Chapter Text
After the first two disastrous days, Jon was able to slowly settle into his new job over the next few months. Once he had actual office supplies and furniture that didn't break if you looked at it wrong, he was able to get a start on the mess that was Document Storage. As much as Jon hated recording statements on the tape recorder–which was many of the files in the Archives–it was something he got used to. Just another part of his job.
Tim and Sasha performed as well as Jon had expected them to in their new job. Sasha was great at getting confidential information, as long as Jon didn't question how she got it. Tim could get information out of many people, including filing clerks.
Martin . . . Martin was okay. Not stellar or anything, enough to just be floating along. Jon had given him a few side eyed looks, but he couldn't complain about it too much without revealing he and Martin were equally qualified for their job. He disliked Martin, but he didn't actively hate him. He would give him a little bit of criticism, and things would be okay.
On the other hand, Jimmy was actively sabotaging their work. Every time Martin or one of the other assistants would start organising a box of statements, Jimmy would put the files back in an improper order. When Jon would record the statement on tape and try to file the cassette, Jimmy threw the cassettes in a box. Just threw it in there, with no regard to the filing system Jon was trying to use.
Jimmy also would try and destroy the files that recorded on Jon's laptop. At first, he tried to explain it away, but now he just glared at Jon whenever he tried to stop Jimmy from destroying the statements. Yes, they probably were made up, especially the one with the talking dog, but they should still be archiving them. Not throwing them into the shredder, or tearing them up, or on one memorable occasion, shoving the piece of paper in his mouth and attempting to swallow it. After that, Jon had restrained him to only working with the statements that recorded on tape, because he didn't try to destroy them.
Thank God that Jimmy was only in for a few hours a week. And thank God that he was only the intern. His contract would run out at some point, and Jon would never have to see him again. He would be thankful when that day came.
Despite how wild Jimmy could act, he knew a lot about the people and places in the statements. When Jon had found a statement about a house on Hilltop Road in Oxford, Jimmy had been able to find a whole bunch of other statements about the same location, along with names mentioned in the statement, like Raymond Fielding. Jon would call him in when he saw a name that might be important, but other than that, Jimmy didn’t do much.
Since Jon couldn't delegate many things to Jimmy, he would often give assignments to Martin. He really shouldn't do that, as he was probably being too hard on him. But it was the only way that Martin was going to learn.
Jon had started to regret it when Martin took a few days off because he had a stomach bug. It was actually the first day that Martin had been out, as he'd been working really hard. (Tim and Sasha had taken a few days off; Jimmy kept missing days and then profusely apologising.)
It probably wasn't that bad. There wasn't anything out of the ordinary. Martin would come back in a few days, and he would be fine.
Martin still wasn't back in the office. He'd been out for a week.
It was fine, Jon told himself. It was absolutely fine.
Unfortunately, not everyone thought it was fine. Like when Tim pointed it out when they were eating lunch in the break room.
“Martin hasn’t been showing up to work,” Tim said. “Is he okay?”
“He’s out sick,” Jon explained. “He’s been texting me every day this week. It’s a stomach bug, I believe.”
“Texting you? That should have been an email! Hell, if he’s going to be out for this long, I think he needs medical help. It could be something way worse than a benign virus.”
“Or he could be out for a mundane reason, and you don’t need to overreact,” Jon suggested. “Whatever it is, I’m sure Martin will be fine. And as long as I know he’s out, it’s okay. It’s not like he isn’t giving me an explanation. Besides, you didn’t email me when you were out with the flu last month.”
“That was two days! This is different. I’m worried about him.” Tim frowned. “When was the last time you saw Martin?”
“When we discussing the follow-up for statement #0150409, the Carlos Vittery one. The spider one. I told him it was perfectly reasonable for a body to be covered in spiderwebs a week he died, and Martin disagreed. I told him if he wanted to prove me wrong, he should do better at following up on these cases. He stormed out of my office and that was the last I heard from him.”
“If you’re being unnecessarily . . . hard on him, then he could be avoiding you,” Tim pointed out.
“I think I would see it in his texts.” Martin’s texts were friendly almost, joking about his current situation. If he truly was angry at Jon, he wouldn’t be doing that. “He’s fine, Tim. He’ll come back next week, over his illness, and things will be back to normal.”
“I don’t know. We should check on him.”
Jimmy, who had been silent up until then, looked up from the fridge and the open container in his hands labelled Tim’s. Do Not Steal.
“You said Martin was texting you about a stomach bug?” he asked.
“He was.”
“And he has been out the last week . . . and in that statement he was looking into.” Jimmy muttered something to himself, then ran out of the room.
“See, even Jimmy’s worried about Martin! You shouldn’t be so nonchalant about your co-worker's absence.”
“He’s technically my employee. You do remember I’m your boss.”
“And what a great job you’re doing with that.”
Jimmy was back in the room, carrying the file folder box they used for the recording statements. He rifled through it, then set down two of the statements on the table. He flipped through the papers, then took out a pen and underlined parts of it.
