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“I could be blindfolded and dropped into the deepest ocean and I would know where to find you. I could be buried a hundred miles underground and I would know where you are.”
Neil Gaiman - American Gods
“I just - I know sometimes,” Jon said, and it wasn’t a lie, exactly. He does know, sometimes. It’s just that sometimes is a highly subjective term, and he doesn’t think Martin would much appreciate the absolute truth.
He’s done what Martin asked, though. He hasn’t gone to find him since. It’s not easy, sitting in the Archives and knowing he’s in the library, or walking along the ground floor corridor, or just down the street in that café he likes, but Jon is trying to respect people’s choices. Even if they’re bad choices. Even if it feels like he’s losing everything, and every attempt he makes to scrabble something back slips out from under his fingers like loose earth. Even if -
He hasn’t gone, is the point. And he won’t. He won’t.
*
The Archives are very quiet, with Basira away. Not that Basira is noisy by any means, but without her, it’s just Jon. Alone, and painfully aware of every sound he makes, clearing his throat and shuffling papers and drumming his fingers on the desk. It seems terribly loud, in the silence.
Over a week, and he hasn’t heard from her. He’s kept his promise, hasn’t known where she is or what she’s doing, but...he worries. He wishes she could trust him. He understands why she doesn’t, but - but he wishes he could just know she’s okay.
He got an email from Melanie yesterday. It was terse, simply read: Corroborated Sol Jensen account of events (#0160814). Neighbor saw clown too. It’s something, though. She’s working. Researching. More like the old Melanie, although she’s still avoiding him. It’s encouraging, and at least he knows she’s safe, as far as any of them are these days. Not like Basira. Or Martin -
Who is in artifact storage, his brain provides, and Jon winces. He has to stop doing that. It’s intrusive, and unfair, and he has been trying. But so far, that only seems to have made it worse. It’s gotten so he doesn’t even have to think about Martin anymore, the awareness seeping steadily in around the edges of his consciousness, so that anytime he’s not paying attention his mind wanders to wherever Martin is, like a loyal dog.
Jon forces his thoughts back to the notes he’s reviewing. He needs to focus on work, not let his brain go rambling. He concentrates, and manages to dig himself deep enough into the case that he forgets to think about anything else. Enough that it takes a while before he hears the new sound in the Archives, and even longer before he realizes what it is.
The coffin is singing.
Jon goes and stands near it, listening to the eerie, musical moan drifting out of its depths. Guilt tears at his insides. Daisy is in there, trapped, buried, alone. And for all the statements he’s consumed, all the knowing that’s pushed its way into his head, he hasn’t done a thing to help her.
He stares at the words carved roughly into its surface, DO NOT OPEN, and curls his fingernails into his palms. He can’t. It’s too dangerous. Not until he understands how to get Daisy out of there. To get himself out of there. He needs to know.
Except...doesn’t he, already?
He goes and stands outside the fire exit in the rain, smoking a cigarette he doesn’t really want, and tries not to think about what he knows.
*
Jon’s not an idiot. He’s not exactly - great, with emotions, or relationships, but he knows what it means when you can’t stop thinking about someone. Or when you can’t stop knowledge of them pouring unbidden into your brain at all hours, which he supposes is the monster equivalent.
The last time he thought about someone this much, it was Georgie, and it was right after she’d finally broken things off with him. He was distant, she’d said. Emotionally unavailable, and she wasn’t wrong. In the moment he hadn’t argued it. It was her decision, if she didn’t want to go out with him anymore, that was fine. He’d never needed a relationship.
A few days later, he’d seen a poster for some awful new slasher film, and thought I must tell Georgie about this, and his stomach had dropped into his shoes when he realized that he couldn’t. That Georgie wouldn’t be laughing at terrible films with him anymore, or arguing with him about the existence of the paranormal, or stealing chips off his plate in the student canteen. It had taken a long time for that sunken, sad feeling to fade away.
Jon’s always been terrible at recognizing what he has when he has it. That much, at least, hasn’t changed.
It doesn’t matter now, in any case. If there was ever an opportunity to do something about it, that time is long gone, before Jon ever even realized it existed. He just needs to - to stop.
*
Basira comes back looking frustrated and withdrawn. When Jon asks if she’s found anything, she shakes her head tiredly, tells him she doesn’t want to talk about it. Tells him she’s only back for a while, looking for more leads to follow up. Tells him she’s not done, not by a long shot.
