moment Jon has laid down.

It feels an awful lot like progress. Something terrible and bright blooms in Jon's chest. Something hopeful.

Healing, maybe.

+

It's a slow going process, but it's still a process.

Like glaciers melting, like erosion, the weathering down of all their pretenses and broken parts. It takes time. It takes counting small victories.

“I’m going on a coffee run,” Basira says after a particularly long segment of research, standing, rubbing her temples. That's to be expected; normal. What’s less expected is when she turns to Jon and asks, “Do you want anything?”

Jon blinks at her, taken completely by surprise. “A-Ah, just a cappuccino if it's not too much trouble?”

She nods. “Got it.”

Jon spends the rest of the day suppressing a smile, that same bright thing growing in his chest, twining between his ribs.

It's not all planning for taking down an entity beyond their world. There are moments of rest. Moments where they almost feel like a normal group of people, simply staying at Martin's as friends.

One night, Daisy, rummaging through Martin's cabinets for no clear reason, finds a dusty, extremely old looking bottle of wine and a dangerous smirk finds her lips immediately. This is how the four of them find themselves ranging from very lightly and pleasantly tipsy to slightly drunk, verging completely plastered. Basira is just a bit more smiley than usual, Martin is rosy cheeked and a bit giggly, and Daisy is glossy eyed and grinning and stupid.

(Jon loves them very much. Jon loves them—)

Jon is a relaxed, sentimental type of drinker, so he's mainly content to watch the other three’s antics as opposed to getting directly involved, but Daisy seems determined to change this.

“C'mon, Jon,” she goads, for possibly the fourth time. “Jonathan, Jonny boy,” Jon just shakes his head, smiling fondly, for possibly the fourth time. She lets out a dramatic sigh and groan. “You're no fun.”

“Oh, no,” Jon says, monotone. “What will this do to my fun-loving image.”

Basira snorts a laugh. Jon has never heard that from her before, but it makes him laugh too.

“Are you scared?” Daisy asks, wide-eyed, like it’s an earth-shattering revelation. She grins, full-blown and wide, puffing up a bit. “Aww, the little man is scared of a simple arm wrestle match.”

“Oh, no,” Jon says again, in the same voice. “You caught me. I’m terrified. You’re gonna snap me like a twig, Daisy.”

“Damn right,” she says, and takes a swig straight from the bottle. Martin’s nose wrinkles in distaste.

He meets her eyes. She falters, but just for a second, before looking back, and things are normalish, again.

And later, when she falls asleep on his shoulder, clinging to his arm; well, that feels simultaneously like the most lovely and natural thing in the world.

(the thing in jon’s chest sprouts, spreads, plants itself a bit more firmly, a bit more beautifully, a bit More.)

And throughout it all, while Martin's smile still doesn't reach his eyes immediately, it warms slowly, like a well nursed fire.

(jon’s chest becomes a garden, blossoming, entire body turning into daffodils and carnations and sunshine.)

It feels like progress.

+

Jon wakes up cold, jolting upright in bed, hands feeling like ice and lungs feeling like they haven't had air in weeks. Breathing is a choking and messy affair and steadying his heartbeat is just as bad.

He’s alone.

There is a feeling in the pit of his stomach that says you will be alone forever and then you will die. There is nothing but this. There is no one else but you. There is a creeping Loneliness so intense Jon can barely take it, a choked sob escaping a wrecked throat.

He spends a few more moments, shaking in the darkness, alone, before he pulls the covers aside, shifting to move out of the bed, to search—

“Jon?” Martin calls from the doorway, holding a glass of water and looking concerned.

“Martin,” he chokes, coming out as a ragged, shattering breath. Martin is there, kneeling by him, glass abandoned on the nightstand.

Hands press to the curve of Jon’s jaw and grip one of his own. “Christ, Jon,” Martin says. “You're freezing, what—” and then Martin's eyes widen, and Jon is being bundled to his chest, securely held, and though nothing around him feels real - he can barely even feel it when Martin locks their fingers, like there’s a blanket over everything, cold numbness, - that feels real. But he’s scared, he'a scared to hope because he has had dreams like this before just to have daylight rip them away from him, taking Martin with them, leaving Jon alone in his Archives cot. A soft involuntary whimper leaves his throat.

