Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Friday, November 27

“…Paths of good intention.”

It made Martin nervous to do this, especially at work.

Still, he tried not to speak too low into the recorder as he read carefully from his notes. It was best to speak naturally, at a clear volume.

“Leading somewhere.

Anywhere.

To shake off the dirt underfoot...”

Hearing his writing out loud went a long way toward improving it. Even just listening to it back later could make a big difference.

The print room at his part-time library job was not the best place to record, he knew, but it was the only empty place with equipment to “borrow” from (he was too nervous that someone would wonder what he needed it for to check it out through official means). The hum of the flickering fluorescent lights was audible, even after several maintenance calls had been made out, and, now and again, a printer would whir, threatening to start up. It was the only empty room he could use, aside from the dark, hot closet of security monitors that Elias tended to occupy and, of course, the bathrooms. He wasn’t desperate enough (yet) to try either.

“And stand.

In the streets.

Looking up.

Taking note.

Hm.”

He didn’t like that as much as he had when he’d first written it. He pressed the stop button and examined the dog-eared page of his composition book, pencil flitting over the blue lines in thought. Taking watch? Taking… care? - No, that wasn’t it. He crossed ‘Taking note’ out delicately and put the recorder back in his coat pocket. (He’d put it back at the end of the workday! Not back as in back to its original place but back in his locker… so it wouldn’t get lost.)

That was why recordings helped, getting a fresh perspective on something allowed him to see his work from a new angle and uncover any rough edges waiting for polish. He’d have to reconsider that line but, hopefully, any changes to it wouldn’t disrupt his entire stanza. He was pretty sure he liked the inclusion of ‘taking’ though.

He got up to have a stretch and think, weighing similar words and phrases against each other like fruit from a produce stall. Any of them could work, yes, but one of them might be the best.

It wasn’t his best poem by far, and it was easy to feel discouraged by that, but any work on his writing was better than none.

He stepped through the frosted glass door, closing it softly behind, and into the back hall of the Magnus South Library and Community Center. It was a tightly squeezed little building with a sagging tile ceiling, far past due on any renovations that a better-funded library would have gotten and packed snugly into its basic floorplan. It had all the important elements though: the general adult collection, some outmoded technology for public use, old chairs, hold shelves, a circulation desk, and a children’s area.

He shouldn’t have been surprised to run across someone else, he usually did in such close quarters, but he was not expecting to see the old man in the obsolete suit.

Like many elderly visitors to the library, he was in the seating area, reclined into one of the refurbished armchairs with purple-ish 80s-style upholstery in the center of the floor. His white hair hung over the back of it and his sunken bones slumped over the chair in a way that made Martin worried. Though when he stepped further out onto the floor, he could see his thin chest rise and fall. Now that he was looking closer, he barely seemed to be asleep at all. His eyes roved in his sockets like he could wake up at any moment and there was something oddly alert in the way that he and the chair had been turned right towards him.

He frowned at the old man, shrugged, and looked away.

Behind the circulation desk, Melanie was waving him over, her playful smile falling into place like an article of well-worn clothing. He smiled, a little wearily, and put his thoughts of poetry aside. He left the man to his sleep.

“What’s up?” he asked, a little afraid of her answer.

“Nooothing much,” she said, clasping her hands over the desk to twiddle her thumbs, the picture of feigned innocence. “I was just wondering though if you could maybe take over the reading today with the kids?”

“Um, sure! Be glad to help,” he said, even if he wasn’t sure that he really would be glad. “W-what would I be doing?”

“You just pick up a book and… read to them. And as much as I love the little guys,” she said, with a grimace that could pass outwardly as a smile, “I don’t think I have it in me today.”

“Yeah, I guess I could try it.” Given what she’d said, he was a little afraid of what Melanie might do to the kids if he didn’t.

In the time he’d been working there, he usually tried not to interrupt her when she was having the bi-weekly Children’s Reading Time, so he had never paid much attention to it. Being a library assistant kept him out of everyone’s way on most days and he didn’t want to become a distraction to them.

“Don’t worry, it’s easy. Y’know, mostly. When they’re not pulling each other’s hair or throwing the toys around anyway.”

“Yeah, no problem. I like kids so it’ll be fun, I’m sure.”

A cart squeaked from the general adult collections across the floor from the desk, and when Martin looked up, he saw Jon in the aisles, engaged in his usual silent battle against chaos on the shelves, rolling his eyes and sneering at him.

He had no clue why Jon Sims hated him. From the very first day that Martin started, he’d avoided him, and his opinion of Martin had only worsened with time, from what he’d been told.

He and Tim and Melanie had become very close- compared to coworkers he’d had in the past, anyway- but Jon had gone from merely shy to quietly antagonistic. Every nice thing Martin said only worked against him and any efforts he made to understand him better were swiftly dodged. When Jon came up in conversations outside of work, everyone agreed that, while he had always been unsociable, he had something out for Martin in particular. Out of spite, civility, hurt, or all three, (and it probably was all three) Martin acted oblivious to it.

He pretended he hadn’t seen his sour look and gave him a friendly wave.

If it were possible to wheel a squeaky cart with malice, Jon had it figured out, and he turned his self-important face away from them and did so. The little cart’s wheels limped along, protesting, as he started to push it towards the back office.

Melanie scoffed and waved him off as he passed her desk. Jon never said anything bad to anyone’s face- or much at all for that matter- but he behaved better when she was nearby. She probably kept his attitude from getting any worse, Martin assumed. The force of her personality could cow anyone on the staff, except for their branch manager, Elias, whom no one had quite figured out. “Spooky,” everyone called him, “harmless but spooky”.

“Before you go over there though,” she said, “I wanna know what you think about some t-shirt designs. I’m putting new merch out for the show.”

