Chapter Text
Six months ago, Michael was pulled from The Distortion. Six months ago, Martin was the one sitting by his cot. His hair was disheveled from a lack of sleep, and his large hands cradled a cup of tea. Its steam was as warm as his soft, grey eyes.
"Michael? Are you alright?" His voice was low, like he was trying to win over a skittish cat instead of talking to a man. It would have felt insulting if his thoughts hadn't been spiraling in a million different directions. Each one was trying to split off into a different path while Martin's mouth kept moving. "Jon said you've been through a lot, so try not to jump up too fast." Michael couldn't tell if he could feel his hands. Or his body. Or even if he was real, but he could see Martin reaching out to place a hand on his shoulder.
The softness ached.
But above all else, it made one thought cut through the haze truer than any he had in the last decade: Even after everything, he still could not stand Martin Blackwood.
And when he says "can't stand," he doesn't mean in the way that he "can't stand" when Basira slurps her finger before turning a page, or how the bowl of peppermints on Jon's desk makes his office smell like a nursing home.
He means that he hates him almost as much as he hates Gertrude Robinson herself.
There's just something about him that's too kind, too agonizingly naive. There's just only so many times he can watch Martin fetch Jon tea with that dumb grin before it feels like looking into a funhouse mirror of a life that was a long time ago. Not to mention the hovering. Or the babbling. All of which he's managed to do today in one fell swoop by lingering around his desk when it's far past time to clock out.
"You should come with us! It's not the nicest pub in the city, but at least we would be out of here for a bit." It's hard to react to what he's saying when it's a struggle to comprehend how stupid this conversation is. Even back in the day when he thought it was a big coincidence that Emma was a spider magnet, he still wouldn't have been naive enough to get cocktails with the former monster who stalked his workplace for months.
Probably.
Regardless of who he used to be and what he would or would not have done back then, the person he is now doesn't have a strong enough alcohol tolerance to watch Jon lounge around the bar with his desperate-to-please assistant. Sure, he'll bat his eyelashes and pretend to hang onto his every word for now, but somewhere in that stubborn head of his, he knows Martin will be sent through a door of his own before too long.
There's no reason Michael needs a front-row seat to that when he's already lived the play. He'd rather stay at The Institute. At least then he can make a dent in the hundreds of tapes he still needs to work through to get caught up on the last few years. So he shakes his head.
"I'll have to decline. I don't want to cause offense. It's just that I would rather have my being ripped apart again than laze around, listening to you all fawn over each other." Martin doesn't get the chance to respond before Michael rolls back in his chair and ducks under his desk, reaching for the box of tapes Jon left him. It's a foolproof way to avoid watching his eyes widen, where he risks the chance of catching a glimpse of his reflection. He still hasn't gotten used to seeing an anatomically correct body. Or the way the face attached to it has features that make sense. He can't say he wants exposure therapy, either. So he takes time rummaging through the box, shuffling around while Martin stands in a silence that's hard to identify as anger or shock.
When he finally grabs the box, he flinches as his fingers, not claws anymore, brush against the rough cardboard. As has become common, his grip is loose as he hoists the box onto his desk. He never got full control back over his hands, but if there's a small mercy, it's the fact that Martin doesn't seem to realize. Or if he does, he doesn't feel the need to comment.
Instead, he throws up his hands. For a glorious moment, it seems like he's going to storm out of the room in frustration.
"Why do you have to act like…like…THAT all the time?" Or not.
The peeling wallpaper behind him is suddenly the most interesting thing in the room. It's always interesting when you know that you can't answer a question in the way the asker wants you to. In a way, it almost makes it seem pointless to say anything at all. If Martin broke his gaze, he wouldn't. But he doesn't, and all of a sudden Michael's mouth is moving.
"If I had to guess, I would say it's because your Archivist ripped me from my existence. Then he, rudely might I add, dragged me back here. All to facilitate his destructive need for answers." It's hard to forget how it felt to be molded from nothing back into flesh. He's tried, but his wince makes it visible how far he is from that victory.
"With all of you."
After years of being a something he had forgotten how frail the human body can be. Jon twisting his atoms like clay was not how he wanted to be reminded. He could have lived a full life without knowing the feeling of The Eye tearing apart lies from truth, forcing the reality of Michael Shelley away from the nonexistence of The Distortion. His bones twisted. His skin shrank. His organs stuffed back inside their proper place when they had previously only been out for special occasions.
Pain like that is truly the thing that shouldn't be able to exist. Much less survivable. And as his vision started to fade and his hearing died into silence, he was sure it wouldn't be.
"Who are terrible."
Then he woke up on a thin cot, the blanket making an itch crawl across his skin. The pillow was so much thinner than what he had at home, and the room was so warm that it made his breath feel hot. He wanted to run. To yell. To do something. But before the chance was given, the smell of peppermint tea was already in his nose. He pried open his sleep-filled eyes, and there he saw Martin sitting by his cot. His hair was disheveled from lack of sleep, and his large hands cradled a cup of tea whose steam was as warm as his soft, grey eyes.