“Hey,” Martin says, soft, pressing a kiss to his hair. “Hey. I’m here. Daisy and Basira are just in the other room, I just saw them. You’re not alone. We’re here.” Jon buries his head further into Martin’s chest, and Martin takes a shaky breath in, fingers carding through his messy hair, bun apparently undone in the fuss. He pulls away and Jon has to repress the urge to say wait, to say don't leave, to say stay. But a cool glass is pressed to his lips, so he grabs it with a shaking hand and drinks.

That feels real, too.

Martin has always run warmer than him, and it has always been appreciated, but even more so when the fog clings to his body and his vision. It's grounding. Comforting. Martin doesn’t stop touching him and Jon thinks he might rather die than protest, at least right now.

“You were my lighthouse in the Lonely,” Martin tells him softly, after some moments of just cradling Jon, of just touching him, of helping him come back, come to. “Let me be yours.”

(There are things Jon can have and things he cannot.)

“I-I,” his throat protests, rough from disuse, from the tension present in it since he woke. “I don’t think I— after everything, I—”

“You’re it for me,” Martin blurts, hand stuttering, like he hadn't meant to say it, like it didn't even register until it was out of his mouth. He continues, though, a bit more confident. “Even through everything, you’re still it for me.”

“I thought—” A wet chuckle. A rephrase: “Don't you hate me? After everything, don't you—”

(—someone who really treats you very badly—)

“Oh, Jon,” Martin pulls away, hand falling from his hair to his cheek, thumb brushing across the peak of it. He tucks a hair behind Jon’s ear and just looks. “I don’t think I'm capable of hating you,” he chuckles. “Even if I wanted to. Don't think I ever have been.” A pause, a moment of soft eye contact, and then fierce eye contact. It’s funny, really, how Jon is the one with never ending sight and yet he still feels vulnerable and pinned under Martin’s gaze, at times, how piercing blue eyes make him nervous despite all his own eyes. “Just— no more secrets. Okay? If you’re about to do something stupid, you need to talk to me— or to someone— or. You just need to try, Jon. And you need to listen.”

“Alright,” Jon says, shaky inhale, shaky exhale, a bit of warmth finally starting to flow through him again. A guide, a steady. He nuzzles into Martin's shoulder and just breathes. “Alright.”

+

“Jon has to be the one to face the Panopticon,” Basira states. Martin opens his mouth, but she cuts him off. “I know, I hate it too, and I hate to admit it but Jon is the strongest of us, especially in the realm of the Eye. It makes the most sense.”

“Let's just hope this goes better than the Unknowing,” Daisy says, tone cold and steady.

+

They need to be able to communicate with each other even across the distance, to keep all the moving parts of their plan, well, moving, while also keeping contact steady and accessible.

This is how Jon and Martin find themselves back in the coffee shop, broken in after hours with the key Martin had never returned after quitting. He has a taser (“when did you get that?” jon asks, shocked. and martin just smiles, a bit sheepish, a bit sad, “after prentiss it felt necessary to get something for self defense.”) in his hand “just in case”, and they're both dressed darkly, although fairly uncovered, because Martin had shrugged and claimed they conveniently don't have cameras anyway, which is concerning for so many reasons but at least it's helping them at the moment.

They're here for the earpieces and radios the place has. Martin also considers stealing the fire extinguisher for good measure but decides against it, glancing at it forlornly.

Jon returns from the toilet to find Martin leaning against the service counter, staring out at the shop. “Are you ready to go?”

“I really quite liked the quiet coffee shop life,” Martin murmurs sadly.

“I'm sorry,” Jon replies, quietly, brushing the back of his hand against Martin's.

Martin grabs it and links their fingers, smiling at Jon, bittersweet. “Don't be. I think the main reason I loved this place so much was because of you anyway.”

Jon makes a noise, looking at him with wide eyes. “But you didn't even have the memory of me taking you here.”

“We said we'd come back here again.” Martin squeezes his hand. “We did. We met again here. I—” he takes a deep breath, smile turning a bit sweeter, “I fell in love with you here, all over again.”

Jon splutters, face warming to an uncomfortable degree. “How do you just say things like that?” His other hand comes to splay across his face, attempting to hide how flustered he is, but Martin, laughing, catches his wrist before he can.