She showed him two designs for her podcast, one featuring an illustration of a cute ghost with headphones, the other with a depiction of the Baba Yaga looking down at a smartphone screen displaying the show’s logo. He didn’t think he had any real sway in her decision. By the time she asked for someone else’s opinion on anything her mind was usually made up. He hummed over them for a moment anyways, so that he could ignore the rolling cart passing behind him and through the office door.

Once he heard it close, he pointed to the Baba Yaga.

“Yeah, I thought that one was cool too,” she said, though she continued to weigh the merits of both out loud, without expectation of a response.

“Although the colors on the other might be easier to print…” She was only looking at her phone now, engrossed.

Maybe she just liked to have someone’s ear, he decided. He hummed without listening and left her at the desk.

The children’s area was to the eastmost side of the building, letting dim sunlight fall in from the picture window and over the old rainbow carpet and the donated toys scattered across it. A cushioned rocking chair dominated the center, keeping court over the shelves of picture books and junior novels.

Lots of families with young children lived in the area, so the bulk of their circulation took place there. That also meant, to his dismay, that Jon was in the back of the room with a cart full of books from the back office by the time Melanie had finished giving him more detailed instructions. He was putting the junior graphic novels in order and, while he didn’t give Martin another snide look, he seemed to act as though he wasn’t there. Martin smiled at his turned shoulder anyway, to be polite, and looked at his charges for the day.

The Friday afternoon crowd was generally small since most kids who were old enough to read were still at school. That left daycare and some kindergarten-aged kids in attendance, 5 of them, improvising a game with the battered wooden blocks and the rubber dinosaur that had molted off most of its paint. A manageable number, he thought, and he grabbed the first picture book he recognized.

He admired the familiar cover and gold Caldecott medal printed on it, studied the pages for any scribbles, and stepped into the reading nook. The children’s game faded in intensity when they saw him, and they all studied him with interest. 3 girls and 2 boys, dressed for the season and crowned with unruly hair. He gave them a little, uncertain wave.

“Okay. Hello there! I’m Mr. Blackwood. I’m… a librarian here.” It felt wrong to say, even if it was mostly true. They seemed to believe it though, sitting upright on the carpet at the sight of the book in his hand. “Everyone ready?”

There was a chorus of yes’s and he found himself beaming at their sincerity. It was good to be someone that people were excited to see, even if they were just kids.

“Hm,” said someone from the back of the room, which Martin chose not to hear.

He sat in the reading chair, a high honor among the members of his audience, based on the way they crossed their legs and straightened up when he did. It was a cushioned polished wood rocker, well past its prime, and disastrously plush. He fell into it and was worried that he might sink back and fall into some other world until its give finally stopped.

“Okay, there we go,” he said to himself and looked at the eager faces on the carpet. They broke out in overlapping shouts to him and one another like: “Are we going to read last time’s book today?” and “I don’t like that book, I want a different book!” and “How many books have you read, Mr. Blackwood?” One of them was about to get up and show him their favorite one when he willed them all to sit still and to be “quiet like librarians!” He put a finger to his lips for emphasis and hushed them, gently.

Somehow that worked, as they all copied his actions, putting fingers to their lips and falling quiet, except of course for the reprimanding “sssshhh!” that they gave each other.

“Okay,” he said, pleased. “Okay, good. I-I don’t think we’ll be reading last time’s book, since I wasn’t there then, but I picked up one of my favorites from when I was a kid.” He swallowed and showed the cover to the children, who oohed and aahed and he nodded in agreement. “This is… well, it’s quite an old book, actually, even though it was still around when I was you guys’ age, heh. It’s from allll the way back in 1962! A-and you can see here, up here, that it was written by Ezra Jack Keats- who did the pictures as well- and it’s called ‘The Snowy Day’.”

They looked up, in awe, at the board book’s sturdy cover. That was good, he thought, he’d been worried that he was laying it on too thick.

There was a sigh from the back. Martin resisted the urge to shush Jon as if he were one of the children, and turned the page, holding it out so that he could look down and read (upside-down as it was) and the kids could see Ezra’s collaged spreads.

“‘One winter morning Peter woke up and looked out the window.’” Martin pointed to Peter’s bedroom window on the page, where yellow buildings had been piled up with white snow like cream on a cake. “‘Snow had fallen during the night. It covered everything as far as he could see.’”

He turned the page, showing Peter in a tall red cap and red snowsuit admiring a heap of snow. “‘After breakfast, he put on his snowsuit and ran outside. The snow was piled up very high along the street to make a path for walking.’” The children marveled audibly at the snow, piled up high on the sidewalk so that it almost overshadowed a boxy brown building.

“‘Crunch, crunch, crunch, his feet sank in the snow. He walked with his feet pointed out, like this:’”

He drew his finger along Peter’s tracks in the snow on the left-hand page, where he’d hopped through the snow with his heels turned inward and the toe of his boot out.

“‘He walked with his feet pointed out, like that:’”

He drew his finger along the right-hand page, over the tracks stamped into the snow with the heel pointed out and the toe in, hopping it across each pair of bootprints as if his finger was Peter.

He took a moment to feel satisfied at the rapt silence in the room and turned the page.

“‘Then he dragged his feet s-l-o-w-l-y to make tracks.’” He dragged his finger over the little lines in the snow. “‘And he found something sticking out of the snow to make a new track.’” He pointed to the shorter, third line that was dug into the snow.

“‘It was… a stick!’”

He became more comfortable as he read, digging his heels into the carpet and rocking the chair gently. He described the ‘plop’ of snow that fell onto Peter’s head when he used the stick to smack the branches of a snow-covered tree. By the time he was telling them about how the snowball Peter had kept in his pocket had disappeared when he got home, a couple of parents were leaning in the entryway, listening with approval. Even the more fidgety children had settled, choosing to put their toys down and play with their hands or pick at the carpet as they listened.