“Jimmy!” Jon yelled. “We don’t mark the statements up!”
“They’re on cassette, it’s not like I’m interfering with your precious recording,” he replied, still underlining parts of the statement.
“People still might need access to the paper version,” Jon said. “If you need to make a note of specific parts of the statement, you can write it out on a different piece of paper.”
“Gertrude let me do this,” Jimmy shot back.
“And Gertrude also let you put the files in any old place. This is my Archive, so you follow my rules.”
“Jon, listen to me,” Jimmy said, looking up from the statements, “I think Martin has been kidnapped by Jane Prentiss.”
“The worm lady?” Tim asked. “From the sex statement?”
“I told you to stop calling it that,” Jon said.
“Look, in Carlos Vittery’s statement, he mentioned seeing a lot of silvery worms around his building,” Jimmy said. “And they match the description of the worms in Timothy Hodge’s statement. The last we heard from Martin, he was following up on Carlos Vittery’s statement, at his building. And based on Jon’s texts, it looks like Jane is holding Martin hostage and sending texts from his phone.”
“How did you arrive at the conclusion Martin is being kidnapped?”
“Prior experience with these monsters has taught me a few things,” Jimmy said. “The most important of which is that they don’t always want to kill. Killing would be too easy. No, they want to make you afraid.”
Jon shuddered. He had tried to be sceptical about all of this–but what Jimmy was saying was really getting to him.
And when he'd last seen Martin, they were arguing about a statement that involved spiders. And Jon knew about the spiders, about things that just wanted you to be afraid.
But even if they wanted you to be afraid, the unfortunate part was that sometimes, people died.
"And how do we save him?" Tim asked.
"We've got to kill Jane, or at least scare her off," Jimmy replied. "Otherwise, she'll probably get bored of scaring him and make a move."
Jon shuddered again.
"I don't care how much you hate Martin," Tim said. "You can't let our coworker get eaten by flesh eating worms. That doesn't look good at all. We need to do something to keep him from dying. For all I know, he could be dead now!"
"Right," Jon replied. He was actually a little worried for Martin. He still didn't like him, but he didn't deserve to get eaten by worms, or turned into one of the "flesh hives."
"I've had some experience with Jane Prentiss and her kind," Jimmy pointed out. "The worms die if you use carbon dioxide on them. The kind used in the fire extinguishers we have in the Archive."
Tim and Jon looked at each other. Even if Jimmy couldn't staple worth shit, he had knowledge of the statements and how to deal with the supernatural problems.
"Jimmy, get the fire extinguishers. Tim, get your car. We're going to save our coworker from certain doom."
Ten minutes later, Tim was driving his car to Martin's flat. Jon and Jimmy were sitting in the backseat, with five canisters of CO2 back there with them. Jon also brought an axe, because it was easy to walk into a store and get an axe in central London. He wasn't sure that the gas would work, so he had a backup to deal with Jane.
"Do you even know how to use that axe?" Jimmy asked.
"It can't be that hard. I just swing in the direction of the thing that's trying to kill me."
"Do you have the arm strength to use it?"
Jon didn't say anything. As much as he didn't like Martin, he disliked Jimmy even more. Martin was a people pleaser, even if he sucked at his job. Jimmy both sucked at his job (worse than Martin) and was a generally unpleasant person.
"We spray the gas at the worms, right?" Tim asked. "And it magically kills them?"
"Yes," Jimmy clarified. "If it's not right, just use Jon's axe. We can also use the axe to break down the door."
"Right. If we haven't seen him in a week . . . Could he be dead?" Jon asked.
"He could be. But if Jane wasn't keeping him hostage, she wouldn't be texting you stupid worm puns."
"I know. I'm just scared that someone is going to die. Whether that be me or Martin or even you."
"If I can prevent it, I'll make sure that no-one dies," Jimmy said. "I need to make sure that Jon doesn't get marked–by his experiences with these monsters!"
That was a strange way of phrasing it, but at least Jimmy didn't want anyone to die. It could be worse.
"I can take the axe if you need me to," Jimmy said.
"I can handle it."
"Okay." He took a deep breath, and looked as if he was confronting his own mortality.
It didn't take that long to get to Martin's flat. There was barely any traffic, considering it was the middle of the work day. For Jon, it felt like an eternity. He was sure that Martin was dead now, and it was all his fault. If Jon hadn't told him to follow up on that statement, or put all that pressure on him, Martin wouldn't be trapped in his flat. Jon still didn't like him all that much, but he had never wished Martin dead.
"We're here," Tim announced. "Who's ready to kill a worm lady?"
Jon bit his lip.
"I'm ready," Jimmy said, jumping out of the car. "Come on, Jon, let's go!"
Jon slowly got out of the car, hoping that Martin was still alive. That there was something left to save.
Martin's flat was on the ground floor. Which meant it didn't take long for them to walk down the hallway and find Jane, with an army of worms, standing outside of a front door.
