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At some point Jon was going to stop waiting for things to get too far and just act on what he knew. He'd been telling himself that since he graduated, even wrote it on a motivational sticky note once. Its bright cheery yellow faded to a defeated beige without much progress being made in that direction, although he kept it on his bathroom mirror for months to see if the ghost of a new year's resolution could have any motivational effects. It didn't. In the end he just forgot it was there - it blended into the scenery of his bathroom until it fell off of its own accord. The problem is that when he does act, his plans are slapdash and awful. Successful, so far, maybe, but not particularly good.
If history was any indication, eventually Jon would just go for it. He wasn’t Jonah Magnus, trapped in inaction because he had to see what happens next. He was an Archivist; his voyeurism tended towards what had already happened. But that still didn’t push him towards involving himself in the present. It was times like these that he envied Daisy her Hunt.
Here is what he knew: Martin was being courted by the Lonely. His other assistants were otherwise dead or disinterested or interested in their own projects and there was nothing holding them together anymore. Jon deserved all of this because he was a monster.
That slightly sulky guilt didn't help anyone but Jon didn't know what else to do. The end of the world was forestalled, for now, and he'd been gifted enough time to finally have that break down he'd been meaning to get around to. It was tempting. Only the boxes and boxes of evidence of what happened when you let something Else overwhelm you kept him clinging to his normal routine. Jon had never tried to ski on top of an avalanche, but he thought he knew how it felt.
It couldn’t just be false nostalgia that made Jon miss how it used to be, right before it all went nightmare. The four of them, working together with a mundane and totally achievable goal in mind: to organize the Archives. And there would be office birthdays he'd uncomfortably eat cake at and office gossip he could pretend he didn't want to overhear and cups of tea he didn't ask for and Jon suddenly felt so, so lonely without it all. He was more tempted than ever to believe Elias's claim of being the heart of the Institute, but Jon was not unaware of other possible factors. The most distinctive feature of Peter Lukas's reign had been his total absence from the building but he could still be infecting them all with Loneliness. Jon wouldn't put it past him. He'd never met the man, couldn't even See him, but Jon had a picture of an evil, smooth talking old bastard gleefully pushing his whole team deeper into isolation.
So probably, Jon should fight back. Jon was very, very sure of that but it wasn’t enough. It could be his entire employee review: "Jon can't make decisions until it's too late and the thing he should have done is obvious."
How would one fight back against the Lonely? Jon didn’t know. He thought he'd probably make a better target for Lukas than Martin. Jon had very few friends and absolutely none of them were coworkers. Martin was all cups of warm tea and cards on your birthday and it seemed like he knew everyone in the Institute.
Jon started by googling "how to promote a friendly office culture" because "how to subvert the machinations of an elder god" hadn't yielded anything useful so far.
There was a lot of corporate nonsense about ladder climbing and some slightly pathetic self help columns that Jon disregarded on principle. One article recommended getting an office pet and Jon spent a good couple minutes torn between longing for the Admiral and horror over what a bored cat could do to boxes of climate controlled archival quality paper. Or what some of those boxes could do to a cat. Eventually he settled on a nice, brightly illustrated list from an American news site whose author purported to have a doctorate in something.
The first suggestion was to learn everyone's names, which was pointless because he already did. He knew Alice and Melanie and Martin and Basira, he knew their nicknames in grade school and the name of their first crush and if anything he'd been trying to downplay that as much as possible. He supposed he could try meeting other Institute employees who didn't already hate him, but that was a lot of effort for a project he already barely felt capable of. He read on.
The second suggestion was to leave his office door open. Jon almost didn’t do it. It was a herculean effort to stand up, open the door and then just leave it like that. The rise in ambient office background noise was less than he'd feared but it was still there. Basira was on the phone with someone who apparently needed a lot of things repeated. Melanie had her headphones in, humming as she typed and the mechanical whir of the elevator was just irregular enough to be disproportionately distracting. Jon forced himself to go back to his chair. Melanie glared at him suspiciously as he sat down.
