Chapter Text
Martin soon realises that when Jon said, “Don’t worry, I know the way”, he was probably just trying to sound cool. He doesn’t blame the poor man—he knows he wouldn’t have come up with something better to say had he been in his place. Still, it takes some time for them to get out of the Lonely.
Their main problem is probably their lack of knowledge about the Lonely. They hadn’t really considered it as a place before. First, it had been a feeling, one they had both been familiar with all their lives. A Fear, afterwards, but never really a fear. There is a gentle sense of comfort in being alone, both by force of habit and an inability to be anything else.
They manage to get out, eventually, although neither of them really know what does the trick in the end. They wander off somewhere, without directions nor illusions thereof in the endless sea of fog. Without the steady, heavy pull of gravity, Jon tells Martin, it would almost feel like the Vast.
The smell of salt is so strong it hurts. With the numbness of his mind mostly gone, Martin’s senses come back, and he frankly wishes they hadn’t. It had felt nice, not feeling. It had felt safe and quiet, painless in its monotonous dullness. The sound of the waves comes rushing in his ears, just on the wrong side of steady, frustrating, pulling at the loose strings of his sanity.
It doesn’t make sense for the Lonely to be a beach, or the sea, or anything like that, Jon says, mostly in an attempt to cut the silence between them. Martin hums half-mindedly. He kind of disagrees, but also doesn’t care enough to try and understand why his thoughts are the way they are.
Jon takes ahold of his hand, in one swift motion that feels like it is meant to look casual. Martin knows, however, that there is nothing casual about Jon holding his hand. Nor about Jon to begin with.
“Maybe it’ll make the Lonely go away,” Jon mumbles.
He thinks, vaguely, that a few years ago he would probably have blushed profusely, maybe said something embarrassing. He really had loved him, in the all-consuming, stupid way he always loved. He didn’t know if “always” was the right word to use with a sample size of three, but the third time had been no exception.
“I really loved you, you know,” he’d said earlier. It was a stupid thing to say, in retrospect. Martin suppresses a physical reaction to the embarrassment, focusing on whatever else is happening in his brain.
Love. He was thinking about love.
It was stupid to tell Jon that he had loved him because he doesn’t anymore. There was no point. They had been apart for so long that the love he used to feel had erased itself into friendly affection, contentment with the platonic love that they could still share. All that is left of the romantic love that he used to feel is quiet nostalgia and a faint longing for a hypothetical something , stifled out by missed opportunities and separation.
Besides, Jon is already awkward enough by nature. There is no need to make him more uncomfortable.
I should have kept my mouth shut, as always , Martin thinks. He clenches his jaw, desperately wishing for the numbness to come back and stop his brain from reminding him how stupid he is.
Eventually, they find themselves standing in the middle of a busy London street. A car honks somewhere close and Martin resists the urge to slam his head against the wall to stop hearing things altogether; fights back against the part of himself that violently wishes to go back into the Lonely, into the numb, peaceful, predictable silence of emptiness.
He wants to be free. He needs to be out. He knows he doesn’t - cannot - want the Lonely again.
Jon pulls his phone out of his pocket and makes a call. Martin doesn’t pay attention, but Basira’s voice still reaches his ears—faster than usual, strained.
“...And Daisy?” Jon says, hesitantly.
“Irrelevant to the conversation we are having,” Basira answers. “Now go.”
She hangs up, and Jon looks up at Martin.
“The police are going to be at the Institute soon. They’ll probably be looking for us,” he says, although Martin has heard everything, “Basira is going to get your things and meet us at my place. Then we’re going to get out of here. Daisy has an old car somewhere close and a safehouse in the Scottish highlands. We’re going to hide there for a while.”
Martin nods.
“Were you really living at the Institute this whole time?” Jon mumbles.
“Elias’ office is pretty big. I didn’t see much sense in paying for an apartment when it meant public transportation and everything,” Martin answers monotonously. “I do still have Peter’s credit card, we should withdraw cash before they figure out he’s dead and close his account.”
It’s smart. Practical. I may never have been smart , Martin thinks, but I have common sense when the need arises .
“Aren’t there limits on how much money we can withdraw at once?”
“Let’s take everything we can. From both of our accounts as well, if we’re going to be on the run from the police.”
Jon nods slowly.
“That’s rather smart,” he says.
“Surprisingly, I do have brains,” Martin retorts, trying for a joke. His voice comes out sharp and harsh, though, and he winces.
“You’re- I-” Jon frowns. “I know you have brains, that’s not a surprise.”
Martin snorts at the man’s panic, endeared, but it sounds self-deprecating instead.
“Martin,” Jon protests, holding his hand tighter, “you’re one of the smartest people I’ve ever met. I- I know I wasn’t- I haven’t- I was never-”
“Jon,” Martin cuts him, “we’re not having this conversation again, and certainly not now.”
He starts walking, pulling Jon with him, ignoring the man’s confused protests. They find an ATM, withdraw as much as they can, and find a bus that takes them close to Jon’s place. They spend the ride in silence. Jon’s hands are a bit clammy, but Martin doesn’t comment on it.
Jon lives in a shared old four-story house crammed between a 24/7 convenience store and a row of houses that all look abandoned to some degree. They used to be gorgeous houses, Jon informs Martin, before a real estate agent bought them to turn them into apartment complexes.
A cramped corridor links the front door to the backyard, where a frail staircase leads to the upper floors. Jon leads Martin through the corridor and up the stairs in complete darkness, claiming that turning the light on isn’t worth it— it barely makes any light but is extremely loud.
He’s quiet when he walks, used to the creaky wooden steps and the right way to gently coax them into silence, and Martin can’t help but feel self conscious as the wood screams and moans under his feet.