“I’m just being honest,” he says, and his eyes are warm, and it’s so wonderfully familiar it makes Jon want to light himself on fire, a bit. Martin is here. Jon has him. And he knows Martin has him in turn.

Walking out one last time, Martin sends a wistful glance at the coffee shop, and leaves it, key still safe in his pocket.

(That night, in bed together, Jon shoves words from his throat: “To— Just, just to clarify, we’re still— are we still—”

“What, Jon?” Martin asks, innocently, the little quirk of his lips the only hint he might be doing this just at Jon’s expense.

Jon feels himself blush and represses the urge to cover his face. He attempts a glare at Martin, but instead it only manages to make him more flustered. “Together? Boyfriends? Do you want—”

“Yes, Jon,” Martin says, full of exasperated fondness. “We’re still together. Always, I hope.”

Jon smiles like a fool, grin breaking out across his face, unrestrained. “Ah, good, then.”

Martin presses his fingers into Jon's cheeks softly, kisses his dimples. “Good.”

Jon hopes so too.)

+

“That's everything, then,” Basira says. “We're ready?”

A quick glance is shared between the four of them. Jon squeezes Martin's hand. A scattering of nods.

“Let's do this,” says Daisy.

The car ride to the Institute is quiet. All of them are all too aware it could be their last time seeing each other. There is so much to say and so they say nothing at all.

Jon reminds himself to take a breath. And then another. And then another.

+

The Panopticon is beautiful.

It’s a huge and ornate doming structure, with visions from every corner of the world that Jon could imagine, and the tower is elevated in a dizzying spiral, viewing it all. Jon feels like he could stay here forever, really, just looking. It feels like belonging. It feels like this is the right choice, this is the right choice, isn't it?, because it feels right. It feels like one of the only places Jon has felt comfortable being unrestrained, all his ugly parts displayed and made beautiful.

(“What happens when you open the door?”

“I drown.”

Jon casts out his anchor and clutches the railing, prays he’s strong enough to hold on.)

He expects the sight of Jonah Magnus’ body to be frightening, and it is. Of course it is. It’s unnerving and unsettling, but not what he was expecting, really. His body is really just a body. Still the body of something that looks like a man, completely vacant and still.

Jon has to pry himself away from endless seeing, thinks about why he’s here, thinks about why he needs to achieve this goal, even if every part of his body is screaming in protest as he goes about planting the explosives around the circular structure and lining the tower’s base.

“Archivist,” greets a voice, and Jon feels his hair stand up on end, a staticky wave overcoming him. A chill fills the room, like a blanket, like a cloud covering the incredible brightness of the sun.

Jon doesn’t dignify him with a response.

“Long time, no see,” Peter continues. “I wonder where you could have been. It certainly didn’t feel… Lonely, did it?”

The fog curls, thick, almost viscous, against Jon, caressing, coaxing, he almost sighs into the numbness. Has he been this tired all day? He shakes himself, hands fumbling against the explosive.

“You know, when you went to retrieve the Hunter girl I didn’t think that would set up a whole mission of getting your friends back,” Peter continues, despite Jon’s clear disinterest. “But I let it go, because what is hope without fear?”

That does catch Jon’s attention. He blanches. “You knew and did nothing?”

Peter, lips blue from the cold, veins on his eyelids visible from the cold, “I knew with Martin, too. Really, the wish that you could be with people, especially the ones you hold some… affinity, for, just feeds the Lonely more, wouldn’t you guess? The longing to be with them and fear that you never will, not ever again. Elias is always going on glowing about how his Archivist is so smart, but for being smart, you’re really rather slow at times, aren’t you?”

A sinking takes hold in Jon’s gut. He needs to set up the last bomb, but he’s shaking, and things feel so far away.

“Don’t you realize all you’ve done is put them in more danger?” Peter frowns. “Poor Jonathan. You’ve always felt like all you do is ruin things, haven't you? And with little redeeming qualities as well.”

When the fog curls around his vision, it touches his cheek and it feels like a caress. It feels gentle. It feels easy and safe. Something Jon could fall into.

“Come on, Jon,” Peter says, verging on soft. “You can’t hurt anyone in here.”

???. the same big and little words

“Why did she leave?” Jon asks, smaller, with shorter hair and shorter fingers, not knowing or understanding much.