His attempts to initiate casual conversation were met with similar hostility, but he after a week he did feel like he'd made at least some progress. In an effort to avoid Knowing things about people accidentally he'd taken to writing down all the questions he'd asked them and carefully working off that information alone. It hindered his already wooden interpersonal dialogue, but he didn’t spook anyone all week. And people seemed slightly less guarded. There was a softening there. Maybe. It was scant progress in the face of an implacable assailant but if Martin heard, maybe, that they were banding together then maybe- but no. Jon didn’t go down that path. This was about countering Peter Lukas’ influence in the Archives. Whatever Martin was doing, it wasn’t his business. He didn’t need to know.
Suggestion four - ask people out for drinks after work - seemed like a bit of a jump from leaving the door open. Jon did not want to ask anyone out for drinks. But he pictured punching Peter Lukas in his smug, probably handsome face and it gave him the courage to float it with Daisy. She was wan and tired and leery of the nearby pubs but not immediately dismissive of the idea. In the end Jon just bought a couple nice-ish six packs and a bottle of whiskey when he picked up that evening’s takeaway. Melanie hated hard liquor without mixers and Basira prefered ciders but he forgot to ask them that so they'd just have to deal with it.
It was awkward and slightly surreal to be in the break room with his coworkers, all of them in various stages of post-work undress, drinking partially chilled beer and eating cheap tikka masala. It felt like college, or rather it felt like an experience Jon could have had at college if that had been his scene. In Oxford he’d clung to his room and the occasional deliberately planned social outing, much as he clung to his office and the occasional anti-apocalypse world tour now. This sort of casual, unstructured evening hangout had never been his thing and it wasn't now but he thought maybe it was working. People seemed friendlier. Or maybe that was just the alcohol. There weren't enough cups and Jon had forgotten that he also disliked beer and so he sploshed an inordinate amount of the whiskey into Martin's favourite yellow mug and pretended that was his plan all along. Jon wasn't generally one for heavy drinking, particularly not with coworkers, but it felt less weird to be sitting and not really talking if he had something to do with his hands. Jon kept raising the mug to his lips without paying attention to it. Melanie did a surprisingly good job of keeping conversation happening, enough so that it wasn't until Jon had drunk much more than he should have that someone asked him why.
"We should be doing everything to fight the enemy at home and abroad." Jon said stiffly. He felt pleased with that response until he remembered it was from a propaganda reel he'd studied in third year. He tried to think of a normal thing to say because he knew now that he'd been drinking too much but maybe the most sober-sounding thing was actually silence and then Basira was asking him questions again so it didn’t really matter.
"Okay, but why now. We didn’t do office drinks before this.” Basira pressed.
"Because he has Martin." Jon blurted out, because it was true. He didn’t know if he'd have wanted to say that sober but he wanted to say it now. He wanted to say it so badly, to have someone else be talking about Martin with him. Why hadn’t he known that before?
"I never did nice office stuff but Martin did, a lot, and just -" To his horror, Jonathan Sims found himself starting to cry.
It was annoying that this, more than anything he'd done up to and including saving Daisy from the Buried, seemed to open the group to him. There was a general murmur of uncomfortable sympathy from the others. He felt Basira pat him gently on the shoulder and that just made him break down entirely. He covered his face in his hands, a weak pretence of privacy, and cried like a child. He didn’t want to. He didn't want to be a thirty three year old man in his sock feet, living in his office and crying in front of his coworkers, and he didn't want to be a monster who ate fear, and he didn't want Martin to leave him for the Lonely.
It took him a couple minutes to quiet down. Daisy had gotten him a glass of water, possibly so that she didn't have to stay sitting next to him as he blubbered. Melanie wasn’t glaring at him. Basira looked like she’d solved a tricky puzzle. That was.. an improvement, he guessed.
"What else do you miss about Martin?" Melanie asked him and Jon wasn't so out of it that he didn't find this surprising.
