Chapter Text
“Um, Jon?”
“Yes, Martin?”
“What’s that building over there? The one just on the edge of London? Or, well, what London used to be.”
Static. A glance.
“Another domain. I’m not sure who or what rules over it, though. It’s like…”
Fuzz.
“... another blind spot for me. Perhaps one of The Eye’s, then.”
“Think it could give us an idea how to get into the Panopticon?”
“Maybe. It’s worth a shot, I suppose.”
The two wandered some sort of distance towards the building. In this world, there wasn’t any sort of specific measurement of anything , which was awfully inconvenient at the best and worst of times. Either way, they eventually did make it to the front doorstep of the house. They cautiously crossed the cobblestone path to the porch, noticing how the sprinklers on the lawn sprayed clouds in lieu of water. The two approached the door with hesitancy. Should they knock ? They were certain the homeowner knew they were there already since, in place of where a doorbell would be, there was a bulging eyeball beside the door. It was alert and stared at the intruders on the doorstep.
“Feels a bit cramped to be a domain,” Martin commented, glancing over the house. “Are all the tormented stuffed inside like a miserable sort of house party?”
“They’re… uh…” Jon replied, Looking. The air around them became what could only be described as fizzy . Martin felt like he needed to pop his ears for a moment. “...The inside is bigger than it looks.”
“That makes sense, I suppose. This place didn’t read as Buried to me.” As Martin said that, the front door to the house creeped open, almost with a sort of trepidation itself. It seemed both parties were unsure of the other. “Is it safe in there? We won’t get hurt, right?”
“This domain is tied to The Eye’s domain. It can’t hurt me and it knows you too. We should be fine, even if I can’t see exactly what’s in it,” asserted Jon. He crept through the doorway, expecting Martin to follow. He does.
The house was bigger on the inside. Through the carved ornate front door was a grand entryway; The walls had a crisp and peeling wallpaper with an abstract design that resembled a million beady little eyes gazing down at the newcomers. Definitely a part of The Eye’s territory, the two thought, if it wasn’t obvious enough. As Martin and Jon trudged uneasily down the long, narrow room, they noticed the occasional door embedded in either side wall. The first time they saw one, they dared to approach it. However, the ghastly sobs and cries from within prevented their hands from touching the doorknob.
The hall went for a long while, with more and more doors popping up as they went. Jon and Martin felt like they’d been walking for hours when they finally reached a dead end. In that wall was a grand double door with numerous engravings of all sorts etched into it. Martin noticed with unease that each engraving appeared to represent one of Smirke’s 14 (or, rather, 15? The Extinction was still like a baby in his mind, but Smirke’s categories were nothing but rubbish anyway.) fears.
“Want to do the honors?” Martin asked Jon. He threw him a lopsided smile.
“Oh, sure. Though I’d hardly call it an honor,” Jon replied, gripping the equally ornate door handle on one of the doors and tugging it open. As it swung open, it let out a creaking squeal that sounded nearly identical to the screams of the damned just outside the house. The two winced at the sound breaking through the quiet of the hall, but they stepped carefully through the doorway nevertheless. The pale light from the flickering white bulbs in the hall hardly breached the room beyond the double door, and the two could only see a few feet into what appeared to be a large room. What alerted them to the fact that it was a room and not some sort of neverending void were the large, multi-paned windows lining the far wall. They revealed the desolate landscape surrounding the house, but allowed little to no light into the room. Jon realized that they must have been one-way windows. Whatever took residence in the room could look out and Observe, while whatever dared to approach the house would only be met with their own reflection. He briefly Knew someone who had done just that, but he tied that thread of a story to focus on what was right ahead of him.
“Um. Hello? Is anyone there?” Martin asked, taking Jon’s silence as a cue to investigate further. His voice echoed softly, bouncing off unseen surfaces and flooring that barely eluded the two’s gazes. A soft noise interrupted the sound, bouncing off those same surfaces and beating the soundwaves right back. It was small, hardly distinguishable. “Hello?” pressed Martin, taking another step into the darkened room. Another noise. It was hardly anything, not even a word. What was reassuring, though, was that the noise didn’t come off as particularly threatening. Who was in there?
“ Martin ,” hissed Jon, who appeared to be looking at the leftmost corner of the room. The man in question perked up.
“Yeah?”
