Work Text:
Paranoiac actions do not usually end up like this.
Well, Jon supposes they don’t, but he’s put himself into non-speaking terms with everybody he could feasibly ask if they do, so he can’t really ask them, now can he?
Even if he could, he knows he does not want to face Martin after this; that's his brain’s general consensus. Except, of course, the more emotional-driven parts of his brains which were, instead, imploring him to go talk to him right this instant. He usually just represses those thoughts, and today won’t be any different, he realizes, as he does just that.
Now he’s aware he’s gotten off topic, just like the ‘rambly ones’, as Martin calls them… he now wonders what Martin calls Jon. Well, he sort of has an answer now, doesn’t he? Wait- this is another side-route, a detour, other examples of ill-timed allegories to the tunnels which ran deep underground. He’s doing it again. Let’s just start at the beginning, why don’t we?
The summary of events are essentially as follow; worms burst in, they hide in Martin’s temp-room, they record some stuff in Martin’s private tape recorder, they go down into the tunnels, they get separated, Martin resurfaces, Jon goes to hand the recorder back, Martin spills about Gertrude, Jon develops onset paranoia and keeps the tape recorder for… evidence? Through retrospect, the emotions voice tells him exactly why he really wanted it, but that voice is currently being repressed and that basically invalidates whatever it could possibly have to say so we continue to move right along.
The tape was… underwhelming, to say the least. Jon had taken it home after he got the statements and, after a much needed rest, played it back to see if it had caught anything of note during the event and to see if he could catch Martin confessing to… obviously the term is ‘committing homicide’, but, as much as he tries to deny it, he can’t really stomach his assistant being anything more than a casual accomplice in any plot against Gertrude. Putting his unsettling feelings aside, he trudged through the tape’s 30 minute duration of poem after poem (which resembled Keats and a poor man’s Frost too much for Jon’s liking) peppered with the occasional work-related notes. He realized he had fallen into a sort of pleasant lull between mentally chiding Martin’s poetry and relaxing to the sound of his voice. This, of course, meant that if there was any real evidence within it, he wouldn’t have caught it.
Those 30 minutes were the same on the second listen through. And the third. The fourth varied in that Jon fell asleep to it, but they were all essentially the same. Jon will blame this next part occurring so late on the exhaustion, but it took him an additional power nap to realize he hadn’t played the B-side yet. After mentally kicking himself for not thinking of it sooner, he took the cassette out and flipped it, an adrenaline rush of excitement coursing through him at the prospect of new information, almost giddy with his discovery.
This enthusiasm quickly died as the machine announced “Um. Oh… Mart- No, more formal... Blackwood’s Poetic Musings, side B”. Jon groaned as he let his head fall unto the table in a loud thunk as the newest tirade of half-baked literary techniques played through the house. Almost vengefully, he snatched the cassette player, took it to the kitchen, throwing it down quite roughly on the nearest shelf, cursing out Martin and his regretfully bad poetry. Figuring he might as well be productive, he walked to the dirty stack of dishes and turned the faucet on to a point where its noise was almost harsh enough to block out Martin’s voice.
He got a quarter of the way through the first mug he picked up when he noticed the poetry had abruptly stopped, and Martin began speaking normally. Shutting the water off, he turned to give his full attention to the player.
“Wow, okay. I don’t think anyone is still listening now- I know my poetry’s not perfect, but even I can admit that was a particularly bad one; I wrote it after crying over some poems when I was tipsy and decided it would be the perfect intro to this mess of a ‘secret’ tape.”
Jon had, at this point, dried his hands and walked over to hold the player, then sinking to the floor, listening intently; not only was this proof Martin was hiding something, it was a record of what exactly it was.
Recording-Martin, unaware of the situation he was now in, continued.
“I mean, I did quite literally write it about- no, doesn’t matter. If, by whatever infinitesimal chance, you aren’t me and you’ve found this tape, you’ll one hundred percent know what this is about regardless, so there’s no point in me saying.”
Jon, who, for one, had not listened to the poem, would particularly appreciate a recap, yet it appeared he was not getting one.
“Well, there’s no point in delaying it, I guess. Here’s the... compilation. I don't know how organized it’ll be, but it should be a mixture of excerpts, accounts, and ramblings on… the overall topic, really.”
Excerpts? Accounts? Whatever this was, if Martin was not lying, he’d have concrete evidence damning all involved in whatever shady event the man was retelling here; it must have gotten him quite worked up, going as far as to write poetry - might be from the trauma, killing Gertrude, or being an accomplice in it, must be quite hard for such a kind guy like h-
Jon almost dropped the player in shock when, having missed Martin’s last few introductory words, he heard the sound of his own voice coming out of it. After an initial panic, he realized it was merely a copy of him reading one of the statements, a digitized one, by sounds of it. Jon racked his brain trying to remember which statement it was from or how it could relate to the Gertrude case, but all his voice had said was something or other about love and a boyfriend.
He didn’t get to try and ponder on it more as it abruptly switched over to another statement, this one also digitized, which had him rambling on about buying a big house with a husband and planning on adopting a large variety of cats. This one he did remember. A young woman who had just gotten married was convinced her and her husband’s new house was being haunted; in the end, it ended up being a family of raccoons who had been living in the boarded up attic which they were not made aware of during the purchase. While Jon was glad he realized which account it was from before the snippet ended, he could not see any correlation between this solved case and the murder of his archival predecessor. It just didn’t make s-
The next one was simple. This one did not have the crisp sound the digitized ones did, but instead possessed the scratchy telltale sound of tape. It was a single phrase, followed by a haunting silence after it was spoken, almost as if the tape expected a response after it.