“‘While he slept, he dreamed that the sun had melted all the snow away. But when he woke up his dream was gone. The snow was still everywhere. New snow was falling!’”

He wondered when the last time he’d woken up to see fresh snow falling was- if he could remember anything like that from when he was a child.

“‘After breakfast, he called to his friend from across the hall, and they went out together into the deep, deep snow.’”

There was another sigh from the back of the room, quieter this time.

Martin didn’t look up. He closed the book, smiling at his little audience, who did the same to him.

Jon left quickly once the children were gone, rattling the empty rolling two-tiered book cart back towards the office and returning with another one full of picture books. At least, Martin thought with satisfaction, he’d stopped being a nuisance and was back to his usual silence.

Tim walked out from the staff office, letting the door fall shut behind him with a thud and crossing the carpet in front of Jon, stepping across the cart’s path so that Jon had to stop abruptly with an annoyed growl that went unheard.

“Hey, you did great back there! Lots of folks were saying what a good job you were doing!” he said, not hesitating to clap Martin on the shoulder (or slightly below it, as Martin was too tall for Tim’s hand to meet his shoulder blade without reaching).

“Really? That’s good. I’ve gotta be honest, I’ve never really read to kids before, so that was kind of a first.”

“You’re a natural! Good thing, too, Melanie’s not a big fan of them, and ooh, does she make it pretty clear.”

“What about you then? You don’t do it?”

“Me? Why, Martin!” He scoffed and waved. “I’m far too busy. Got my hands full with important work.”

Martin chuckled. It was hard to be angry with Tim, especially when he worked so hard to be so… animated.

“We can talk about you doing it more often in the new year. If you like. Oh- you gonna be there on Tuesday?”

“Tues-day?”"Christmas party, if that’s your thing.”

“Wait, party? Who’s having a party?”

“We are, obviously!” He made a showy gesture around the walls of the room.

“Uh, depends, I guess. When?” he asked, as though he’d have anything but a free schedule.

“Tuesday!”

“Y-yeah, I know, Tuesday, but when Tuesday?”

“Tuesday is next week, usually after Monday,” he said with a grin that defied Martin’s irritated groan. “I guess I assumed you knew that, but I’m happy someone’s finally getting around to telling you.”

“What time on Tuesday?”

“Oh! Why didn’t you just ask that before? After work at 6,” he said. “I’m bringing booze,” he added from behind his hand, winking.

“Okay, great! I can be there. What are we doing, d’you know?”

“Don’t know,” he said, with considerably less enthusiasm. “Elias usually plans things and keeps it to himself, but I’m sure a movie will be on or something.”

“Oh, like a Christmas movie? Oh, I love those!”

He bounced on the soles of his feet a little, with an enthusiasm that Tim did not feel, based on the look he gave him.

Martin wilted, though he didn’t retract his statement, and he smiled bashfully.

He was a real fan of the genre, even though it tended to make up the bottom of the filmographic barrel. That didn’t matter though, the dumber and more far-fetched the Hallmark or Netflix Christmas movie was, the better for him. Last year on Christmas Eve, with no one else to celebrate with and nothing better to do, he’d watched a several-part series where Vanessa Hudgins played royal triplets with the company of some mulled cider. Or maybe she was a knight sent to the present? The details were hazy, probably from the cider. But none of that mattered; They were a pleasant yuletide escape. Who cared if they were less than perfect?

“Doesn’t surprise me,” said Tim, in a way that Martin hoped was meant to be good-natured.

He rubbed his sleeve self-consciously anyway. “Er, well, ‘tis the season, am I right?” He laughed, trying to sound like he was in on the joke instead of hanging off the end of it.

Something shifted along the other wall, and he was aware of Jon’s presence behind them, shelving and probably judging his taste quite sternly.

“Will everyone be there?” he said, trying not to look over his shoulder.

Tim seemed to catch on and he gave a wary look. “Yeah, probably. Elias makes a big deal out of it.”

“Hm, yeah that makes sense. Well, wouldn’t wanna put his hard work to shame, eh?”

There was a scoff behind him, which he ignored.

“I love Christmas parties.”

He hadn’t been to any in years, after all. So, comparatively speaking, it was sure to be one of the better ones.

Tuesday, December 1

‘One of the better ones’ was an educated guess and he was happy to settle for just ‘one of the ones he’d been to’. But his hopes were still high when he left his flat and returned to the library.

Going home and getting ready for the party might have been a mistake though, as it became clear to him that he had gotten too excited in his preparations.

No one else had dressed to fit the theme so Martin felt foolish in the red and white patterned sweater that he saved just for the holidays. When he saw Melanie and Tim, leaning on the walls of the front foyer and in the same clothes they’d been wearing 2 hours ago, he hid his reindeer headband in his coat pocket. He’d thought it would be funny and cute, but now he was embarrassed to have even taken it with him. He’d just assumed that everyone dressed up for holiday parties. They did in the movies, anyway.

No one else seemed to have brought food either, and he worried that his homemade chocolate almond biscotti, cinnamon apple tea, and honey were breaking some kind of food safety rule.

When he got up the nerve to walk in, he tried to give them a cheerful smile. The two of them looked as if they were awaiting jury duty, Melanie occupied with her phone, and Tim shouldering a brown grocery bag. He grinned at him, a sardonic and yet half-apologetic smile.

“That’s everyone then,” he said. “Just in time for my solo. ‘♪God bless ye, merry gentlemen♪-’”

“Don’t,” said Melanie firmly.

“Right,” he said, with a sudden sobriety. “Well, the two stuck-ups back there are gonna collect us when they’re ready, but I’ll let them know you’re here.” He shuffled to the office door and through with a salute.

“Right, s-sorry I was late.” He wanted to say that he’d been getting dressed but decided it would make him sound far too eager.

“Please,” said Melanie, “they weren’t going to start unless everyone was accounted for. Waiting for you will have been my favorite part of this whole night.”

