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It feels... a bit like trying to drain the ocean while it's raining, really.
Still at work well past Midnight, and almost past 1 A.M., typical Wednesday decorum. Or is it Thursday, technically?
Martin's struggling to cite the last of his sources on the only non-Stranger case he's currently got, one very fake statement accusing a chip shop down the road of cannibalism.
It is as he begins to weigh whether visiting this shop would be covered by Institute funds, that he realizes he should really get something to eat and go home.
Next train won't be for 45 minutes. He's just missed this one. He's gotta wait.
It doesn't feel as late as it really is. He's been stuck in limbo, since they all left.
If there's anything they've missed in the statements, Martin's certainly not the one to find it. He's got absolutely no reason to be here, no boss to chide him for unfinished work, and he's not part of the team going out in the field.
He'd been there for their planning, of course. He has a very special part in it.
They've got a train to Yarmouth just before 8 the following morning.
They won't be contactable by tomorrow evening, having all agreed that turning off all trackable devices will be the safest course of action.
He'll be here, alone.
Melanie's gone out for food, with an ambiguous "See you," that doesn't actually explain whether she's coming back tonight or tomorrow or ever.
Everyone else has gone home, packing and resting while they can.
...(brings him back to 'quarantine sleepaway camp'.)
He's already given his own statement. Already fumbled over his words, hugged Tim with a bit more affection than coworkers usually warrant.
Already begged to the God in his head a thousand times over that Jon hasn't listened to the tapes just yet, and simultaneously prayed for him to even get the chance to.
Nothing else for it all but to go home. Back to his horribly lonely flat, a bed big enough for two but not another person in sight.
..Still, he finds himself in the Archives' break room, plugging in the electric kettle, and re-reading the copy-of-a-copy statement in his hands, soaking in Tim's handwriting in the margins, while he waits for water to heat up.
"Hey."
Martin feels like he jumps a mile in his own skin, but he probably only barely startles.
Jon's standing there, the door to his office hanging open behind. There's a lingering scent of ash and fire on his person, and he's not wearing a jacket. He couldn't have just arrived.
That's.... Funny, he hadn't even noticed Jon inside? And if there was anything he was good at noticing, it would be Jon-
"Oh. Did you... Forget something?"
"Not as such. I've, er, got nothing to pack."
Jon shrugs back towards his office, and Martin leans rightwards enough to see past him. There's a grey messenger bag sitting on the seat of the overly-large leather chair.
"An Archivist must always stay prepared," he mutters, eyes narrowing as he looks back too. "I've always got a spare change of clothes, just in case."
"I think this is the only Archive in the whole of Great Britain that rule applies to," Martin responds with a sigh, and Jon chuckles. It's a juvenile laugh, not even remotely fitting with the man who owns it, and it's a sound he rarely makes.
Like it's special, just for Martin's ears.
"So," Jon says, after a moment longer, "What's your excuse?"
"Nerves. Speaking of, care for some tea?"
It's a few minutes later they find themself sat at the folding table that passes for a lunch table, Jon in a matching folding chair and Martin in one of the rolly office ones he stole from an empty desk.
They're quietly waiting for their tea to steep. Jon's mug, a white one with an orange cat on it- a White Elephant gift that he pretends not to be fond of- and his, one from home, a green one with a map of Middle-Earth from Lord of the Rings, on it, are in the middle of the table. The strings of the tea bags are still intertwined, from where he'd haphazardly thrown them in together.
Jon is splayed out in exhaustion, one hand over his forehead as he silently thinks to himself.
Martin's just trying to drink in the sight of him for as long as he's got left.
Quite a while ago, nearly two years now, they had had an actual dining table down here. Chances were likely it'd just been dumped somewhere as part of a statement-giver's detachment from something, and Artefact Storage had deemed it both too bulky and too benign to be worth storing.
