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It’s the shout that wakes him.
Martin shoots up from bed, still clutching the blankets to his chest, eyes wide. His first thought is that it must be Prentiss, back from the dead, even though he knows—or, at the very least, hopes—that’s impossible. Maybe her worms have taken over her body like some macabre puppet of flesh and hair. After everything they’ve seen lately, he wouldn’t consider that impossible. Yet there are no sounds of a threat, no gurgled clicking and sucking of worms or even the sound of footsteps. All he can hear is his own thrumming heartbeat and thin, terrified breathing.
It takes a moment for him to realize that the breathing isn’t coming from him but from Jonathan.
That’s right. They’re still in the institute. That’s why the blackness pressing in around him feels deeper and more suffocating than usual. He had insisted Jonathan stay there, he remembers, when he came in to find the archivist passed out at his desk, tape recorder still running. Although Jonathan had protested, as Martin knew he would, he had finally given in, admitting, grudgingly, that it would probably be unsafe for him to drive back to his flat. Martin had stayed too, partly because he himself was tired enough that navigating the dark streets back to his own flat sounded less than enjoyable and partly because he knew full well Jonathan couldn’t be trusted to actually sleep if someone wasn’t there forcing him to.
And, if Martin is being honest with himself, the thought of companionship for at least one night sounded… nice.
“Jon?” Martin asks quietly, blearily, now that he’s relatively sure they’re safe. He hears a sharp, choked gasp that makes his heart sink, the sound echoing in his ears like a memory of his own sleepless nights. “…are you okay?”
“Martin?” Jonathan’s voice is small, confused. “What are—?”
“We’re in the archives,” Martin explains quickly. “I asked you to stay. Are you—did you have a nightmare?”
“…yes. I—yes.”
“…are you okay?”
“Yes. I just—” Martin hears a shaky sigh from where Jonathan lays. “Lights,” the archivist rasps. His voice is hoarse as if he’s been screaming. “Please.”
Martin scrambles to his feet and feels for the light switch, tripping over his sheets in his haste. When he flicks it on, he has to squint against the sudden blinding light to see Jonathan, pressed into the corner and looking smaller than Martin has ever seen him. His eyes, normally half-hidden beneath furrowed brows, are wide as he looks around the room in recognizable panic. When they land on Martin’s concerned face, his body goes slack and he presses his palms to his forehead.
“Are you… sure you’re alright?” Martin asks, lingering by the light switch in uncertainty with his hand still hovering in the air.
“I’m fine,” Jonathan snaps, but his breathing is still irregular and Martin knows it’s a lie. “It isn’t as if I’m not used to this.”
Martin makes his decision then and crosses the space between them to kneel in front of him. Carefully, he takes hold of Jonathan’s wrists to pull his hands away from his face. The archivist’s head remains down, his arms tense and shaking in Martin’s grasp. “Jon, look at me. It’s alright to not be alright. Just breathe, okay?”
Jonathan’s eyes flick up at him, brighter than they should be. He holds Martin’s gaze for only a few seconds before flinching away and tearing his wrists from Martin’s grip in a way that makes the assistant feel strangely guilty, even if he doesn’t know why. Jonathan pulls his knees to his chest and fits his arms over them, burying his face in his kneecaps. “Go back to bed, Martin,” he orders, voice muffled, but the exhaustion and heaviness in the words make it sound more like a plea than a command.
Seeing his superior in a position so child-like and vulnerable stirs a sense of fierce protectiveness in Martin, protectiveness over a man who he once thought could look death in the face and would simply pull out his recorder so he could get his conversation with the Grim Reaper on tape. He’s known for some time now, of course, that Jonathan is not really that kind of man—yet he still has a tenacious sort of bravery that Martin admires. Seeing him in a huddled ball in the corner, woken up by the same sort of nightmare, no doubt, that wakes Martin at least twice a week… it’s unnerving, to say the least. It makes Martin want to pull the archivist into his arms and keep him safe, from the nightmares, from Jane Prentiss, from everything.
He won’t, though. He’s not sure Jonathan could ever be quite that vulnerable.
Martin settles for sitting next to him in the bed and scooting as close to Jonathan as he dares. If the other man hadn’t backed himself, literally, into a corner, Martin would have put a reassuring hand on his shoulder. As it is, he can only reach out and set his hand on the back of Jonathan’s head while his face stays hidden in his knees.
