Chapter Text
“It’s stuck!”
“What do you mean it’s stuck?”
“I mean that I can’t open it.” Martin bangs on the trap door again and then hears Jon shushing.
“You could alert Gertrude.”
“Well, you kinda need statements, Jon, and it’s not like I can gently open this right now.”
“Well, maybe you can try to open it a little quieter?” Martin then proceeded to give the loudest bang he could.
“Oh, I got it.”
A few things happen in the next few seconds. First, Martin opens the trap door only to hear him and Jon (???) screaming from the other side. Then, briefly, he sees one of Jon’s metaphysical eyes above him. Jon, from behind him, then starts yelling, “Close the door, Martin!” over and over again. Finally, Martin slams the door shut but doesn’t let go.
“Jon, what the fuck is going on!”
“Jon, what the fuck is going on!” Martin exclaims more than asks, but that doesn't even matter because Jon wouldn’t be able to answer it if it was one. Jon can barely even think of words right now, much less speak.
Things were going well. The night was passing by quickly. Jon was enjoying his intermittent conversations with Martin, and he finished the work that he brought. But then that blasted banging started coming from the floor. And when he got close to investigate it, trying to assure Martin it was just the pipes, the floor opened, revealing some sort of trap door. It closed quickly, but Jon didn’t think there would be actual robbers. He thought they were going to stay in the archives for a few weekends, show Gertrude that no one was stealing anything from this dusty place, and finally move on from this. He should have guessed something like this would happen. Nothing in his life had ever been easy.
The pounding has stopped for now, but Jon knows they're still there, just under the floor.
Another bang rings out though it’s not from the trap door. Still, that’s where Jon’s head snaps to look intentionally. But he quickly corrects himself and looks to the true source of the noise. It’s Gertrude. She had come out of her office, slamming the door open, probably to investigate the banging and yelling. She looked at them with a cold, unblinking stare and then down where the trap door was. Her expression was unreadable.
“So,” her eyes flick up back at Jon. “You were telling a truth.” Jon has a lot he wants to say in response to that. How obvious was it that he was telling the truth or what made her think he was taking entire boxes full of statements, or does he look like someone who can carry a box of them all the way back home without being seen by any of the cameras? (Maybe that’s why she started calling Martin an accomplice. He probably could carry these boxes easily, Jon thinks. Though he isn’t sure about Martin's ability to sneak, considering he once saw him almost trip over his own feet.) But Jon doesn’t say any of this. There are currently more important things to worry about.
“Wha- What do we do?” Martin speaks up, nervous and scared.
“Good question,” Gertrude replies, finally looking away from Jon. “Ask him, this was his idea after all.” She looks down at the faint outline of the previously hidden trapdoor and stares at it for a second. “I need something from my office. I’ll be right back.” She then walked back to her office and disappeared from sight.
Jon looks over at Martin only to find the man looking at him expectantly, waiting for an answer to his earlier question, but his mind is blank.
Jon takes a breath and tries to calm himself. He looks down at the trapdoor, then up to Gertrude’s office, and then back down before finally facing Martin again.
“Maybe we should just wait… for…” Jon gestures toward the office, “... her?”
“Maybe we should just wait… for…” Jon gestures toward nothing.
“For what? Them to leave?”
“I don’t know! I didn’t think this far ahead!” He admits.
“You didn’t think this far ahead?” Martin asks his husband.
“Well, of course, I didn’t!” Jon waves his torch around and starts pacing back and forth. “I didn’t know that they would be there! I thought that if we ever got caught, it would be by Gertrude or Elias! Not ourselves!”
“Well, why didn’t you just, Know their weekend plans?”
“Because I didn’t think it would change, Martin,” Jon says. “Since we arrived, their weekends have almost always been the same. Other me goes to band practice or a gig to perform. And other you usually write poetry and take care of your mum. Why would I think they would be here?"
Fair. Martin thinks, but it doesn't help the situation. They need new statements for Jon. And the only place to get them is the Archive. And the Archive is just through that trap door. They just need to get past... themselves. Martin wonders if they just rush it they could lose them in the Archives. It's big and confusing and empty. One can easily get lost in there... That might be it.