"Ja-ane!" Jimmy yelled.
She turned around. Looking upon her face, Jon felt fear run through his veins.
Jane's hair hung from her face in stringy black chunks. She wore a red dress, which contrasted with her pale, almost white, skin. Littering her body was a honeycomb of holes, where worms crawled out of most of them. Every time that Jane breathed, her body would shudder.
She was a living, breathing hive for these worms.
Jon couldn't move, being paralyzed by fear. Martin had to be dead, she had to have killed him–
Jimmy stared her down. "Don't make me use this fire extinguisher on you. I've seen your kind before, and I haven't hesitated to kill them before."
Jane hissed at him.
"You leave me no choice," Jimmy said, and pulled the trigger on the fire extinguisher.
The gas hissed out, killing any worm that was caught in the spray. Jane hissed again and ran down the hallway, leaving a trail of worms behind her.
"Looks like we solved that problem," Jimmy said.
"No, you didn't," Jon replied. "You just scared Jane off. There's still a whole bunch of worms around, and my coworker is still trapped in his damn flat!"
"Then we deal with that." Jimmy grabbed his fire extinguisher and started spraying the worms. "You can free Martin, if you care about him so much."
"I don't–" Jon knew there was no way out of this, because he had walked himself into this situation. He had let Martin stay trapped in his flat for a week, and he hadn't cared if Martin was even out sick for a long time. "Fine. I'll break the door down. Hopefully he's still alive."
Martin had been living in fear for the last week. There was constant knocking on his door, and if he got too close to the door, he could hear the worms squirming outside.
He just wanted out. If he could get out of his flat, if he could find an escape from Jane–
There was a loud crash outside. Martin's hands tightened on the arms of his chair. Fuck. She was probably trying to get in, not just make him afraid. He was going to die. He knew he was going to die, right here, right now.
"Ja-ane!" he heard from outside. It sounded vaguely like Jimmy, the intern from his work.
He said some other things to her, which was pretty ominous and Martin didn't know whether to believe him or think he was just intimidating Jane. Whatever it was, it sounded like it worked.
There was the sound of an axe hitting wood. Martin really hoped it wasn't Jane, that it would be someone like Tim or Jimmy, who somewhat cared about him.
Martin hid behind the chair, crossing his fingers and hoping that maybe, maybe it would be someone who cared about him. Even if he had practically accepted that his death was coming soon, he still wanted to live.
There was the sound of the door caving in on itself. Martin clenched his teeth and closed his eyes.
"Martin?" a voice called out. "Are you okay?"
Martin knew that voice. It was Jon, his incredibly grumpy boss. He'd started to dislike Jon since he started spraying the Archives with anti-spider spray. However, Martin wasn't going to dislike him because he just saved his life.
Martin stepped out from behind the chair and looked at his unlikely saviour, a scrawny guy with an axe and an argyle sweater.
"Jon?" Martin asked. "What are you doing here?"
"Saving you from Jane," Jon explained. "What else do you think I was doing? Breaking down your door to check on you?"
"You're not that kind. Maybe to ask why I haven't come back to work. Although you think I'm bad enough at my job to leave me alone."
"Well, I had some help from Tim. And Jimmy. Actually, they did most of it. I just axed your door."
Martin got up from his chair, hands shaking, still afraid. He walked over to look out at the corpses of the worms laying outside his door.
"Thank you? I honestly don't know what to say. About any of this."
"How about we get out of this place? I'm still a little worried about Jane coming back. We drove her off but I don't think she's dead."
"Again, thank you. I don't know how to thank you."
"I don't know either."
"How about a hug?" Martin blurted out. Upon seeing Jon's confused look, he realised it was not a good idea. "Sorry, I'm just a physically affectionate person, you know?"
"It's fine. Just make it quick." Jon put his axe down on the ground, and before Martin could regret it, he threw his arms around Jon.
Martin didn't know why he thought this was a good idea. Sure, Jon was kind of hot with that axe, but he was Martin's boss. Having a stupid crush on Jon wouldn't help anything. It would probably make Jon hate him even more.
Though Jon was hugging him back. Not particularly hard, but it still counted.
Martin decided to back out and let go of Jon. "At least I'm not dead."
"When I found out it was Jane, holding your hostage, I was almost convinced you were dead," Jon said, picking his axe up. "I'm glad you're not." He walked out of the flat. "Come on, we need to get out before she comes back."
"Okay," Martin said, stepping out of the door, being careful to not touch any of the worms, in case they were still alive. "How did you know about me? Jane got my phone, so she probably texted you something incredibly stupid as an excuse."
"I'll have to show you what she texted, and how I figured it out. I'll explain it in the car."
"Car?"
"Tim drove us, there was no way I was taking an axe on public transportation," Jon said, swinging his axe a little. Martin winced a little because Jon and an axe definitely didn't seem like a good combination.
"Please be careful," Martin warned him.