"It's making me hate you less." She shrugged. Jon wanted to resent that but also he didn’t want to miss the chance to talk about Martin. He felt the way Eric from accounting did when asked about his new baby. He wished he had pictures of Martin to show them.
"Martin" Jon paused for a moment to collect his thoughts. " is excellent. Well, I mean, he's better than excellent, he's… Martin. He’d stay late to make me go home and when he brought me tea he always put little biscuits on the saucer. He - he held my hand when Sasha dug worms out me.”
"Those are just things Martin did for you.” Melanie waved a dismissive hand. “What do you like about him?"
"We thought, Sasha and Tim and I thought at first that he was bad at researching because he was too nice to everyone and one time he knocked over all the files we'd just sorted but he's -"
Jon choked up and had to take a few shuddery breaths to keep going. "He's wonderful. He writes poetry and it's not bad, it's brilliant and he works hard, all the time. One time he had tea with every old woman named Angela in Bexley."
The others looked nonplussed but he had more to add.
"He's scared of everything and he's just more brave. He’s saved my life over and over again, from Jane Prentiss and from the coffin. He always wants to take care of people, us and his mom and the statement givers and the dog his neighbors always left outside. He wore this stupid orange jumper to work for ages because the cleaning lady said she liked it and she never smiled about anything and he didn't get to save any of his plants because they died when he moved in here and -"
Jon was aware that he shouldn't know that and he hated that he was invading Martin's privacy again but now he couldn't stop crying again because why hadn’t he gone to get Martin's houseplants? They were his favourite thing in his flat. He’d bought a new one every time one of the ones on sale looked particularly sickly and then he'd nursed it back to health. Why did he let Martin live in borrowed clothes and convenience store toiletries for so long and not go rescue his poor assistant's fucking houseplants?
"Martin knew I didn't really like tea so whenever he made a pot he'd just get me an ice water as well." Basira offered. "He'd put ice cubes in it and everything."
"Martin tried to stop me getting hired here. I thought he was being a dick, but. He'd queue up cat videos to show me after I'd read a statement and it was - it was good." Melanie added.
When they turned to her expectantly, Daisy spoke low and fierce. "It doesn't feel right, letting Peter Lukas have him."
"But he wants to be there, it's not like we can untie him from his desk chair and set him free." Melanie countered.
"We could kill Peter Lukas." Daisy ground her teeth and corrected herself. "You could kill Peter Lukas. Nothing stays hidden forever."
"What if we just asked him to come back? Have we even tried that yet?" Basira asked. "Does he know you want him here?"
They were all silent.
"I don't think Lukas is going to let him go without a fight, but Martin might not know we want him to."
"So we should tell him then." Basira said, like it was obvious.
"How?" Jon demanded.
"Just - tell him that. Christ, Jon, I'm the lesbian here and even I know how to ask someone out." Melanie may also be kind of drunk, Jon thought, trying to tell if they can tell that he may be sort of drunk too.
"I mean, you're not the lesbian here." Basira said.
"And we don't know that Jon wants to ask Martin out." Daisy added.
"Of course he does. Don't you, Jon?"
They look at him and Jon dutifully looked at the table. He wasn't sure what he wanted, exactly, aside from Martin being back so he could have more time to figure it out.
"I miss Martin's hands." He said instead, because it seemed relevant and also because he finished his mug of whiskey by accident while they were talking and it was really getting hard to track the conversation.
"Does Martin still live here?" Melanie asked. “I haven't seen his toothbrush in the bathroom in a while."
"S'on the desk in Elias' office."
"How do you know - nevermind. If his toothbrush is here than probably so is he. What if we go up now, after hours when Lukas isn't around? I don't think he can spy on people like Elias can."
"He can sort of vanish, though." Daisy pointed out.
"So can Martin, actually, but that's a good point. We should write him a letter or something in case he Isn't There." Basira concluded.
