Chapter Text
“I’ve got…earl grey?” Martin called from the kitchen as he rifled through the cabinets. “I don’t think we have anything that would help your head but…I mean, who really knows? Maybe beholding headaches are only suppressed by the power of earl grey.”
Jon hummed from his place on the couch; his head tucked into the crook of his elbow. “At this point…” He trailed off as he tensed, the pain seeming to come in another harsh wave. He whined, bringing his legs up as he curled around himself.
Martin frowned, placing the kettle on the stove. “Are you…okay? Like, this isn’t some…I mean, you’re probably just sick, right? Not like…supernaturally compelled to have a headache?”
“I wouldn’t know.” Jon murmured. “Or…well, not about this, anyways. I don’t think.”
Martin placed the teabag in Jon’s mug in preparation for the hot water, turned the stove on, then made his way to the Archivist’s side. He kneeled down, placing his hand on Jon’s cheek. “You don’t have a fever…” Martin murmured, “You said this just suddenly came on this morning, yeah?”
Jon nodded, “I was fine last night…I’m sure it’s nothing. Stress headache. Got them all the time at the Institute.” He rubbed his eye, frowning. “Although…”
A jolt of panic went through Martin at the hesitation, a million things racing through his mind. “Although what?”
“It feels…odd.” Jon pushed some of his hair away from his face before Martin took over for him, sitting on the edge of the couch and gently running his fingers through the smaller man’s hair. “Like…it’s pulling.”
“Pulling?”
“You know how headaches sort of feel like something is pressing against your skull?” Jon asked, waiting for Martin’s nod of confirmation before continuing, “This feels like…like my brain is trying to escape. Like it’s on a string and someone is…pulling it out. Or pulling their way to me.” He winced again, and Martin pulled the blanket up over his shoulders, hoping that the pressure would help relieve some of the ache. “Ngh….ow.”
Martin bit his lip, “So the chances of it being supernatural in origin are…what?”
“Not zero.” Jon sighed, “But at this point, I don’t really care. I just want it to sto-ah-” He squeezed his eyes shut, and Martin’s heart ached for him, a familiar feeling of uselessness creeping its way into his mind.
Martin leaned down to press his lips to Jon’s temple before opening his mouth to murmur some assurances that he knew wouldn’t do any good. Before he could, however, the air, for lack of a better word, twisted. They both gasped, and Jon sat bolt upright, nearly smacking Martin’s head with his own. It felt like the world around them was suddenly spinning, even as Martin couldn’t see anything distinctly wrong around them, and a fuzzy static sound invaded his ears, deafening everything that wasn’t the small cries escaping Jon’s lips. He wrapped his arms around the Archivist for lack of anything better to do in the situation, “It’s okay, I’ve got you.” He whispered as he felt Jon clutch the back of his sweater.
Jon was trembling, his head tucked into Martin’s shoulder and his fingers digging into Martin’s back as he cried, “It hurts, Martin.”
The static around them increased, and now Martin could feel some inkling of the pain that he was certain was going through Jon’s head. It seemed to radiate around them, a sharp, tugging feeling, like they were a splinter being pulled out of thick, tender skin. It felt like something was dragging its way toward them, to their only safe place in the world. He wished that he could harness the Lonely better, that he could hide both himself and Jon from whatever was coming to get them. He wanted to cover them both in mist and disappear from the world, to just allow Jon to stop hurting and the panic to stop seeping into both of them. Jon cried out again as a ringing sound joined the static, the world both solid and liquid whenever Martin chanced a glance around. It all seemed to increase every second until they were both drowned in it, until nothing made sense despite the house seemingly maintaining its shape. Martin was about to take Jon into his arms and run, when the Archivist suddenly stiffened and then went limp, and it all stopped.
