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He wasn’t supposed to look. He knew he wasn’t supposed to look. But gods, Jon had been staring at that weird page for ages every day. Martin was sure the page was weird, it was not a normal page, that was for sure. No normal page was that big. Or… floppy, for that matter. Not to mention the fact that it just felt wrong, the sort of wrong that a lot of things felt. Like the coffin, or that weird lighter Jon absent-mindedly flicked on and off when he was particularly out of it.
Martin shouldn’t look. He really shouldn’t go take a look. It was just another creepy thing, another — probably, definitely dangerous — thing that was occupying Jon’s time. Par for the course, really. Super, duper normal. Or as normal as things were bound to get in the archives. So there was absolutely no reason whatsoever that Martin needed to go and investigate the completely normal page that was not a page that occupied so much of Jon’s attention.
But it couldn’t hurt to go into Jon’s office, right? It wasn’t like he was snooping or anything. He was just going to see if the cup of tea he had taken Jon earlier was empty, that’s all. Otherwise the cup would just end up sitting on the desk for a week, so Martin had to go inside. Jon having stared at the page for a solid 30 minutes before suddenly leaving the office, page still on his desk, had nothing to do with why Martin was choosing right now specifically to go into the office and… take away the tea cup?
Gods, who was he kidding. Martin’s hand tightened around the cold tea cup, still filled to the brim with liquid, as he mentally face-palmed himself. There was no point in making excuses for this sort of thing. If he lingered too long, trying to convince himself he was just doing Normal Archival Assistant Stuff, then he’d definitely get caught by Jon. It’s not like there was something like normal archival assistant stuff anyway, just like the page was not a normal page, and “normal” wasn’t really a word that Martin ought to use anymore. Not when the word had lost all real meaning, as whatever he grasped onto as “reality” kept shifting with every passing day.
Bolstered by new resolve, Martin decisively put the cup of tea back on the table, closed his eyes and took a deep breath, opened them up again, picked up the (gods, it was definitely not normal, the texture felt like…ugh nevermind) page, and skimmed his eyes over the words inscribed upon it. No, inscribed was the wrong word. Etched? What was the word for when you used skin as the medium to carry the ink of some gruesome—
Martin’s train of thought was abruptly cut off when his eyes fell on two words. Two familiar words that spelled out a painfully familiar name.
Gerard Keay.
Martin’s hands started to shake, the pace at which his eyes now ran over the page feverish with dread. It didn’t take long for the realisation of what he was holding in his hands to sink in. The page outlined a death. Gerry’s death. Which meant that the skin he was holding—
It was the creeping sensation in the back of Martin’s skull, the knowledge of Leitners and what they could do, that kept Martin from dropping down the page on the table in abject horror. He slowly, painstakingly, placed the page back onto Jon’s desk. It felt as if all the oxygen had been vacuumed from his lungs. His breaths were shallow, and they were becoming faster by the second. Dead skin. Gerry’s dead skin. Gerry’s death. He was dead. Martin had been right, Gerry was dead. He had been dead for years now, and Martin didn’t know. How would he have known? Gerry hadn’t told him. He hadn’t said anything, told Martin anything, had just smiled and said he would be back. But he hadn’t come back, he had just left and never come back, and Martin knew Gerard wouldn’t just have left like that, without telling him, without letting him know, but he was dead and Martin had just read the way he died in painful detail and oh gods Gerard, Gerry, gods, why— how— when— fuck, he, he couldn’t breathe and how could he not have known why didn’t Gerard tell him for fuck’s sake .
Thoughts swirled like a tempest in Martin’s mind, in his chest. He gasped for breath, his entire body shaking as he reached out to the door, the desk, anything just to keep him upright. He couldn’t think straight, couldn’t focus, couldn’t—
“Martin? What on earth do you think you’re doing in my office?”
Jon’s harsh words drenched Martin’s panic like ice-cold rain. He spun around, face to face with the stern expression he knew so well, though there seemed to be a hint of worry etched somewhere in-between that frown. Martin fumbled behind his back, fingers finding the cup of untouched tea.
“Mug,” he mumbled, and pushed past a dumb-struck Jon, out through the door of his office.
Martin didn’t bother to go up to the kitchen, opting instead to unceremoniously deposit the tea cup on his own desk, before fleeing into the depths of the archives to try and get a moment alone with his thoughts. Not that he ever felt truly alone, in the archives. Not with the statements being what they were. With the Institute and its eerie watchful aura. He found a place in the back of the shelves, where all the disproved statements came to gather up dust, and let himself sink to the floor. Slowly, Martin forced himself to breathe. Four breaths in, eight breaths out.
One, two, three, four.
Martin tapped the pad of his thumb against his forefinger, middle finger, ring, pinky, and then back again, trying to ground himself in the feeling of the gentle touches. There was a pang in his chest when he remembered who taught him this habit.
— x —
“What are you doing?”
Gerard looked up at Martin, his dark blue eyes almost soft in a way that the man never appeared to be. A smile briefly lighted on his lips.
“I am trying to ground myself.” Gerard lifted his hand, displaying the repetitive motion in the air. Too-slender fingers tapped lightly, one against another, in sync with the slow rising and falling of the man’s chest.
