Chapter Text
“Where you go, I go.”
It was funny, Martin would muse later, how plans and convictions could change in an instant. How even a foundational belief could be changed in a single moment of action.
He hadn’t been lying, not this time. Not like Jon had lied. ( I need to have a smoke. Clear my head. ) Not like he had lied in turn, because for all his knowledge, the man he loved had always been a terrible liar. ( All right, Jon. I’ll be here. )
He crouched in front of the Panopticon’s imposing throne and held Jon’s hands in one of his, while his other hand fisted in his shirt, and he wasn’t going to leave.
“One way or another, together.”
This wasn’t a lie, either, because despite Jon’s now infinite sight, he never could see the future. Martin briefly considered that the statement might be for his benefit—some misguided attempt to make him more willing to go through with it all—except, that was never really his style, was it? Always preferred the direct method, his Jon did. Even that final lie, the one that led them here, was so entirely transparent that it was difficult to believe Jon expected him to fall for it.
He didn’t fall for it, of course. But he did take too long to react, to set his own plans in motion. If he’d just talked to Georgie and the others sooner, if he’d had a few things set up beforehand—
But he hadn't. He'd thought for sure that, at the end of the day, Jon would listen to reason. Except he should’ve known better, what with all of Jon’s dramatic, destructive guilt, and his talk about ‘my place in the Panopticon ’.
He’d have to remember that, next time.
Except here they were, and there wasn’t going to be a next time.
No, Martin thought, it was far more likely that what Jon had said was nothing more than a last, desperate hope. A wish cast out into the yawning chasm that was already trying to pull them into itself.
He could feel it, despite being nowhere near as tied to this place as Jon. The instability of the tower and the Institute beneath it. The feeling of a hook behind his chest pulling him out, elsewhere. Anywhere but here.
It hurt.
Jon was right: it was going to tear them apart unless he cut the tether.
If he also clung desperately to the same hope while the knife weighed down his hand, that didn’t have to be a contradiction, right? What was important was that this was their decision. Jon and his.
Together.
Then the knife was buried deep between his boyfriend’s ribs, and several things happened all in quick succession:
First, and most importantly, Jon died.
Martin had thought quite a lot about how he would kill Jonah when he got the chance. One stab, angled up, so he could get the withered old bastard directly in the heart. Killing him was supposed to feel like justice. Catharsis.
The moment when the Bride finally got to kill Bill.
Instead, Jonah was already dead and lifeless on the floor, and Jon took one last, shuddering breath.
Second, a moment of quiet.
Jon’s body slumped forward, as if it was trying to fold the knife into itself, and Martin was suddenly, acutely aware that he was alone. The feeling grew and nagged at him like an old friend, but it was all wrong now. He couldn’t lose himself like he used to, he wouldn’t, because he was supposed to be with Jon.
Together was all well and good while it lasted, but it turned out that had also been a lie, because Jon was dead and he wasn’t.
Third, the tether snapped.
Martin felt it instinctively, reverberating in his chest like the axis this world turned on (didn’t turn on?) had cracked suddenly in half, each pole shifting violently at the separation. The tug behind his chest was insistent now, and he felt like it would rip him in half if he didn’t allow himself to be pulled along with. He locked his hands around the arms of the chair anyways and clung to it, to keep from being dragged away.
Jon still sat there, of course, still and silent. Untouched by either the chaos or the force that was so intent on pulling Martin into itself.
Dead.
Dead and gone because Martin had killed him.
The foreboding, twisted iron of the panopticon’s throne dug painfully into his fingers as he tried desperately to hold on. He adjusted his grip slightly, and as he did so, the back of his hand brushed up against something thin and solid.
Something turned out to be a thin, unwound strand of tape, stretching past him and Jon in both directions. He jerked his hand away on instinct, only for his thumb to catch on another. He felt the resulting bass twang in his gut as it reverberated and echoed across the empty room.
Or rather, the previously empty room. In the seconds (hours? Did time exist yet?) since the tether snapped, he and Jon had become surrounded by a massive web, even larger than the one Annabelle had trapped him in at Hilltop Road. Magnetic tape and spiderweb wove in and around through each other, and if he looked closely, he could see rows upon rows of interwoven, repeating patterns. The effect was chaotic, but if he focused on the individual threads rather than allowing himself to get distracted by the rest of the web, he found he could pick out a few of their paths. How they wove in and around each other.