“ Look. ”
And Martin did, peering at approximately the direction his boyfriend was looking. The corner he was staring at was shadowy, barely dodging the beams of weak light from the windows. If anything, it made the four glowing dots seem even brighter to their curious gazes. They were all a striking teal – Or green? – and were organized almost like two sets of eyes, peering back at those who were Watching. They all moved in tandem, vaguely drifting upwards and downwards, which was a decent sign of life to Jon and Martin. They gave the dots a moment to do anything . To lunge at them, to skitter on the ceiling, to do something malicious, but they didn’t. They remained nestled in their little corner of shadows. Somehow that was even more unnerving than the other options.
Silently, Martin elected to approach the mysterious thing in the corner. He cautiously toed through the space, noting how the darkness within a small vicinity of him brightened up with each step he took. However, when he was far enough, the darkness would bleed back into the spot he had previously taken up. Interesting. The same thing seemed to be happening to Jon, but his numbness to the supernatural made him not pause to consider it like Martin had. He just followed with a neutral expression. As he approached the glowing dots, he had to dodge his way around multiple pieces of furniture: Desks, mini-tables, chairs, and even… children’s toys? He had accidentally stepped on one without noticing and it elicited a loud squeak which had made him jump half out of his skin. Jon just laughed at him, and he continued his merry way through the room, his face flushed in embarrassment.
Finally, he got close enough that he was side-by-side with one of the looming windows. The small dots weren’t much larger, but they now read distinctly as glowing blue-green eyes of something . The size of them combined with the fact that there were toys strewn about the room gave both Jon and Martin pause as they approached a new shape in the corner. It slowly revealed itself to be a simple, angular crib as they stepped closer. The darkness dissipated gradually. Soon enough, Jon and Martin identified exactly what had been staring them down the whole time: A child. Well, it was a young child. A baby, practically. Martin and Jon both flinched backwards at the sight. Clearly , this infant had been tasked with ruling over the domain. They could see it in the way those eyes struck a thread of fear weaving through Martin’s mind. He had to look away for a moment to calm his breathing.
“What the fuck ?” Martin asked eloquently. “Why does The Eye have an infant running this place?”
Jon sighed and shrugged; “I mean, The Dark had Callum tormenting the other children. They don’t know any better.”
“But isn’t The Eye more… I don’t know… selective? The tormentors in London are specifically dead archivists and Elias – sorry, Jonah. I have no clue who this kid is.”
“Well this child might be-” Jon stepped closer to the crib for a better look at the tot, “-more significant than we think. I don’t recall Callum looking like anything but a typical kid.” To show his point, he tilted his head at the child’s face, which very normally had four eyeballs that glowed. The baby peered up at them, his small fists clutching the rim of the crib tightly. Up close and in the light, the two could see that the baby had light brown hair with patches of white in it. The skin appeared so pale that they could see the veins within. Martin moved a bit to the right and looked all around the crib to make sure the child wasn’t some sort of trap for a bigger, scarier monster. It wasn’t, thankfully. Only short, stubby legs in a onesie as far as he could tell. However, it meant he could see the strings attached to the child’s back and tethered to the crib’s cushions.
“Jon. There are weird stringy-things on his back as well, if you’re looking for weird,” he explained, pointing lightly at them. The baby turned its head to gaze at Martin’s hand.
“Strings?” He moved to where Martin stood and peered at the tethers of unknown material. They appeared to just fade into the child’s onesie and Jon didn’t need to use his powers to understand they were also hooked into the child’s back under the clothes as well. “Hm.”
“Think we can break them, Jon? We can’t just leave this kid here.”
“And risk this domain collapsing and taking an infant out into a nightmare-infested world? I’m not sure that’s the best idea.”
Martin huffed and circled back around to the front of the crib where the baby held an iron-grip on the railing. He hesitantly rested his hand next to the child’s significantly smaller one, and peered at him face-on. The baby just stared back with his piercing, Knowing eyes.
“Y’know, he kind of looks like Elias,” he blurted, properly analyzing the baby’s face. “Like, obviously the whole Eyeball thing is pretty obvious, but like… I can kinda see it in his hair.”
Jon sounded exasperated as he moved to stand beside Martin, also looking at the child with renewed scrutiny: “His hair? ” He looked at the baby’s fuzzy head of hair and let out a defeated sigh. “Yeah, okay, I kind of see it.”
“But what would that mean ? Is he Elias’- no – Jonah’s kid? Who would even have a kid with him anyways? Why would he even want a kid in the first place?” Martin rattled off, feeling more confused by the moment.