"I'll be fine. Come on, Martin, we'll get you back to work. Where you'll be safe."
"Okay," Martin said, and followed Jon out of his flat. It was the first time he had been outside in a week.
There were so many worm corpses. Martin was almost scared to walk through them, but Jon had a hand on his fire extinguisher and looked ready to use it.
After they got out of the hallway, the number of worm corpses decreased. There were still a few Jon sprayed with his extinguisher, but it wasn't enough to freak either of them out.
They walked out of the building, where Tim and Jimmy were waiting in the car. They had a few used canisters of CO2 in there, too.
"Are you okay if we sit in the back?" Jon asked.
"As long as you keep that axe away from me."
"Alright."
Jon and Martin got into the car, and Jon was making sure he didn't get the axe too close to Martin.
"You're back!" Tim exclaimed from the front seat. "You didn't die!"
"I didn't."
"What happened, Martin? What did you do to get stuck in your flat for a week?" Tim asked.
"I don't know!" Martin said. "I just did some follow-up on a statement, ran into Jane Prentiss, then ended up stuck in my flat. I didn't even know she would be a problem. I was following up a statement about spiders! And I don't have any problems with spiders. I do have many problems with the worms, because they trapped me in my flat for a full week!"
"I think Jane wanted to hurt you," Jimmy said ominously. "Feel lucky you made it out alive."
"Want to see what Jane texted me?" Jon asked, changing the subject.
"Sure!" Martin could hear his voice go into chipmunk territory, but he didn't care as long as it stopped Jimmy from being ominous.
Jon took out his phone and opened his messages app. He scrolled back a bit and showed Martin every single text.
It started with what Martin recognized as the texts they had sent to confirm that it was the right number. Then there were the weird ones.
Can't come in tomorrow. I've got a stomach bug. There was a bug emoji at the end.
Jon had replied back and told him it was fine to take the day off. "Martin" replied back with several more bug emojis.
"Oh my God," Martin said. "Why did you accept it was me?"
"I thought you just texted like that, and I wasn't assuming that Jane was getting herself involved."
For each day that Martin was trapped in his flat, Jane sent a stupid text with an overuse of emojis.
"She texts like a grandmother who just got her first phone," Martin pointed out. "I think the few times my mum has tried to text me looked like this."
Jon laughed. He did have a cute laugh. After hearing that laugh, Martin really wanted to make him laugh again.
"At least you're safe," Jon said. "You're going to be okay. We're going to get you back to the Institute and figure out what to do next. I'm willing to do anything to make this right."
"Are you okay?" Jon asked. "You did get trapped in your flat for a week."
Poor Martin. He looked like a wet Chihuahua. His brown eyes looked down at the floor, and he frowned.
"I'll be fine," Martin replied. "I always am. Don't want to cause you any more trouble than I already do." He gave Jon a weak smile.
"Do you want to record a statement?"
"Sure. Let's do that. You already have your tape recorder by you. I've seen you use that old thing more than I've seen you use your phone."
Jon rolled his eyes and clicked the recorder on. "Statement of Martin Blackwood, regarding . . .”
"The week I was trapped in my flat by an evil worm lady."
"Original statement recorded March 3rd, 2016."
Martin took a shaky breath and launched into his story of being kidnapped by Jane. He'd been doing follow-up on the spider statement, and had broken into the basement of the building Carlos Vittery had lived in. There, he'd found Jane, and ran away from her. Martin had woken up the next morning to the sounds of worms and knocking. Knowing it was Jane, he stayed in his flat until Jon, Tim, and Jimmy showed up, subsisting on canned peaches.
"And then you woke me up with the dying worm sounds."
"And the sound of me hacking down your door."
"Yes. The sound of you taking an axe to my front door. If my landlord asks about that, you're answering all his questions. Both for the door and the dead worms. I'm still making you pay for the door."
"I'll pay for it," Jon conceded. "I did ruin it. But I doubt anyone would want to rent the flat where the door was axed in and there's corpses of flesh eating worms."
"They wouldn't know they eat flesh."
"Well, worms in general ick people out. And if there's a lot of dead worms outside of someone's flat, no one will want to rent it."
"You're right."
The door opened and Jimmy walked in.
"Heard you were done with the statement," he said. "I think we should talk about Jane."
"Considering she's still alive . . . We should," Jon replied. "She's still out there."
"And she probably still wants to do something to me!" Martin said. "I can't go back to my flat if she's just going to come back." He sighed. "Where do I go now? I don't know where to stay."
"How about the Archives?" Jon suggested. "Listen, it's just for a few weeks, you can get a flat soon enough."
"Maybe. Do I have to sleep on the desk?"
"We have a cot I could get."
"No," Jimmy said, crossing his arms.
"What's the problem?" Jon asked.
"It wouldn't be right for Martin to stay in the Archives," Jimmy said. "It's not a good place to sleep. You get weird dreams here."
"How do you know that?"