Still holding on tight with one hand, Martin plucked the thread again, this time on purpose. Reverberations spread out from him in a dozen directions, most of them eventually leading back to the yawning chasm that was still trying to drag him in, but one stretched out in the opposite direction. Back, he assumed, to the source.
What if he didn’t have to follow the tapes and the fears into the cracks between the worlds? If the tape came from a source, from a beginning, then it traced a path that he could follow.
He felt like his chest would shatter from the gravitational pull of the chasm—
Or maybe that was just the grief.
He didn’t want to be Somewhere Else without Jon.
Standing up was difficult, but he braced against the strain and managed it with less difficulty than he anticipated. One hand on the web, he leaned down and placed a soft kiss on Jon’s rapidly cooling forehead.
He thought briefly that he should say some words. Some final declaration of love, something for Jon to remember him by.
Stupid, really. Not like there was anyone here to listen.
“Right,” he said aloud, and the sound of his voice was immediately sucked down into the void like everything else, leaving behind it a rushing, empty silence.
The vibrations from the strand he plucked still rolled steadily backward.
Martin closed his hand around the thread, turned away from Jon’s body and Somewhere Else, and followed them.
“I just want to make a statement about what happened to me,” he said, the words rolling off his tongue like a script he had memorised a long time ago. “I mean, it’s—”
Martin looked around him, then, and sucked in a sharp breath. He was sitting in Jon’s office, the desk meticulously organised in a way it hadn’t been in years and contrasting sharply with the dozens of file boxes strewn about the room and haphazardly piled on top of each other.
On the other side of the desk, with his hands folded and a wary look in his eyes, sat Jon.
He looked so unlike the man that Martin loved and lost ( killed ), that he almost didn’t recognize him. His dark hair was carefully styled, and only barely greying at the temples, and his skin was smooth and unscarred. His face was all sharp, disdainful angles—not yet gaunt from years of grief and restless sleep.
In fact, the only part of him that Martin truly recognized was his eyes. They held that same calculating look that they always had—like he wanted to see the core of him, and was just waiting for Martin to reveal it. There was no love there, not yet, though Jon did look concerned. Though that could just be annoyance.
“Martin.”
Definitely annoyance.
“—it’s what we do,” he finished softly, finally remembering his line. He folded his hands in his lap and tried to remember what he had been like back then. What Jon would expect him to be.
Jon’s brow creased slightly. “What we do is research statements, usually those made by liars and the mentally unwell.”
“Jon, you know as well I do that some of the statements have—” he cast about for the right word, one that wouldn’t entirely end the conversation— “inconsistencies. Bits that can’t be properly explained, no matter how well we try to fit them together.”
“And I’m to believe that your extended sick leave is the result of one such story?”
“Yes, I suppose it is.”
Jon said nothing. The tape recorder sat between them, already whirring quietly.
Martin hadn’t ever thought to wonder why Jon had been so reluctant to take his statement all those years ago. At the time, he assumed it was just because Jon didn’t believe him and liked him even less. Now he wondered if a statement from an Institute employee was simply less satisfying to the Eye.
Or maybe it was just an extension of Jon’s defensive refusal to see the truth of his new position.
He tried again, because Jon needed to know what was coming for them,even if that meant feeding the Eye. “It doesn’t need to be an official statement, nothing you need to keep in the Archives,” he said, and felt the variation of words that he had said years ago. “Think of it as a favour for me, if you like. I just—” he swallowed, and felt fresh emotions from an event that he’d barely thought about in months choke his throat. “—I need a record that it happened.”
“Fine.” Jon didn’t soften—in fact if anything, his annoyance sharpened—but he yielded just the same, and Martin decided he would take that as a win. “Statement of Martin Blackwood, archival assistant at the Magnus Institute, London, regarding…”
“A close encounter with Jane Prentiss.”
Jon glanced up at him sharply, and Martin felt a small flare of satisfaction at his shock, given his previous disbelief and dismissal. He thought briefly that he should feel bad about that, but this wasn’t his Jon, after all. This Jon could use a few wake up calls every now and again.
The moment passed, and Jon was once again the serious professional. “Recorded direct from subject, 12th March, 2016,” he said, and did not comment on his surprise. “Statement begins.”