It didn't seem cursed, and it could fit all of them, just barely. Square, with one leg that was shorter than the others. So they made a joint decision to keep it.
It had been a joint effort to destroy it, too.
Jon had been berating Martin, who, too distracted to both take notes and walk back to his desk (and a little too red in the ears to hear at all,) nearly bumped into Sasha, who only dodged his clumsiness by tripping right into Tim. Tim, graceful as he was, had slammed his shoulder into the table, and it had gone down like a sinking ship.
They'd tried to get it replaced, but every single time they debated bringing it up with Elias in an attempt to get something done about it, they had broken down into such intense laughter fits, that the topic had gotten outlawed on the off-chance that it gave someone an asthma attack.
Just- there were so many elements to the whole thing. The way Tim had yelled as he'd gone down, or Sasha dropping the box she was carrying and falling face-first into it, or the way Martin's stack of papers had perfectly slid into the trash can, leaving him to dig them out of a bag of coffee grinds and banana peels.
Jon's utterly aghast face as he stared, part disgust, part mortification at his own part in the ordeal.
The table had been unsalvageable. So one of them had pulled out this one from the janitor's closet, and.. there it had stayed.
Once kept as a reminder- now just the least of anyone's concerns.
Jon doesn't yell at him anymore. Tim doesn't go pirouetting around the office.
They usually eat lunch out of the Archives now, anyway. Separately. If at all.
He can still recall the way the loud crack of wood shot through the Archives, the following laughter that erupted, and the taste of iron in his mouth as Jon feebly tried to help them off the ground, starting by grabbing his hand.
The memory of the table splintering can still draw a smile, even if that of Sasha specifically cannot.
It's like she's still here, he thinks, sometimes. A fuzzy face on the edge of an anecdote, and an easygoing laugh that's always a little muffled.
But she's not really. She was taken, by the exact same thing that's threatening to steal Jon and Tim from him. Maybe this time next week, he won't remember their faces either.
Someone sent him a Polaroid camera, right after Leitner's murder. Maybe Martin isn't the smartest man in the world, but he's smart enough to recognize Jon's handwriting.
...(Take photos. Plenty. And double lined beneath it, stay safe.)
Strung along the break room's fridge, there is a garland of Polaroids.
Tim's feels more like a mugshot. Jon's is a candid he snapped during lunch at the sandwich shop down the road a few months ago. Basira and Daisy are memorialized together in one shot, caught asleep on the dingy, floral-upholstered sofa out in the bullpen.
There is a 3x4 square of printer paper pinned up too, drawn up with Melanie's best chicken scratch, of a face none of them remember. Tall, dark, with wide, rounded glasses.
This is for her. What they're about to do, it's for her.
Memories of Sasha are almost always followed by this deep fear that she's only the first to fall, and not just a freak accident.
Gertrude was murdered, he's reminded. This building has a body count, and it's growing steadily higher. Who can say who's next?
Martin smiles weakly. And looks up at Jon, refusing to let him catch onto these more cosmic fears.
"I guess this is it," he says softly. "No turning back,"
Jon nods, not moving from his janky position.
"Got anything you want off your mind? Y'know, so you don't die a.. 'god damn' mystery?"
Jon snorts. It's a ridiculous callback. But it does earn him a response. "Believe me, Martin. There's nothing left to say. I've recorded and re-recorded my statement thrice, and gone through everyone else's as well."
"E-Even mine?"
"Of course."
"Oh,"
"I think I would be able to tell if you were becoming some sort of.." Jon runs a hand through his peppered grey hair, a sort of peaceful disdain in his voice as he mimicks Martin's own shaky disposition. "Spider-person. As you put it."
"At least I'm not a ghost," Martin retorts, his head spinning a little. Is that all he has to say on the matter?
The room falls quiet again. He can hear the faint humming of the fluorescent lights, and Jon's breaths are quiet and ragged.