“We don’t know anything for sure,” Jon replied, trying to ease the other’s distress. “But it would make sense for why it would have a domain adjacent to The Eye’s in the first place…”
“Could Jonah just be preparing another vessel to inhabit?” Martin asked, his mind whirring with ideas. “Y’know, in case Elias rots or something in the future?”
“I don’t think Elias’ body is going to rot. The Watcher’s Crown can prevent that, just like it prevented us from needing to eat, drink, or sleep while we scoured the apocalypse. It wouldn’t let its Pupil just fade away like that .”
Martin hummed in agreement, and continued to look at the child in contemplation. After a minute, the child’s hand moved and landed atop Martin’s. The action didn’t look purposeful, and the child looked rather surprised when his tiny fingers grasped soft flesh instead of the cold, hard wood of the crib. His head almost frantically moved from left to right, trying to recognize… something. In the midst of the wave of baby fever Martin felt at the small hand clutching his own, he realized something interesting. Jon appeared to be thinking the same thing.
“Can he even see us?” Martin asked Jon as he flipped his hand over. The child’s small fingers barely spanned the area of his palm, which made his heart squeeze a little.
“I don’t think so…” Jon murmured, trying to recount all of the baby’s interactions while they spoke. “He must have just been relying on sound. Your voice echoing, clothes rustling, our own conversations, all that.”
“Is he blind?”
“Only here, I think.” Jon said that with an assurance that stuck with Martin.
“So he can see all the terrible things going on outside, then?” Martin questioned, feeling the child’s hand grasp and scratch at his own with tiny nails.
“Yes,” Jon let out a huge sigh, “I- I think so. He’s an observer , after all.” At that, Martin felt a bout of righteous indignation pang in his heart. He had never been the biggest fan of young children, but this was serious .
“He’s a child ,” Martin corrected, moving his hands to pick up the baby from the crib. He positioned them carefully below the chubby, clothed arms and put just enough pressure around the ribs to enable him to actually lift the kid. Martin knew that babies felt heavier than they looked. Ever so gently, he raised the kid up and over the edge of the crib. Either thanks to the baby’s supposed neglect or to Martin’s arm strength, it was easy to do so. As the baby crossed the threshold of the crib and the open air, the strings tucked into his back faded and detached from him. The darkness of the room dissipated like a thin mist, and everything suddenly felt a lot less scary. Martin and Jon froze, expecting the worst for removing the child from his Watching place. However, nothing happened and the silence broke with a bout of baby babbling.
It was like a switch flipped. The staring, silent child suddenly was alert and glancing between Jon and Martin with flitting eyes. This time, they actually Looked at the two, rather than through them. Martin tucked the child closer to his chest at the apparent lack of danger, his arms getting a bit tired from holding the child a foot away from himself.
“Aw look at this, Jon. He’s a million times less creepy like this,” Martin cooed, “I wonder what this place was doing to make him like that…”
“Eugh. Nothing good,” Jon asserted, glancing down into the crib. In the place where a child used to be, there was now a large eye peering up at them, not dissimilar to the one at the front door. “At least he’s got a replacement… This could mean the domain won’t collapse at his disappearance.”
“That’s a relief. Not for the tortured people in the hall, I mean. Or- would the collapse be worse for them anyways? Hm.” Martin rambled a bit. A moment later he gave up on the dilemma and refocused on the child in his arms. “Where should we take him? If he’s dangerous or if he’s in danger , him being exposed could be risky. Think Georgie and Melanie would mind more company in the tunnels?”
“I think that might bring more unwanted attention to them,” replied Jon, who was now watching the baby grasp his desolation-burned finger on his hand.
“True. Though, the severing of The Eye’s connection down there could help hide him… I just hope it doesn’t affect him like it does you.”
“It’s worth a try.”
The two stared at the child who quietly stared back. It was almost serene for a moment, but they knew they needed to move. To plan how to stop Jonah and to save the world. Martin let out a heaving sigh, causing the baby to rise and fall on his chest. Jon looked a bit surprised as its face twisted into a new expression.
“The baby. It smiled,” he said with a hint of disbelief.
“Well, that’s good. Means the baby’s human in a way, I think. Not some evil sadist or something.”
“Someone smiling while millions of people are suffering seems pretty sadistic,” Jon snarked, peering up at Martin.
“And the someone who’s playing with his hands and entertaining him may have skewed that data somewhat,” Martin quipped right back, watching it happen in real time. Jon straightened up, but let his hand still be grabbed by the kid’s smaller ones.
“It’s the baby’s fault,” was his response. Martin chuckled and rolled his eyes jovially. Then, his gaze softened and he peered down at the child in his arms.