In the end they decided on a sort of card. Melanie pointed out that most of them didn't actually know Martin enough to write a whole letter about it and that maybe a shitty letter was worse than a mediocre card. They didn't have any of the paper you used in grade school to make cards so they cut one out of a file folder. Melanie found some brightly coloured copy paper in the back that Jon hadn’t managed to exorcise from the office and set to work cutting out letters with Daisy.
It was all moving very fast for Jon. This plan seemed half-cocked at best and he understood now why people didn't like his plans very much. He disliked being hustled into things. He tried to make room for the possibility that this plan was fine. Maybe it even was. It could be there really wasn't much more pre-planning to be done. Delivering someone a card generally didn’t need to take much preparation, although Jon would have liked to give him a present too. A new houseplant, maybe some fancy succulents like the café by the Institute had. He'd also have liked to be more sober, but there was nothing to be done about that now. Whatever his powers were they don’t seem to include on-demand sobriety. Jon toyed with the idea of giving Martin his favourite mug back. He didn’t want to part with it. Drinking tea from it was .. better somehow. In the end, Jon settled on keeping it as an emotional hostage.
The card, when they looked at it all finished, was not particularly good. They probably should just leave cardmarking to the professionals. Jon could see where it was cut a bit lopsided and the bright pink copy paper letters clashed badly with their manila background. Daisy had done an admirable job of gluing little post-it note hearts all over as much of it as possible, which helped some. The inside messages were heartfelt and neatly written, although Jon felt his is lacking somewhat. In the end he just put something trite about missing his presence around the office. He also put in a stanza from one of Martin's poems, the sad one about the guy he loved. To be fair, Martin had written a couple of those, but when he wasn't feeling jealous Jon liked this one the best.
My words are weak and weary things,
And not enough to make me his
I try to write what my heart sings
And all I see on this page is:
I miss you. Come home.
Jon wasn't sure if that was appropriate, but it showed he'd paid attention, right? He'd been embarrassed when Georgie read his writing but was deeply touched when she had mused about a tattoo of one of his song lyrics. The poem itself was a bit trite; the iambic octameter didn’t make up for the Poe reference, and the first time Jon had read it he hadn’t really appreciated it. But it was just - it was normal. Honest. Slightly cheesy poetry about love was as Martin as it came, and in Jon’s fantasies he was able to write his own perfectly expressive poetry for Martin and it won him back and everyone cheered and Elias died or something.
They went up to deliver their card in a stealthy pack. Daisy instinctively took point, letting Basira guard her back. The halls of the Institute were dark and it felt like they weren’t supposed to be there. Elias must have explained that they were living in the building. Security had never bothered them, at least. They didn't really leave the Archives after hours, but surely they wouldn't be arrested for trespassing onto a higher floor.
"Martin? Martin are you in there?" Daisy hammered softly on Elias' office door. It felt weirdly like they should be trying not to wake anyone else.
No one answered. It was the result they all expected, but Jon still felt disappointed. He thought he could sense Martin’s presence on the other side of the door but he wasn’t convinced. Martin's link to the Lonely has been getting stronger.
"Well, that's what we made the card for.” Melanie sighed. “Let's just leave it there and hope Lukas doesn't skulk in early and get to it first."
"I'm pretty sure he's in there." Jon insisted.
"What if - maybe he'd come out if there weren't so many of us?" Melanie eyed Jon.
“Yeah, maybe a group is too challenging. We’ll head down. Jon, are you okay to stay a bit longer?” Basira also looked at him appraisingly.
The idea that Jon might be scared of the weak darkness of an unlit hallway was laughable.
“I’ll be fine.” He drew himself up, though he was starting to feel less drunk and more sleepy. “If I’m not down in ten minutes you can assume I’ve been abducted again.”
When the others left Jon settled himself on the floor beside Elias’ door and waited. He tipped his head back and just breathed. The air was still and close and very watched.
