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He tries squeezing his eyes shut, tries using his hands to close them manually, maybe scratch them out. Jon’s muscles betray him. It’s like the opposite of having something stuck between your eyeball and eyelid that your eyes immediately shut upon, trapping it in when you’re trying to get it out. Or actually, imagine you’re a new mortician trying to break rigor mortis, except you are also the to-be-embalmed-corpse.
“Bring all that is fear and all that is terror and all that is the awful dread that crawls and,” Jon bites down on his tongue, drawing blood, but it's no use. He’s fought his way down to eyes about halfway shut, barely managing to equal the invisible force of the Watcher.
His mouth moves on its own, continuing, “chokes and blinds and falls and twists and leaves and hides-”
The still-human part of him coils in his gut, not enough to overpower the monster that he’s let himself become. He knows what’s going to happen if he finishes Elias’s -- Jonah’s? -- letter. And that’s always the problem, right? Knowing.
He knows he is going to be a direct cause of more misery for his friends (are they really his friends? He doubts they’d claim so anymore), his victims, and… well, everyone.
“- and weaves and burns and hunts and rips and leads and -”
The front door opens.
Martin. If there’s one good thing the Institute did, it was to bring him to Martin. Jon had hoped, deep down, that he and Martin would one day escape all of this . Live normally.
“Jon!”
It was silly, but he really thought it could have happened one day.
Jon closes his eyes.
---
What greets Jon when he wakes is, of course, exactly what you want to hear after maybe stopping yourself from reading the end of the world into existence.
The cocking of a gun and a, “Who the hell are you.”
“Well, uh, Daisy, if you just let us explain-” Martin starts.
“How the hell do you know my name.”
“Martin, w-what’s going on?”
“Answer. Me.”
“I’mMartinBlackwater,” he splurts out all at once.
“Assistant,” Martin pauses to think, “Assistant at the Magnus Institute?”
“Are you asking me?” Daisy threatens more than asks. She looks younger, healthier than he remembers.
“Nope! And… We are here… On monster business,” he sounds out carefully, glancing at Jon inbetween, “monster killing business.” It’s not really a lie?
“And this one?” she motions with the barrel of her gun, then takes a whiff of the air.
“Jonathan Sims, the Archivist,” Jon answers for himself, slowly sitting up from the wooden floor of the safe house without opening his eyes, “The date. Could you tell us what day it is?”
Daisy assesses them with this new information before saying a (nearly) impossible date.
“2015? God, Jon, we’ve gone back-”
“Yes, Martin, I realize the implications.” Jon murmurs under his breath, “all this from stopping in the middle of a statement?”
“You two are hiding something. And since you’re oh-so familiar with me already, I bet you know what I do when I’m suspicious.”
Jon does in fact know what this Daisy would do; she almost did it to him before. It’s either tell Daisy everything now and she tries to kill Elias, tell Daisy some things and she kills them later for not telling her everything, or refuse and she kills them now.
“Martin, close your eyes.” Her suspicion grows though it's actually a precaution against Elias. Moot? Maybe. Probably.
“Alright, well, would you rather hear it from me or from him?” Jon raises statement that landed them in this mess.
---
“I’ll believe you,” Daisy said after both accounts -- written first, then Jon’s. “I’ve seen stranger.”
Jon exhales from his nose, “Yeah.”
It reminds him of case #0092204 “statement of Anya Villette, regarding a cleaning job on Hill Top Road”, except not. That case was only two weeks worth of “time travel” due to the Web’s influence, not three years , and he knew, like Beholding knowledge knew, that this was real.
“I’ll escort you back to London, since you both have that ‘see no evil’ thing going on.”
“Thank you, Daisy, I know it’s hard to trust two people who showed up in your safehouse knowing your name-”
“But, Jon, I will be laying down ground rules.”
“Right, yes…”
“Let’s get going.”
---
“There’s just one thing. The worm marks. I can’t see them.”