"Jon, I have a bad idea." Jon gets a confused look on his face.
"What do you mean you have a -" It then suddenly dawns on him as to what Martin is talking about, and he stops pacing. "No," Jon says, "there's got to be something else we can do; that we can think of!"
"We don't have time to think, Jon!"
"We will if we just, uh, retreat! Yes, let's go and come back tomorrow."
"Can you really last that long without a statement? You said it yourself that a statement a day was barely enough. And I know you don't want to take any live statements." Martin climbs up the ladder again. "I think this is our only choice."
“I-” Jon starts, wanting to protest, but he knows it's no use. Martin can be rather stubborn when he wants to be, something they honestly share in common. It’s a quality of his that Jon tends to find endearing most of the time. Like when they’re arguing about what movie to watch or when he’s pushing a cup of tea in his hands and asking if he ate any real food today. (Something Jon still forgets to do quite often.) But then, sometimes, just like Jon, Martin will get stubborn on an idiotic and dangerous idea. Like sitting on a couch in the Extinction or isolating himself to find out Lukas’s plans, or something like right now…
Jon knows he’s currently being hypocritical, but that doesn’t make him any less right. Fog is already rolling off of Martin’s shoulders.
Jon lets out a big heavy sigh. “I still don’t like this,” he says defeatedly. Martin smiles and mouths an ‘I know,’ at him before he opens the door.
Fog quickly fills the Archives…
Fog?
Where did all this fog come from?
There’s a distant consistent knocking…
Logically he knows he saw it come out of the trapdoor… he thinks. He did look away from it for a second, didn’t he? What did he see?
He tries to remember…
The trapdoor opened up, a hand coming up out of it, and fog came rolling out of it. Not just out the trap door but also the hand. He supposes that he did indeed see where the fog came from. And then he did look away… Why? Well, she slammed a door open. Who was she? No one he was really close to, though he doesn’t feel sad about that. He remembers being confused about something she was carrying. The question of why she would even have that arises in his mind. He’s not currently sure what “that” is…
And then the fog obstructed his view.
He’s here for something, isn’t he?
An object? No.
A purpose? A someone? Yes.
He’s to find someone for some purpose. He should go do that.
His hand reaches out for someone who is not there anymore…
Anymore? Did someone come with him?
Yes. But he left.
Makes sense, they didn’t know each other that well. That makes him feel sad. Empty.
He walks further into the fog.
Where was he?
He’s in the Magnus Institute Archives, right in front of the trapdoor. Or maybe at the desk, he was sitting at earlier. Or somewhere in the stacks for some reason.
But it doesn’t feel like that does it?
It feels familiar like his childhood home. Like how he felt when he heard Dad wasn’t coming back. Like how he feels when talking to his mum. Or walking into his flat.
And it feels unfamiliar with the smell of peaches and the incessant knocking. Like sea-salt waves and the quiet humming of an air conditioner. Like cold mornings in a faraway countryside.
It feels like loneliness but not quite his own.
It almost could be but there’s more.
He wanders wondering where he is and why he is here.
Was he here with someone? Yes. Right. He was here with his husband. No. Wrong.
Husband? Who was he kidding? Why would someone marry him? Love him? No, he wasn’t married to him. Not in any way that truly matters. They don’t even know each other that well…
Are they even friends?
No.
He wanders further in…
Jon hates this plan. He hates how Martin feels he has to do this. And for him no less…
He doesn’t deserve him…
Jon shakes his head and the eyes around him glow brighter. No no, he shouldn’t think about that here. Not right now. Martin is doing so much for him right now, the least he can do is what he should do. And what he should do is switch out the used statements for new ones. He readjusts the box of them he has in his arms. Just enough for a week. He doesn’t want Martin to do this for any longer than necessary.
He walks into the stacks.
Jon wasn’t the only one to change because of the apocalypse. Martin changed just as much or maybe even more depending on how you look at it. He became an avatar of the Lonely during the apocalypse, and thanks to his domain, he already had a steady supply of fear to feed off of. And then he was cut off when they came to this world.