"Fell asleep at my desk once. Never again. But anyways, Martin should stay at an actual flat, not at his job. How about your place, Jon?"
Jon wanted to say it was even worse than the Archives, which would lead to several HR violations, but the puppy dog look in Martin's eyes made him cave.
"Fine. He can stay. I have a cot he can sleep on for a little. He'll have to find his own flat at some point, but it's good for the time being." Jon sighed. Why was he giving into this? Why did he agree to spend even more time with his second least favourite coworker and his stupid baby cow eyes? It must have been the guilt he was feeling over Martin's horrible experience.
"Great! I'll have to stop by my old flat to get a few things, then I can move in with you."
Jon was such an idiot. He wanted to bang his head against the desk and regret all his major life decisions.
“Why did Jane kidnap me?” Martin asked. “Not Jon, who she sent that ominous text message to. And not Tim or Sasha, who, let’s face it, are probably better at archiving than I am. Jane could have killed me!”
“Or turned you into one of those . . . Flesh hives,” Jon pointed out.
"Don’t remind me."
"In my experience with these things," Jimmy said, "they like to make their victims scared. Not always hurt, just make them afraid. I think that's what she wanted to do. Of course, there's always the problem of her coming by and trying to kill Jon."
"I'll have to talk to Elias, then," Jon said. "As for you, I need you to get out of my office. I want to talk to Martin privately."
"Fine! I need to leave for classes anyway. I spent too much time here, saving your idiot coworker.” Jimmy got up from his seat and walked out, slamming the door behind him.
“Do you think I’m an idiot?” Martin asked. “You can answer honestly.”
“Jimmy thinks you're an idiot. I don’t think you are. It’s not like you wanted Jane to kidnap you. You tried to run away. You thought you were safe.”
“Stop reminding me of . . . all that."
"Do you want to go back to your place and get a few things?"
"I don't know," Martin said. "If you and Tim would help, it'd be better."
"Alright. How about you spend some time in the breakroom? That might help, as it's the least creepy part of this place. I could even make you some tea."
Martin raised an eyebrow. "I'll make myself tea. I don't trust you with making tea." He got up from his chair in Jon's office and started to shuffle off to the break room.
It hurt Jon's heart. He looked so broken. Jon wanted to give him another hug and tell him that would be alright–
What was he thinking? He must be feeling really guilty over this whole thing.
Jon sighed and decided to follow him. He wouldn’t go as far as he was thinking, but he still wanted to make Martin feel better. And before leaving the room, he made sure to click the tape recorder off. Couldn’t be wasting archiving tape on this.
Sasha, who had been out at lunch for the entire fiasco, was standing in front of the door to Jon’s office, looking incredibly lost. Tim was standing next to her, gesturing weakly at the air in front of him as he tried to explain.
“What happened? Why is Martin back? Why is there an axe? Why are the fire extinguishers missing?”
"Jon, could you please catch Sasha up to speed on the last hour or so?" Tim asked. "I think you can give the best explanation, you took Martin's statement."
"Martin got held hostage by Jane Prentiss, the lady with the flesh eating worms," Jon explained. "Jimmy figured it out when I was talking to Tim. We went to his flat, scared Jane off, and I kind of destroyed his door with an axe. After that, we took Martin back here."
"I was wondering why you had an axe," Sasha replied. "I honestly thought you had finally lost it and you were going to start using it on the filing cabinets in the mess that is the Archives."
"Believe me, I thought about it." Jon would much rather take out his frustration somewhere that wasn't Martin's door. "Anyway, Martin is going to live with me until he gets a new flat. Hopefully it won't be that long . . ."
"Is HR going to be okay with that?"
"I think the one HR person retired. At least that’s what Elias told me. I’ve read the rulebook, and this doesn’t violate any rules . . . not like there’s many to break.”
“Did you come up with this?”
“Jimmy told me to do this. I was doing the okay HR move by suggesting he stayed in the Archives for a few days."
"That might be worse," Sasha said. "Why have him live in the basement we call our workplace? He could live with me. Or Tim! Tim would love to have him."
"Yeah . . . I should have done that." Jon was kicking himself inside. He could have pawned Martin off on Tim. That would have been a lot better. But now he was stuck with him. "But Martin seems so excited about this. And hopefully it won't be for so long. He can find a flat soon."
"If you get as fed up with him as you are at work, send him to me. I have two spare rooms."
"I might take you up on that." Jon knew he was going to want to throw Martin out if he didn't find a new flat soon, so it was nice to know he had a back-up.
"I'll at least help Martin if he wants to move anything in. I don't know if he wants to because I wouldn't want to go back after . . . All that."
"You can do that."
Martin's hands were shaking as he walked back to his flat. He knew that Jane was gone, and he knew that all the worms were dead, but it didn't do anything to comfort him.
At least his new friends were there for him. Tim and Sasha were close by him, carrying two fire extinguishers each. Jon was trailing behind, swinging his axe to show Jane he meant business.