Jon’s not sure if Basira really believes that herself. But she dives back into her research with steely resolve, and for the first couple of days she seems like she’s almost all right. And then it starts to rain.
He finds her standing over the coffin, her expression fraught and her trembling hand hovering centimeters above the yellow wood.
“Please,” she is whispering, her voice thick with emotion. “Stop it. Please, just...stop. Please…”
She sees him then, and an accusation flickers across her face, though he’s not sure if it’s for Daisy, or for her own dignity. Basira quickly composes her features into something neutral, tucks her hands into her pockets. Jon hesitates.
Maybe he should leave this to Basira, trust that she’ll figure out how to get Daisy back. The two of them have always belonged to each other, far more than either of them ever belonged to the Institute. Maybe it’s not his place to interfere.
But the coffin was addressed to him. Even if it was only a taunt, he’s still responsible. And if he can do something about it, he needs to. Even if it’s not fair.
“I have an idea,” he says. “To help Daisy.”
Jon makes the tea, and Basira sits with her hands curled around her cup, listening intently as he tells her his plan. She shakes her head, disbelieving.
“That’s insane. You can’t just climb in there.”
“It’ll work,” says Jon, trying to sound more assured than he feels. “As long as I have - an anchor.”
“Mm-hm. And what did Martin say, when you told him this plan?”
“He, uh, I haven’t spoken to him. He doesn’t need to know,” he rushes on before Basira can speak. “It won’t hurt him, or anything. It’s probably better if he doesn’t, for - for whatever he’s doing these days.”
Basira’s expression is disapproving, but she doesn’t say anything. She lets out a long sigh, her eyebrows knitting together anxiously.
“It should be me who goes in there,” she says, her voice low and tight. “Daisy almost killed you even before you were - like this. She should see me first.”
“Who do you care most about in the world?” Jon asks, and lets the Archivist curl around his tongue as he does, lets it resonate through his vocal cords and slide past his teeth.
“Daisy,” Basira replies instantly. The look she gives him then says she’s not exactly surprised by this betrayal, but still capable of being disappointed by him. Jon can live with that. He needed her honest answer.
“You could go in there,” he tells her, “But you wouldn’t come back out. You need an anchor out here, something to bring you home. And yours is in there.”
“And...Martin, he’s your - ”
Jon meets her gaze levelly, waiting for how she’s going to finish the sentence. She doesn’t, in the end, just shrugs.
“How do you know it’ll work, when you’re in there? In...deep?”
“I found him through the Lonely,” Jon says. “I’ll find him through the Buried.”
*
The two of them stand in front of the coffin. It’s stopped singing, for now, still and silent. The heavy chains lie unlocked, discarded loose around its base. It feels like standing in front of a tiger’s cage while the door swings open.
“You’re sure about this?” Basira says, for what must be the fifth or sixth time. Jon nods, swallows nervously.
“I’m sure.”
“And you’re sure you shouldn’t - ”
“I’m sure, Basira,” he interrupts before she can make him feel guilty again. There’s no reason that Martin should know about this. No reason to drag him into it. Even if it doesn’t work, if they don’t -
Well, whatever happens, he doesn’t need to know.
Jon takes a deep breath, and lets his thoughts shift, lets himself know that Martin is just upstairs. He exhales slowly through his nose, centering himself on that awareness, a bright, clear presence in Jon’s mind. He reaches out and places his hand on the wood, warm and rough, and even though he knows to expect it, he’s still startled by the faint scratching under his palm.
“Bring her back,” says Basira, her voice shaky but determined.
“I’ll do my best,” he says.
He opens the coffin lid, and steps inside.
*
The steps go down and down, between rough rock walls that curve in overhead, close and oppressive. It’s entirely dark except for the dim beam of Jon’s torch. He can hear the sound of water dripping somewhere, and his breathing, and a frantic drumming he eventually realizes is his own heartbeat.
He shouts Daisy’s name, but his voice comes out reedy and he starts to feel a little lightheaded, as if there isn’t enough oxygen in here, so he stops.
The passage gets gradually narrower, the steps steeper, until Jon’s elbows are scraping the sides and he's ducking his head as it brushes the ceiling. He can feel panic creeping in on the edges of his consciousness, sharp and urgent. He’s never been afraid of tight spaces, but this is different. This is Buried. Choke. The end of all light and air and freedom, the very pit of all despair. This is never getting out alive. This is -
He forces himself to stop. Breathe. Fear is his worst enemy here. He can feel the walls soaking it in, breathing with it, closing more tightly around him. He has a plan. He has a way out of here.