Martin blinked, his chest heaving as he tried to orient himself again. The world had stopped spinning, the sounds were all gone, the house felt normal again. He swallowed, looking down at Jon to see him utterly limp and unconscious, his hands resting by Martin’s legs and his full body weight pressed against him. It took a few moments for Martin to find his voice. “Jon!” He hissed, gently jostling the man. When Jon didn’t wake, he lay him back on the couch, pressing his ear to his chest. The anxiety in his chest loosened slightly when he heard that familiar, strong heartbeat. Jon was unconscious, but he didn’t seem hurt beyond that.
Martin wiped a tear off of his cheek, adjusting his glasses in the process. “Jon…please wake-”
A knock sounded at the door, freezing Martin in place. It was weak, a small tap-tap, but absolutely there. Martin swallowed, glancing at his unconscious boyfriend and then back to the door. “It’s a bad idea to open doors.” He reminded himself out loud, but he stood anyway, squeezing Jon’s limp hand as he did. “You don’t know who’s behind it, Martin.” He muttered, hesitating at the door, his hand on the knob. The tap-tap sounded again, weaker this time. Muscles tense and fully prepared to slam the door shut again should he be attacked, Martin called out, “I’m-I’m opening the door!! Don’t do anything stupid!” He slowly turned the knob, cracking the door until he could see who was outside.
It was a man, one who felt familiar, though Martin couldn’t place his finger on who exactly it was in the two seconds he had before the man opened his mouth, his voice hoarse and small as he whispered, “..help…” The man swayed severely, and Martin, more out of muscle memory than anything else, opened the door fully and darted out to catch him. Martin expected something to happen when he did, more than likely something very bad, but nothing did. The man was human, as far as he could tell. The only thing strange about him was the absurd amount of blond curls that cascaded from his head - they seemed to move, but only in the corner of Martin’s eye. Beyond the hair, the man was pale and shivering, his clothes drab and completely shredded. His feet were bare, and his fingers seemed to clutch at nothing. Despite being normal, Martin couldn’t help but feel that the fingers looked odd. The nagging familiarity was replaced by the sudden solid realization of who he was holding, and Martin cursed under his breath.
The Distortion. The Spiral. Michael.
Not wanting to be seen holding an unconscious person on his front porch, regardless of who said person (or not-person) was, Martin scooped up the avatar and brought him inside, laying him on the floor when he realized that Jon was still on the couch. He wasn’t about to move his unconscious boyfriend for the unconscious maybe-monster that had tried to kill him, and he certainly wasn’t about to have either out of his sight by putting one of them on the bed.
As Martin was finally able to get himself out of panic mode, he was able to take the Distortion in a bit better, realizing quickly that something was very different. Michael didn’t hurt to look at like he had before, as his body was solidly human. He was dressed in brown clothes resembling those which one would wear in the snow, but them being so shredded made it difficult to tell, his light blue scarf the only thing that seemingly made it out relatively intact. Michael had still-bleeding, shallow cuts all over his hands, and when Martin chanced it to look closer, he could see bits of glass stuck in those no-longer-long fingers. His hair was stupidly long, the loose curls reaching far past his knees in a cascade of different shades of blond. He looked more like a human than the throat of delusion, but Martin wasn’t about to take any chances, keeping him in his line of sight as he switched the stove off.
It took a few minutes for Jon to begin stirring, and Martin let out a relieved sigh when he did. He sat next to him, holding the man’s hand but keeping an eye on the Spiral as Jon began to wake with a groan. “Mmm…Martin?” Jon murmured, his eyes slipping open.
“Hey.” Martin squeezed his hand, “Are you okay?”
Jon blinked, using Martin’s hand as leverage to hoist himself up, “Nghhh…” He wrinkled his nose, blinking and shaking his head like he had emerged from a pool of water. “It - it doesn’t hurt.” He frowned, “Why doesn’t it hurt?”
Martin cupped his jaw, “I think…it may have had something to do with him.” He said, glancing at the man on the floor.
Jon followed his line of sight, shock appearing on his face when his eyes landed on the Distortion. “...Michael?”
“I think so, yeah.”
Jon glanced between the two of them before he pushed off his blanket and swung his legs over the couch. Ignoring both Martin’s warning and the cane resting on the coffee table, he took a few steps before sitting back on his knees next to the tangle of blond hair on the floor. “What the hell?”