“Elias is setting up?”

“Yup. Him and his hunchbacked assistant.”

“Well, I guess it’s nice of them to do that for us.” Martin had been an event organizer in school and even if he might not have liked Jon too much, he’d learned not to take the effort for granted.

“Oh, my poor, innocent Martin.”

“We’re ready,” Tim said from the back, as if he were calling in a dental patient from the waiting room.

Melanie shrugged at him and led Martin to the door.

Really, he shouldn’t have been bothered- he should’ve just been happy with what he was getting-, but it was still a bit depressing to see what had been thrown together in the staff break room behind the office.

A storebought banner had been taped to the wall with office tape and was threatening to fall. The fold-out table had been draped with a red tablecloth, one that looked like it had been used before, and centered on it was a scratched clear plastic bowl of cranberry juice next to a liter of flat ginger ale and a bag of plain crisps. The old radio was playing a holiday station at a low volume between bursts of static. An outdated school projector had been set up to throw out an image of gray documentarian footage. A dry voice relayed facts about the 1914 Christmas ceasefire along the Western Front of World War 1.

It all might have been a charmingly humble display if it weren’t for the two men inside, scowling over their respective tasks: Jon over a series of tiny pages that he was pinning to the wall through a plastic sheet protector and Elias at the projector speaker, trying to get the tinny narrator’s voice to become clearer.

Melanie winced and Martin cleared his throat awkwardly.

Tim deposited his bag beneath the table before either of them could look up. “Happy Holidays, Boss. And lesser Boss,” he nodded to them.

“Oh, excellent,” said Elias, who dropped what he was doing to fix his pale eyes on Martin. “Glad to see that you’ve made it. You’re just in time, give me a hand with this.” He pointed to the projector.

“O-Oh, okay. Sure. Um. I didn’t know if it was okay to bring food, but I brought some tea and made some biscotti? If you like?”

Elias gave him his blessing to lay them out on the table, though not without warning him to “be aware of any common dietary restrictions next time.” He found a plastic plate and laid the biscotti out as nicely as he could. A couple of almonds flaked off, but they made the sparse table look a little fuller.

“Ooh, you made these?” Melanie’s flagging energy picked up at the sight of them.

“Yeah! Help yourself! You might like them, Mel, they’re chocolate-almond.”

“You’re an absolute angel,” she said, taking two and beaming at him.

“Hey, thanks, Martin! Long biscuits, eh?” said Tim, and he took a curious bite of one. “That’s pretty good. A little dry, though, if I’m honest.”

Jon finished tacking the third, and last, of the sheet-protected pages up, but made no move toward the table, only making a face like he’d tasted something rotten.

“Well, you’re not really supposed to eat them by themselves, you see?” explained Martin. “You dip them in tea and coffee and stuff. I was about to put some on.”

He put the electric kettle on and took the coffee mugs down from the cabinet above it. While it boiled, he did his best to understand Elias’s audio problems as he explained them, only to realize that he had simply put the audio cable into the stereo output instead of the surround. He corrected it for him silently while Elias was turned away, hoping to avoid embarrassing him.

The narrator’s voice came out of a wall speaker with a pop and Martin had to turn the volume down again to make it bearable.

“Not quite the same as the Hallmark channel, eh, Martin?” said Tim from behind his shoulder, once the volume was at a tolerable level.

“What?” said Melanie, laughing.

Tim said something to her in a mumble and she snorted.

Martin feigned being busy with the dial.

“Good catch, Martin,” Elias said, his eyes having never left the projected image. He stood up and straightened like a puppet whose strings had been drawn upright.

He blinked at his turned back. “No problem?”

The activity for the evening was a viewing of informative holiday documentary footage that Elias had found in the Rare Materials. He had even set out five folding chairs in a severe little row to watch from.

Martin had been planning to sit at one of the ends, but he was forced into the exact middle when Tim and Melanie took the chairs on either side and ushered him between them. He laughed shyly and obliged them. Jon and Elias were at each furthest end, like guards.

“Imagine,” said Elias, flipping the lights off, “what one could learn about the value of the holiday season, just by watching what hardships people went through to protect it.” (That made everyone, even Jon, grimace at one another)

Martin did learn something though: He learned that it didn’t matter what holiday was taking place inside the frames of sepia-toned history, discussions of war and plague still seemed to put a damper on things, as a rule. The only thing less comfortable than the imagery on screen was the too-small metal chair he was forced to occupy.

He would’ve given anything to see Vanessa Hudgens again.

He found a pleasant enough distraction in serving cups of tea to his coworkers and ruefully double-checking that no one was allergic to anything in it. He made 4 cups, one without milk or honey for Elias. Jon politely declined them at first, but he did eventually take one biscotti. He tried to make a cup of tea for himself, but Martin spotted him sneaking up from his chair to the counter and politely insisted that he make it for him while he “enjoyed the film”. Something Martin smugly classified as a victory.

While he was up, stirring honey and cinnamon syrup from his cabinet into the fragrant, dark tea, he noticed the papers that had been tacked up. With the darkness and the glare from the projector playing across the plastic sheets, their contents were hard to make out, but he would recognize the ghost of Jacob Marley anywhere, dragging his chain of cashboxes and deeds and heavy iron purses towards the fireplace where the frightened form of Ebenezer Scrooge sat. Beside that was an illustration of the spirit of Christmas present, holding his magic torch aloft, wreathed in holly and green robes and a grand smile. Finally, an illustration of Scrooge in a weedy cemetery; knelt and weeping over his own gravestone at the foot of the spirit of Christmas yet-to-come, who was pointing down at the stone.

He smiled at them, pieces of the story coming to his mind. Maybe he did have a sappy sense of taste.

He delivered the tea to Jon, who mumbled his thanks to the floor when he brought it and took it from Martin with a touch too much force.