“Does it work?” Martin placed the two cups of tea in his hands on the table, and planted himself on the couch next to Gerard.
“Ha. Not really. Who’s going to defeat anger or anxiety with finger taps?”
“So… why do you do it then?”
Gerard smiled, that smile Martin had fallen for, the smile Gerry only had when Martin did something endearing.
“Because it helps me remember to breathe,” he answered eventually.
— x —
Seven years ago. That had been seven years ago, not very long after Martin had first met Gerard, and he had met Gerard only 10 months after starting to work at the Institute. It was at a train station, of all places. Martin had been way too early, partially because he was still attempting to put his best foot forward at the job he had lied to get, and partially because his mother had been in one of her less amiable moods. Martin placed himself on a bench, opened up his thermos, and poured himself a bit of tea to warm his hands, a valiant attempt to chase away the biting cold of London in the winter. Scarcely ten minutes passed before another man came to sit down on the other end of the bench, dressed in all black. He cut an intimidating figure, his face all hard lines and angles, a cigarette clamped between lips set in a thin line. But the shirt underneath his too-large leather jacket was threadbare, and all Martin could think about was how cold the man must be. So, he did what he always did when he didn’t know how to offer any help. He asked the stranger if he would like some tea.
Martin sighed and pulled his legs up to his chest, resting his head against his knees as the bittersweet memory coloured him blue with sudden loneliness. He was overcome with the desperate urge to cry, but something solid, made out of panic and fear, kept the tears from spilling over. Somehow, it made him feel even worse.
“Martin?”
A gentle hand came to rest on Martin’s shoulder and he slowly lifted his head. In front of him was the last person he had expected to see.
“Jon? Wh-what are you doing here?”
Jon sighed, and to Martin’s absolute bafflement, sat himself down on the floor next to where Martin had curled himself up to hide.
For a few fragile moments, neither of them said anything. Normally, Martin would have rushed to try and fill the silence, to apologise preemptively for poking his nose where he shouldn’t have, but at that moment he could not find it within himself to try.
“You saw the page, I assume?” Jon asked eventually. He didn’t sound upset, or angry. He just sounded tired. Maybe that’s why Martin decided to answer the way he did.
“Is it real?”
“What?”
“Is. It. Real. The death on the page.” Martin steeled himself, bracing for the inevitable. He couldn’t honestly think what would be worse, the graphic death of someone he used to love being the truth, every damned word of it, or the alternative. That Gerry was still gone, without a trace. Without a goodbye.
“It’s,” Jon looked Martin in the eyes, and whatever he held within them must have been enough. “It is,” he finally sighed, “Detailed on that page are the very last moments of Gereard Keay.”
Martin nodded dumbly. “And he’s—”
“—The son of Mary Keay, yes.”
Martin squeezed his eyes shut, fighting against the urge to knock his head against the wall. Hard. How could he have been so, so stupid. Had he just ignored it? Was he really that unobservant? No. No, he knew what it really was. A bitter laugh escaped his mouth before he could stop it.
“Martin?” Jon’s voice held a note of surprise. Understandable. Martin had never planned to let Jon see this part of him. Bittered and angry. Blunted by harsh words and so many people walking away. Always away. Leaving him. Alone.
“I didn’t see it. I didn’t see it because I didn’t want to see it. Gods, how could I have been so… so… so damn stupid?” He spat the words out, hurt and anger coursing through him, more than he knew how to deal with. “I ignored it, just completely ignored it. Every niggling feeling that told me something was not right, that ‘Keay’ spelled like that wasn’t as common a surname as I tried to make it be. You’d think that you’d connect the facts, when your boyfriend burnt books and randomly disappeared and also had a dodgy mum he’d never want to talk about, and would make vague references to awful things. You’d think, wouldn’t you?”
Jon’s face had gone pale with shock. “Boyfriend?” he stuttered.
Martin pressed his fingers through his hair, not even registering what Jon was saying.
“A-and months, months after he started to distance himself, started coming home more and more tired, you’d think you’d ask, right? Or, or recommend he go see someone, but no, I just had to sit quiet and hope it all resolved itself. As if tea and biscuits could cure what is apparently an undiagnosed, fatal illness. But then he disappears. He goes off, and all he leaves is a note on a table. And he never comes back. And you can’t get a hold of him. No-one knows where he is. It’s not for lack of trying either, you know? I tried, I tried to find him but it’s like he never even existed, and I just had to wonder, was I really that…”
He stops, the sentence left hanging in the air.
“…was I really that much of a burden? That he’d leave me without a goodbye?”
Martin looked up at Jon, and it’s like he sees him for the first time since he came to find Martin.
“J-Jon,” he stammered, “oh, oh, oooh I am so sorry, I didn’t mean to,” the apology gets stuck in his throat.
For a moment, he’s afraid, but the look on Jon’s face dissolves that feeling immediately.
“It’s… it is alright Martin.”