He thinks about Martin, and there he is, somewhere up above. Distant, but still just as bright. His existence calling to Jon like a beacon.
He sighs, feeling calmer. He can reach Martin. He can find Martin. He’s okay. He keeps going.
At some point the steps become a ladder and he is climbing straight down a tight chute, the sides narrowing down so his clothing snags and his skin scrapes as he squeezes through. He loses his torch, but it doesn’t matter, he can’t move his head enough to look down anyway, and there’s nothing to see, nothing at all. All he can do is keeps descending as the dark walls close in tighter.
Time loses meaning. Jon has no conception of how long he’s been descending, but gradually he becomes aware that he is no longer moving vertically, that the passage has somehow changed orientation without him noticing, and he is now crawling on his elbows through a tunnel that is no longer rock but hard packed dirt, smelling damp and organic. Still angled down steeply, driving deeper and deeper as the soil becomes looser, shaking free at his movements and tumbling down around him. Enclosing him. Entombing him, and he can’t do anything but keep moving down, down, down.
His movement slows, wriggling worm-like as the earth presses in on all sides around him, cold and wet and heavy. It is in his eyes and his teeth and his nose, packing in around his rib cage like lead, so his breathing grows shallow and labored. His legs are dead dragging weights behind him, useless. He thinks I am buried, but something in him drives him on, some long forgotten thought that there is something he needs to find.
There is no up anymore, no left or right, no forward or back. Only down, down, down in all directions. He presses forward into the dark, humid depths, scrabbles at the soil that fills his vision, and then gradually he sees her take shape ahead of him. Motionless, just a white face against the dark earth and a claw of a hand. Her teeth bared in a rictus of terror and rage, her eyes wide and rolling and terribly aware, nostrils flaring with the faintest of breath.
Oh god Daisy…
Her eyes fix on him, and her hand twitches. Jon tries to say something, anything, but the soil fills his mouth and he can’t make a sound. He moves his arm towards her with tremendous effort, twisting against the earth and after a long time, he is able to brush his fingertip against hers, and her fingers twitch again, reaching for him. He pushes his hand tortuously forward, centimeter by centimeter, until finally, after an age, he is able to wrap his fingers around her wrist, feels hers clamp around his in return.
He’s found her. But that wasn’t all of it, was it? He was supposed to - supposed to -
Martin, he thinks, I need to find Martin. Wherever Martin is, is up there, except there is no up, the concept no longer exists, subsumed into endless depth, no way for him to find back, no path for him to follow home, nothing but the weight of dark soil and silence forever.
Martin, he thinks, Martin, where are you? Please, I'm so lost, and I'll never find my way home without you. Please, Martin...
And then there it is, a single point of brilliance in the tomb of his thoughts. Martin’s presence, warm and bright, and Jon’s heart aches for it, for all the times he’s let Martin down and all the distances between them. Jon’s entire being strains towards Martin, like a compass to true north, unable not to know him.
Up, he knows. He grips Daisy’s wrist like death and reaches up, striving against the soil, feeling it cling and drag and still reaching, reaching, and then a hand locks viselike around his outstretched arm. He feels himself being towed upwards, light hitting his eyes and his lungs expanding joyously as air fills them. He falls over the edge of the coffin, collapsing forward, and someone catches him.
He blinks the dirt out of his eyes, and sees Martin’s face, pale and startled and very close up. They are both on the floor, Martin sitting with his legs splayed out and Jon sprawled awkwardly across his chest, propped up on one hand. The other is still holding Jon’s wrist, and Jon feels Martin's thumb stroke gently across the knob of bone there, an unconscious caress, before Martin’s hand releases him.
Behind him, he can hear Daisy coughing and gagging, Basira making soothing, comforting noises, her voice a mess of emotion. Martin’s chest is rising and falling beneath him, and Martin’s eyes are very wide.
“I heard you,” Martin breathes, soft and disbelieving. “I heard you calling my name, trying to find me, and I - I had to come. I - ”
Jon wants to cry. He opens his mouth to say something, an explanation or a plea or a confession, but instead he rolls off Martin onto the floor as his entire body heaves, retching soil and bile onto the carpet. By the time he pulls himself together enough to sit up, eyes watering and hands shaking, Martin is gone.
*
Jon is in his office when Martin finds him.