Both Tim and Sasha had reassured him that things would be fine, but he was still worried. It had actually took Jon, with his weapon, to convince Martin to go back to get a few things. He’d reasoned that Martin needed a change of clothes and a few other things, and with Jon being much smaller than Martin, he couldn’t lend him clothes.
And he’d put his axe on the table, along with a fire extinguisher. (The CO2 type, because the gas killed the worms.) That had convinced Martin to go back and very quickly get a few things.
It didn’t help him from feeling scared. Scared of Jane coming back, scared of the worm corpses, and scared of Jon’s unsafe axe-handling.
"You don't have to do that," Martin told him.
"What?" Jon asked.
"Swing the axe around! It's not needed."
"And it's a little unsafe," Tim pointed out. "I'm scared that you're going to hit me with it."
“Fine,” Jon said, pulling the axe a little closer to his body. “Oh, there’s your door.”
Martin could tell. He saw the worm corpses around the frame, a black rot burned into the carpet.
He opened the door, hands shaking as he did it. He kept expecting for Jane to pop up behind him.
She didn’t.
Martin ran into his flat, grabbed a suitcase and some of his clothes, and started packing faster than he’d ever packed in his life. He just needed to get basic supplies in, like a toothbrush and the only body wash that didn’t dry his skin out.
After throwing in the things he needed, he ran right back out. The door was still open, with Jon, Tim, and Sasha waiting for him.
"Do you have everything?" Jon asked.
"I've got what I need," Martin replied, clutching the suitcase to his chest. He hated having to leave behind his entire flat. He had a lot of things that had taken a long time for him to get. He'd spent years saving money to buy the things he wanted. It hurt to leave behind his grandmother's knitting needles or the air fryer he'd had to save up for.
He'd have to find a way to get the rest of the stuff out of his flat. Eventually.
"Alright, then we can go back to my flat," Jon said. "Oh! Before I forget." He handed Tim the axe. "Here you go."
"Why do I get the axe?" Tim asked.
"You've got a car, and I'm not taking that on public transportation!"
"Jon, I drove you two here. That means I can drive you back to your flat."
"Oh."
"I'm going to give you this back," Tim said, handing Jon his axe.
Jon lived in a building on the outskirts of Chelsea, which was close enough to the Magnus Institute that he could probably walk there. Tim dropped them off in front of it, and Jon walked Martin out of the car to his flat.
He lived on the ground floor, which when brought up, he muttered something about how he wished he lived in a place with a better view.
Also, it was really small. He had enough room for a TV and an armchair, along with a kitchen that had barely enough space for a table and two chairs. There was a very small hallway that Martin had to assume led to a bathroom or a bedroom.
"It's . . . Small," Martin said.
"Cosy," Jon said. "It's what I could afford, and it's not like I have a lot of people over. I've got everything that I need to live."
"I like it," Martin replied. "But I am an easily pleased person. Where do you want me to put my bags?"
"There's a closet near the bathroom where you can store them. I can put a section in the bathroom for your toothbrush and stuff like that."
"You don't have to do all this, Jon."
"You're staying here, this is the bare minimum I can do. I just feel so horrible for what happened to you. You were trapped in your flat for a week. I can't imagine how terrified you must have been. This is the least I can do."
Jon was right.
“Okay, thank you.” Martin handed his bag to Jon. “Can you put this away? I feel like I’ve got to sit down right now.”
“Sure! Feel free to sit down in the armchair.”
Martin sat. It was comfortable.
Maybe things would be okay. Jon was being nice to him, which was incredibly surprising. And he at least had a spot to stay. If he didn’t have Jon’s flat, where would he go?
Jon pulled up a chair next to Martin’s armchair and sat down next to him.
“Alright, I set your suitcase down, and if you ever need anything, just ask me,” Jon said.
"Got it. You know, we should get to know each other if we're going to be living together," Martin said. "I know nothing about you except that you're my grumpy boss."
"It's not like you needed to know. But since we're here . . . Guess we should know more about each other."
"How about some icebreakers?"
"No. I hate icebreakers. I want nothing to do with them."
"Okay. Then I can tell you a little about myself and if you want to talk about yourself, you can do that." Martin cleared his throat and tried to think about a way to talk about himself that didn't expose his lies. "I like to crochet. And knit. I used to cook a lot, I just haven't had the time to actually make something. I write poetry, too. I, uh, worked in the library for a few years before Elias put me down in the basement."
"I wish I had more to say other than I worked in research before the Archives. I have a very boring life. You actually do things outside of work. You have hobbies."
"I would think a lot would be more interesting than you. All you do is work."
Jon sighed. "I know. And it's okay. I'm a very lonely person, and I've made my peace with that. I am friends with Tim and Sasha, so there's that. Maybe . . . Maybe we'll all be friends."
"I'm going to assume that Jimmy is not included in that 'we.'"