He reaches out a cold hand for his mug. It's still hot to the touch, but in this case, it feels rather nice. A familiar, soothing heat flowing through his veins.
There are a thousand things more he wants to say. But they're being watched, so that probably narrows it down to only a few hundred.
At least fifty of them involve the words 'I,' 'love,' and 'you.'
"I, um, wish I could go with you." is one of the more juvenile sentiments he feels, and not one that he's serious about. That's why he feels comfortable saying it out loud.
"We both know it would be a terrible idea."
Yes, they do.
He hasn't seen it all, not in the way Tim and Jon have. Hell, his first reaction to the whole plan was to touch the volatile C4. He's an Administrative Assistant who tried doing field research one time, and got tailed by the literal embodiment of rot for his efforts.
He's got no leg to stand on, being that Daisy and Basira are Sect. 31ers and Tim's spent weeks on this whole thing, probably longer, and Jon's got a degree from Oxford, and telepathy, which is all significantly more impressive than his Photoshopped resume.
It makes sense from every single angle for him to stay back, hold down the fort.
He's the only one who can pull this part of the plan off. Everything he's done has lead up to this, and in between the cracks of dread etched upon his very soul, he's almost excited for it.
Jon trusts him to do this. And he needs to trust everyone else in turn.
He knows this as a fact. Knows it as strongly as he knows the sky is blue. It doesn't make implicit trust any less hard.
Call it cruel, but he's not even worried about Basira or Daisy. He cares about them, sure, but they'll be fine, and it's never even crossed his mind to worry otherwise.
He's afraid to let Tim out of his sight, though, some deep, dwelling feeling that if he does, he'll never see him again.
He's probably right.
And it's probably exactly what Tim wants.
(take care of yourself too.)
...(always do.)
He can make peace with it. If he closes his eyes, thinks about the hollow, miserable look in Tim's eyes when he goes too long without speaking.
The three of them are still here. But it always feels like more than Sasha died last July. Like Martin's the only one left.
Tim's always been there for him, always the first to invite him for drinks after work. It was Tim who finally tracked down the Cocker Spaniel that very first day, and he has a sneaking suspicion that Jon and Sasha would never have warmed up to him without a few disciplinary yelling matches first.
He's medium height, but he always has a loud, commanding presence, and he wears his scars far better than the rest of them. He likes button-ups with ridiculous designs, though they feel more like an ironic cry for help sometimes than the cheeky mark against authority they're intended as.
He's good at what he does, shields the team full of bumbling social rejects from ever having to interact with the public. Always quick with a joke, a flashy smile.
At least, that's how Martin would have described him a year ago.
The man who slinks around now is different in perhaps every way, barring the worm scars. Shambling, empty. Cruel and sharp. He hasn't been eating. Martin's sure of it. He's just waiting for a chance to take himself out, really.
Sasha's not the only one the Stranger stole away. It's a horrible thought to have, Martin shivers every time he does so, but it's true.
(..you're not going to stop me.)
Maybe it's a mercy.
And, Jon..
Jon's changed too, and though it feels cruel to call it for the better, that's really the only way he can describe it. He's softer, now. More vulnerable. Feels more like a real person, and less like a caricature of one.
In the dim light of the break room, Jon seems far more fatigued than usual. With one leg- his bad leg- crossed in the air, and his head lolled at an awkward angle, he looks a bit like a dead insect you'd find on a forgotten windowsill.
What if he gets sloppy? What if he gets skinned for real this time?
Disentangling his tea bag's string from the other cup, Martin wraps his fingers around his mug handle, sliding it towards himself.
Jon's not dressed sharply today, just a grey button-up and black slacks. His hair, already grown past his ears and rapidly growing more, is frizzy. His glasses are neatly folded, set on the break room table between him and the mugs, and the hand that dangles off the chair is shaking.
He looks tired. He looks scared.
...(of course I believe, Martin. But I'm scared.)
Jon is only a man. Despite what he might think.