All he knows is that his mum had to leave some day and nothing else. His grandmother looks at him, pained, helpless. Her mouth opens, and shuts, and opens, and shuts. He thinks it looks kind of funny when she does that. “Well, Jonathan,” she starts, the words leaving her slowly, “Sometimes not every question can be answered in a way that makes sense.” It makes him frown, fist curling a bit against his shorts. His grandmother, never a touchy woman, takes his hand (a rarity that he didn’t appreciate enough at the time) and says, “Let’s go get dinner. What do you want, Jon?”

Why, Jon had asked, and then had never stopped asking.

His grandmother is a strict woman. It’s not to say she is completely neglectful, or a bad guardian, or even really that Jon himself isn’t just a hard kid to deal with. She just likes things a certain way, her and her little cottage always put together proper and orderly.

Jon knows, even with his little experience of the world, that she enjoys her solitude. Always has, and Jon is often something to get in the way of that. He doesn’t try to, doesn’t even want to, but he’s just a child, and as children are, he isn’t used to being fully self-sufficient. He isn’t supposed to be.

She’s never quite mean, but when she looks at him, it feels like she’s looking at someone else. It feels like she wishes she was looking at someone else. She sighs heavily, and says, “alright then,” but she doesn’t take his hand, doesn’t do things by her own volition, just out of some unspoken duty.

She clothes him, and feeds him, and keeps him warm, of course. So what is Jon to even be upset about? He has everything he needs.

Can I ask her for this without bothering her? he will think, If it does bother her, is it worth it? Is it okay? Can I have this?

Surely not.

Jon learns to be more by himself. At first, he goes a bit stir-crazy, with the kind of energy young humans have before the world has worn them down and whipped them into shape, and it manifests an unquenchable curiousity. He had always been a bit explorative, but it increases ten fold and consumes him.

He buries himself in books, explores every nook and cranny of the cottage allowed to him, every outside of the cottage allowed to him. Why, he never stops asking.

There is a dark little space in his chest that nestles against his little heart, and it festers and grows with him, bigger as he gets bigger, and he wants.

(He takes her smile from her. Her only child from her, replacing it with him. He takes her solitude. He takes the cottage; the stars.

Jon takes and takes and takes, and the little black hole behind his ribs grows and grows and grows.

What do you want, Jon?

He doesn't know.)

(He takes and he takes and he takes.

What do you want, Jon?

To fix it. To give back. To be enough, maybe. Maybe just this one thing.

These burdens are mine to bear, Jon thinks. Not hers. I'm the one who has created them. Let me take them all. Let me carry them.

He works harder, puts the ever-present why to good use, to school work, to excelling, so maybe one day he can fix it, can give her some sort of fulfillment, at least. Some sort of pride. Some sort of comfort; a job well done.

Some sort of redemption for everything he has saddled her with.)

When he gets into Oxford, his grandmother touches his shoulder gently and tells him she’s proud. He can count the times she has touched him on one hand, so it sticks out like a rusty nail in his memory. Jon doesn't know how to be touched, but he mumbles his thanks, stays humble, and heads out on the train the next day.

And then there’s Georgie, and she’s wild and clever and ambitious, and Jon collects every bit of information she tells him and keeps it close to his chest, against his heart. She’s intriguing. Jon wants to know her, desperately, wants her close, wants to be in her life. Wants to make a home there.

They’re close, for a while. They’re friends.

But then they’re something more, and Jon doesn’t know what to do with that. It’s so big that he cannot fit it in his hands, albeit bigger as they are. Words escape him and he wants but he doesn’t know how to want, how to want and get what he wants, because all his life Jon has just accepted that it's the way things are. There are things he can have, and things he cannot.

Smiling down at Georgie, her bubbling laughter filling the room, smaller hands tangled in his long, narrow ones, Jon thinks, Is this okay? Can I have this? Am I allowed to be this happy?

(all he does is take. how could he possibly deserve this? could he?

surely not.)

So he distances himself, just a bit, because closeness means communication, and that terrifies him. He doesn’t even know how he’d begin. Or, once he began, how he would stop. How he would keep all the little parts of him from spilling out and escaping, unable to be put back the same way as before.