Soon, the biscotti was gone, and long before the movie was over. Melanie tried the bag of crisps, opening it painfully slow and loud under the sounds of gunfire through the speaker, only to discover that they were stale. She gagged and put them back on the table. The situation became desperate when the narrator began to discuss the battlefield medical tent and Tim carefully slipped his bag out from under the table. He dispensed a small bottle of vodka from it and shushed them. Melanie giggled under her fist as he poured a quiet couple of shots into the bowl of cranberry juice and topped it off with the flat ginger ale.

He gave plastic cups of the stuff out between himself, Melanie, and Martin. He waved a cup in Jon’s face, who gave him a disapproving glare that melted into nauseated horror when a grainy surgical saw appeared on the screen. He took the cup and swallowed a mouthful, averting his gaze. The other three made a silent toast, tipping the cups against each other, and drank.

As he drank, he could see Melanie quirk an eyebrow at him from over the rim of her plastic cup, in a way that made him want to groan at whatever she was surely about to say.

“Hallmark?” she whispered with a teasing grin.

“Hey, better than this,” he shot back, trying to keep out of Elias’ earshot.

She put her free hand up in surrender.

“Yeah, come off,” whispered Tim. He made a face that made Martin blush with embarrassment before he’d even finished his sentence, clutching his hands together and batting his eyes in exaggerated sentimentality. “Martin’s a romantic soul.”

“Shh!” said Jon and Elias.

All three of them turned back to the screen and shifted in their seats awkwardly, chided. Martin was still flushed as he did so.

Tim and Melanie snickered under their breath like children, but left him alone, if only to avoid the ire of the two stern-faced men on either side of the row.

He was nearly asleep and pleasantly buzzed by the time the documentary ended and the lights were coming on. Either historical films were all extremely long or the passage of time had slowed down around it, but when he checked his phone only an hour and a half had passed.

Melanie shook herself from a daze with a scowl and Jon blinked blearily at the wall, chin in his hand. Tim tossed his empty cup into the wastebin with surprising accuracy.

Elias’s gaze passed over them like a schoolmaster’s looking over his uninterested class of children.

“Wasn’t that interesting?” he asked. “I was lucky to find it in the rare materials in time for the holidays.”

“Real interesting,” Tim said, eyeing the clock. “Good to see that people kill each other, uh, less than usual on Christmas.”

“Indeed,” said Elias, who seemed to accept this as high enough praise. “I’m not strongly religious, but I welcome any holiday that reminds us of our humanity.”

Martin and Jon mumbled agreements, though neither sounded very earnest.

“Crime is actually worse during the holidays, you know,” said Melanie, studying the contents of her cup. Her syllables warbled at the edges just slightly. He knew from experience that she was no heavyweight.

“Oh? Is it?” said Elias.

He seemed to latch onto this fact as though it were an intriguing bit of casual trivia. Tim muttered something into the back of her head through gritted teeth, which she ignored.

“Well, what can you expect when you make a big holiday all about buying stuff? People are gonna find ways to afford it, that’s what.”

“True. I like the spirit of the holiday myself, rather than the capitalist practices.”

If Martin had to give one thing about Mr. Bouchard, it was that he was steadfast, even in the face of Melanie’s darkening expression.

“I don’t know,” she said, “I think it’s all capitalist. Christmas is just a stolen Winter Solstice anyway.”

“Many pagan traditions are incorporated, yes.” Everyone tensed when Elias spoke up, in that threatening, matter-of-fact tone that warned everyone that he was about to turn the current conversation into a fight. “However, it has such a mixing of inspirations and customs that it’s quite difficult to be sure what cultures are truly behind it.”

“No,” said Melanie firmly, “I think it’s pretty easy to tell. It was definitely a pagan holiday.”

“Pagan is a word that just means non-Judaist or Christian polytheism.” Everyone sighed, though Elias either did not hear or chose not to. “It was coined in the 4th century by Romans, mostly to group the rural and lower-class religious practices under one name. I only meant that ascribing the holiday of Yule to one people is impossible.”

“Yule is an Old Norse word, so I’m pretty sure that it’s Norse and Germanic. I’ve done my research old man, don’t try me on this.”

“Celtic too, um, right?” Martin hoped this comment would help settle the growing debate before it got too heated.

Melanie only gave him a side-eye. “Yes, Germanic, that’s what I said.”

“Ah, so you agree then,” Elias said, sounding unfazed. “A rich mixture of cultures that predate the written record.”

“They do not ‘predate the written record’,” she scoffed. “They were around for centuries!” She took a swallow of punch, one that Martin was sure to wind her up even further. Though that may have been exactly her goal.

“Y-you know, I think that both of you are, well- basically correct, just-” he began, but he was only cut off.

“If you’d ever read any of that written record, you’d know that,” she said, with a drunk tilt to her tight shoulders. “But just ‘cause it’s not in Latin or English you don’t think it counts, or something?”

Elias was forced to defend himself, though Melanie gave him little time to, and their arguments started to merge.

Tim grinned sharkishly at Martin. “Now you’ve gone and done it.”

“I thought maybe it’d help,” he whispered.

“Nah, they do this every year. Melanie’s pagan and Elias is a know-it-all. They’ll go at it for hours.”

The volume of the argument was only increasing, and Melanie had pulled out her phone to source a claim that Elias was denying as even possible.

Martin glanced around the room, hoping for some kind of assistance to rush in, only to see the paltry decorations around the staff room, the stale chips, the empty plate of chocolate crumbs, and the flat punch. The hoarse whisper of holiday music on the radio being drowned out. Jon had disappeared, leaving Tim, himself, and the bickering Elias and Melanie.

“I think I’m gonna have a minute,” Martin said, trying to sound casual.