“That’s right. I went back with you, and yet I can’t see the worm holes, your burn, or your neck scar,” Martin says this last bit as he eyes the back of Daisy’s seat, “Actually, thinking about it, you look younger than before the, uh, ‘jump’. Less greys.”
“Christ, we’re going to need to teach you how to defend yourself.”
“Yes, I am going to use karate to fight off monster worms. The neck one was from you, you know!” Jon chuckles softly, “Well I can see them.” He runs his gaze over his hand, then checks his face in the rear view mirror. Yep.
Jon continues, “ So, that means it’s either only me or me and Elias who can see them.” He sighs a long drag of a sigh. “You’d really think he would pay me more for the things he puts me through, especially since I’m the key to his centuries long plan.”
“Speaking of the bastard, can’t he ‘see’ thoughts too? No point in closing them all the damn time.”
“I suppose it's just something for our own peace of mind,” Martin swoops in before Jon feels the full embarrassment, “Like, if you’re changing or bathing. It’s too bad we can’t just sue for sexual harassment. It’d make this whole thing a lot shorter.”
Daisy exhales in amusement.
“As ‘The Archive’, he’s going to be able to read me like a book off the shelf, or rather, a file off the shelf if I let my guard down. First karate lessons, now I need to learn how to meditate and ‘clear my mind’. What if we run away to a Shaolin Monastery, Martin?”
“Do you have a safehouse in China too, Daisy?”
“Wouldn’t be safe if I told you about it.”
---
Daisy drops them off at Jon’s apartment after the eight hour car ride. It started tense, obviously, because this Daisy hadn’t been to the Buried and back with Jon. But by the end, Jon felt like this was a much better start to their relationship than the first time around. In all honesty, it was a relief she didn’t kill them from the sheer fact that they drove nearly non stop. The Jon he used to be probably would have annoyed her too much to keep living. Hah.
Martin didn’t want to return to the apartment he’d spent weeks trapped inside of, and neither really wanted to be apart again.
“Six thirty on a Saturday night,” Jon said as he removed his shoes just inside his apartment, “anything you want to do?”
Martin places his suitcase and Basira’s “care package” next to Jon’s, “Get takeaway? I don’t think it feels like a cooking kind of night.”
“Right. I will try to find my wallet… It feels so foreign being back here. More like a hotel than a home.”
He would have lived for years now and still it had very few “things” in it. Just the necessities plus clutter, aimless stacks of books and assorted paper. Lots of stacked books even when the bookshelves had room. His furniture, all bought at various sales over the years, were all angles. They were coordinated in their sad, greyscale minimalism.
“Maybe we could look around for some houseplants? Stop by my apartment in the morning and grab more stuff to furnish the place.”
“Yeah. That would be nice.” he tucks his wallet into his pocket and reaches out for Martin’s hand. Distracted, Martin instinctively pulls back.
Jon looks away, “ah, oh, I’m sorry. I thought-”
Wordlessly, Martin takes Jon’s retreating hand, intertwining fingers, tucking both into his coat pocket.
“You thought right. I just- I’m also learning. Re-learning people, I guess.”
---
Sunday begins with breakfast. Jon scrambles some eggs to be served with toast, as Martin skims over a statement to make sure it isn’t another ambush. Martin eats in the same room that Jon records the statement in.
They make surprisingly quick work of Martin’s apartment, completely moving him out by the late afternoon. Decorating with Martin’s belongings takes well into the night. The end product is worth it, though. Actually, just the experience itself was worth it. They listen to the same playlist of earworms on repeat and slowly grow more resentful of their decision. In a good way. It’s all quite nice, almost forgetting all of the apocalypse ritual preparations taking place. Not that Jon or Martin feel the need to stop any anymore, save for Elias’s.
Their home feels more alive and cozy now, more familiar to Jon now even though he’d never seen the inside of Martin’s apartment before. Whites, greys, and blacks are draped over with warm reds, browns, and oranges. They have lush greenery now: a hanging pothos, a cheese plant, a snake plant, a dumb cane, and even a little orange tree.