“The world went weird, you passed out, there was a knock on the door, Michael passed out in my arms.” Martin said, wanting to pull Jon away but knowing it wouldn’t be appreciated. Instead, he picked up Jon’s cane and brought it to him, laying it by the Archivist’s side. “Jon, whatever made you sick earlier, it had to do with him. Maybe being near him isn’t a good idea.”
Jon shook his head, “I feel fine. He’s hurt.”
“He also tried to kill you.” Martin reminded him, “Just, y’know…there’s that.”
Jon nodded, “But Helen is the Distortion. I saw Michael die. He can’t be here. Something is wrong.” He reached out hesitantly, his curiosity seeming to get the better of him. Or perhaps it was the eye, guiding his hand and infecting him with its desire to know. “Something…something is wrong.” He repeated, his fingers brushing lightly atop Michael’s torn-up hands.
Martin saw those no-longer-strange fingers twitch minutely, and he opened his mouth to shout a warning as Michael’s eyes snapped open and the man shrieked, fear coloring his hoarse voice as he scrambled backwards, his body slamming against the coffee table. “Don’t! Please! I’m sorry!”
Jon looked stunned, his hand hovering over where Michael had just been lying unconscious, as Martin stood up, his body ready for a full-scale Spiral event to occur. When it didn’t, he took a step back, his eyes not leaving the trembling figure in front of them. Jon beat him to speaking, his voice softer than Martin’s would have been, facing down a man who had attempted to murder him. “Michael?”
Michael jerked, his arms wrapping tightly around himself, the blood on his hands staining what was left of his coat, and his legs continuing to push against the floor as if willing his body to melt into the coffee table. His eyes were wild, but they contained none of the flashing colors or headache-inducing patterns of before. Those colors had been replaced by grey irises which darted about, landing on Martin, on Jon, on the front door, back to Martin, back to Jon. Every muscle was tense, even as his frantic movements slowed.
Jon crawled forward slightly, “Michael?” He whispered again, like he was talking to a cornered animal. He probably was, all things considered.
Michael’s eyes finally stopped darting around and instead locked onto his, wide and staring and panicked. He swallowed, his chest heaving as he opened his mouth. “...That-that is a real name.”
Martin cringed at the torn-up quality to Michael’s voice. He no longer sounded like he was speaking through a fun-time filter, his tone lower and stuttering. He sounded like he’d been screaming for days on end, his full voice barely there. He shared a glance with Jon as Jon asked, “Is it yours?”
Michael coughed, but didn’t inhale before speaking again. “I-I think-yes? I…” He swallowed, but still did not inhale, his chest convulsing as his throat didn’t seem to cooperate with what his body needed.
Martin knelt properly next to Jon, a strange mix of feelings bubbling up. He didn’t want Michael to pass out, regardless of how he felt about the man. “Michael, breathe.”
Michael shook his head, curling further in on himself. “I-I-”
“Breathe first. Then talk.” Martin took an exaggerated inhale, “Like that, yeah? Breathe, you’re going to hurt yourself, Michael.”
Michael watched his chest rise and fall a few times before something in his head seemed to click and he gasped, choking on the air that his body had been denying him. He took a few sharp, ragged gasps before he seemed to get back into the rhythm of it, and those gasps quickly turned into throat-tearing sobs, tears beginning to stream down his face. “Please-” He choked on his words, “I-nggh…”
Jon moved forward slowly, reaching his hand out to the being that was looking less and less like the Distortion as Martin watched. Michael only had eyes for Jon as he spoke, “Michael, hey. Hey, you’re okay. You’re safe here, you’re okay.”
Michael shook his head, “It’s-it ate me or-” A slightly hysterical laugh bubbled out of his throat, “or I-I ate it-”
“You’re not in the spiral, Michael.” Jon reached out, hesitantly taking Michael’s hand. Michael winced, but didn’t seem to want to let go, holding onto Jon’s hand like a lifeline once he had it. “You’re in Scotland, in…well, my place, sort of.”