Jonathan starts at the touch, his head jerking up to stare wide-eyed at Martin and his fingers visibly tightening on his legs. A moment later he sighs, closes his eyes, and lowers his head again. “Fine. Stay if you must,” he murmurs, barely loud enough for Martin to hear.
“I just want to make sure you’re okay,” Martin says. Slowly, he lets his fingers run through Jonathan’s hair, bracing himself for the inevitable slap away. When it doesn’t come, that’s almost more worrisome.
“How many times must I tell you I’m fine before you believe me?”
Martin can’t help but roll his eyes at that. “Not shaking or being curled in a fetal position would be a good start.”
Jonathan lifts his head to glare at Martin and brushes his hand away. It takes visible effort for him to get his body to relax, but eventually his arms fall limply at his sides and his legs lower off the side of the bed. He turns so he’s parallel with Martin, close but not quite touching, his back resting against the wall in a caricature of relaxation. “Is that better?” he asks, the question dripping with venom that Martin is fairly certain isn’t really there. “It isn’t like I wake up to anyone when I’m home. I don’t need you to babysit me and tell me everything is okay.”
“I know,” Martin says simply, folding his hands in his lap. “But it doesn’t hurt, surely.”
Jonathan glances sideways at his assistant before giving a barely perceptible nod and closing his eyes. “I suppose not. But I’m not going to cry into your lap, if that’s what you’re hoping for.”
“I honestly don’t think I’d know what to do if you did,” Martin admits. “…do you want to talk about it?”
“About what?” Jonathan sighs. This time, it’s Martin’s turn to jump in surprise as Jonathan rests his head on his shoulder, eyes still closed. Martin doesn’t dare move in case the motion was somehow accidental, but as Jonathan relaxes against him and keeps talking, he realizes with no small amount of shock that it wasn’t. “About the nightmares? I know you have them too. I suspect we all do. I would be worried about the mental health of anyone who didn’t have nightmares after that.”
“I do. They’re…” Martin searches for a good word to describe them and comes up short. “…awful.”
Jonathan makes a noise of agreement, lips turning up in a tight half-smile. “They are that. I can still feel those god damn worms.” He shudders, fingers picking absentmindedly at a scab on his arm that has yet to heal. “Burrowing into my skin. Every time I wake up, even if they aren’t in my dreams for once, I itch and I worry that somehow the paramedics missed one. I still think I see the bloody little bastards every time I catch a glimpse of something white. I saw a silver pen cap on the floor the other day and I swear my heart stopped.”
Martin doesn’t respond. He doesn’t think he’s supposed to. He just reaches out and takes Jonathan’s hand without thinking and is surprised when Jonathan’s still-trembling fingers tighten on his. He looks over at the archivist, moving his head only slightly so he doesn’t make him move from his shoulder. Jonathan’s lidded eyes cast deep shadows over his cheeks, dark under-eye circles that make Martin wonder how long it’s been since he’s had a full night of sleep. His body is riddled with scars and unhealed wounds, most of them clustered around his muscles and joints. They have to still hurt, Martin thinks, given the way his own considerably fewer scars continue to burn.
“I’m always in the tunnels in my dreams,” Jonathan continues quietly. His thumb plays along the back of Martin’s hand, and the assistant wonders if he’s even aware of it. “But there are waves of worms, all of them fast and ravenous. I can’t escape them. Every time I turn, the walls are closer and I have no CO2 canisters to kill them with. Or worse, I do, but they don’t work. My torch invariably goes out and leaves me in complete solitude and darkness.” He sighs. “The worms don’t always attack. Sometimes I can just hear them squirming around me. Or I hear screams. Sasha, Tim, Elias… you.”
Martin swallows, his throat suddenly tight. “I’m sorry,” he murmurs. “I didn’t mean to leave you. I didn’t know you weren’t there. I honestly thought you were right behind me. I’m sorry, Jon. I panicked and I ran and—”
“I know, I know.” Jonathan lifts his head from Martin’s shoulder to look at him with weary, bloodshot eyes, that same tired half-smile from before on his face. “I know. It’s alright. You’ve apologized for it before. I don’t consider you responsible for what happened to Tim and me. If you were still with us, you would have been half-devoured by the worms too. I wouldn’t wish that on anybody.”