Until this exact moment, Martin hadn’t thought to worry about what he might say when giving his statement. It had all been well and good the first time, of course. He had been fresh off of 13 days of sheer terror and cared too much about Jon believing him to try and hide anything from him..
But he was not the Martin he’d been in 2016. He’d rather not spill all his secrets in Jon’s office, if he could help it, especially not when Elias was almost certainly watching.
He stalled for time, gesturing at the tape recorder. “So you want me to just—” He tried to remember when Jon had started to develop his compulsion and was almost positive it hadn’t started this early, but the statements had always been something different. Like Jon was just a channel to draw fully formed nightmares out of people’s heads.
“This was your idea,” he said testily. “From the beginning, please.”
“Right, sorry.” Martin took a deep breath and decided to let himself fall into the story. Either he’d tell all his darkest secrets and find himself in much deeper trouble than he already was… or he wouldn’t. Best just get it over with, really.
As it turned out, he really hadn’t needed to worry. He was here to tell about his experience with Jane Prentiss, not his experiences with Peter Lukas, or Jonah Magnus, or the end of the world, and Jon didn’t know enough to ask about the others.
Even the statement itself was a far simpler affair than he anticipated. He had expected to have difficulty remembering details and specifics, but while he still didn’t believe there was any compulsion as such—he was quite sure he could stop at any time, if he really wanted to try—the story flowed simply and easily.
Well, as easy as retelling a trauma to a voyeuristic fear god could ever be. The events had all been so fresh in his mind last time, that he hadn’t questioned the resurging fear bubbling up inside him. Now, however, each moment of rehashed terror hit his gut like a shockwave: his original encounter with Prentiss in the basement, the paranoia-filled tube ride back to Stockwell, the days stretching into weeks barricaded in his own flat, with scattered bouts of steady knocking the only thing to break the droning, horrible monotony—
Even just retelling the story, Martin itched . He fought very hard to stay still and keep his hands twisted in his lap, because he knew it was all in his head. There had been no worms in the Institute yet last time, and there were no worms here. He glanced around the room for the slimy little bastards all the same.
Two things stuck out to him, however, through the new haze of old fear. First, that he had only gone back down to the basement because he’d seen—or was convinced he’d seen—quite a large amount of spiderwebs. And second, he wasn’t entirely sure it was his idea to pull out his phone and take a picture of Jane Prentiss.
He wasn’t sure why he was surprised to see Annabelle’s fingerprints on events quite this early.
Somewhere along the way he stopped talking, and he supposed he must have come to the end of the story. He glanced up then, finally taking stock of the situation, and saw that Jon was staring at him with—well, he wasn’t entirely sure what to call it, actually. Empathy? Concern?
Hungry attention?
Jon blinked and took a shaky breath, which he unsuccessfully tried to hide by shifting his weight on the cheap office chair. “Statement ends.”
The feeling of being watched receded slightly, but of course didn’t fully leave. It never did, in the Institute.
“You’re sure about all of this, Martin?” Jon asked, finally.
“I’m not lying,” he said quietly. “I wouldn’t, not about this.”
He realised his mistake when he received his second sharp look of the day. If Jon had known enough to be paranoid, he would have pressed that statement, and it wouldn’t be too much longer before Martin would be unable to keep it from him if he asked.
Thankfully, this Jon thought he was just a bumbling archival assistant who had the bad luck to stumble into the path of a monster. He had also just been given far bigger things to worry about than one employee’s secrets.
“All right, then,” Jon said instead, and began occupying himself with organising the few papers on his desk that hadn’t already been sorted into neat little piles. “There’s a room in the archives I use to sleep when working late. I suggest you stay there for now. It’s supposed to be humidity controlled and, though it hasn’t been working for some time, it does mean it’s well sealed. Nothing will be sneaking through any window cracks.”
“Oh. Right, that’s—” Martin swallowed, hoping that the blush he felt crawling up his cheeks wasn’t visible, or at very least could be read as embarrassment. “Thank you.”
He remembered this, too—the sudden relief that his suffering was acknowledged and believed. That he was seen . He wondered if this was when he had first fallen in love with Jon.