He suggested, “I think we should name it. It feels a bit rude calling it ‘the baby’ like that.” Jon nodded and they thought in silence for a moment, Martin lightly bouncing the kid to keep him content.
“How about Tim? As a tribute, maybe,” Jon whispered, peering at Martin with a hint of trepidation. They hadn’t talked about Tim for a while, and Martin knew that Jon had listened to the birthday tape on loop. However, the name didn’t settle quite right in his head.
“Even though that’s incredibly thoughtful, I’m not sure how Tim would feel if he knew that Elias Jr. was gonna be named in his honor,” Martin reasoned, pursing his lips. As nice as the thought was, it wasn’t quite the right moment for that.
“Fair,” Jon agreed, looking contemplative. Then, he asked, “Do you have any ideas? What’s the first thing that comes to your mind?”
Martin thought for a split second before deciding: “Chester.”
“Chester?”
“Yes,” Martin ascertained, looking softly at the baby. “It was the first name I thought of.” He had flashes of a childhood stuffie he had named Chester, and Jon could sense the significance of it. He rather liked the name too.
“Chester it is, then. I think it suits him.”
“I wonder what Elias called him,” Martin pondered, lifting the baby up and holding it in front of him. “ Doombringer , maybe?”
Jon snorted and gave his own contribution: “ The Ceaseless Watcher , even. Wouldn’t that be funny?” Though, the two of them just nervous-laughed a bit at that one. You could never be too careful.
“Can you hold him for a sec?” Martin asked suddenly, moving Chester towards Jon. With the baby held in front of his face, Jon’s face scrunched.
“Why? What do you need?” Despite his face, Jon traded off with Martin, though his grip around Chester’s torso was firm and clinical, like he was holding a bag of soil instead of an infant. Martin could see his arms slightly shaking at the sudden weight.
“I just need to fashion some sort of baby carrier for myself. That way the weight isn’t just on my arms,” Martin explained. He pulled off his backpack and dug through it, clearly on the hunt for a specific item. While Jon struggled holding Chester, he picked out a scarf from his bag. He wiggled it out for a solid few seconds and held it in his arms. It was one of those thick, oversized ones that you couldn’t wear casually. Martin had only worn it on the coldest days in London before the apocalypse. Now, he only used it to keep ash and smoke out of his lungs in some of the worst domains. It should do; The ashes shouldn’t hurt Chester, he figured, considering he wasn’t an average baby.
Martin bundled the scarf up in his hands and tucked it into the crook of his elbow, watching how Jon still refused to keep the four-eyed child closer than an arm’s length away.
“Jon, he’s a baby . He won’t bite.”
“You don’t know that.”
Rolling his eyes, he slid the baby out of Jon’s grasp. “Can you tie the scarf behind my back with one side over my shoulder and the other under?” he asked, spinning around to expose his back to Jon, who took the scarf from his elbow. Thankfully, Jon could see exactly what Martin was picturing with his Knowing powers, and he did as such. He even made sure to keep it loose enough for Chester to fit, which he felt proud of.
“Thank you, love,” Martin murmured. He tucked Chester in the crevice of the scarf-carrier on his chest. He engineered it such that the child would hear his heartbeat thrumming in his chest. He’d read somewhere online – in a clickbait article he was ashamed to have clicked – that it was good for a young baby. He wasn’t exactly sure why , but that didn’t really matter. “Right then, let’s get out of this scary house,”
“ Definitely ,” Jon huffed, his gaze drawn to the ever-looming glass windows. Despite the land outside being empty, it still felt too exposed for his tastes. He also didn’t particularly like the way the crib-eye was looking at them.
The trio were just about through the hallway and at the front door when Jon let out an annoyed groan. He halted his steps and soon enough Martin stopped his own.
“Statement.” Was all Jon needed to say at this point. In all the hassle with the baby, he had entirely forgotten about feeding… and he was hungry. Martin looked like he wanted to loudly complain, but the sleeping Chester nestled against him caused him to reconsider.
“Fine, I’ll be right outside, then. I don’t think you should go into any of the side rooms,” Martin conceded. With the signal of a thumbs up from Jon, he exited through the front door to Chester’s house (he assumed it was his house, anyway), letting it slowly shut with precision. He didn’t want to wake the baby.
_ _ _ _ _
“There shouldn’t be anyone here. They aren’t allowed . And yet the voice meets nothing but the clouds who listen . That didn’t… No. They don’t listen. They can’t. He knows that there is nobody there. Nobody has ever been there for little Harvey Green. But he doesn’t mind, of course. Not when there are eyes on him.