“Martin,” Jon began, because it seemed a sensible place to start. “I’m sorry to wake you up. If you’re in there. I’m - I’m pretty sure you’re there, but I get it. I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you. I’m sorry you had to face Elias alone. I’m sorry about Sasha, and your mom, and - and Tim, and I wasn’t there.”
Jon cleared his throat. The silence pressed in, listening closely. Elias’ office was empty.
“And - Martin, I’m so proud of you. You took on Elias and you won. I - whatever you’re doing, I trust you. But if you need to hear it - we miss you. I miss you. I hope you’re okay.”
Jon waited a moment longer, tried to listen to the silence back, but the only sound was the gentle whir of the air circulation turning on.
So, Jon left. He stood and walked down the hallway and it was as Jon was leaving that he knew. Martin was There. Behind him Elias’ door clicked open softly in confirmation. Jon froze, hardly daring to breathe lest he startle Martin away. Slowly, gently, he turned. Martin was in his pants and an old t shirt, looking familiar and sleep-rumpled. Jon wanted to hold him close and never let him go. He wanted to be there, to feel the warmth of his body, to breathe the same air. He wanted, very badly, to kiss him.
Martin picked up the offering left outside his door quizzically.
"You wrote me a card. All of you wrote me a card. And is - is this the cactus from Meredith's desk?"
Martin was standing in the doorway still, looking very present in this reality, despite the surreality of being at what was essentially an office sleepover party.
"I - I wanted you to have it." Jon edged closer.
"Jon, I can't just take someone else's plant." Martin explained patiently, as though Jon were very young.
"Read the card" He said, because he didn’t know what else to say.
There was a horrible pause while Martin did just that. Time stretched impossibly, until it had been long enough for him to read the card twice, and yet Martin said nothing. Why did he say nothing? Jon felt the sudden urge to explain.
"I'm sorry, I shouldn’t have used the poem. I know it's private and it’s about someone else and you never meant to show me and I'm sorry. I can't stop knowing things but I should have-"
Martin looked up at him, surprised. Jon couldn’t read his face.
"Jon, I wrote that poem about you.” He said disbelievingly.
"But then- "
"Jon, you daft, kind-of-drunk idiot. Jon, I referenced you by name in this one."
That was true, technically, but it could also have been an allusion to the biblical Jonathan. There was precedent for it in homoerotic poetry and Jon hadn’t thought it proof of anything. It isn’t until he explained it out loud to Martin that this seemed.. less obvious.
Jon rallied.
"And do you still? Like me, that is?"
"Yes." Martin looked at him with exasperated fondness.
Jon’s slow, steady, I’m-not-a-threat walk that he used on shy cats had worked to bring Jon right next to Martin. They were close enough to touch now. Horrifyingly, Jon could feel himself start to choke up again.
"Oh," he said.
Miraculously, Martin was still standing there in front of him. He glowed in the city lights filtering through Elias’ window. His hair was a little longer, his skin somehow, impossibly, paler. His freckles stood out more sharply. That mole at the corner of his mouth was as distracting as ever. Martin was still tall, still in a permanent slouch that did little to minimize his awkward looming. His hair was rumpled and soft. The worn-in weight of his sleep shirt filled Jon with a soul-deep ache he could hardly name; he wanted to curl up next to Martin forever. Maybe it was the separation, but he'd never been more tempted to build Martin an impenetrable fortress somewhere very far away and keep him safe. He looked so vulnerable here, bare foot and gently smiling.
“Jon,” Martin said kindly. “I’m right here. It’s okay.”
Martin cupped his cheek tenderly. His hands were very warm. Jon lifted a hand to his as if to make certain he was there.
“Oh,” he said again.
And then Jon was blessedly, miraculously being kissed by Martin Blackwood. It was the best thing that had happened to him in a year, maybe in his whole lifetime. Jon kissed him back fervently, unsure how long the moment would last, determined to remember it forever. He wanted to take the little sound Martin made when Jon pulled him in closer and rewrite the shape of the universe around it. More than he’d ever wanted knowledge or power or safety, he wanted this.