Georgie sighs across from him at the table. “I just.. I don’t want this and I don’t think you do either.” She uses words like a tool, like an extension of herself. Georgie is succinct and honest. Jon has always envied that. “I love you Jon. Really, I do. And I do believe you hold fondness for me. But sometimes it just feels like you’re not willing to try for this. Relationships are great, but they’re also hard and messy and a lot of work, and… If you’re not willing, I’m not sure this is worth it.” She looks at him sadly. “I'm sorry, Jon. We can still stay friends?”

And they try, but things get awkward, and busy, and—

And then Jon’s alone again.

It's okay, really. It's quite alright. It's safer like this. For him and for everyone else. It's easy. It's what Jon has always known. He lets her slip away without even trying.

(the thing next to his heart squeezes painfully, jon wants—)

He closes himself off. Ignores it. He has everything he needs, nothing to fret about.

Maybe he just wasn't built for vulnerability. He pretends he doesn't care.

His grandmother dies.

It’s life, he tells himself. This is what happens. (This is what he does.) He loves people (he burdens people) and they leave. The sky is blue, the Earth is 70% water, Jon loves people and he hurts them, and then they’re not there anymore.

He hurts.

The Magnus Institute is a load of hogwash, as far as Jon is concerned. For as much as the supernatural fascinates him, it’s not below him to point out where people are being idiotic or delusional.

(or really, lash out in fear, and anger, and upset, although none of those things justify it.)

For as idiotic as the Institute itself, the employees are almost worse. When he first starts working there, Sasha invites him to all sorts of events, Tim flashes him flirty grins, and Martin, well. Regardless, Jon refuses them all, and they all pretty much come to a consensus and stay well away.

Good, Jon thinks. I'll be bothered much less, now.

(it's easier this way, it's safer, he can't hurt or be hurt, he can deny things and he doesn't have to learn to be vulnerable. this, jon can do.)

But every once and a while, when he leaves his office and sees the three of them preparing to get drinks, laughing and teasing, bright-eyed and bright-smiled, he has to turn away. He wants, a gnawing in his chest. He suppresses it. He wants—

Some peace and quiet, he convinces himself. He wants some peace and quiet. There are things he can have and things he cannot. Jon brushes passed them, bids them a curt goodnight and heads out into the cold and dark.

One of his idiotic co-workers is Martin.

From the moment Jon meets Martin, he finds him a bumbling fool. He’a always sticking his nose in other people’s business and bringing tea and helping with whatever other nonsense. Jon is inclined to think he’s on a first name basis with everyone in the Institute, at this point.

(there is something that warms inside of jon with the sight of him. the first time there eyes meet, martin goes pink-cheeked and wide eyed and stuttery and jon tries really, really hard to convince himself he finds him annoying.

and it’s true, a piece of him had found martin annoying. but the bigger pieces were jealous. and the biggest pieces had just wanted, and jon has never been good with figuring that out, with knowing what to do with that.

it is far easier to push people away than to let them close. it is far easier to get worse than to get better.)

Jon just wishes the incompetent man would focus on doing his job.

(even if his heart wants something else entirely.)

And then, somehow, without Jon’s realization, he has something. He has something, and he didn't even have to ask for it. He has friends. He's not happy— not in their hellscape, but he is alive and he has something to fight for.

And then he loses it.

Funny, that, isn't it.

iii. there is a trail. i follow you

When Jon enters the land of the Forsaken, his breath leaves his body.

Stars— endless stars, that glow in the sky, catch in Jon’s hair, in his dimples, the hollow of his collarbones. They reflect off of the water surrounding him— endless water that stretches for miles and miles. There's the distant sound of crashing waves, but the water under his feet is completely still. Jon finds he doesn't even care enough to question it, anymore.

It's so… peaceful.

There's a feeling that washes over him, just like the pool at his feet, of a bittersweet sadness, but a distance from it. He feels… clean, almost. Calm. Like the worst is over. Like everything that's ever hurt him can no longer touch him.

In return, he can't hurt anyone either.

He takes a bit of comfort in knowing he will never be known again. Safer for him and everyone around him. The world finally falling from his shoulders; weight lifting.

It’s the darkest night Jon has ever experienced, and it’s scary, but it’s a gentle kind of fear, one that patiently wades, one that catches him when he sinks to his knees in the water. Jon does not drown. He simply breathes through it. Everything else is so far away. It is just him, just him, awful, wretched, quiet. Easy. Just him, and the stars, that is, reflecting and stretching for miles.