Jon would never in a million years call himself an actor, although, in the privacy of his own internal monologue, he might be inclined to agree with the notion that sometimes he does get lost in the tales and ends up pouring his heart out as his voice bleeds with the deep emotion of those who had recounted their tales of loss and despair.
The ones on the tape were what a very distressed young man claimed his partner’s last words were (spoken seconds before one of Leitner's books got to him) and Jon had delivered them in a broken and yearning way the night he worked on the case.
“I love you.”
It clicked after that.
Even if it hadn’t, the quick, almost 20 second long rapid-fire collection of him saying “Martin” in a mix of startled, confused, and (mostly) annoyed tones after it would have been a dead giveaway.
At that point, he paused the recording and set the player lightly on the floor, as if he was afraid the tape might break if moved too quickly or handled improperly. He sat there for an unquantifiable amount of time; it felt like his brain was constantly switching from being completely blank in shock to every synapse firing trying to make sense of the situation.
A full day had passed until he managed to play the tape again.
He’d been avoiding the kitchen like the plague since, eating whatever junk food he managed to find in his room, so he needed to enter the kitchen for food regardless. It wasn’t about the tape. This was solely about nutritional value.
After slowly crouching down to it, like one would to a small scared animal, he gingerly pressed the play button and waited for it to continue.
“Uh...statement of Martin Blackwood regarding- no, wait, that’s too dorky, I think. And kind of weird? Too much. Definitely too much.”
Jon, who most definitely noticed Martin lowering his timbre to try and match his own, was strongly inclined to agree.
“Today I was looking for an older file deep into the archive where, despite the cleaning crew’s best efforts, copious amounts of dust had seemed to clutter almost incessantly on and around the file needed to retrieve. I didn’t think too much of it, just gathered the information quickly and started to bring it to his office”
Jon didn’t even try to pretend they were talking about Elias’.
“I got there, but thought I’d heard him recording, so I headed to the small kitchen area and made him some tea... Not because of this , no! It's just a nice thing to do, and I’ve been doing it almost since he was appointed head archivist… although…. I’m not really sure there was a time where this… hadn’t crossed my mind more than once.
“I made him his favourite, Echinacea with a spot of honey, and walked back, file in one hand and a cup in the other. Straining my ears outside the office, I surmised he seemed to have stopped recording, hearing the sound of paper rustling and a chair being scraped against the floor, but no hint of his voice whatsoever.
“As I was debating how to knock with both hands full, Jon opened the door and looked at me, perplexed. As I began to stammer out something about the tea and the file, he tilted his head at a forty-five degree and looked scrutinously at the top of my head. As I was beginning to garner up the courage to ask him about it, he reached up and lightly brushed a speck of dust away from my hair, then, going back to his normal self, asked me what I needed him for.
“I’d like to say I explained the situation, but I didn’t. I didn’t explain anything at all. I just… short-circuited, went ‘Here you go!’, shoving the file and the mug at him. He quickly grabbed them, cursing over almost breaking the mug in the proces. He might’ve said something else but I was too preoccupied with getting into my makeshift room in the archive as fast as I could that I have absolutely no idea what he actually even said… He must think I’m crazy! Running out on him like a blushing schoolboy inviting his crush to the dance. Oh gosh, was I blushing? Oh God, oh n-”
The audio didn’t end there, but Jon had to pause it to compose himself yet again. While he did remember the odd behaviour over the tea and file, he did not recall the hair part. Did he really do that? Martin had no reason to lie, and he is not that delusional. Did Jon seriously do that? Did he truly run his fingers through the other’s hair? Why does he feel a warmth creeping up his neck and towards his face? Oh God, oh n-
He presses play.
The following 20 minutes are composed of other accounts of their interactions; one where Martin made a joke and Jon kind of huffed a weak laugh, another where Jon had been late and his hair was still wet from the shower (he does admit to skipping over Martin’s… unreserved commentary in that one), and one that doesn’t even involve Jon, it's a retelling of when Sasha asked Martin what he thought of Jon. For this last one, Martin answered her noncommittally but he did answer the question truthfully in the recording describing Jon’s small mannerism, the way he smiles, the melody of his voice (more skips were done in this section).
Eventually, the ramble stops and it cuts to Martin reciting a short poem he wrote. Jon hates to admit it, but this one is lovely ; it's unique and uncontrived and the love Martin speaks of is pure and uncorrupted, true as it can be. The poem ends and the tape skids to the halt.
This brings us to now, a few weeks later, when Jon has been told to come into work when he “feels he is ready for it” starting the following Monday. Nevertheless, he is just as lost on his thoughts on the whole stolen tape situation as he was when it first began, even more so now that he had begun to… (‘develop’ isn’t an accurate word, for the repressed voice tells him its been there for a short while, so he settles for ‘show’) show conflicting feelings for and about Martin in alignment with the sentiments expressed on the tape yet. Despite this, he has not yet ruled out anybody, including Martin, as a suspect, not yet.
He can ponder whether the situation he finds himself in now all stems from the paranoia which led him to keeping the tape at another time though, he has some tunnels to explore.