But it isn’t. It isn’t alright, because Gerry is dead, and Martin had spent so long thinking he had just left, when really he had died. Cold, and alone, with no one to hold his hand. Gods fucking damn it all, he really wanted to cry. But he couldn’t, not in front of his boss, not in front of the person he had been nurturing a new, hidden love for.
“I didn’t know you knew Gerry,” Jon said slowly, “dated? Gerry.”
Martin nodded. “We were friends, at first. I met him, not long after he came back from Italy. Eventually it-it became more than that.” He paused, trying to sort through the maelstrom that was his mind. “I should have seen the signs. But he had always been strange . His mind was always elsewhere. But I thought that— wait. Did you just call him Gerry?”
“Uhh,” Jon scratched at his neck in a badly concealed attempt to not meet Martin’s gaze.
“Nobody ever called him Gerry. He said that it’s what he—”
“— wanted his friends to call him. Yes, I know.”
Martin stared at Jon, dumbstruck. “How do you know?”
“The… the page,” Jon said slowly, “it’s from a Leitner. The book allows you to bind a soul to it, or an echo of a soul, which you can summon when you read the page aloud.”
Apprehension tightened in Martin’s breast. “And Gerry was bound to that book?”
“Is. Is bound to it. Gertrude did it.”
“Gertrude Robinson bound Gerard to a book of death? A page of which you just happen to have?”
“It’s a long story.” Jon’s face was tired, and Martin swore he saw a flinch of guilt as the man spoke.
“You’ve spoken to Gerry.” Martin said after a moment of silence, his voice coming out much smaller than he wanted it to.
“Yes.”
“Is he okay?”
There was a long pause.
“No.”
It hurt. Gerry couldn’t rest. Not even in death.
“Is there no way he can be free from the Leitner?” Martin asked, not caring if the desperation he felt made its way into his voice.
“There is.”
“What? Then why haven’t you freed him yet?”
“I…” Jon trailed off, the look of guilt now obvious on his face.
“He asked you, didn’t he? He asked you to free him, and you haven’t. Why?”
Jon opened his mouth, and closed it again, saying nothing. Martin felt anger boil in his stomach, years of pain and worry and frustration yearning to break through his carefully constructed surface.
“WHY HAVEN’T YOU FREED HIM?”
Jon’s eyes were wide, his face filled with genuine fright. Or was it surprise? Martin didn’t really care, his hands balled into fists so tight he could feel his nails as they dug into his palms. There was no space to count, or tap his thumb to his forefinger. Ha. Who was going to fight anger with finger taps indeed.
“I’m sorry, Martin.” For his part, Jon looked genuinely ashamed. But whatever defence he had prepared, Martin did not want to hear it.
“It’s really not me you need to apologise to.”
Martin stood up, straightening out his ruffled clothes. He needed to get out. Go… somewhere.
“Wait, Martin,” Jon scrambled to his feet, “do you…”
“No,” Martin whispered, his eyes downturned.
“Are you sure? I’m sure Gerry would—”
“—Gerry doesn’t want anything,” Martin interrupted, “like you said. It’s an echo of a soul. It’s not him. Not really. The real Gerry is dead. And you’re holding hostage the final part he needs to lose, so that he can finally rest.”
With that, Martin turned on his heels and left. He did not look back.
— x —
The sun was warm and comforting as it fell on Martin’s face. Long fingers combed lazily through his hair, rendering his entire body soft and immobile. He didn’t want to wake up from this wonderful dream.
“You awake, sleepyhead?” A low voice murmured.
“Hmng, nope,” Martin nuzzled his face into the chest which he had made his pillow, “completely and utterly asleep right now.”
The chuckle that shook through the body beneath him reverberated through Martin, a reminder that Gerard was solid, real, and here. It didn’t always feel that way. Too often Martin looked at his boyfriend and was filled with the intrinsic awareness that Gerard was Not Here. His eyes fogged over with Elsewhere, his body almost spectral. The tattoos he had gotten didn’t help, they made him seem even less real than before. Martin could never shake the feeling that Gerard was bound to something, somewhere, and that he would never be able to be free from it. No matter how hard he tried. Filled with sudden irrational panic, Martin lifted his hand to cover the place Gerard’s heart should be.
Ba-dump, ba-dump, ba-dump, ba-dump.
Relief flooded through Martin, and he couldn’t help feeling a little silly as he pulled his fingers closed into a soft fist, still resting on Gerard’s chest.
“Are you checking if I’m still alive?” The bemused tone in Gerard’s voice made Martin flush, he could feel his traitorous face turn bright red.
“Nope, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he pouted.
When no response came, his curiosity got the best of him, and he lifted his face to see Gerard’s expression.
There was a smile on his face. Soft, lulled by the warmth of the moment. The way the sunlight fell on his face made his dark eyes take on a look of semi-translucence. Even the blacks of his hair didn’t seem as harsh as they should against his skin.
Gerard leaned forward, and placed a kiss on Martin’s forehead.
“Sleep some more. I can feel myself drifting off, too.”
— x —
When Martin woke up it was still dark. His bedside alarm read 4:45 in sickly green. His fingers bunched up the black t-shirt he held in his hands, the faded scent of its previous owner still lingering on the fabric. Finally, at long last, Martin started to cry.