He feels like he’s forgetting something but swathed in stars and gentle, cool water, he can't bring himself to care about that, either.

He sits there for what could be hours, or years, or a single heartbeat, mind the most silent and kind it’s been in roughly 20 years.

And then, in the distance, a low wailing, a beam of light that rotates and cuts through the darkness like a knife through a curtain. The peace is disturbed.

Jon ambles upwards, feeling a strange tug to the thing. He heads towards it, barely even feeling his body, barely even controlling his steps. The closer he gets the less he can see the stars, the less they cling to him. He feels the loss. He starts to feel uncomfortably warm and damp, constricted. He starts to feel.

The flash of a smile, the flash of sharp teeth, the flash of a distorted laugh. The flash of “would you like a cup of tea?” of “Yeah, that's me.” of names unspoken and things between his ribs, of things that warm him from inside out.

Jon remembers that lighthouses aren't really meant to be followed, rather serving as a warning to stay away, an indicator of dangerous and rocky cliffs. Although he doesn't recall enough to be certain, something tells him he's never much been good at heeding warnings.

(never been good at turning away from things he shouldn't know, never been good at putting a statement down halfway, at leaving a mystery half solved—)

(—has he been picking at them or have they been taking little pieces of him, all this time? all the whys gradually building up and whisking away parts of him—)

When he’s close enough— light nearly blinding— every muscle in his body wound tight, ready to run, wanting to run, the only thing keeping him planted to the ground the snatches of memories that make him happy and distraught and incredulous and ruined, that make him feel. He had something once. He had something once. Can he again? Can I have this? Jon asks the last little star clinging to the cuff of his shirt. Predictably, he gets no response.

Instead, there's a figure tumbling down the craggy rocks that surround the lighthouse; that entrap it. Jon wants to run, Jon is tired of running, Jon wants to know, Jon isn't sure what's happening, but he doesn't think he wants easy—

(what does he want? what does he ever want?)

“Jon!” someone shouts, and Jon’s heart tries to fling itself from his chest just to meet their voice.

“Martin,” Jon breathes, surprising even himself. Jon wants: “Martin!” he yells, and then he’s taken a stumbling run, going to meet him, all quiet be damned.

(you were my lighthouse in the lonely)

They meet, a collision of limbs and echoings of each other’s names.

“I thought I’d lost you— we went to check the Panopticon, and there was, there was a huge thick fog and immediately I just— I just had this terrible feeling, because of course, we should have known—” Martin blurts, mouth a mile a minute, eyes bloodshot and damp. Against the backdrop of the light, the tips of his wavy hair become a beautiful halo, fiery and wonderful and warm. Jon grabs his hands, soaks in his warmth, steps impossibly closer. He loves him, he loves him, in such a devastating way—

(let me be yours)

“You came for me,” says Jon, incredulous. “You entered the Lonely for me.”

“I told you I'd always find you, didn't I?” Martin says, a fond little quirk of his lips. He looks amazed and grateful and Jon’s heart rattles against his ribs, against its cage, wanting desperately to get out.

(there are things he can have and things he cannot. can i have this? can i have this?)

Jon laughs, awed. In love. “You're amazing, Martin,” and his hands go to his hair, wet with sea spray that doesn't exist, tussled by wind that doesn't exist, and Jon is warm. Martin’s cheeks warm and he opens and closes his mouth uselessly. Jon loves him, a helpless noise escaping his throat. A realization. “Oh, where… what, what about Lukas?”

“Ah,” Martin says, tugging his ear with his unoccupied hand. “Still a problem. We can fix it together, yeah?”

Together. Jon’s chest is blooming and blooming and blooming.

He notes distantly that the light has gone out, that dawn is creeping over the water, creeping into Jon.

“You're positive you want me to come with?” Jon asks, and it's quiet. He half wishes there was wind, that there was a storm, that this world wasn't so deafening in its silence. So that Jon could say it quietly enough for it not to be real.

Martin’s face scrunches distastefully, almost bewildered, “Yes. A hundred times yes, a thousand, a million. I came in here to get you. I've found you again and again and I've wanted you for— I’ve told you before and it's never stopped being true. I want you by my side, for all of it.” Jon feels like the wind was knocked out of him, a tiny little intake of air sucked into his chest with it. Martin, as if just now registering what he's said, blushes from his neck to his ears, patchy and dark, and it's beautiful. He's lovely. “I-I mean. Yes please?” It comes out almost whining, and Jon laughs big and unrestrained.