When they broke the kiss, Jon held close to him a moment longer. Martin wrapped his arms around him, strong, sheltering. The last person Jon had hugged was Georgie, and that was different. She was strong, fiercely present, and even shorter than Jon. It was good, it was fine, and Jon wasn’t comparing hugs between his ex-girlfriend and his- and Martin, it was just that Jon hadn’t been hugged a lot, in his life. He didn’t really touch people in general. It wasn’t his thing, there was too much sensory information in physical touch, the rushing hunger at odds with his personal preferences, but hugging Martin felt right. It was like Martin was the only true thing in the universe, the only thing that really mattered. The feeling of being loved assaulted Jon from every angle. He could feel affection welling in him, spilling over into every thought, could name it dopamine and serotonin and know that it was true all the same.
“Jon, I - I can’t leave Peter, not yet.”
And there it was. Cold reality came crashing back and Jon let his arms fall. Martin still held him loosely, pulling back just far back enough to see Jon’s face.
“But why?” The Question was out before Jon could stop it. He couldn’t pull it back in, he didn’t know how to stop it when he still desperately, violently wanted to know the answer.
Martin, with remarkable quick thinking and initiative, just kissed Jon again. It was messier this time, harder. He buried a hand in Jon’s too-long hair, held him closer than he thought was possible. Jon had almost forgotten the question when Martin pulled back with a groan.
“I have to do this, I need to stop Peter from-”
“No, no, shh Martin, shush, it’s okay, don’t tell me.” Jon cut him off with a hand to his lips. It felt like knives to do it. His heart twisted in agony, but he wouldn’t, not to Martin.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to - you can tell me when you’re ready.” Jon smiled weakly.
A look told him he had made the right decision. Martin looked deeply relieved. His eyes sparkled with trust, an expression Jon hadn’t seen directed at him since this whole nightmare began. They stood there for a moment, savouring in the joy of connection.
“I still can’t get over the fact that you’ve read my stupid, cheesy poetry about you.” Martin laughed, still unwilling to take his eye off Jon’s.
“I thought it was good!” Jon protested.
Martin raised a skeptical eyebrow.
“I did! Honestly, Martin, I - you wrote it. I’m not sure I’d be able to tell if it was good or not, because it’s yours. I-” Jon faltered and tried not to blush. “I kept some of it in my notebook so I’d see it every time I opened the book.”
Jon couldn’t tell but it looked like Martin was blushing too. He could feel the pleased embarrassment rolling off him in waves.
“So do you want to, I don’t know, spend the night up here with me? I think I can get you out before Lukas arrives. There’s a back door to Elias’ office too.” Martin offered. He had a hand settled on the back of Jon’s neck, which seemed like an unfair advantage.
“Sure, um. Yes.” Jon accepted. He would have accepted anything Martin suggested at that moment.
Martin let him in to the office. It felt weird to be there. Elias’ presence was still stamped in every corner of the room, although it rang with a new emptiness. Martin had a small mat in the corner, covered in blankets thin enough to be stuffed in a desk drawer in the morning. Jon knew all about semi-covert office sleeping. He barely even missed his bed now, having adjusted to his weird work camping situation. Martin’s corner looked cozy enough, but more importantly it was all over Martin.
They settled down, comfortably uncomfortable. Jon accepted his place as little spoon but he made sure to be on the open side. As best as he could while being held by Martin, Jon crowded him against the bookcase, protecting his flank from the open world. Jon could feel the soft press of Martin body against his. It was a pleasant weight, something that anchored Jon to the here and now without fear or pain. Joy filled his heart.
Before Jon lost himself to the sort of awkward sleep one gets when sharing a twin mattress with a new lover, he remembered one last responsibility.
He texted Daisy, trusting she could disseminate the information as necessary.
"Be staying up here with Martin. Not abducted. See u tmrw"
Jon let himself relax into Martin’s warm, sleepy embrace, and fell asleep.