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Martin had been hanging on by a thread for as long as he had memories of. He was certain at some point, his mother loved him. She picked out baby jumpers and booties and sighed when he grew out of them about how they grew up too fast. He was probably in the room while she lovingly teased his father about how he had his eyes, his nose, and same dimple in the same chubby cheeks though he had no idea how true it really was. When he grew, and his father had left, he told himself she still loved him. She was a woman who didn't know how to express it. That she was stern and had high expectations and that just -felt- like cruelty. So he poured himself into loving her. Into tenderly helping her wash as she became more ill, into bringing her her cup of oolong that began to smell as bitter as her voice as she dismissed him. All met with soft smiles and gentleness, because she loved him and she was hurting. It was easy to forget his own hurting. Burned fingertips that wanted kisses as he taught himself to tend the kettle and cook dinner. Scraped knees dabbed with the antiseptic that he had purchased himself, not even hissing at the sting because this hurt really wasn't that bad compared to what his mother felt every day.
Martin was still hanging by that thread in school. Knowing there was something different between him and the other lads and it wasn't just the way he felt when he started noticing that they spoke about the girls the way he thought of them. When they stayed after class to play football or secretly smoked at lunch, he missed out but not because there was a flaw in him but because he was just too busy. Surely if he had the time after school they would have been fast friends. He saw what they did to people they didn't like, and he was not bullied which meant they liked him just fine. Even as he longed for the closeness and the opportunity to give in to peer pressure, he knew he was lucky and could pretend some sort of acquaintance. He did not examine it more deeply, knowing what he'd actually find there.
The thread was becoming taut before Martin ever started at the institute. Taut but strong. He noticed it in his new boss, the exasperated look on his face when Martin spoke or failed to deliver on difficult tasks compared to the other two. Jon ready to praise Tim and Sasha, having requested them himself. He knew why, and again it was simple. Martin had lied on his CV. Of course he wasn't catching on as quick, he was a dropout and paddling as fast as he could. He would catch up, and until then he would soothe it over with tea. Just like with his mother.. except not oolong. Observing the closeness of Sasha and Tim and their occasionally pulling him in the playful jabbing felt like friendship. Even whilst they clearly had a closer bond and went out with each other at the end of a difficult week, he suspected instead of his inability to truly connect to his peers it was simply their history together. Perhaps even romance.
At the Archives, the thread became stronger again. Martin could laugh with Tim and Sasha, and though they all perceived his awkwardness, an alien among humans learning how to socialize at his age, he was on the inside of it. They went out for ice cream on his birthday. His hard eyed boss had softened more and more as the world fell apart in the bubble of their archive. Disasters, and worms, seemed to make Jon endeared to him. And perhaps made his heart skip just a little at how handsome he could be when he wasn't scowling and was allowing himself to be vulnerable. In fact, perhaps Jonathan Sims was like him. On the outside, looking in. With this rush of the human experience of relationships, he first allowed himself to understand his truly lonely he had been. How everything he soothed himself with were the most hollow of platitudes, but now he knew and he could not go back. Even as everything began to fall apart he would not let it go quietly. He would shake Tim and tell him they all hurt and to snap out of it. He would scold Jon for spying and mistrusting. With nails dug in he would learn to stand up. They were all fracturing, but Jon did it with him. He saw the familiar isolation. The way the man was cut out and turned into a scapegoat for powers beyond them and it softened him. Softened them both until there was something unfamiliar and unspoken there. In a mutually held glance he could feel his heart go from his throat to his stomach many times over. Even when Jon was hiding away, Martin knew. That he was a good man, that he would come back. That there was something there.
And then they all had to save the world. What power had decided to put them in charge of anything like this must surely have a sense of humor and not a care in the world for humanity. It was with painful understanding that he was left behind. Martin had a job to do, and he could see in Jon's eyes the same reason why he wanted to insist that Jon stay back too. He couldn't even blame him, Martin wished he could tie Jon down and keep him safe. But the ending of the world was not a safe place to be. So Martin stayed back and burned statements.
The thread cut happened quickly and also agonizingly slow. Each moment drawn out in what felt like an infinity of weight choking in his chest and of sorrows only possible when finally and fully understanding how truly alone he was. Sasha had been gone and he hadn't even noticed. It was like ice down his back, how someone so critical in his understanding human care was gone and not even properly given her mourning or space. And then came Elias. With his eyes like sharp fingers in his mind. Cutting away any pretense he had of his mother and placing her hatred of him in it's place. Not just seeing, but fully feeling how truly unloved he was carved out something that had been essential in his ability to hold on. In one violent night, any left who could do the work of doing so for him evaporated. His mind rolling over and over again Tim, and what pain and fear he might have felt while ending the Unknowing. Sasha and what might have happened to her, how she might have felt so terrified. And then Jon. Jon was here but gone, dead but alive. Enough to tease some sort of hope. Long enough for Martin to plead with him to stay. To beg for him to return, because Martin couldn't do this without him. He couldn't mourn their friends, couldn't handle the way the knife pressed against the thread, it would surely break. Then it did, and Martin painfully, blissfully, finally floated away.