“Sort of?” Michael’s breathing hitched.
“No, no, not sort-of. Bad choice of words, I’m sorry.” Jon shook his head quickly, “It’s my friend’s house, she’s letting me and Martin stay here. It’s a safehouse.”
“Safe…house.” Michael repeated, reaching his other hand out.
“Yeah, it’s safe here.” Jon nodded, taking both hands in his own. “You’re safe. You’re not in the hallways. You’re okay.”
Michael sobbed, seemingly uncaring of the glass that was embedded in his fingers as he squeezed Jon’s hands. His hair was doing something strange, twisting slightly like it had a mind of its own, but Martin figured that right now was not the time to bring that up. When a violent shiver wracked Michael’s body again, Martin reached past him to the couch and pulled the blanket that Jon had been wrapped up in not even a few minutes ago. Jon pulled Michael’s hands slightly, forcing his back away from the table as Martin placed the blanket around his trembling shoulders.
Michael glanced at him, “Oh. He-Hello.”
“Hello.” Martin repeated back at him, a strange worry filling the place where anger had formerly resided. This man had tried to kill Jon, but the way that Jon was acting…it felt like there was more to it than that. Jon had told him a little bit of the statement that Michael had made before Helen appeared - Martin wondered if the man in front of them was less Spiral than he’d thought. If he was, his anger could be…misdirected. “Breathe.” He reminded him, for lack of anything better to say.
“I think I am.” Michael coughed again, a pained whine escaping his throat. “It-it hurts.” Tears dripped off of his chin, landing on his arms. The ends of his hair twisted like a snake, making its way up his arms and brushing against Jon’s knuckles.
Jon nodded, not making any move to get away from the least human-looking part of the man. “I can imagine.” He said, his voice hushed, “Once you calm down a bit, we can help you, okay? Clean you up, fix your hands.” He brushed his thumb over the back of the former Distortion’s hands, “Michael?”
“Please.” Michael nodded, his body suddenly quitting in its trembling. Michael seemed as surprised as Martin felt, glancing down at himself. “Oh?”
“That’s…one way to calm down, I suppose.” Jon gave Michael a smile, though Martin could tell it was strained.
“That doesn’t…I…” Michael sniffed, the tears also having stopped with his trembling. “That doesn’t make sense…”
“Maybe that’s why it worked.” Jon gently slipped his hands out of Michael’s, pulling the blanket tighter over his shoulders instead, “Are you okay?”
Michael shook his head, “Yes.”
“...right, so is that a yes or no?”
“I don’t know.” Michael shivered again, “I’m human, I think.” He looked properly at Jon, his eyes no longer wide. “...Archivist.”
“Jon.” Jon corrected, watching it register to the other. “Or Jonathan, if you want to get proper with it.”
“Michael.” Michael said, “Or…Michael. I don’t…um…”
“Michael.” Jon nodded, “Of course you are.”
Michael hummed, looking down at his hands. “These aren’t long enough, maybe?”
“They’re human-sized.” Martin offered, “And you’re human.”
“I am.” Michael agreed, “I don’t feel good.” He looked up at the two men, "Why don’t I feel good?”
“I can think of a few reasons.” Jon said, offering his hands again, “Why don’t we get you cleaned up, and we can talk? And if you don’t want to talk, you can rest. I’m sure you’ve been through an ordeal.”
Michael nodded but made no move to stand. “You can’t pick me up.” He said, eyeing the offered hands and then glancing at the cane still laying behind Jon’s ankles. “I’ll hurt you.”
“Oh, that’s an issue for you now, hm?” Martin muttered under his breath. Jon gave him a warning look, and Martin sighed, “Sorry, sorry…but he’s right, Jon, and you know it.” He moved closer to the blond, offering his arm, “I can help though. C’mon.” He watched Michael process the offer before hesitantly reaching out. Martin hooked his arm underneath Michael’s shoulder, lifting the man to his feet.