In his chest, like a second heartbeat, there is a rhythmic singing of togetheralways, togetheralways.

He takes Martin’s hand, kisses his temple gently.

He decides Martin has really been right, this whole time, as obvious as it's probably been. He doesn't want easy either. It is far easier to get worse than to get better, far easier to push others away, but it is far more worth it to get better. Jon wants to fight, if that's what it takes. And he thinks, tenderly, that he has so much to fight for.

(let me be yours)

“Oh, Martin,” he says, grinning wide, hands on his cheeks, against his neck, in his hair, looped around him, everywhere, “My lovely Martin. Of course.”

They make the climb to the lighthouse, hand in hand, making up where the other lacks up the raggedy hill, the old and dilapidated path, a guiding light towards a guiding light, a steady, a guide and a control, togetheralways. They steady each other.

They make it to the weathered door.

Jon is scared.

“Ready?” Martin asks, squeezing his hand, warming him, a bit more.

Jon grounds himself, a shuddering breath. “As I’ll ever be.”

He clutches the knob, twists, and all the things he's allowed to have and all the things he's not come bursting from his chest.

+

Jon and Martin exit the quiet of the Lonely and are greeted immediately with loud, disorienting, terrible chaos.

Hunters. Julia Montauk and Trevor Herbert are the ones Jon recognizes, too many teeth, too many ambling limbs, bloodied and heaving, and the rest of what Jon guesses as their “pack” strewn across the floor. Jon feels a bit sick because they may not have been fully human, not anymore, but they're also definitely not breathing and that is also. That is still. It's not great.

Daisy, across from them, is in seemingly worse condition— not in the sense of injuries, Jon can’t see a single scratch on her, but her pupils are slitted and there are tufts of black fur sticking out in patches, places where her skin used to be. Her gaze is trained on Julia and Trevor but Jon Knows more than he fears that won't be the case for long if he and Martin aren't careful. He tugs Martin’s hand and drops into a crouch; Martin follows.

They make their way slowly around the room, orchestrated by the sounds of snarls and tension. When they reach Basira she's trembling. “Basira,” Jon whisper shouts.

Her head snaps towards them. “She—”

Daisy lunges, a flurry of fur and teeth and claws and blood and too many sharp edges. Jon looks away but he can't drown out the screaming. The yowls from all three parties. Martin squeezes his hand.

And then, quiet.

Jon looks up. Daisy is on her knees, panting, eyes wild and sweating. The last two Hunters are no more. She slowly turns her head and looks at them, expression unreadable, before she collapses.

“Daisy!” Basira calls, rushing to her side. Jon and Martin follow, although admittedly more cautious. “She's out cold. It'll probably take her a while to come to.” Her expression is stern but worried, lip caught between her teeth.

Martin presses a gentle hand to her shoulder. “Let's keep going. We can get her somewhere safe.”

Basira nods, lifting Daisy into her arms with difficulty. She keeps her clutched close, grip hard and secure.

They make their way through the room of slaughtered Hunters, careful not to step on anyone, careful not to think about it too much. Cautious to think about it enough that if a Hunter is still alive they'll have time to react.

They make it through the room easily.

(where does freedom fall?)

They open the door and flee into the next room. It's… cold.

It's cold, and there's a sound like rising static in Jon’s ears. He can see him, regardless of whether he's supposed to be visible.

He shares a look with Basira, who, although a bit startled, nods quickly, hands Martin her gun, readjusts Daisy and bolts. All Jon can do is pray she makes it. But he knows Basira, knows she's capable. There is a thing bright and twisting in his chest.

“I can see you,” Jon grits out, hand still tangled in Martin’s.

“It's no fun when you do that, Archivist,” Peter says, emerging from the shadow. Jon can feel Martin tense beside him. He wants to protect him, so badly, he wants— “So you're back. From the Lonely. By your own choice. That is no small feat. I'm impressed, honestly.”

Martin raises the gun. Lukas laughs, a little surprised, amused. It almost sounds pleasant. “What? You're going to kill me with a gun? What a funny way for a monster to die. Honestly, you two are full of surprises today. Well done, Martin. I didn't think you had it in you.”