“Never fuss. Never put up a fight. He was young and everyone around him looked so, so tall . Believe him, he had tried his hardest. Thought he could talk back and make things better, but all that got him was a night in a locked room with no key to open it. Nobody was watching him, he knew. Nobody would want to, anyways. He was wholly alone, and he was shown that every day of his goddamn life. And yet… he didn’t dare breathe in the wrong direction. Even when the doors were slammed shut and the fog roiled around, consuming the walls and the space he called his prison, he knew there was something out there judging him. Nobody could protect him from that piercing gaze just creeping on the edges of his mind. Of course, nothing was really there. Right?
“Harvey didn’t recall being so short when he… well at some point . He was grown, wasn’t he? In his solitude in the cell he pushed his mind to ignore the fog and form a clear coherent thought. Ah! He pictured a family. Two men and a child. Was that his family? Did they love each other? Wait. Harvey Green realized he was mistaken. As though scripted, a vision of a placeholder photo in a picture frame he’d purchased at one point stood tall amidst the fog. It wasn’t his . It wasn’t real . Had it ever been? He rested his head against the wall, letting the fog encroach once more. He was fine being alone anyways. No matter how much it terrified him.
“And when his time was up, the door to the cell would open with a creak. ‘Are you ready to behave?’ a voice would croon, though Harvey could never see their eyes with the way his head hung down. He’d nod solemnly and step out into the lion’s den once more. He needn’t make a fuss. Nobody would care if he did. At least he was alone in the locked room.”
Jon sighed with relief, feeling the oppressive urge to speak slowly bleed away. Within moments, he was out of the house and on the cobble path, where Martin stood waiting. He seemed to be busying himself looking at the apocalyptic wasteland, which Jon found endearing in an odd sort of way. Jon’s footsteps scraped against the stone and Martin turned suddenly at his approach.
“Done already? That felt a bit shorter than the others.”
“Yes. I think the Eye would rather hear more about other domains than its own,” Jon explained with a shrug. He moved closer to Martin and stared at the baby cradled at his chest. Chester was awake and glancing all around and worming in the scarf’s hold. It was amusing to watch the kid flail about.
“Then why bother with any statement at all? Does The Eye have some sort of beef with me?” asked Martin, who was grinning dopily at Jon. Jon lent his finger for the baby to play with while he thought about the question. Static filled the air for a moment.
“It also involved The Lonely. I guess it wanted another taste of it while we were there.” Jon’s explanation settled in the air heavily. Martin’s brows furrowed in discomfort at the mention of the entity that he was all too familiar with. A weird combo of The Eye and The Lonely? He pursed his lips. There were plenty of domains they’d encountered that had focused on more niche fears and scenarios, sure, but this one was different. They both knew that.
“...Say… Wasn’t Peter Lukas close to Elias – sorry, Jonah?” Martin asked uneasily, squinting his eyes. He turned down to inspect Chester a bit closer. The whites in the young boy’s hair were setting off blaring alarms in his head. He felt the air shuffle and tinge with static as Jon attempted to Know more. Though, they both thought the answer could be sussed without such powers.
“Yes, um… I can’t see much but… ah… They certainly knew each other for a long time,” Jon awkwardly said, dancing around the hard truth of it all. Unfortunately (or fortunately), he couldn’t get the whole picture of Elias and Peter’s relationship for numerous reasons. However, the little tidbits he got were enough to tell.
“Um okay… Yeah. That’s weird to- yeah.” was Martin’s response. Then, he realized something. “And they just left him in a cold crib. No adult supervision. Wow.”
“Sounds about right, doesn’t it?”
“Yes, but I’m allowed to hate it, even if he’s the kid of the two absolute worst people in the world.”
Jon hummed in agreement and continued watching as Chester messed with his burnt and scarred fingers. It was almost therapeutic, the simple feel of the kid’s fidgeting partly distracting his mind from the horrors of it all. Then, he huffed a small laugh.
“What?” questioned Martin.
“It’s just that he sort of reminds me of Agnes Montague. The Desolation’s prophet. She was born from flames and suddenly she wasn’t a baby, but a thing to train up. Never had a proper childhood, just because of the powers she was pushed into.”
“Let’s make sure that doesn’t happen to Chester, yeah?”
“Even if he burns us and kills us unintentionally?”
“ Can he kill us here?”
“Not me.”
