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They've been walking only a little while when Martin hears it; the scrape of steps behind them. Someone is following behind them, and none too stealthily, although whoever it is is trying their best to muffle the sound of their footsteps.
Martin glances back, but there's no one there. He looks at his double, curious, and the other Martin sighs.
"Peter," he says, and there's an edge to his tone that Martin can't place.
Martin's stomach gives an uncomfortable lurch, one he doesn’t want to think about too hard. "Peter?" he says, and the lurch is in his voice, too, making it go all wobbly. He swallows and tries again, doing his best to keep the waver from his voice and failing. "P-Peter's dead, he can't - you're wrong."
His double shoots him a deeply unimpressed look that says he knows exactly what Martin is doing, then shrugs. "Dead or not, that's who it is. We called him here. Or he brought himself. He might - he helped us make this place, he belongs to it almost as much as we do." His voice lowers and he bows his head, and there's that odd thing in his voice again when he says, very softly, "we want him here." He shrugs. "But he won't - he never comes out."
Longing. That's the tone. Deep, ugly longing, the kind that digs sharp claws into your belly and won't let go. Martin knows because he is feeling it now. Peter is here, and now that Martin knows it's him he wonders how he ever could have doubted it. He can practically feel his eyes on him, the way they always used to be, even when Martin couldn't see him. They used to bother him, those eyes, right up until the moment that they didn't. They used to chill him, and they still do that, but the chill is comforting. It goes well with the rain and the sense of losing something precious that permeates this area of his, Martin's little domain of suffering.
"Does it hurt him, being here?" he asks. "The way it hurts the others?"
"I don't know," the other Martin says. "I don’t - it's possible that it does, I suppose, but he's -" he shrugs and glances away. It's the first time he's been anything less than direct, the first time he's tried to shy away from a question, but it doesn't matter because there's no hiding this vulnerability from Martin, not here. Not when he can feel the sweet burn in his own belly, the fruitless desire for something that can't be.
Peter's special. Of course he is. And Martin gets to leave, gets to walk out of here and go back to Jon, to some semblance of life even after everything they've done, but this Martin, if he remains after Martin is gone (and Martin has no reason to believe that he won't), does not have that luxury. He will stay here, with one man he loves never in reach and the other always just past his line of sight. He will forever feel Peter’s gaze like a cool caress, forever hear his footsteps just behind, but whenever he turns to look there will be no one there for him to see. Whether it be the man himself or simply an illusion conjured by Martin's guilt and loneliness to torment him, he will never be able to satisfy his longing.
Here, if nowhere else, Martin can admit that they both like it better that way.