And Martin is quite sure that if Jon doesn't survive, he won't either.
If Jon dies, he just doesn't know what he'll do.
Damn keeping Elias alive. If he's gonna die either way, he might as well go out swinging,-
But Jon won't die, he reminds himself.
Jon's still alive, right here, right now. And he'll be back in a week or so, and maybe they'll finally get a chance to talk for real. Without being watched.
He considers his next words carefully, desperate to draw out a comforting laugh or dry remark from the man, when-
"Elias did not specify this as a required skill at the interview," Jon drawls, beating him to the punch. He removes the hand from his face and casts his eyes to Martin's face.
Martin smiles wryly. At least Jon got an interview. Some form of warning about what he was in for, not just a quick email readjusting his hours and job title.
"D'you think we're due for a raise?" he replies, coolly.
"I'll bring it up with him next chance I get," Jon laughs. It's a dry, ironic laugh. Martin laughs too.
"Ah, well." Martin brings the cup to his lips, and tips it ever so slightly. The tea is still too hot, and not fully steeped, but he bears through the pain anyway.
"Embellish your receipts on the expense report a bit, for me," he shrugs.
"I've already booked the best hotel Great Yarmouth can offer, believe me."
"Which is?"
"A 4* Comfort Inn. I suspect we'll be making heavy use of the continental breakfast bar."
There's something so horribly, ironically depressing about the whole thing. You can't escape the soul-sucking drab of capitalism even when you're about to face the end of the world.
Something about one's last meal being powdered eggs and stale toast leads him to laugh in a way that's driven by absolutely no humor.
"Isn't it Tim's job to abuse company funds?" Martin asks with a sweet tone that normally makes Jon smirk. He's hoping it'll counteract the words so that they, at least, come out of it with a neutral expression.
"Yes," Jon says sadly. "It is."
Tim.
He's intentionally leading the conversation here. Partially, it's practice for tomorrow. Partially, he just wants to pick apart Jon a little more. Easier to practice manipulation on a guy who's never heard the definition of a social cue, let alone picked up on one.
"Do you think he'll...?"
The word 'die' becomes a self fulfilling prophecy before it leaves his lips, and his sentence can't help but fizzle off without it.
"Right here, in this room? I don't think anything. It's my, ah, professional opinion."
"Right."
..(but in the tunnels, it would be something else.)
He takes another sip. The map detailing on the front of the mug is worn out. He's had this mug for years. He wonders if Jon's ever read Lord of the Rings.
Hm. Pu'erh tea. It's not his favorite, but it is Jon's. Musty, strong, an acquired taste.
Not something he would ever drink on his own, if not for the fact the Archivist keeps a box of the bagged stuff in the top cabinet. There is something incredibly silly about his preference of a specialty tea blend, but not minding the low quality nature of bagged tea.
Jon likes his tea unfathomably sweet. It's an incredibly odd contrast to the dark, fermented taste, and you'd think one would overpower the other.
It took them a while to get here. For him to spill exactly what it was he liked to drink, if not coffee, and if English breakfast 'wasn't exactly his favorite.'
Martin takes his straight. No sugar whatsoever. He hates it overbrewed, but prefers it bitter. As strong as possible.
Sweeteners only drown out the complex flavors, and milk is just a cheap trick to make it easier to stomach.
Jon hates metaphors.
Martin's eyes flick back to the Polaroids behind them, and then to the dent in the wall from the corner of a table long-disposed of.
"I meant what I said in my statement, you know." There's really no way to bring it up casually, no tone one can use that doesn't portray at least a little bit of desperation. Martin can only keep himself from literally, physically crying, and not much more. "You better come back."
...(I don't want to be the only person here who remembers why rum & raisin is the best ice cream flavor.)
"It's a kind gesture, Martin, but if anyone else is dying in the line of fire, we both know it's me."
"You're not a boat captain, Jon. This- it isn't a shipping company, you don't need to go down with it."
