Chapter Text
They keep Jon isolated until he’s almost twelve.
It’s not that he doesn’t see anyone else. He knows every doctor by face if not by name, the ones who talk to him and the ones who give him tests and the ones who come in just to stare and take notes they think he cannot read. But none of these doctors are companions, none are like him. They all wear glasses that hide their eyes away and they always stay behind the glass, and when they have to come to strap his limbs down so they can take his blood or test his pain tolerance they come in with things in their ears, like they’re afraid of what he might say.
He thinks of the sailors, in one of the books he found in the library, stuffing wax in their ears to avoid hearing what they want to hear from sharp-teethed sirens. He wonders if that’s what he is, some kind of siren who’s never seen the sea.
But today they lead him to a room he’s never seen before, and there’s someone there, not in the white coats of the doctors but in the plain black like his own uniform, someone smaller than him (height-wise, at least, because this someone has more easy curves on their bones than Jon has ever managed, he eats and eats but can never seem to be full, never more than skin and bone and hunger), and when Jon walks in the door closes behind him and it’s just him and this new person and the doctors staring from the other side of the glass.
He can feel their eyes on him, and wonders what they’re expecting to happen, if this is a test and if so, if it’s for him or for the other one.
The new person looks up, two warm brown eyes that are strangely hopeful, and Jon stares back with his six eyes, dark enough to get lost in, and when they see him they gasp, flinching back. There’s something strange about their limbs, but Jon puts that aside for now, more interested in how easy it is, to See when there’s nothing in the way.
“Hello,” says Martin, who is from another facility, who is only a few months younger than Jon, who has only just started to show the results of the tests they’ve been running on him since he was a child, which is why they had to transfer him, and he’s scared of Jon but not as scared as he could be (as he should be), and that might be Jon’s favourite thing about him.
“Hello,” Jon says back, his voice raspy with disuse, harsh and strange to his own ears. But Martin smiles, sticks out a hand that only blurs a little as he moves it, and when Jon shakes it he can’t remember ever touching someone by his own choice before.
He rather likes it.
“I’m Jon,” he says, because he remembers that not everyone can See as much as he can.
“Nice to meet you, Jon,” Martin replies. And that’s not really true – there’s nothing nice where they are, nothing nice about knowing that his strange and rather hollow existence is about to be shared with a boy who looks so soft and kind.
Except that Martin had been alone before too, Jon can See that without even looking, and now they are both decidedly less alone. They’re both here, talking, like some characters in a book. That has to count for something, Jon thinks, as he lets Martin introduce himself. Even in the worst of the books, things always get better when the heroes aren’t alone.
“I’m fine, Jon.”
Jon scowls, crossing his arms to keep from grabbing at Martin’s sleeve and tugging him closer so he can look the other boy over. He knows (he Knows) Martin doesn’t like being fussed over, know it makes the other boy uncomfortable whenever he stares too long, but Jon’s been back from afternoon testing for hours now, and Martin’s never been gone that long before. When Jon gets kept longer than usual, he usually has marks to show for it, burns or cuts that sting for hours, and sometimes take days to fade away completely. Martin doesn’t look like he’s hurt, but he’s not the best at speaking up when he is.
Jon just wants to Look, but his own tests have left his vision spinning, and he thinks if he tries to See anything he might throw up or pass out or something else equally unpleasant, so he’s left with his less-than-adequate pair of eyes and the hope that the stern set of his jaw will encourage Martin to tell the truth.
“You were gone for hours,” he snarls, and then immediately feels guilty when Martin flinches at the tone. “You don’t have to… tell me what happened. But don’t lie.”
“Can’t you just see what happened, anyway?”
Martin knows that Jon can see more than most, although Jon has struggled to explain and Martin hasn’t pushed. His tone has Jon ducking his head, because there’s hurt in Martin’s words that feel sharp, and Jon knows he oversteps, has been trying to not See the other boy’s thoughts as much as he can avoid it. It’s hard, and it makes his eyes sting, but he’s trying .
“...No,” he says, because if he tries to hide how his head is spinning, he knows he’ll be caught out. He’s a worse liar than Martin.
Immediately, there are hands on his chin, lifting his head, and all of the edge has gone out of Martin’s voice. Now there’s just a soft concern, as he looks at Jon with his wide eyes that are the closest thing Jon has to anything comforting in this strange life of theirs.
“What happened, Jon? Are you alright?”
“I’m… just tired,” he says. Not quite a lie, but not enough to fool Martin. “It’s like I’ve pulled a muscle, but it’s… in my head. That’s all.” And he reaches a tentative hand out, to grasp at Martin’s forearm so he can’t escape. “What about you?”
Martin presses his lips together. His eyes look paler today, but maybe that’s just a trick of the light. Jon tells himself that’s just a trick of the light.
“I went… somewhere,” he says. “It just took them a while to get me to come back, is all.”
Martin’s skin is cold, even through his sweater. Jon holds him tight, suddenly more afraid than he can ever remember being.