"He's not. I thought you weren't . . . Well, I thought you were incompetent. Whatever you are, Jimmy is worse. Did you see him tearing up all those papers for no reason? If you're going to try and destroy something, at least put it in the shredder. We have three of those. One is three feet away from his desk."
Martin had a feeling Jon could go on and on about Jimmy's many mistakes at work if he was given the opportunity. He had to stop that so he wasn't stuck here for the rest of the night hearing Jon rant about Jimmy.
"He knew Gertrude," Martin pointed out. "That could be helpful. He helped me figure out the god awful filing system–the numbers on the statements are the dates it was taken."
"He told you that?" Martin nodded. "It took me eighteen statements to figure that out! Why didn't he just tell me? I'm the Head Archivist! I at least appreciate he didn't keep it to himself, but why did he say that to you?"
Martin shrugged. "I don't really know. I asked him for some help with filing statements and he explained it to me."
"I'm going to have to ask him about that tomorrow. As if I thought it couldn't get any worse . . ."
"Don't worry about him," Martin said. "He's there only an hour a day, if he's there at all. Tim normally fixes all the mistakes he makes, and I get anything else."
Jon sighed, reluctantly agreeing. "Okay. I won't worry. And I'll try to ask him nicely about Gertrude's filing system. Maybe there was a method to her madness. She was the Head Archivist for over fifty years. If Elias was keeping any of his eyes on her, he would make sure there was something we could use."
"Or maybe he just didn't care."
"No way. Elias cares too much. I've gotten nine emails from him in the past week about the archiving. It's stupid, because if I was able to spend the time I spent replying to him actually archiving, I could get a lot more done."
"Why does he send you so many emails?"
"He wants me to find random statements for him," Jon explained. "Remember how I asked you to try and find the Carlos Vittery statement? That was all Elias's doing. I didn't want to read it. It's a stretch to say he got you here, but he definitely contributed to it."
"Elias is a bastard," Martin said.
"He totally is. Giant bastard. I don't know who promoted him, but they made the wrong choice. Remind me to show you the emails from him. I don't think I can do them justice unless you actually see it."
There was something a little disconcerting about his uptight, professional boss calling Elias a “giant bastard.” He was right, though. Elias was a bastard. He was a bad boss. Jon’s shortcomings came from his feeling of not being competent, so he just took that out on the people he thought also weren’t competent. It was bad, sure, but it was understandable and he did seem to be working on changing it, right now. Elias was just a bad boss who wasn’t in touch with what his employees were doing. He didn’t even know how qualified the people who worked for him were. He didn’t know that Jon was struggling in the Archives, or that Martin had lied on his CV.
"I'm going to order some pizza," Jon said, pulling Martin out of his thoughts. "What toppings do you want?"
"You can just get cheese," Martin replied. "I don't care."
"You sure? I can order two so you get one to yourself."
"I'm sure. I don't want to trouble you."
Same as always, Martin would try not to impede. Jon was already being too kind to him. He didn’t need to stretch it any farther than it already was.
By the time the clock struck nine, both of them were ready to sleep. Martin had been through some shit, and Jon had tired himself out from all the worrying he had done earlier. Jon’s words, not his.
“I think we should get some sleep,” Jon suggested.
"Where do I sleep?" Martin asked. “Because to sleep, I need to know where I’m going to sleep.”
"Oh!” Jon’s eyes widened. “I forgot; I’ve got to get the cot.” Jon walked across the room in three strides, opening the closet door and grabbed a cot out of it.
“Where did you even get it?” Martin asked, walking across the room to help Jon, because he was struggling to pick it up.
“I got it the day after we started work,” Jon said. “I . . . got it to sleep at work. In case I stayed really late."
Jon, whose noodle arms could hardly pick up the cot, just moved out of the way to let Martin handle it.
"Why would you do that?" Martin asked, picking up the cot. It wasn't that heavy.
"You should have seen the mess at the start," Jon said. "It was so bad. The good thing was that I didn't have to use it . . . Except for with you."
“Good thing it’s for the person who’s staying in your flat over sleeping at work,” Martin said, setting the cot down on the floor. He then took the legs out and flipped it over so he could sleep on it. “Hmm. I need some blankets.”
“I’ll get some for you,” Jon said. “Just–how are you able to pick all that up so easily?”
“It’s not that heavy.”
“For you, maybe.”
Martin knew that Jon had tiny little arms, and Martin had more muscles than he did. A lot of people had more muscles than Jon.
Martin sat down on the cot. It wasn’t too bad.
He laid down. It wasn’t the worst thing he’d slept on.
Jon came back into the room with a handful of blankets.
“There you are,” he said. “I’ve got some blankets for you.”
"Jon, you don't have to give me blankets," Martin said.
"It gets cold here. And it doesn't hurt to have someone care about you," Jon replied, throwing him a blanket. "You're a guest in my flat because you were trapped in yours by a worm lady. You deserve this."
"Okay," Martin conceded, wrapping the blanket around him. "You've just been so . . . Mean to me before."