“Don’t blame you,” Tim said, watching the argument with a bored expression as if it were nothing more than an episode of bad TV. He looked into his cup like he was scolding it. “I’ll sneak something stronger to the New Year’s one. Make it more bearable than this.”

Martin shut the staff exit behind him quietly, even as he felt sure that no one would notice him at this point. He swallowed the lump in his throat, along with the impulse to find blame, to resent. It never ended up helping him, so he groaned his frustration and disappointment out- a hot cloud into cold air.

The lights of London looked down on him, illuminating apartment blocks and darkening office spaces in warm gold that contrasted the light-polluted night sky. Without stars, the sky seemed cold and vacuous. It made him remember why people had come up with reasons to celebrate during these dark months. They needed ways to find hope in the harsh season, to huddle closer together, and to fill the darkness with torch and candlelight. Between Melanie and Elias, he wasn’t sure who was more correct, but he couldn’t argue with the logic of any of those ancient cultures.

Every couple of windows he saw had a tree in it, dotted with a string of little bulbs, and he tried to imagine how those occupants might have celebrated. Did they have a special day when the tree was brought out or bought? How much did it even cost? He had never celebrated with anyone but his mother and a few fellow students at the events he’d organized. Parties that he’d planned for weeks until they felt both too obligatory and too earnest, where everyone half-heartedly snuck in weed and alcohol, even if he never bothered to call them out for it. Even putting his anger aside, he was more surprised than he was upset to notice that he had no clue what big holidays were supposed to look like outside of his Christmas movies.

He was interrupted when he heard shouting from around the corner of the building, voices that Martin realized had been there for a long time, rising in volume from an angry mutter to a rant until he was forced to notice it. He wasn’t paying enough attention to pick out what he’d said, but he recognized Jon’s voice. The other was a mystery, too low and gravelly to discern.

He stumbled to the edge of the brick corner, his instincts calling on him to act but too afraid to come out from behind its cover. He peeked out to see Jon’s hunched back, his shoulders drawn up, watching a pale someone walk out of the streetlights and into the night. Jon balled something up in his fist angrily but said nothing further to the vanishing shadow. He paced a few steps, muttering to himself, and approached the rickety ladder of the fire escape. He considered the object in his fist as if he were thinking of hurling it far away, then pocketed it with a grimace. Martin hadn’t expected him to grab the cold bottom rung of the ladder and begin to climb, but he did.

Martin didn’t know how to react; he had an impulse to call his name and stop him before he got too high, but it died in his throat. Perhaps, if he broke the silence, Jon might startle and fall, but if Martin let him climb up to an unwalled rooftop… Well, that didn’t seem any safer. He managed to stammer something out in a whisper from behind his cover when Jon reached the top but only once he’d taken the roof landing did Martin find it in him to speak up. He ran under the ladder and shouted up to him, “Jon!”

A baffled face glanced down at him from above.

“What? - What are you doing?!” Martin said.

Jon hushed him. “Keep it down! Someone could hear you.”

Martin couldn’t help the face he made at him, but lowered his voice just enough that he could whisper-shout: “What are you doing? Are you okay?! Are-?... Just don’t move!”

He was remembering a statistic somewhere relating the holidays to an increased sense of isolation and… Better to just keep an eye on him, wasn’t it?

He climbed onto the landing awkwardly, aware of how high up they were, even if it was only one story. Jon stared at him with a look that reminded him of a cornered animal, one that was not afraid to bite.

“What are you doing up here? It’s freezing and-and…” He stopped to consider how to word his thoughts carefully. “Were you?... Are you okay? - If you wanna talk about anything, you know you can- I mean…” He gestured uselessly at the ground, then at himself, pleadingly.

Jon looked bewildered. Then understanding flashed across his face. “I wasn’t-! No, no. I’m fine, really.”

“O-okay, good! That’s good. Yeah.”

“Yeah. Thanks. I guess. Nice of you to check on me.” He sounded anything but grateful.

“Yeah, no worries,” it was too polite, as if he had just been thanked for holding a door.

A pause followed.

“Fun party,” Martin said, laughing tightly.

Jon made an angry hum in reply.

He thought back to the other three inside and was ashamed. He looked down, as much as he could stand without feeling weak in his legs, to see if the door would open for someone who was wanting to know what all the commotion was. It didn’t open and no one was there, and he couldn’t find it in himself to be shocked.

“Hope they’re not looking for us or anything,” he said. It was both true and not.

Jon rolled his eyes. Martin looked back down, pretending he hadn’t seen it.

“They won’t, I imagine,” said Jon. “Always ends up bad, these things.”

Martin didn’t know what to say. He wanted to agree, even if he hadn’t been to ‘one of these things’. Somehow, he’d known, even when he’d been baking and pulling the dusty sweater from the closet, that it was going to disappoint him.

“I’m surprised that you’d want to hide up here too,” Jon said. His tone was an accusation of something. “Ran out of tea down there?”

It was the first genuinely cutting thing Jon had said to him directly, even if he didn’t know what he meant by it.

“I don’t think I’d be doing any of them much good. Melanie and Elias are having a pretty bad row, couldn’t really get them to stop.”

Jon scoffed. “Of course.” His voice was a sneer.

Martin glared at him from out of the corner of his eye, patience ran thin.

When he did though, he saw that his face looked conflicted, looking out over the starless London sky like he hadn’t been talking to him at all and wringing his hands between each other. His eyes lowered as if he were watching some tragic scene below him. He sighed, resigning himself to the fate of whatever players he imagined were acting it.

“It’s-…” Jon began to say something and then he stopped. He put his hands in his pockets, shifting through them and worrying his fingers at the lining. Martin observed him, remembering the wadded object in Jon’s fist with curiosity.

“They’d do that no matter what you might have done,” he finally said. “Elias and Melanie would die before they admitted to being wrong. Even if you had gotten them to stop, Tim would get them started again. He doesn’t… like the parties much, so it’s how he passes the time.” His tone was straightforward, but it bore a melancholic edge.