It’s been two days since they got Daisy back, and he still doesn’t know what drew Martin to the Archives that day. I heard you, he said, but Jon doesn’t understand how that’s possible. Basira didn’t have any more of an explanation, said Martin had just run in looking pale and frantic, demanding to know where Jon was. He’s heard nothing from Martin, and hasn’t gone looking for him, because that isn’t something he’s doing anymore.
Martin doesn’t come down to the Archives much, but it’s not unheard of. So when Jon becomes aware of his presence nearby, he resists the urge to rush out there. Keeps his head down, focusing on his work. He has no right to -
A soft knock sounds against the door frame, a rhythm so well-known that Jon’s heart thuds painfully against his ribs before he even looks up. Martin is standing in the doorway, and the sight of him in this familiar setting make Jon’s heart ache for - well, not happier times, perhaps. But a time when there hadn’t been this horrible, jarring distance between them. When Martin had been willing to meet his eyes.
“Martin…” he says, and can’t find the words for anything else. He can hardly breathe.
“I, uh, I just wanted to - ” Martin begins, then takes a deep breath. He steps inside and shuts the door. “I needed to make sure you were all right. Are you?”
“I’m - I’m fine,” Jon says. “Thank you. I - are you? All right, that is?”
“Fine,” Martin says. “How’s Daisy?”
“She’s okay, I think. As much as she can be. Basira’s been looking after her. Won’t let anyone else near her, for now at least. I’m not sure if that’s for Daisy’s protection or ours.”
It’s a weak joke, but Martin smiles a little. He looks exhausted, uncertain. Jon wants to reach out to him so badly that it hurts. Slowly, carefully, he gets to his feet and walks out from behind his desk. He feels like he’s approaching an injured animal, wanting desperately to help, but aware it might flee at any moment.
“Basira told me,” Martin says, avoiding his gaze. "You should have, yourself, before you - ” He breaks off, and when he speaks again his voice is fraught. "You could have died, Jon. Or worse. You should have told me."
“I - I didn’t think it was fair, to drag you into it. Other than, well…”
Martin’s eyes flicker up to meet his, and there is something brittle and wounded in them. He hesitates for a long moment, then says:
“Why did you choose me?”
His tone is halfway between plaintive and despairing, and Jon doesn’t know what to say. Does Martin want the truth, really? Is it even fair to give it to him? He shrugs, helpless, because he is heartsick and afraid for them both, and so terribly tired of keeping it all inside him.
“It wasn’t a choice, Martin. It - it couldn’t have been anyone else.” He lets out a long sigh, and his voice is trembling as he says: “I - I didn’t exactly intend to feel this way. It just...happened.”
The words sit in the air between them for a long count of seconds, heavy and unavoidable. Jon’s heart is racing in his chest. Martin is staring at him, his eyes wide and wet.
“Oh,” he says. He takes a step towards Jon, half swaying on his feet, as if he’s not really aware of it. Jon mirrors him, unable to stop himself, until they are meeting in the middle, standing chest to chest. Jon’s hand gropes blindly, finds Martin’s and tangles their fingers together, shaking with his own daring.
“I didn’t think I’d get to say thank you,” Jon tells him, scarcely daring to breathe. “For bringing me home.”
“I heard you calling me,” Martin tells him again, eyelashes damp with tears, and then he is sinking forward into Jon, kissing him, soft and careful and trembling. Jon kisses him back, feels warmth spreading through his chest as Martin’s free hand comes to rest on his hip, curls his own around the back of Martin’s neck. The kiss lingers for a moment, and then they are breathing against each other’s mouths, eyes closed and foreheads pressed together.
“Jon…” Martin says, scarcely more than a whisper. “What you did, it was really stupid, you know that?”
“I know,” Jon tells him. Martin makes space between them and Jon opens his eyes, sees the fear and longing painted on Martin’s face.
“What if - what if I was doing something really stupid as well?”
“I’d help you,” Jon says fervently. “Whatever it is, I’d help you."
His pulse is pounding in his ears, and he tightens his grip on Martin’s hand, slides their palms together. He means it, more than he’s ever meant anything. Whatever Peter Lukas has done, whatever it is that Martin’s involved in, Jon wants to help him. Wants to pull him out of the depths and bring him home, like Martin did for him.
"Please, Martin," he says, because Martin has to believe this. It might be the most important thing Jon's ever said. "I'm here, if you want me to be.”
Martin nods, slowly, and gives a small, shaky smile that releases something inside Jon's chest, some breath he didn't even realize he was holding. Martin's hand squeezes his, warm and tight.
“I think - I think I'd like that.”