Everything feels so different, it’s a little scary, which sounds like a dumb thing to say after all the things they’ve been through. Martin doesn’t want to lose this, this life Jon and him have a chance at. It takes a long time to build a house of cards when all it needs is a little push to all come falling down. And then, what? More running? More death? More loneliness?
Jon does not want to lose anyone this time. Ignorance was bliss. But now he has people he cares for and knows about all the dangerous things out to kill them. He has, pardon the “boast”, powerful abilities that have only barely kept him and his loved ones alive.
Despite their anxieties, Jon and Martin do manage to fall asleep before the sun rises again, lulled by exhaustion and each other’s warmth.
---
“Jon! Martin!” They are half a block from the entrance of the Mangus Institute before a woefully familiar voice calls out, before sliding up between them, “You two are awfully chummy now!”
His laugh -- and when was the last time either had heard that? -- fills what could have been an awkward silence.
“We,” Jon starts.
“Ran into each other a couple times over the weekend,” Martin supplies.
Tim, curious but aware that he has only known these coworkers for little over a week, smirks and says, “I could’ve sworn, Martin, that you said you lived somewhere on the opposite side of the Institute.”
He gives each a warm pat on the back and walks ahead, into the Institute.
“Just like with Basira,” Jon sighs, “He always misunderstands.”
---
It is too early in time to have everyone just stop working. True, Elias still wouldn’t be able to fire any of them, but it is quite suspicious. Instead, he’s decided to follow one of Martin’s suggestions: just organize the archives, record only from statements given from people long dead, and have the assistants take live statements.
So there they are, the four of them, sorting the statements by date. A nice, mindless task. The only thing that bothers Jon, though, is Sasha’s song choice. Since the task is rather boring, and he’d rather not be hated by his subordinates this time, Jon let the assistants choose the music. Sasha keeps playing songs hinting at secret affairs -- Jon suspects she would have played more songs alluding to sex if not limited by the workplace setting -- and giggling conspiratorially with Tim.
Its fine. Jon will let them have this. Even if it is annoying. At least it somewhat distracts him from the children’s song stuck in his head from last night.
Baby shark, doo doo doo doo doo doo
A chill runs down his spine, forcing Jon to glance behind his shoulders on instinct.
He’s being watched. doo doo doo
Elias comes down to the archives about five minutes after beginning to monitor them.
“Hello, Tim, Sasha, Martin.” The assistants say their hellos as Elias makes his way over to Jon.
Baby shark, doo doo. “Morning, Elias.” Doo doo doo doo.
“Jonathan,” Elias nods in acknowledgement, then squeezes his eyes in suspicion, “ You are more chipper than usual.”
Baby shark “Would you prefer my regular flavor of grumpy?” doo doo. Jon can feel Elias begin to try and probe his thoughts. Doo doo doo doo.
“No, no. I am glad to see you are taking to your new position well. I thought you mentioned plans for recording statements as you organized?” A bead of sweat slides down Elias’s forehead. He wipes it away nonchalantly.
Baby shark!
“Ah, well, I figured it would be better to have them all organized so that, if the notes mentions another statement, I won’t have to re-record when I finally find the mentioned statement.” Mommy shark, doo doo doo doo doo doo.
“How practical of you,” Elias bites out, annoyed, “And, ehm, the music?”
Mommy shark, doo. “I thought it would keep my assistants happy through all the route work. Besides, it's not like any other department can hear us down here with the thick walls,” Jon answers, feigning the expected ignorance, “ Speaking of archive security, I would like to install CO2 fire extinguishers down here. In case of a fire, well, sprinklers would obviously ruin everything.” Doo doo doo doo doo.
“I will see what I can do.” And with that, Elias leaves at last.
Whatever answers Elias was poking around for, it likely isn’t an explanation for Jon’s scars. He didn’t look surprised or even a smidge taken aback when they greeted each other… Nevertheless, Elias was always a crafty bastard, and Jon decides not to let his guard down.