"I may have been pushing you too hard during work," Jon said. "And I didn't mean to. I was expecting too much from you. I shouldn't have gotten you into this situation. This is my way of making it up."
"Thank you," Martin said. "I promise I won't be here for long. Just until the Jane situation is over."
“And that’s okay. You can stay as long as you need to.” He patted Martin’s shoulder. “Good night. I hope that you sleep well.”
“Good night,” Martin replied as Jon walked out of the room, turned off the lights, and left him alone in the living room.
Martin never slept well when he was away from home. He had a white noise machine that helped, but it was gone now.
Jon's cot was also not the most comfortable thing he had slept on. It was better than the floor or a bundle of blankets, but it was the cheapest he could find, so it had crappy springs that barely supported Martin’s weight. He kind of felt like he was sleeping in a hole.
It was fine. Everything was fine. At least he wasn't trapped in his flat by the Worm Lady. At least Jon cared about him. At least he could sleep without that horrid knocking.
And at least he had a place to stay.
Martin wasn't entirely sure if what Jon had done was kind, but he had taken Martin into his home, gave him some of his blankets, and ordered food for him. That was the kindest he'd been, so Martin counted it as a win in his book.
That reassured him a little.
Martin was back in his flat. He had a can of peaches open in his hand, one of the slices of fruit speared on a fork.
Something was wrong. He knew that. Had he always been in his flat? Had he always been sitting at his kitchen table?
He sat the can of peaches down, deciding to go get some tea. It must have been a while since he had something to drink, because his throat was burning.
There was already a cup of tea sitting on the counter. He reached for it, but the brown liquid shifted and morphed into . . . A spider? When Martin realised what it was, it shifted into something new. A cup of eyeballs. Then, it was filled with fog.
Martin decided against drinking it. He'd just make a new cup. He opened the cabinet, only to see rows of boxes of oolong tea.
Maybe he would drink the weird cup. Maybe that would be something better.
It was now a clump of silvery worms.
There was a loud knock at the door. Martin shuddered, knowing who was at the other side of the door. Jane. She still wanted to get to him, didn't she?
Martin didn't want her to come in. He didn't want to be part of Jane's kind. He was happy with his unmarked skin, with a body that may be alone, but wasn't crawling with worms.
There was another knock. Martin clutched onto the countertop. He was tired of living in fear. Every day felt like a nightmare.
Jane wouldn't come in. Martin knew that. All he was going to feel was fear, but he wasn't going to die.
Another knock. Martin took a look back at the tea. The worms were crawling out of the cup, towards his hand.
Martin jumped away from his counter. He had been safe in here, this was his home, but this wasn't home anymore. It was a false sanctuary that acted like it would bring safety, but it was only a boarded-up window that didn't keep anything out. Just acted like it did.
Yet another knock. Did she really knock this much on the other days? Was this how it felt, with the fear running through his veins freezing him in place?
The door started to splinter. Jane was breaking through. This wasn't supposed to happen! If anything, it would have been someone who cared about him saving him. Not her.
"Martin!" he heard a distorted voice from the other side of the door call. "Don't you want someone to love you? To not be lonely anymore? We can love you!"
It was more like hundreds of tiny voices talking in unison, like the worms that lived inside Jane.
A hand, covered in holes, reached in through the door. Martin let out a pained whimper. He could see the worms dropping out of her body onto the floor, moving closer to him.
*We can love you!" the voices said. "You'll never be lonely again, we promise. You'll just have to let us in, become a home for us."
Martin kept walking backwards, trying to get away from the worms. He did not want to be alone, but he did not want to be one of Jane's kind. Being lonely hurt, but it was often better than being with other people.
He bumped into something. Martin turned around, and Jon was standing there. He had hundreds of scars on his skin. No–not scars. Closed eyes.
“Jon!” Martin said. “You’ve got to help me!”
Jon’s many eyes opened, then slowly blinked.
“I’m sorry,” Jon said. “I don’t know if I can help you. You’re Marked. You’re doomed.”
Jon vanished. Martin turned around and looked at the piles of worms that were chasing him. He was doomed.
So he just closed his eyes and let them in; let someone love him for once.
Martin woke up in a cold sweat. He could still feel the worms on his skin, their little teeth and bodies burrowing into his soft flesh.
He peeled himself off the couch, looking around the still dark room for a clock. He had a feeling that it was early enough the rest of London was still sleeping, but late enough there was no way Martin could get himself to go back to sleep.
There was a clock next to the TV, which looked like Jon had hastily plugged it into the wall outlet because he knew Martin would need it. According to the digital timeface, it was 5:07 in the morning, and Martin was wide awake.
Well. He wasn't going back to sleep.
Martin didn't know what to do. He didn't have much with him–he still needed a new phone and most of his other stuff was still in boxes.
Maybe he could make breakfast. Jon had to have something in his kitchen that he could make breakfast out of it. As long as there weren’t any canned peaches, he would be okay.