"Rather it be me than any of them," Jon sighs, more to himself than out loud. He breaks eye contact, staring at the office beyond Martin's turned back. "I don't want them to end up like the last batch of Archival assistants. I won't let it."
Martin twists his head around, and as soon as he does so, Jon looks to the floor guiltily. It's just an empty office. There's no one in there. So why is it, then, that there's a faint halo of smoke in a haze around the desk lamp?
"There were more?"
"Never mind." With a sense of finality, Jon sets his lips in a grim frown, shaking his head. His eyes flick back to Martin, and the table between them.
He wants to press, ask about the haunting flicker of dread passing over Jon's face. Instead, he says "Your tea should be strong enough now," softly.
Jon nods, reaching for his white mug at the same time as Martin leans forward to hand it to him, and their heads are both hanging over the folding table.
"Thank you," he says, choked and stunted, as their eyes meet.
Jon's eyes are soft, and... More hazel-y, than he remembers. Not that he spends a lot of time looking at Jon's eyes, but he would swear by them being a deeper brown, not a sort of forest-y hazel with rings of green. They were more warm than this, and- And he's 3 inches from Jon's face.
He can feel Jon's shallow breath on his neck, and-
Jon pulls him into a hug. His own hands shoot out from between them, grabbing his- his friend's shoulders, wrapping around them.
Jon's gained a little weight. Not a lot. Just a little bit. He feels almost healthy, even. Maybe healthier than before this all began.
Martin shudders, pulling him closer. The table digs into his stomach, and Jon has to lean all of his weight onto his good leg, just to make it work.
"If you go down with the ship, I'll skip your damn funeral," he whispers into Jon's shoulder. "I hate being the acting Head Archivist. I'm tired of taking statements for you."
Jon laughs again. That same laugh. A laugh meant for just their ears.
"Don't get too attached to the title; I'll expect it back."
Whatever his hug with Tim had been, this is even less professional. He can smell Jon's shampoo- it's cheap, a nondescript fragrance- and the smell of burning paper is even more clear now. Cigarette ash, and burnt hair.
Jon's hand brushes against his cheek. It's soft, apart from the pock marks left by Prentiss. His own hand finds itself lower down his friend's back than is strictly professional.
He doesn't want to let Jon go, but somewhere, softly, the clock chimes 1.
Like the bell tower breaking the spell, Jon clears his throat.
They break away, his arm still lingering on Jon's back, and a strand of Jon's hair caught on his shirt button. Tearing away in strands, like a cobweb.
For a moment, he looks like he wants to say-or do- something else, biting his lower lip. There's an almost rabid desire in his eyes as they stare into Martin's.
Then he slides a hand into his shirt's breast pocket, pulling something out.
"Here," he says, palming that something into Martin's hand.
The cool, smooth feel of a metal lighter, a scratchy pattern etched into the surface.
He's seen Jon light cigarettes with this- when he thinks no one is paying attention.
Hm. This might do the job, for what he's got planned. He can't say it out loud, but his mouth silently forms the syllables of 'thank you,' and Jon's a soundless 'good luck.'
"I've got to meet them at the station in 5 hours," Jon mumbles, and shivers. "I've got to run by my flat first. Mind if I take the tea to go?"
He minds very much. Would rather Jon stay a little bit longer, so they can talk a lot more.
But a blind profession of love would fall on deaf ears. And he's got a very, very important job to do tomorrow.
So he just shrugs. "Of course not," and turns the heavy weight of the lighter over and over in his palm, digging its corners into the flesh of his hand.
As Martin watches him heave the messenger bag back over his shoulder, stumble over a loose board, and wave, it occurs to him that Jon had grabbed the wrong mug.
He'll just have to return it later.
Jon will be fine. He'll come back.
Martin takes a sip out of the white cat mug and sighs.
And he'll be here, waiting, when he does.