He wants to say so many things, but all the words feel too heavy, and he knows there are people watching, doesn’t want to share this moment with anyone else.
“Keep coming back,” he says instead, and it doesn’t feel like it’s enough , but it’s what he has. “You have to keep coming back. Not for them, but for you.” For us, he doesn’t say. I don’t remember how to be alone anymore.
“I will, Jon,” Martin says, and closes his eyes, and for a moment they both pretend they are the only two people in the world.
They’re thirteen.
Jon is fourteen, and he hates Peter Lukas.
He’s the doctor in charge of Martin’s case, and he isn’t here often, but when he is, Martin gets fuzzy around the edges, hard for even Jon to see, and when his feet drag they don’t make a sound. His voice is enough to make Jon’s whole body hum with anger, but Martin’s forbid him from making a scene when Peter comes to collect Martin, ever since the first time, when Jon had grabbed for Peter’s glasses and tried to See something that would make the man stop. He can’t remember much about the aftermath, only Martin’s frightened shouts and an electric shock that left his hand twitching for days. Much worse was the week they kept the two of them separated, Jon left to pace in a smaller room than usual, no access to the library or the small bit of yard they’re allowed to run around in or his one friend. It had only ended after Jon had endured a visit from Elias Bouchard himself.
“This behaviour is beneath you, Jon,” Elias said with a smile that made Jon’s skin crawl. Elias doesn’t wear glasses when talking to Jon, doesn’t cover his ears. Jon thinks if he were stronger, if he were quicker, he could take advantage of that, but so far every time he’s tried he’s been met with a flash of static and a headache that lingers for weeks. It doesn’t stop him from trying, every time the head of the Institute comes to talk with him. “We’re looking at bringing more students here, but how can we, if this is how you’re going to act?”
Elias always did that, promised that more people were coming. But it had taken eleven years for Martin to show up, and they didn’t need others, not really. They were fine, just the two of them, as long as they were allowed to stay together. Jon had said as much, and Elias had just laughed.
“You’d better start minding your manners, then.”
So Jon doesn’t fight back, when Peter Lukas came to call. Not even when Martin returns, his taller frame folding in on itself, impossibly small. Not even when Jon swears that sometimes he can see the outlines of other things through Martin, like something about Peter makes him less here , less anywhere.
He doesn’t fight back, but he learns to hate, and promises that one day, he’ll make the man answer for every spent tear, every fearful look.
Jon holds Martin close, after he returns to the small room with the twin bunk beds, reminds him that he’s here with words that still never feel like they’re enough, and he hates.
“Where are we going?”
Elias doesn’t turn around, but Jon knows he is smiling, can feel it as clearly as he can feel Martin’s hand in his own. They’re being moved, down hallways he can’t remember ever having passed before, away from the rooms that have been their whole world for years.
“Your progress has been… stagnant, of late. We thought a change of scenery would do you good.” And, like he can feel how their grip on each other tightens, he chuckles. “Both of you, for now. Don’t worry.”
There’s voices, leaking through the hallway now. Not the low hum of doctors in conversation, but louder, more discordant. More voices than Jon can ever remember hearing at once.
Elias stops in front of a door, turns to look at both of them, and Jon hates when Elias does this, makes him feel like he’s been flayed open, like Elias knows secrets about himself that even he doesn’t know yet.
“You can’t have thought you were the only ones?” Elias says, and there’s something mocking in his voice. “You’re special, but you’re certainly not that special.”
The door opens, and Jon steps through the doorway, Martin right behind him. The roar of many conversations overlapping dies down almost immediately, as everyone in the room turns to stare at the newcomers.
“I’ll leave you to introduce yourselves,” Elias says, and closes the door tightly behind them.
Jon should be scared, as he takes in the room, the strange people that fill it up. He is scared, can feel it buzzing under his skin like a promise. But there’s something else, underneath the fear, as the rest of his eyes slide open and he Sees, Sees the anger boiling inside these bodies, these people who have been told they’re monsters but expected to continue to act like they’re people, like they should follow rules that don’t really apply to them.
“There’s so many of us,” Martin breathes, voice stronger than Jon’s heard it in months, and Jon puts a tentative name to this feeling, as he feels the curiosity of everyone in the room settle around him like a cloak (or perhaps a crown).
It’s hope . And maybe this is just another trick. Maybe somewhere Elias is watching with a grin, ready to take notes on this, the next stage in his twisted little experiments.
But Elias, for all of his notes and his doctors and his electronic eyes, can’t See like Jon can.
Back in his office, Elias frowns, as the cameras in the classroom flicker, the microphones beginning to buzz with static.
Jon can feel the skin on his face shifting, as more eyes than ever before blink into being. He turns them towards the closest of their new companions, and grins as he recognizes her fear, her hate, and her hope, so similar to his own.
“So,” he says, fifteen and ageless and terrible and true. “What’s your story?”