“Not just a gun,” Jon says, and the words hiss when they meet the air. It's terrible and awful, the satisfaction that comes with them. Jon feels like he just completed a really good stretch. “Tell me your story, Peter Lukas.”

“No,” he says through gritted teeth. His eyes are wild and afraid. While the Eye is helping him, Jon quite thinks he would have done this without influence. Peter Lukas deserves to suffer.

“Tell me.” The fizzling overtakes the room. All eyes. He's all eyes.

Peter does, at least partially, before Martin shoots.

Quiet.

“Are you okay?” Jon asks, after a beat, looking at Martin, at nothing but Martin. Decidedly not the body that hit the floor.

“I, I think so,” he says, honestly, shaking but seemingly fine. “You don’t need to compel me to get me to tell you that though.”

“Ah, sorry, I didn't even— I didn't even realize I was.”

When Martin looks at him, it's determined and soft and worried all at once. Jon’s heart is too big for his chest.

(What if you're more Eye than Jon?)

+

Outside the Institute, they find Daisy and Basira against a wall, Daisy propped up and Basira clutching her hand. She looks up at them when they run over. “Lukas?” she asks.

“Taken care of,” Martin says, a bit grimly, but he's not tense anymore. He's not shaking. Peter Lukas can never hurt Martin Blackwood again.

“How is she?” Jon asks, concern rising in his throat. The fur is gone, but it's left behind patches of black that look like smeared charcoal across her cheek, her collarbone. Her eyes are wide and unseeing. Basira just shakes her head.

Jon lets go of Martin's hand and kneels beside her. Basira makes room.

“Daisy,” he says, “Daisy, look at me.”

“Jon,”she says, barely above a breath, “Hey,” and it's soft, but still shaky, still scared.

“What's your anchor?” he asks, gently, but the words fizzle in his throat when he releases them, hiss like a roman candle. He reaches out, touches her hand.

“The quiet, mostly,” she starts, “Being able to hear things other than my own blood, my own heartbeat.”

“Good.” He squeezes her hand. “What else?” The words pull gently.

“Being able to look at people and— and see just that, people, not potential prey, not the reasons they do or don't deserve to die. Just. People, imperfect and stupid but capable of getting better.” She’s shaking, eyes slowly becoming a little clearer.

“Can't everyone get better?” Jon asks, coaxing.

A crooked smile. “Want to believe that. I told you that.”

“We can Daisy, you can. Anything else?”

She squeezes his hand back, clammy. Nails still longer than they usually are, but short enough they don't hurt him. “Basira, and you, and Martin. The capability to love. The capability to enjoy a life beyond this.” She stops for a moment, a deep breath. “Hope, I think.”

She’s back.

+

(An anchor, Daisy says. You’ll find yours.)

(What do you want, Jon? his grandmother’s voice rings out.)

(Where does a happy ending fall?)

Jon squeezes Martin’s hand with one hand, and readies his thumb on the detonator with the other.

He takes a deep breath, glances around their group, broken but safe, but alive, but hopeful. He looks at Martin, who smiles reassuringly.

(And the answer to all of them is always, has always been, will always be, Love.)

He presses the button.

+

There's a series of explosions that are so powerful they shake the four of them even from blocks away, speeding away in Daisy’s car. The Institute becomes nothing but fire, alight and terrible and beautiful, because freedom, because a life outside of this all, because Hope.

Jon knows this is only one Fear. In the grand scheme of things, there are still a great number more. But maybe, for four broken people, taking down one evil power can be enough.

And even if there must be more from here, even if things won't be easy, at least they're together. At least they're free.

When he looks to Martin, the man is crying silent and happy tears. Jon loves him, an incredulous amount. He reaches over to brush his tears away—

(when the last statement goes up in flames, jon feels it, violently, like something pulled brutally from his body, physical and wrenching. it happens with no grace. he has something and then it's gone, it's gone, oh god, jon feels like someone has stolen one of his lungs— he is breathing in fire, his mind is on fire, everything is endless
burning—)

Jon screams.

An eye for an Eye.

“But no one’s left. You know this and I know this. Together we trace out the trail away from doom. There isn't hope, there is a trail. I follow you.”

—War of the Foxes, Richard Siken