It wasn’t as bad as it could’ve been. Jon is sure of that. But still, they struggled trying to find a way to feed Martin’s new hunger without any chance of it consuming him or anybody else. But now with him pulling this- this stunt. Jon is sure there will be many consequences that will come from this.
All this so Jon can get his fucking statements…
He walks around the stacks with purpose, beelining to the statements the Eye wants him to read, and he is uncomfortably reminded of a shopping trip to Tesco. He accidentally bumps into Martin- er well other Martin, and he gives him a look of absolute terror which is heartbreakingly expected but still hurts. Jon ends up blurting things out to excuse himself and he’s pretty sure there was an apology in there. The same thing almost happens with, well, himself, but he was able to evade that entire situation before it happened. Once he grabs the last statement he needs for the next week he breathes a sigh of relief and spins on his heel to start looking for his husband so they can go home.
Gertrude is right in front of him pointing a gun at his face.
Well, he supposes he should have expected this. She had just come back from America after all.
There is someone not here.
But that’s not possible, is it?
No, no, that someone has to be here, he’s looking right at them after all but… he could see right through them… like they are a ghost…
But, no, ghosts aren’t real. Ghosts aren’t real. Ghosts aren’t real, and neither are curses or any of the statements on his desk or Mr Spider–
None of that is real.
So that someone is here and that someone is not a ghost.
Should he go talk to that someone? He has been staring at them for a while… No, no, why should he talk to them? He’ll just bore them anyway. He doesn’t even know how to hold a conversation properly anyhow–
A loud bang, like from a firecracker, cut through the air. It was too loud. It was nowhere near him. He still closes his eyes and covers his ears for a second out of instinct. When he opens his eyes that someone is gone. Fully gone, unlike before.
What was he doing? Right, there’s robbers here……………..
There are robbers here!
He feels numb…
So so numb… empty really…
He could stay here… Would anyone miss him? No, not really anyway…
His coworkers didn’t know him that well… they might miss his tea… Mum has always said her life would be better without him… and Jon… gods Jon, he would be relieved if he stayed here… he wouldn’t have to pretend to love him anymore…
He stopped walking a while ago. He’s just standing here now, wherever here is. He closes his eyes.
……………………
…………
………
Someone bumps into him again…
“Oh sorry about that Mar– MARTIN!”
Martin opens his eyes and sees Jon. And it definitely is Jon this time, not that scared older off-looking version of Jon from earlier. This one actually has a normal amount of eyes. “Martin, thank the gods I found you! Well, I must admit that I wasn’t actively looking for you, BUT, but I’m so glad to find you! We need to get out of here! You heard noise earlier, right? I think it was a gunshot from one of the robbers. We need to get out of here!” Jon rambles before grabs Martin’s hand and starts trying to lead him, but Martin’s feet stay planted. Jon looks back at him. “Martin?”
“Why should I leave,” Martin asks. His own voice sounded distant.
“Apologies, did you not hear me? There was a gunshot , Martin. We need to go upstairs and call the police.” Jon tugs at Martin’s hand again.
“You can do that by yourself… You don’t need me…” Martin points out. The fog is getting thicker around him.
“Yes, well, I admit that it was my original plan… to get out of here alone…” The hand not currently holding Martins fiddles with the neck of his shirt. Martin tries to let go but the grip is suddenly tightened. “But now that I’ve found you I much rather you come with me.”
“It’ll be much easier for you if you let me stay…”
“I don’t see how it would be. I’ve been walking for ten minutes trying to get out before running into you with no luck. Might as well try to find the way out together. Might even improve our chances.”
“If you leave me you won’t have to deal with our marriage anymore…”
“Yes, because leaving you in a dusty old archive where the ventilation clearly doesn’t work is going to get rid of our marriage,” sarcasm drips from his voice. And then Jon’s face changes slightly into something softer. “Martin, I know the way we met was horribly unfortunate, but I-I do care for you now, in a way, and I wouldn’t like to see you get shot, so please–”
Another loud bang sounded, coming from no particular direction.
Martin flinches.
Jon cares about him? There’s someone out there– no, in here that cares about him? He looks back at Jon and he looks scared, but he gives Martin another tug. This time his feet move. And then they start walking together in the fog.