Michael swayed, leaning heavily on Martin for support, “I didn’t…I don’t want to hurt you…” He whispered, clutching the blanket around himself, “I promise…I’m sorry…” He seemed to be talking more to himself than anyone else and seemed utterly uninterested in walking as he did so. Martin picked him up properly, holding the former Distortion gently before depositing him on the couch. “I’m sorry.” Michael muttered again.
“It’s okay.” Martin lied, “Rest.”
Michael’s eyes were already closed, his hair finally quitting its strange movements and hanging limply like well-behaved, human hair should. Martin felt a hand on his shoulder and turned to Jon, “Are you okay?”
Jon nodded, “Confused, mostly.” He leaned on his cane but seemed to be doing it more out of habit than of actual pain.
“He had something to do with your headache.”
“Yes.” Jon agreed, “Martin, are you…”
“Fine.” Martin squeezed Jon’s shoulder, “Angry at him for trying to kill you, but that seems to be a recurring pattern.”
“I’m not angry with him.” Jon sighed, “That was…confusing. A lot happened. Michael was hurt badly by Gertrude, so was the Distortion.” He paused, tapping his fingers on the cane’s handle, “I forgive him. Besides, if he’s Michael, not the Distortion, he’s probably just as confused and scared as we are, if not more. I don’t want to cause him more hurt, not if I can help it.”
“Why’s he here?”
“We’ll ask him that when he’s able to answer.”
As their strange new guest slept, Jon and Martin spent the time healing what they could with their little first aid kit. Jon had spent the better part of an hour picking glass out of Michael’s hands with tweezers and wrapping them in bandages while Martin picked out some of his clothes to dress the man in once he woke. He’d taken the blue scarf and folded it, placing it and the most shredded bits of his coat on the table, but said he didn’t want to completely undress him, unsure how Michael would react once he woke.
Now, Michael was covered in a few thick blankets and a cup of tea was cooling next to him, his hair a spiraling mess around the couch. Martin had mentioned wanting to tie it away, but Jon had watched it move and said they shouldn’t do anything past fixing up his wounds without talking to him first. The blond mumbled nonsense in his sleep but hadn’t done anything but occasionally cry out since he’d gone unconscious again.
After triple-checking that Michael was still unconscious, Jon wandered into the kitchen where Martin was tidying up, “Martin?”
“Hm?” Martin looked up, “Is he still asleep?”
“Dead to the world.” Jon confirmed, pressing his side to Martin’s. He leaned against his partner for a moment, eyes closing as Martin put his arm around him. Martin was warm, and Jon wished he could just sink into him and forget everything that was happening around them. After a moment he pulled away, “I wonder if Helen knows.”
“Maybe she could take him off of our hands.” Martin put their mugs back into the cabinet, “He’s obviously still spiral-aligned.”
Jon frowned, “Martin, he’s not…he’s not a danger to us anymore. I don’t think he ever really wanted to be either.”
“Is that a guess, or do you Know?”
“It’s a guess.” Jon sighed, “I didn’t want to Know without his permission - being Known could hurt if he’s still connected to the Distortion, I think.”
“Jon, he tried to kill you.” Martin looked at him incredulously, “Helen is the only reason you’re alive, in a weird way. You told me that Michael was halfway there when he died.”
“The Distortion was going to kill me. Michael Shelley…well, I don’t know how much of it was him and how much was the Distortion. I need to give him a chance.”
“Why?”
“Because…” Jon gripped the handle of his cane tightly, “Because if Michael could get out of it, maybe…maybe we can too. Maybe I don’t…maybe I don’t have to be a monster forever.” His voice was hushed at the end of the sentence, and he didn’t really know that that was his reason until he said it out loud. “Maybe there’s hope.”
Silence fell between the two of them for a moment until Martin’s arms circled properly around Jon, his fingers going through his hair. “Okay.”
“Okay?” Jon’s voice was muffled by Martin’s chest.
“Yeah. I get it.” Martin kissed the top of his head, “We’ll give him a chance.”