A woman is smoking just outside of her door on the second floor. She and Jon resolutely avoid each other. Martin almost says hello, but the word is pushed down his throat as Jon pulls more insistently on his arm.
The inside of his flat is almost devoid of personality. It’s small, and the light blinks a few times before it turns on. Jon apologises for the mess in a whisper, but Martin can find almost nothing out of place as he looks around. There is a thin layer of dust covering every surface. It makes the place look uninhabited.
Martin stands awkwardly by the door as Jon goes around the room gathering what he needs. He takes most of his clothes, which barely fill his suitcase, empties his bathroom drawer in a plastic bag, and fits it beside a handful of notebooks. He gently takes an old yellowed flower-patterned box from under the bed and tucks it between a few t-shirts. Martin assumes it must be what he kept from his grandmother.
That’s all there is to take. Martin expected bookshelves to fill half of the room, but Jon informs him that he hasn’t found the energy to read leisurely in quite a while, and that there’s a library nearby for when the need arises.
“Anything perishable in the fridge?” he asks.
“I haven’t had the time to cook in some time, I’m afraid there’s nothing but mustard in there at the moment. I do have some good quality non-perishable food items, though—I might as well bring them with us.”
He opens a cupboard to reveal a series of old glass containers, wooden boxes and recycled tin cans. They’re all clearly labelled with Jon’s most delicate handwriting.
“I generally buy food in bulk at the marketplace,” Jon explains as he tries to fit a jar of dry lentils next to his tins of spices in his luggage, before giving up and finding a cardboard box. “My grandmother had a deep seated hatred for big supermarkets and the like. It would have felt weird to change my habits.”
A sharp buzz resonates through the building. Basira’s voice reaches them weakly through the intercom and Jon lets her in. The sounds of her stomping up the stairs echo through the entire building. Martin opens the door before she can knock.
“Everything packed?” she asks curtly.
They nod. Martin takes the suitcase, after weak protests from Jon followed by a grunt of pain as he tries to lift it up. Jon takes the box of food.
Basira keeps the keys to Jon’s apartment, and she gives them the car keys in exchange. It’s an old Clio that looks vaguely like it’s about to fall apart, but Basira assures them that it is sturdy and has no blood in it. The inside is indeed cleaner than it looks like it should be.
Martin suddenly remembers that he, in fact, never got the chance to learn how to drive. He didn’t have the time nor the money when he lived with his mother, and after moving to London it had become useless.
Jon assures him that it’s alright, that he can drive. He had to learn, really, growing up in the rural outskirts of a fairly small city. He hasn’t practised in a while, but it’s like riding a bike, he insists. It’s not like they have any other option anyway.
Basira says goodbye with a small nod, expressionless, and briskly makes her way back to the underground station. There are no hugs and no tearful goodbyes. They didn’t consider themselves close to her, anyway.
They remember, at the last minute, to buy food and water for the trip. Jon struggles a bit to get the car to start. He’s always had trouble getting adjusted to the manual gear shift of cars he’s never used before, he explains, but he’ll get used to it in no time.
It takes longer than they would like to get out of London and the crowded metropolis, but after a while they finally find themselves in the countryside. They stop at a gas station on the side of the road and eat tasteless sandwiches and apples that have clearly spent too long in a freezer.
“At least we’ll probably have some good quality produce in Middle of Nowhere, Scotland,” Jon says.
“Might as well eat well while we’re on the run from the police because we’re going to be convicted of murder,” Martin adds.
“At least I actually did commit one of the murders this time.”
Jon looks like he wishes he hadn’t said that. Martin kind of wishes he hadn’t said that.
“Let’s get back on the road,” Jon says after a moment of silence that lasts uncomfortably long.
“Shouldn't you rest some more?”
“I’ll be fine, the Eye will tell me if there are dangers on the road.”
“I’m not sure if I should be more worried or less now that you’ve said that,” Martin mutters as he goes back to his seat. It doesn’t take long for him to fall asleep.
When he wakes up, he is surrounded by fog. It is not an unusual occurrence, but as the memories come back, he realises there shouldn’t, in fact, be fog anymore. He lets out a worried whine before he can stop himself.
A hand falls on his arm, squeezing gently.
‘The fog is normal,” Jon tells him, his voice rough from exhaustion but still gentle, “it’s just really cold up here. And the car’s heating doesn’t work. I took blankets from the boot, but it’s not helping much.”
Martin relaxes a little, and realises that there is, indeed, a blanket tucked around his shoulders. He mumbles a feeble “ok”. Jon’s hand lingers on his arm for a few minutes, but he needs it back for driving as they go through a small village.
The adrenaline from the fear stays a little—nauseating, yet half-muted by the exhaustion—but eventually he stops shivering from anxiety and instead from cold, and he falls asleep again.
When he wakes up again, it’s to the feeling of Jon gently shaking him awake.
“We’ve arrived,” he whispers.
Martin slowly moves his body awake, clumsily sliding out of the car. It’s insanely cold outside. Daisy’s safehouse is a very small, old yet sturdy looking cabin.
The lights, thankfully, work. They elect, without debate, to empty the car and directly go to sleep, leaving the exploration for the next day.
“If there’s a dead rat in the kitchen, it’s a problem for future me,” Jon mutters, “I’ve been driving for nine hours.”
Martin, although he has not been driving for nine hours, agrees wholeheartedly.
There is, unsurprisingly, only one bedroom. The bed isn’t made. They pile the blankets on top of the mattress and nestle themselves in the middle, huddling close for warmth. They don’t give this any second thoughts, only vaguely aware that it would have gone differently had they been more awake.