“You’re probably right,” Martin said, and he relaxed, just a little.

“They’ll be fine,” Jon sighed. “Honestly, they probably enjoy it.”

“How many of ‘these things’ have you had? Like, how long have you known them?” He’d assumed that Jon had been there longer than him, but how long he wasn’t sure.

“Long enough.” He spat it out defensively and Martin backed away from it. Then he seemed sorry to have done so, and he changed his tone. “A year, almost two. Which is long enough, I mean. To know how they are.”

“They did this last year then?” Martin asked. He was far from the edge of the building, but he found himself compelled to sit on his knees. Someone had told him as a child that he was less likely to fall from a height if he kept his center of gravity low.

Jon followed suit, kneeling. “Yes. It was… well. Elias is not as gifted a party planner as he thinks. He tends to be the source of some of the tension.”

“That bad?” Martin worried about what he might be in for.

“Hm. He’s not what I’d call approachable.”

Martin chuckled at the irony of his words but tried to hide it. “Between you and me,” he said. “I don’t think he’s been in charge of something like this before. You get that feeling? I think he just has some kind of ‘daily boss activities’ calendar and he just does whatever it says.”

Jon laughed, a short huffing sound. “I never thought about it. Now that you mention it though… hm!” He paused, and Martin could see him taking the idea in, reflecting on it. It wasn’t much but it was nice to know that he was listening.

“I guess it means that he’s trying, even if it’s a little much,” Martin said.

Jon was quiet for a beat, then he shook his head with a mysterious smile, amused, Martin thought. “Yes, he is trying.” He said it like he’d made some joke that Martin wasn’t aware of, and he couldn’t help but bristle.

“I’m just trying to be nice,” he countered, keeping his voice mild.

“No,” Jon said, smile vanishing, “I was agreeing with you. Sorry. I just-…” But his sentence seemed to end there.

Martin wasn’t sure if he was going to complete the thought until Jon spoke up again. “Did you, uh, like the illustrations?” He faced Martin directly this time, with a face that he assumed was supposed to be friendly and instead looked pained. It was strange on his face.

“Uh… yes?” He wasn’t sure what to do with the question. Or any of it.

“Ah, good,” he croaked. He was still making a weird face that reminded Martin of Sisyphus straining at his boulder.

“Sorry, wait, you didn’t make them, did you? Oh my god, I’m so sorry, they just looked old, and I just didn’t think-”

“No! No, I didn’t draw them! They’re… official, from the book.”

“O-Oh! Oh, o-okay, good. Not that I think you couldn’t draw like that, hah, if you do draw? I just-”

“No, no. Y-You’re fine. I didn’t make that very clear.” He wrung his hands, wincing.

When he didn’t speak again, Martin took pity on him. “I never thought of Christmas Carol as even having illustrations. I used to read it every year as a kid, but I guess it never occurred to me that books that old could still have pictures.”

“They do, it’s just hard to preserve them. I got lucky when I found them. 1843 and hand colored. Someone went through a lot of trouble, I imagine.” He seemed to be more comfortable beneath the safety of the topic.

“Wait, hold on, you ‘found’ them? What do you mean ‘found them’?”

“Oh, well, they were in our rare materials. Elias found the films and I found the book. Wasn’t the whole book, obviously, but some pages from a first edition. I thought they might put people in the mood.” He shrugged. He did that a lot, Martin noticed.

“First edition!? I- That’s absurd though. Had I known they were originals!...” He stopped himself before he could get too far. “Ah, see what you’ve done? Now you’ve got me started,” he said, smiling in apology.

“Ah well, at least you appreciate them a little more than the rest.”

“Oh, I love that story! Do miss reading it. I should read it again this year,” Martin said, thinking aloud.

“I guess I like Dickens too. Every year though? You didn’t get tired of it?” It wasn’t a judgment, just a question.

“It’s a classic,” Martin said, feigning indignation. “I could recite it at this point.”

“Really?” Jon gave him a skeptical look.

Martin put on a smug smile and cleared his throat in his fist.

“‘Marley was dead, to begin with. There was no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clark, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it...’”

Jon’s skepticism withered and he was left looking truly impressed. “Oh, well then. Serves me right, I guess.”

Martin stage-bowed, though it was more like half of one from his seated position. “Thank you.”

“I’m not going to applaud,” Jon said, “but I do wonder if that’s all you’ve got?” His smile was a little forced, but it was there and attentive.

“Oh, no, I can keep going a little more, uh, if you want.” Jon didn’t say anything to stop him.

He coughed like he had to pause and think about it, even though it was easy to recall the rest of the passage. It had been his party trick at awkward holiday gatherings before. No reason to forget it just yet, he supposed.

“‘Scrooge signed it: and Scrooge’s name was good upon ’Change for anything he chose to put his hand to. Old Marley was as dead as a doornail.’” His memory didn’t falter, but he still checked the face of his audience, expecting him to look put upon.

But Jon was still listening, head cocked at a small angle. It made Martin feel somehow disarmed to see and so he picked back up.

“‘Mind! I don’t mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about a doornail. I might have been inclined, myself, to regard a coffin nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile, and my unhallowed hand shall not disturb it, or the Country’s done for.’”

Martin laughed as he recalled the author’s words. He liked how personable he was as a narrator. No matter how many years went by his spirit always seemed to be, like he’d said in the book, standing at Martin’s side whenever he summoned his words back up.

“Do you know the whole thing?” he asked, like he genuinely thought Martin might have. A funny idea coming from Jon, Martin thought, even if that had been the point of the trick.

“Mm, No,” Martin admitted, which he usually never did at parties, preferring to make them all think he was some kind of conduit through which Charles and all his spirits spoke through. The tiny bit of faith in Jon’s eyes compelled him to be honest. “But I know enough to make people think that I do.”

