Work Text:
MAG022 – Resident MARTIN BLACKWOOD– “Flock”
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KEEPER
Are you sure you'd be comfortable speaking this aloud, Martin? I understand that one of the symptoms can be an incredibly sore throat-
MARTIN
(Disparate coughs. In a voice slightly muffled by a surgery mask:) I'll… I'll be fine, Jon, don't worry. I've already been enough trouble... I know how you feel about the supernatural, and I don't want you to have to read all this nonsense-
KEEPER
It's not nonsense.
MARTIN
Jon, you… You haven't even heard it yet.
KEEPER
I don't need to. I trust you. I understand. I don't think you'd lie to me, and more importantly, I can't think of a single reason you would. You've been nothing but kind, if a bit quiet and… and the least I can afford is to listen to your story without judgement. As extraordinary as that may seem.
MARTIN
(He is quiet. He did not expect this level of sympathy. He is not used to it, not after the weeks alone.) … I… I just don't want to be a bother, is all.
KEEPER
Good. Because you're not.
I know we haven't spoken, but I consider you a friend. And besides that, even if you weren't my friend, I wouldn't be waiting with bated breath to hear your story if you were a "bother", would I?
MARTIN
… I guess not.
KEEPER
I'm glad you understand. Now. Whenever you're ready:
Interview with Martin Blackwood, Confidant to the Records Keeper of the Magnus Sanctuary, London, regarding…
MARTIN
My contraction of Argenvermi , and… and my unexpected meeting with Doctor J. Prentiss.
KEEPER
Interview begins.
MARTIN
… Well… A couple of weeks ago you were recording that one Interview, with the bird that broke one of our residents out of a holding cell. Carlos… Vittery. I think.
KEEPER
Right. The one where a falcon kept perching at the corner of his prison-yard? And then… pecked off the lock?
MARTIN
Right, that one.
The issue of pecking off a door lock aside, the whole thing just felt odd to me. Because I know birds, and that’s not the kind of thing that falcons do. They don't tend to be interested in human beings, much less in stopping other human beings from horridly treating other human beings.
But anyway. As I was reading through it I started coughing, really hard, and I spit into my hand and it was just… worms. They were small, and slimy, and shiny, and gray, and I had never been more disgusted by anything in my life, or… or more afraid.
Because it doesn’t take a genius to know when you’ve got a parasite, and Argenvermi’s pretty easy to recognize, y’know? I’d never seen the worms in real life, but I’d seen images online. And I knew they only started to come up your throat like that once they’d gotten their biters in every corner of your intestines so… I knew my time was up. The only thing I could really think to do was head home , because… Well I didn’t want the rest of you to catch what I had. I had already spent so much time around you all, and once you’re in the late stages every second you spend around people is a second they could catch it.
KEEPER
And that’s when you messaged me that you were going on sick leave?
MARTIN
Yes.
So I sort of… Wander home, right? I wander home, coughing, and hacking, and trying to keep my sickness from spreading, but all I had in my head was that I… I didn't want my dying to trouble anyone else. I wasn't going to stick around in the Sanctuary and get treatment that'd only make it go longer, and I didn't have the money to pay for treatment anywhere else and… and I just decided I may as well die at home, y'know?
So I stumble through my door and fall into my bed, and I'm asleep in moments. I had… I had weird dreams. About worms and birds and falcons and I only woke up… to a pounding at my door.
I was sweating. I couldn't tell if it was the nightmares, or the stress, or the quickly rising fever, but either way I was drenched in it. I remembered why I was here, and I knew that, whoever was at the door, they'd be safer off leaving. I managed to mumble out a "Go away, I'm sick." from across my flat, and… They didn't take to that.
"Martin Blackwood." Someone says. It was almost… singsong . Not in a mocking or whimsical way, just in the way that some people talk in a reassuring melody. "You are sick. Let me help, please."
And I don't want her to. So I don't move. I don't get up. I just stay in my bed, and wait for whoever this woman is to leave. I wait for the sound of footsteps. And those footsteps never come. What I do hear though, is a kind of… Fluttering. Or... flapping. Like the beating of wings going up and down the hall outside my flat. The woman outside makes a noise like a dad wordlessly telling his kids to pipe down. I hear her say something that sounds something like "Patience." And then she laughs. Really loud and really hard. And even laying there in bed, waiting for her to go away, waiting to die, I start to laugh too, at a joke I don't even get.
"Patience. Patients. It's funny." She says through the door. I nod to nobody in particular, like I'm suddenly enlightened by this… Real leap in comedy. Heh. And then she says something with all the seriousness of a judge.
"This isn't a blessing, Martin."
I curled up further into my blankets, trying to ignore her every word. I think I was delirious at this point, and as such, childishly stubborn, but… part of it was that I knew exactly what she was saying.
"This isn't a blessing. It hasn't come to take you away. It's not going to save other people from the burden of knowing you . And it's not going to set you free from knowing others. It's not here to help you. It's here to make you sick. It's here to kill you. So don't let it, Martin."
I think I might've started crying then, but it could have just been sweat in my eyes. I stumble out of my bed, legs weak, body giving out in every joint and blood vessel. And then I fall down to the floor. I don't know how long I kept on like that. It felt like weeks, and… And it must've been right? But it couldn't have been more than three days, or I would've died without water, but… but no matter how long it really was or wasn't, the woman stood there at the door for as long as it took.
After an eternity, my hand finally reached the lock, and turned it. The door flew open, and… the entire room was suddenly filled with birds. Grayish and brownish and white; doves, and pigeons, and birds I couldn't recognize. And standing there at the door was… Her. Red dress. Silky black hair. And a medical coat which had a dozen birds perched delicately upon it. I recognized her immediately as the doctor who used to work with The Sanctuary.
Doctor Prentiss.
I felt the gentle sharpness of the birds landing on my body. And then… well I don't remember the rest. I just woke up here. Deathly sick, yes, but… alive. Surviving. And more importantly, I was here, and… well I found you. And then I fell unconscious. And here we are.
KEEPER
Quite.
Will that be all?
MARTIN
Yeah, heh.
I should probably head home now, I've overstayed my welcome, and I'm not really w-
KEEPER
Martin.
MARTIN
… Yes?
KEEPER
You can sleep here. In the Records Room. If you'd like.
MARTIN
Oh! Oh I… I appreciate the offer, Jon, but… I like my time alone and-
KEEPER
And you can have it. I'm offering the Records Room because I don't want to force you to sleep in the common area. I understand that you don't exactly like being around people.
I'll share Sasha's office for the time being. But I want you to stay at the Sanctuary until we can be sure your condition is stable. And I want you to notify the medical staff the moment it begins to deteriorate. Am I understood?
MARTIN
… Yes, Jon.
… Thank you.
KEEPER
You're welcome, Martin.
(Martin turns to find a comfy corner of the Records Room. Jon notices something.)
Oh, Martin, something just fell out of your…
(He trails off. Martin is gone.)
… your pocket.
(Paper quietly wrinkling.)
… "Mr. Blackwood: I will require an additional checkup soon. There is an epidemic going around after all. With love... Doctor Prentiss."
… End recording.
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