Chapter Text
“Hypothetically, Jon, if there were a large crab monster, which… fear, do you think that would fall under?”
Jon looks up from his notes on the statement in front of him. “I would think the… Hunt, perhaps, but it’s an animal to be caught- or maybe the Flesh, if it’s oversized and grotesque? I’m not entirely sure- it would depend on the statement, I think. Did someone run into one?”
“Oh, no, no!” Martin replied brightly. “It was just a hypothetical, Jon. Something Tim and I were discussing. Don’t worry about it!”
Jon shakes his head, going right back to his recording as Martin closes the door. “Crab monsters, really. As if we don’t have enough to be thinking about, between the Unknowing and Elias. As I was saying-“
He finishes the supplemental, still bothered. Don’t worry, how could he not be worrying? Sometimes it felt as if he was the only one really worrying about things that should be worried about.
~~~~~
“You really aren’t so bad as you seem,” Martin cooed to the large mottled crab.
The thing was his height easily, taller even, though once he had stopped screaming and flailing away from it, it had scuttled to a stop and simply sat in front of him. He had tried petting it, which it seemed to tolerate. It had been days since he had found it now, since he had moved it into the tunnels and tried to make it hate Elias.
This effort usually involved the sort of training he imagined people used on dogs, where items and pictures were associated with good or bad reactions. Pictures of Jon, of Martin, of Tim and Melanie and even Basira were accompanied by items he knew they had touched, or held, and then treats, usually clams he would grab from the market. Pictures of Elias, and the singular tie that even Martin wasn’t sure how he had come to possess while still being sure it was Elias’, were accompanied by a particularly hard rap on the shell. It seemed to be working, Martin thought, as the crab managed to grab the offending tie in its claws and shred it.
“I should really give you a name,” He mused, watching it scuttle over and munch on some of the long dead worm carcasses. It had only taken a google search to find what crabs liked to eat, and this particular habit was entirely delightful, as far as he was concerned. “Maybe Clawdette? Or maybe something a little less- on the nose.”
It made a small hissing noise and scuttled back over. Martin offered another clam which it munched up, shell and all.
“This might actually work out,” Martin mused to himself.
~~~~~
Martin starts burning the statements; not Jon’s plan, his, despite what Elias thinks.
And it even works to prove exactly what they had thought- that Elias has blind spots, that he can’t actually be omnipresent in their minds, or however it is that he looks in on them.
Martin had even been expecting, on some level, the pain of whatever Elias would do to him, the tortured look on Melanie’s face clear in his memories; the fact that he had used his mother was- Martin hadn’t wanted that, hadn’t been prepared for it.
Nor had he been prepared to hear something coming as he started to sob.
But Elias lets up at the same moment, head cocking to the side and his eyes going wide as the crab bursts through the wall, breaking through what had once been Jane Prentiss’ point of entry in her invasion.
“Martin.” Elias says, very calmly for a man face to face with a crab much bigger than he is. “What have you done?”
“Ah,” Martin says, fishing for words, but the crab charges forward before he can truly offer any satisfactory answer.
There is only a split second for Elias to scream as the crab catches him in one claw, devastatingly quicker than Martin imagined his crab could be. Martin feels far less horror than he might have a few minutes ago at the idea of Elias being killed by Clawdette, but he still finds himself reaching out a hand- to help? He isn’t sure, not really, but before the movement is anything more than a thought the crab is retreating through the wall, Elias, gone and Martin is suddenly very sure that he will never see his boss again.
~~~~~
When the others return, whole and alive and not blown up and not body snatched- Martin had checked, with their voices on tape- he sits down in Jon’s office.
“Statement of Martin Blackwood, taken directly from subject,” Jon says, curious at both Martin’s unwillingness to talk before this and by Elias’ extended absence despite not being in prison. “Regarding Elias Bouchard.”
“Actually, I think,” Martin corrects, a small smile on his face. “Statement of Martin Blackwood, given by subject. Regarding- well. Regarding a very large crab.”