Chapter Text
The pink blush painting Martin’s cheeks as he pleasantly nursed his drink made him feel a lot better, in the end. He, Sasha, Tim, and Jon were all tucked nicely in a booth at Tim’s choice of pub. He’d claimed it was ‘nicer than most he frequented, but not so upbeat it would scare Jon right out the doors’, which was exactly what he’d said the last time Martin had been here. Now they all had their own drinks, which Tim also generously offered to pay for, and were trying to lighten Jon’s birthday celebration after the cake fiasco. At least, that was what Martin was doing. The others seemed genuinely relaxed and loosened after a drink or two. He could see it in the way that Tim and Sasha sprawled in their seats across from Martin and Jon.
Martin was sitting stock straight, aware of every movement he made. It wasn’t unfamiliar territory for him, necessarily, but it was such a downgrade from his time in the safehouse before- He took another filling sip of whatever he had ordered earlier. He wasn’t exactly sure what it was – or how many he’d had before. His bandaged fingers tapped the rim of the glass, a small twinge of pain reverberating through his hand with each motion. It wasn’t a bother, really, he thought. Every small spark of pain kept him solid and away from the fog.
Oh. Tim was addressing him.
“Wha’s that?” he eloquently asked, shaking his own internal monologue.
“I said ,” Tim elaborated with a huff, “that you’ve got an excuse to avoid work. And that I’m very jealous.” The man was clearly a little tipsy himself. His hand swayed in the air where it tried to point at Martin’s hand grasping his glass.
“Oh. Er- I can still type , Tim. ‘S not that bad,” he replied, trying to get the jumble of his brain to work. Martin frowned slightly as he realized what a lightweight he had been. Not that drinking had become anything like a hobby to him, but god . It was nice, though. When Martin had been surrounded by The Lonely, everything was so incredibly cold. Peter Lukas was cold. The beach was cold. He was cold. And that certainly didn’t change when his Jon had pulled him out of The Lonely and dragged him all the way to Scotland. It lingered, just like the fog that trailed at his feet like a lost dog. Wherever and whenever he was now, his body practically thrummed with heat. Of course that meant he was extra sweaty and awkward, but it meant he was still normal to some capacity. Drinking made that all the more evident. It melted his mind and body in a good way.
“Don’t say that with the boss around,” Tim said, leaning over the table towards Martin. His voice lowered to what Martin could only describe as a ‘stage whisper’. “I bet you could get out of a follow-up or two, Marto.” The boss in question was staring at the interaction with thorough amusement, his glass raised to his mouth to cover a smile. Traitorously, Martin’s eyes gravitated towards the motion before he dragged them back to Tim.
“Well, someone needs to pick up the slack for you, Tim,” retorted Martin, feeling rather pleased with himself. Across the table, Sasha grinned wide and Tim gasped loudly. He went on a bit about being very offended, and how it was Jon’s birthday and things along those lines. Martin only focused on the man beside him in those moments, however. Jon was laughing . To his credit, they were well-contained cackles, but Martin’s experience of observing and sneaking around places gave him a keen ear for things. He had to dip his head down and take some gulps of his drink to hide the creeping expression of fondness on his face. He wasn’t sure if he ever made Jon laugh in their first year at the archives, the first time around. Disregarding the… well… trauma of it all, he’d just never been as close to Jon as Tim and Sasha had.
“I’m offended , Martin- The utter disrespect-” and Tim went on another spiel that Martin only really heard half of. Martin wasn’t paying all that much attention, though. He noticed his own now-empty glass – when had he finished it? – and made a decision.
“Alright, I’m gonna get another drink,” he announced, sliding to the edge of the booth seat. He’d made the smart decision to pick the outer part of the booth in case he’d need to flee. For whatever reason. He’d expected a quick and smooth exit, but he was interrupted.
“Hey, I’ll tag along. I wanted to order some food to go with my drink,” said Tim, holding his part-full cup in Martin’s direction. Even in Martin’s tipsy state, he could tell that wasn’t the only reason Tim wanted to join in on the little excursion. The man’s smile was crooked almost into a grimace as he faced Martin.
“Oh! Could you get me some chips while you’re up there? I’ve been craving a snack,” Sasha chimed in with an apologetic but loose smile.
“Anything for you, Sash.”
“Thanks!”