“I nearly did! Very good.” He sounded awed and he clapped, a little jokingly and a little not.

Martin skipped the bow this time, it didn’t seem sincere. “Thank you. I mean I don’t think I could do the whole thing by heart, but I wasn’t kidding earlier. I really did read it over and over. It’s just a nice story, about being good, you know?”

“Yes, yes.” Some dismal light returned to Jon’s face.

“That’s my tradition though- well, was my tradition. Now, I guess it’s gonna be Elias’ parties.” He grimaced, not without humor.

“He’s a bit enthusiastic, yes.” Jon scoffed. “Now I’m defending him.”

“Ah, sorry, now you’re catching it.”

Jon waved him off. “I could probably stand to be a bit less harsh to my employer. And I do like Melanie and Tim- at the best of times.”

“I won’t breathe a word of it to them.”

“Yes, I think you better not.”

“I won’t tell them you like ‘em if you don’t tell them that I do too.”

“Keeping secrets, are we?” Jon looked amused.

“Nah, just making sure I don’t fall in with a rough crowd.”

It was a joke, in part, but he realized Jon might have taken him literally when he said, “They are a bit unpredictable. Melanie hit a rough patch last year- worried about her for a while- but she started seeing someone and the show helped. Tim’s just… himself. Other than that, they’re okay, I try to make sure.”

“Yeah, no, you’re right,” said Martin, not bothering to correct him.

He never considered Jon the type to worry about anyone but himself. Not so scary now are you, he thought.

“I am technically their supervisor, so I’ll try to remind them to slow down now and then.”

“Wait, you’re their supervisor? Since when?”

“Not just theirs,” Jon said, a proud smirk wrinkling one eye.

“No way, this whole time?”

He shrugged. “Elias’s choice, not mine. He didn’t have time to keep an eye on the two of them- now three.” He seemed to notice Martin’s growing panic and embarrassment. “But don’t worry. It doesn’t mean much, just that I’m his go-between when he’s busy. And you’ve been doing fine so far.”

“Really? I know I don’t always do a perfect job- and I know Elias was telling me that my stuff can end up in the wrong place, but you can let me know if I could do something better or-”

“No, no, no. The mistakes you’ve made, they, uh- everyone makes them at some point.”

“Everyone? Did you?”

“Yes, I did.” He spoke as if it pained him to admit it. “You’d be surprised how easy it is to forget the alphabet.” A slight darkness colored his face.

Martin wanted to gloat or laugh. Instead, he allowed himself a small smile of triumph.

“Don’t think that I’m not watching you though.” He was smiling when he said it.

“I would never take advantage of your kindness, boss! - Ah, so that’s why Tim calls you that.”

“He does it to annoy me,” he grumbled, suddenly miserable.

Martin laughed a little at his erratic mood, then felt sorry that he had. “I mean, Tim does everything to annoy people! That’s just how he shows you that he cares.”

“All true.” He nodded like Martin had said something very wise (and Martin agreed that it was).

He thought about Tim inside, watching them fight, then remembered how he had come to find Jon outside. “Hey, who was that you were talking to? I heard you shout.”

Jon’s gaze became grim and bitter where it looked out over the city and Martin worried that he might have touched a sore subject when he hissed, “Mr. Leitner.”

“Who?”

“That old man who comes by and never checks anything out, you’ve seen him. White hair, old clothes.”

“Him? You were shouting at him?” Martin couldn’t help the disbelief in his voice, remembering the old man asleep in the chair. It was hard to imagine the old man picking a fight with anyone, let alone Jon.

“Yes, him. He always gave me the creeps, he did.”

“Mr. Leitner does?”

“I know how I must sound,” Jon looked at him with earnesty that made Martin’s ears prick. “But believe me. I’ve met him and he’s… he’s a joyless, old rich man with nothing better to do than to make others feel… bad.”

“That bad? What did he do? Are you alright?”

“He had some words for me.” He crossed his arms over his chest and looked at his shoe. “Said he’s a collector…” Jon stopped to chew his lip and the pause was ominous. “-and-and that he would drop by the sale sometime.”

“And that’s… bad?”

“He said-!” Jon looked up at him, desperate, then stopped and shook his head like he was trying to shake something out of it. “Don’t talk to him when I’m not here. I think he’s not quite all there. I bet he must have read himself blind with the cataracts he’s got.”

“I think I’m maybe… missing something here?”

“There is something about him that I just don’t like, I can’t explain it.” He spoke with urgency like he was trying to convince them both. Martin was a bit alarmed to see him so worked up.

“You can’t?”

“Won’t, I guess.” He folded his arms over his knees and put his head across them.

He sounded deathly earnest, but as flat as always at the same time. Martin believed what he heard, but he wished he knew Jon well enough to identify the emotion he was trying to convey or to understand the severity of what he was saying. As things stood, it was like trying to read a road sign without his glasses.

Martin nodded. “Okay.”

Jon lifted his head to look at him with curiosity. “You won’t ask.” It was halfway between a question and a statement.

“You’re the boss,” Martin said, even if he was wondering. “I can’t believe no one told me that about you when I started.”

“Doesn’t come up much,” Jon said, and he hummed in thought. “You like it so far though? The job and, uh, everyone?”

“I do,” said Martin. It was such an earnest question, with no expectations behind it, that he felt a bit touched. “It’s been nice. Thank you.”

Jon smiled briefly and blew a hot breath into the cold air. He adjusted his glasses, throwing little Christmas-colored lights off the lenses.

Martin watched the light dazzle off of them and felt… weird. Something had rooted down deep inside him, persistent but small, at the sight of it. By the time they both politely agreed that it was late, and they really should be heading home, Martin was sure that his curiosity for Jon had taken on a new form. He’d have to be certain of its shape and outline first, but he had a bad feeling that he already recognized it.