“Still.” Part of Martin is grateful Jonathan bears him no ill will for fleeing. Yet part of him wishes Jonathan would confront him about it, yell and accuse him of abandoning them, if only to ease his gnawing guilt whenever he sees the holes bored into Jonathan’s skin.
“There is no ‘still,’ Martin. I don’t blame you, nor is that the role you play in my dreams.” Eyes downcast, watching his thumb trace over Martin’s skin as if it belongs to someone else, Jonathan continues. “No, in my dreams, you die.” He pulls his hand back and twists his fingers together, knuckles going white. “Not always you. Everyone who was there that day has died at least once in them. But you seem to… die more. Swallowed up by worms, usually. Sometimes I try to save you. Others, I stand frozen. All of them, I hear you call out my name and I can’t do anything. No matter if it’s you, Sasha, Elias, Tim… I can never do anything. The worms eat you, then they eat me.” He laughs, harsh and bitter and helpless.
“Jon…” Martin doesn’t know what to do. This isn’t what he used to, especially not from Jonathan. So he just says the first thing that comes to mind. “I’m alive.”
Jonathan looks up, lips quirking in his first honest smile. “We’ve already established that you aren’t a ghost,” he reminds him.
“Not that. I mean…” Martin spreads his hands. Jonathan’s eyes trace over his outstretched fingers to his face, studying it. “I’m alive. I didn’t die down there, in the tunnels. Sometimes I have nightmares where I did. But I didn’t. I’m alive, Jon. So are Elias, and Tim, and Sasha. All of us survived. We all got out. Even you.”
“This time.”
“This time is all there is. No matter what happens, this time we all survived. You can’t… beat yourself up so much. Over this, over Gertrude, over all of it. The worms, Jane Prentiss… They were horrible. But they’re dead. And we’re not.”
“No,” Jonathan murmurs, “I suppose we’re not.”
In the silence that follows, Martin has one thought.
I want to hug him.
So he does.
Jonathan reacts in much the way Martin was expecting when he reaches out, but he doesn’t push him away. He lets Martin wrap his arms around him, feel the steady thrum of his heart that says alive alive alive. He doesn’t lean into the hug exactly; Jonathan stays stiff as a board throughout the entire ordeal. But he does, after a few moments, set a hand on Martin’s back and squeeze slightly, and Martin is perfectly content with that. Being able to hold him, to feel his warmth and remind them both that they are alive, is enough.
Eventually, Jonathan clears his throat and pats Martin on the back, removing himself from the hug with surprising efficiency. He slides away, back toward the head of the bed, back to an appropriate distance away.
“You’re terrible at relaxing,” Martin comments in the uncomfortable quiet. He finds he’s relieved when Jonathan’s response is a scowl.
“Perhaps you’re terrible at comfort,” the archivist shoots back, his voice returned to its usual gruff timbre. “I’m going to… attempt to sleep again.”
Even with Jonathan looking expectantly at him, it takes Martin a few seconds to figure out what he means. “Oh.” Truth be told, he is a bit disappointed to be kicked out of bed, and they did just have a bonding moment, so… “I could always stay over here. They say you’re less likely to have a nightmare if you share your bed with another person.”
Jonathan lifts a brow. “Who says that exactly?”
“…‘them.’”
Jonathan nods and motions toward the bed opposite his, and Martin rises with a reluctant sigh. He pads over to the light switch, glancing back over his shoulder only once when he hears the rustle of sheets to see Jonathan roll onto his side to face the wall. With a sigh, he flips the switch off, plunging the room into the same darkness that swallowed them up before. He takes ginger steps until his shins hit the edge of his bed, then carefully climbs in. He’s busy staring at where he knows Jonathan is, even if he can’t actually see him, when the archivist speaks once more.
“Martin?”
Jonathan sounds hesitant, which is almost enough for Martin to turn the light back on, worried—and hoping—he changed his mind. “Hm?”
“Thank you.”
“…you’re welcome.”
Yes, Martin thinks as he pulls the covers around him and closes, the darkness no longer so suffocating. We’re alive. This is enough.