"Especially you."
The way his voice trips over "you" makes his stomach twist. He feels far too close to letting a part of him through that should long since be dead. So he does what he knows. He lets his grin curl wider than his face, not bothering to hide the satisfaction when Martin inches back on his heels.
"So why don't you leave now?" His head tilts like a confused animal. "Run along and wait your turn to be slaughtered." Martin refuses to break his gaze even when the distance between them becomes more noticeable. His eyes seem both more foxlike and fawnlike at the same time. Then he stops moving at all.
His heels dig into the stale carpet. Not moving back, not moving forward, just existing in the same silent space.
When there's a sharp breath, Michael isn't sure who it's from. But it's there. Breaking the quiet just enough for Martin to take his turn. "Because I'm sick of this! Jon just got kidnapped! Tim is shutting himself away from everyone who cares about him! And you're here being as antagonistic as you can for, what is, I mean, really, no reason!" For the first time, Martin's eyes look away to gaze at Jon's desk like it's going to come alive and back him up. To the shock of no one, it doesn't. Both because it's an object, and because it's an object that belongs to Jon, who at least has the decency to feel bad about the events of the last few months instead of expecting him to dance through a field of roses.
"I want to have one nice night where we all have drinks and laugh and have each other's backs for once! So forgive me for trying to be nice since you clearly just wanted to sit here alone thinking of everything bad that's ever happened to you." With a huff, Martin crosses his arms over his chest. Like he's proven some big point of the universe, the laugh that Michael lets out is just as high and cruel as he knew it would be.
"Bravo. Would you like a cookie for how insightful you are? Should we hold hands and let the power of friendship free us from our chains?" There's a sarcasm to his words that Martin never seems to appreciate. His lips curl up into a scowl, showing off his tea-stained teeth. "Maybe you're a little behind in all this, but The Institute has evil built into its baseboards, and all of us fools are stuck here being drawn to a purpose none of us can figure out." In Michael's opinion, that's enough of a reason to be indifferent to whether or not The Circus ends up turning his coworker's skin into a nice hallway rug. The defiance in Martin's eyes says something different. The real question is for how long.
"Between that and me just not being fond of you, you'd better hope that I'm never the thing responsible for watching your back. That wouldn't end well for you, tea-maker. Not at all." The sharp way Martin shakes his head is filled with so much truth it's uncomfortable to look at. It almost makes it easy to miss the exasperated grunt he makes as he snatches his winter coat off the rack. Apparently, much harder than he meant to, if his eyes widening is any indication.
"You know what? Fine! Keep being angry! It won't get you anywhere! But fine! The rest of us are going out." Martin throws open the door, clearly using less force than he was just a moment before. Like he thinks he's going to scare him by making something rattle.
Fool.
"If you change your mind and want to stop being a jerk about the situation we're ALL stuck in, feel free to join us." Michael is still deciding whether he wants to respond when Martin takes that choice away. He slips out the door like sand through fingers.
And with that, Michael is left in the silence he asked for.
…
It's almost funny. Back when Gertrude was still calling the shots, he would have tripped over his own feet getting out the door if he got invited to spend time with his coworkers outside of work. He never really had any friends. Only the one who might technically qualify as his victim now. He was always looking for those moments of connection that didn't come without prying. Trying to force them along with friendships he craved. There was a time when he would have spent the entire drive to the bar thinking about all the questions he could ask, the games he could suggest if the night stalled.
Now he's just sitting here. Like he wanted. Trying his best to ignore that little part of him still stuck in that awkward office holiday party, trying and failing to make Fiona laugh with an awkward pun about the flowers on her hat when he should be rummaging through the box of statements.
He only got halfway through the last one before Jon interrupted him with some unimportant nonsense. If he remembers right, it was about a woman who lost her fiancé, then ended up at a Lukas family funeral. It wasn't a particularly exciting listen, but at least it's something to do besides sit until his thoughts spiral and he gets as disoriented as he was before work this morning.
That's a part of him he would prefer stayed well hidden from the eyes of The Institute. Not that he gets a preference on when the episodes happen, but he can do his best not to set them off long enough to deny the walls the satisfaction of seeing him wilt.
Shaking off that train of thought, Michael lets out a long sigh, pulling out the tape from earlier. With muscle memory that he isn't quite sure belongs to him anymore, he presses play.
The voice of Jon and a young woman fill the empty air where another person could be.
If he knew it wouldn't make him crumble, he would admit that it's not enough.
"I was going to give you some privacy while you make your statement."
"Okay, it's just…could you stay, please? I don't want to be alone."
"Very well. Let's start from the beginning."