Chapter Text
The siren call of the flesh is just a metaphor, Jon thinks, in the depths of his fear, and a stupid one for him to have focused on, of course. Flesh has never interested him, not his own and not other people’s. He’d have been better off cutting out an eye or something, probably, although perhaps he’d grow new ones to replace it. He could well have extras already, he thinks, finding room in the thudding terror of the choke to frighten himself in new and exciting ways.
He needs to find Daisy. He needs to make a connection to his fucking finger, up there somewhere on his desk. His finger. God Jon, you fucking idiot. The spider didn’t want to help him, the spider never wanted to help him, the spider had been inches from eating him when he was eight, why on earth would it leave him hints on how to save Daisy?
The pain in his hand. He needs to focus on the pain, make himself remember where he is.
But it is so dark, and he is far too adrift.
Martin shouldn’t go into the archives. He shouldn’t be here, not ever. But somehow he is. Somehow his feet have pulled him to where he’s absolutely not allowed to go.
He almost panics, when he realises but it’s okay. It’s late enough that he shouldn’t run into anyone on his way back out. He knows Basira is gone and Melanie is still taking sleeping pills, and Jon…
Jon doesn’t stay as late as he used to, when he first started, drowning in the details of a job he wasn’t qualified for. Martin remembers those first few weeks and couldn’t help drawing parallels with his own beginnings at the Institute. He’d been desperately sympathetic, at first, then… well. Just desperate he supposed. So Jon should be at home, he figures, sleeping, or trying to. Did he even need sleep any longer?
Martin shudders. This much speculation is also strictly against Peter’s wishes. Of course. He hasn’t turned around to go back out. He needs to leave but the look on Jon’s face has been eating at him for weeks, now. “What happened Martin?” the quiet, sad, acceptance that whatever they are now is so far from what they were.
Maybe he just needs to be here to say goodbye.
He knocks on the doorframe and waits, heart in his mouth, desperately hoping that Jon doesn’t respond, desperately hoping that he does. When he’s greeted with silence he doesn’t know if the sigh he lets out is one of relief.
The first thing he notices is the coffin. His brain scrambles for an explanation. A delivery? It’s sufficiently bloody terrifying, especially since it’s open and Martin can clearly see it’s not full of dead body or even padded like the one his mother had lain in. No. The lid is open and it’s hungry for something. Martin steps back in alarm, eyes scanning the rest of the office, looking for some other clue as to why Jon would have something like that in here. He’s afraid, of course, always afraid, but the fear, like so many other things these days, is distant and hard to hold onto.
That’s when he notices the blood.
It’s not the first time he’s seen blood here, oh god no it isn’t, but it’s the first time he’s instinctively known whose blood it is. There’s something that looks like a paint scraper, dropped on the floor near Jon’s desk, a sharp enough edge, he supposes, to be used to do whatever has left red splashed and dripping all over the desk’s corner. There’s nothing else on the desk aside from… Aside from…
He has to gingerly pull the note out from underneath the… the thing. There’s no way he’s going to touch it. He recognises Jon’s handwriting, of course he does, he’d gotten enough reports back from him covered in hasty red scrawls, but it’s more jagged and forced than he remembers.
It’s not addressed to him, but he reads it anyway.
Basira. I’ve gone in to get Daisy. Whatever you do, please don’t lose my finger. It’s important if I’m going to find my way back.
Martin can almost hear Tim’s voice in his head. He did something stupid, didn’t he?
“Yes,” Martin says softly. “Yes, Tim he did.” He doesn’t touch the finger. He pulls a chair around to face the coffin, and then settles in to wait.
It’s lonely enough in here, without Jon, that even Peter couldn’t fault him for staying.