For his part, Jon waved the thanks aside, not even looking at him. “It’s the only feasible option, as far as I see it. You obviously can’t go back to your flat, not with Prentiss lurking about. The Institute is by far the safest option.”
He wondered if Jon had noticed the scores of other options he had barely even considered. “You feel safe here?” he asked instead, putting more incredulity into the question than he felt.
“Why shouldn’t I?” Jon answered quickly, then paused, and a flicker of something Martin couldn’t read passed across his face. “I’ll speak to Elias about tightening security, at least temporarily. But once that’s done, there’s no reason to believe we’re not perfectly safe.”
Martin forced a little false levity into his voice. “I’ll take your word for it.”
“Right. Well, if there’s nothing else—” Jon broke off sharply as his phone buzzed. “Hang on.”
“Everything all right?”
He had suddenly gone very still, and Martin remembered why. He found himself braced for the threat, which was silly, because Prentiss certainly wouldn’t do anything now. Wouldn’t launch the attack on the Institute for months, so despite everything he said to Jon, they were actually safe.
He felt vulnerable all the same.
“It’s a text from you,” Jon said archly, holding his phone as if it was made of worms as well.
“I lost my phone.”
“Yes, so you said,” he agreed.
“What—“ Martin swallowed, and it wasn’t an act this time. “—what does it say?”
“Keep him. We have had our fun. He will want to see it when the Archivist’s crimson fate arrives. ”
He couldn’t help imagining what that would sound like in Prentiss’ voice, and he didn’t even try to suppress his shudder. “Well, that’s… ominous.”
“Hm. I wouldn’t worry about it,” Jon said, once again proving himself a terrible liar. “People experiencing a health crisis are often somewhat less than coherent—“
Martin laughed, a little wildly. “That didn’t exactly sound out of touch with reality to me—“
“— that being said. ” Jon paused then and stood, composing himself. “That being said,” he repeated more quietly, “I’ll go speak to Elias about that extra security.”
And just like that, he was gone, and Martin was alone in Jon’s office. In 2016. Two and a half years before the end of the world. His backpack sat at his feet—the same one he carried across the nightmare-scapes between Scotland and London—and at first he thought that he had somehow, impossibly brought it with him.
There was a photo of Jon, his Jon, tucked safe and secure in the front pocket. He scrambled for it, because all he wanted was to see him again—the Jon who had a softness in his eyes when he looked at him. The man he loved.
The only thing in the pocket was an empty crisp bag and a few pounds that looked like they had been stuffed inside in a hurry, and he dropped the backpack in frustration. Of course this wasn’t the same backpack, he wasn’t even wearing the same clothes that he had when—
The events in the Panopticon came back to him in a rush, and—mixed with the new (old) fear of Prentiss and her worms—threatened to overwhelm him. He felt the weight of the knife in his hand, and a sob started to crawl its way up and out of his throat.
Not here, he couldn’t—
What if Jon (the other Jon, not-his-Jon, all bustle and indignation and far too little humility) came back? What if Tim or Sasha heard him, what if they blamed Jon for it, what if—
He clamped his hands over his mouth, and bit down on the side of his cheek to keep any noise from escaping.
What if Elias— Jonah —saw?
That last question was the easiest to answer, he decided. He had just had a very traumatic experience, and one he had willingly narrated directly to the Eye at that. Jonah would consider the reason he was crying to be obvious, and while he would enjoy it, Martin didn’t think he would pry any further.
So that was settled, then. For the others, Martin just needed a little privacy so he could catch his breath, get his bearings, and try and make a few plans.
Thankfully, Jon had just offered him the space to do exactly that.
Half an hour later, Martin sat on the edge of the cot nestled against the back wall of what was barely more than a storage closet. But it would do. God knows he’d slept in worse places—if he never had to sleep in the tunnels again, he’d die a happy man. At least the cot had a mattress.
He wiped the last of his tears off his checks and tucked his backpack neatly underneath the cot.
He’d just finished sorting through and taking stock of what little supplies he had with him, a habit he’d gotten into after he and Jon went on the run. A habit that he continued long after ‘supplies’ as such became unnecessary.
If he was going to live down here for the next few months, he’d need to start stockpiling again.
He was going to need to start thinking about other things as well—namely, how he was going to stop events from playing out the same way this time.
While he was considering this, Martin glanced down and watched as a small spider crawled across his shoe.