And with that, Tim climbed over Sasha and out of the booth. Once he got his proper footing (which was difficult considering his tipsiness), he dragged Martin unceremoniously across the pub towards one of the counters. Suddenly – right before they could reach the line of patrons – Tim sharply turned and moved in a completely new direction. Instead of a busy counter, Martin was met with a secluded corner of the pub where only a few awkward stragglers dragged their feet, wallowing in their own drunken stupors. Martin’s own feet embarrassingly stumbled likewise until Tim screeched to a halt. Tim glanced around harshly, assessing the other bar-goers in their vicinity before he focused in on Martin, clearly satisfied with the privacy.
“You shouldn’t get another drink,” was what Tim opened with. Though, he seemed to regret the choice as he groaned in tipsy annoyance immediately after. His face twisted in concentration before starting again:
“I mean– okay, so I know you and I aren’t super close or anything. But- um. I want to say that as a friend – which I hope we are, by the way – I am concerned,” Tim rushed out. “I know we’ve had a bit of a rough go at it today with- with Elias and everything-” Martin lightly grimaced at the mention of Jonah, which TIm noticed even in the low lights of the bar. “-but I think that drinking it all away isn’t going to help. I know that from experience.”
Tim looked meaningfully at Martin. He wasn’t supposed to know what Tim was referring to, but he did. He thought about Danny briefly and then of circuses and skin stealing, and it honestly made him crave that next drink even more.
“Tim, I’m not- I don’t-” he flubbed, looking down at the floor instead of the eyes in front of him. Then, he stood taller, hoping to look more convincing than he felt. “I’m just taking a break . I’m having fun. It’s Jon’s birthday .” Nevermind the hopeless feeling he got whenever Jonah entered the same room, nevermind how many times he’d tried to change little things about the timeline to no avail, nevermind the fact that his head was heavy with a grief his body never felt, he didn’t say. Tim looked back with a gross understanding that made Martin’s insides roll in turmoil. Being seen like this was somehow worse than being Watched. Their little staring contest ended with Tim sighing and leaning back against the wall.
“Just take care of yourself. Don’t think I haven’t noticed you missing lunches,” Tim replied in defeat.
“I’ve just been getting some research done, Tim,” Martin huffed, sticking his hands in his pockets. He ignored the pang that came from his cut fingers. Martin elected not to bring up the fact that he’d mostly been forgetting lunch out of pure habit. In the fear wasteland, he couldn’t feel hunger or fatigue, so getting back into the rhythm of sleeping and eating was difficult – even with the bit of time he and Jon had spent in the tunnels.
“I know. But you should come to lunch with me and Sash sometime, like before.”
“Okay, I will.” None of the words really felt true sliding past his lips. Tim also didn’t seem fully convinced at those words.
“Good. Now how about we get those chips?”
Martin only nodded a bit loosely and followed the other man through the bar, making a pit stop at the counter to order. In the end they both had a little cardboard container of appetizers in their hands – Tim holding Sasha’s order of chips and Martin carrying a slider combo for Tim. He notably didn’t have another drink in his hands – dizzy as he was already – but neither Jon nor Sasha pointed it out when the duo returned to the cozy booth. Martin slid in beside Jon with a sigh, and Tim once more crawled past Sasha, his limbs moving like a cat avoiding stepping in a puddle. Thankfully, he’d already placed the order of chips on the table before attempting such a maneuver. Sasha reached over him to grab one as he clumsily adjusted back into his seat. Martin slid the greasy box with the sliders in it towards Tim with his good hand, but Tim used his own to halt the box’s progression across the table. It stopped almost perfectly in the middle of the table.
“One for me, one for you,” he said, grabbing one of the sliders for himself. Martin paused, looking at Tim for a long moment and then back down to the box. Jon and Sasha threw each other obvious looks across the table of confusion, but Martin ignored them.
“Er- Thanks.” He picked up the slider with his non-bandaged hand. Before he took a bite, he glanced in Jon’s direction. The archivist not-so-sneakily stole some chips from Sasha’s basket and eagerly ate them. Clearly, he was hungry too. Martin’s brain jerked at the sight, reminiscing on a past of hunger and ink and nightmares, before his gaze jumped back to his own meal. Now that he knew all his friends had their own sustenance, he could bite into his own.
The rest of the night was a pleasant blur, like how most days were to Martin. He was trying to get better about it, but he often found himself phasing into the background, only slipping back into place when someone mentioned his name. The food and drinks helped. They stood steadily with chunks taken out of them and hand smudges on their rims – signs of life.
“So how’re we all gonna get home?” said Tim suddenly. It pulled Martin back to the conversation and he shrugged. All of this led to a complicated planning session in which their little group would split off into different cabs. Like usual, Martin winded up in a rumbly cab alone in the backseat, as his old- not old flat was furthest away from the others. He had bid them a tipsy farewell as they left, the outside of the pub feeling much colder than it should for the time of year. As the driver took him down the empty London streets, he felt a distinct wrongness of it all. He carefully lifted his head from where it had been resting on the leather headrest and tried to get a good look at the man responsible for getting him home.
Oddly enough, his eyes seemed to slide off the man’s navy blue coat. Yet, when his eyes flickered upwards to the rearview mirror, they were met with a devastatingly sharp gaze in return. Peter Lukas stared and said nothing. His hands smoothly cruised over the leather wheel as the vehicle turned left.
“You- Peter Lukas ,” Martin accused, suddenly sitting stock-straight in the uncomfortable leather car seat.
“Yes,” floated back from the driver’s seat, but Peter didn’t turn back to face Martin. One would think it was to keep his eyes on the road, but the eyes occupying the rearview mirror begged to differ. Yet the car made another smooth turn unbothered. Nobody else was on the road anyway. “And you seem to know who I am.” His tone sounds suspicious and frustrated in equal measure.
“‘S in the statements…” Martin recovered, trying to think in his drunken haze. Maybe it was a really good thing that Tim cut him off, actually. He wasn’t sure if he would’ve been able to speak at all if he’d ordered the next cup.
“Of course, the statements ,” agreed Peter Lukas, “I should have known. I’m sure your little archivist would’ve told you all about me.” Martin paused, not sure how to even respond to that. The lull of their conversation and the car at a red light gave him ample time to process what was going on.
“I need to- I shouldn’t be here. You’re… bad,” he attempted to say, knowing it mostly came out in slurred chunks. Anger bubbled in his chest, flaring at the fact that the man wouldn’t stop staring.
“Bad is certainly one way to put it.” Peter Lukas huffed a laugh and turned the car once more. Martin tore his eyes off of the mirror and glanced at his door’s window. Peering through, he could see just how barren the storefronts looked as they flew by in a blur. It was foggy. Little droplets of condensation sparkled on the window, the light from street lamps reflecting through them in bursts. His breath – which he was sure was incredibly boozy – clouded up the window as he glanced.
Martin finally mustered enough strength to speak: “Let me out .” It wasn’t the exact thing he wanted to say to the silent driver in the front, but it was adequate anger for a man as tipsy and tired as he was.
“Out onto the street? That doesn’t seem very wise,” Peter smoothly replied. He had the perfect vocal inflection to piss Martin off. In lieu of a response, Martin’s left hand fumbled for the car door’s handle. Despite how quietly his fingers slid under it, an oddly loud click! sounded anyways. Peter had locked the door. Against his better judgment, he still tried to open the door, almost desperately. He didn’t want to be around Peter Lukas. Especially not when he had just been drinking his lonely sorrows away only around thirty minutes prior.
“Relax. You’ll be at your flat in no time at all,” came Peter’s utterly dull voice from the front seat. For the first time in numerous minutes, his head actually minutely turned to look across the valley of distance between him and Martin. His hands still held the car steady, however. “No need to be so dramatic .”
“Then why bother with me?”
“Just wanted to get a read on you, really. Elias says you have funny markings. Do you know what those are?”
And Martin said nothing back. He clamped his mouth shut and decidedly glared out the window, his brain power not willing to go further. Especially not with Peter bloody Lukas . For the remaining few minutes of the odd car drive, Martin silently sulked in defiance. Though, he knew that Peter preferred silence, unfortunately.
He heard the telltale grating of gravel on the street as the car slowed. Without a word, he popped the car door open (Peter unlocked it as soon as the car stopped, unsettlingly enough) and stepped out into the road. He hobbled around the car and up the sidewalk to his flat. When he reached the front and let himself into the main room of his complex, he realized he didn’t pay his “uber driver” any money. He glanced over his shoulder to find the car and the man in question long gone.
He shrugged and stumbled his way into the complex. Unfortunately, he had to trudge up multiple flights of stairs to get to his flat – there was no elevator in his building, and even if there were, it would undoubtedly be broken. In an unknown time frame his brain couldn’t process, Martin somehow entered his flat, locked the door behind him, and collapsed on the bed. He could feel a premature hangover stinging in his head as he got comfortable.
It was a dreamless sleep, thankfully. The only thing that his mind’s eye could see was a sea of clouds. They lay motionless, barely kissing his pant legs as he stood surveying. It was beautiful. And yet he didn’t dare move any closer. He didn’t belong in the Lonely, not anymore.