#I love eldritch terror Jon so much

[th3archivisst]

Is it bad that this gives me a hell of a lot of gender envy

monster jon concept

he’s essentially a living optic nerve. the tower is there to direct and stabilize the connection held in the pupil. when he’s in the panopticon he serves as both the center of the tether to reality and the closest thing the eye has to a mind.

he can fly, but as pupil, he isn’t affected by gravity so his wings and legs are vestigial. the furthest he can reach with his body is the floor of that room.

the archivists serve as a defense system because jon is basically a vital organ and fairly physically vulnerable. they’re very fast and can fly short distances but usually just cling to walls and crawl. they have about the same level of sentience as beholding itself (not much). jon can maneuver them as external limbs but when he isn’t, they kind of just run on eye-autopilot.

[rauchendesgnu]

I keep seeing people bring up the whole "I really loved you" and "I really did like you" parallel, and yes, I guess, there are some similarities...but at the heart of it, Martin gave himself up because he loved Jon more than he loved himself, and the idea of probably dying even comforted him if it meant that the one he loved was safe.

Celia manipulates Sam in order to sacrifice him. I'm not saying she doesn't hold affection for him, but the affection is not worth as much as her ultimate goal. The only thing she remembers of her original world is eternal, all encompassing fear and terror, to be stripped of your humanity, to exist only to feed the Eldritch forces that torture her. That's where she thinks she's sending Sam. She's (to her knowledge) condemning him to a sentence worse than death.

Now, I'm not a parent and I don't want to invalidate any parental feelings or instincts or heavy decisions parents make to protect their child. That's not something I can judge nor am I willing to do so. In fact, I love that Celia did what she did the way I love that Gwen did what she did. I love flawed characters and I love ruthless characters. Ultimately, Celia is sure that her choice is the right one. And if she is willing to sacrifice Sam for her and Jack's safety, then she can't have "liked" him all that much.

One more thing before I stop ranting about it, but I think Celia used Sam the way Elias used Jon. He was easy to manipulate. Because we all know Sasha was more qualified for the job. But it's hard to manipulate someone who knows what they want and who is actively working towards that goal. Elias manipulates Jon so easily because that man has never had someone validate him and what he does and feels. Celia manipulates him easily because he wants someone to believe him about his childhood traumatic experience. He wants a kindred spirit, someone to take him seriously, and Celia seems to be that for him.

So yeah. Slay, Celia, but also big reg flag, luv (for anyone who wants to date her. If you're her kid, congrats, your mom is ruthless and cold as ice when it comes to not leaving you alone...we still don't know the story behind Jack, do we?)

[forevermoreamoron]

Malevolent makes me want to violently BITE at the air while also calmly recommending it to someone I care about.

I never knew one day I would say out loud, with complete seriousness: "Damn, poor little blind English boi ....having to try and understand eldritch horror beyond his comprehension."

"Damn, poor fragmented discarded piece of the Yellow King, not knowing who he is fully except yes he does and he's not sure if he can accept that because in some little almost insignificant way, Arthur's humanity rubbed off on him."

I mean oh my gosh, the literal King in yellow is one of the WORSE fictional eldritch beings ever put to paper. The king of madness and horror so foul...he can kill thousands with a whisper and he couldn't give less of a shit.

And yet...AND YET this mad lad of a podcaster has me in literal tears over his take on this yellow bastard and his English wet rat of a man. I would die for Arthur Lester and Jon friggen doe aka: "The yellow fellow".

Like, they went from the king literally threatening to hurt Arthur constantly to him being upset and pissy for days because Arthur wouldn't let him watch a movie....a god damned MOVIE.

And he was JEALOUS because Arthur was bringing Oscar into their little quest....like he was genuinely so upset he pretended he couldn't find some car keys. Yes I know there was also the pull and the guilt and what not but think about that for a second....he quite literally was willing to let Oscar be turned into a freaks vessel....because he was jealous and hurt.

Arthur is such a stupid bastard too...I love him. Bro was scared of the fucked up eldritch voice in his head at first. Then he really said "fuck it" told the voice off, threatened to off them both and said that Jon was his best friend forever now. Bro really said " I can't stand Jon but I will die for him at any moment because He is my best friend and I love him" .

Fucker was tossed in the kings domain because he wouldn't let Jon go....sliced his own throat, took multiple stabbings to the chest and died over and over....and still wouldn't let Jon go because he CARES.

You cannot be serious.....They are willing to go through so much pain and suffering because they care about each other. Jon fucks Arthur over so many times and Arthur the same. But they always find themselves back together trying to mend whatever is torn because they CARE about each other. They have a bond that is constantly strained and fraying, but they refuse to let it break.

What they have is either really sweet or a really fucked up trauma bond....probably the latter.

I love the other characters that show up too, Oscar was a sweetheart and I really loved the motif of him being a priest on the road of redemption through helping Arthur. I fucking LOVED the butcher and was sad when he got his head popped (Rip you psycho) and Detective N-....you know what? Nevermind.....I don't want to relive that again if I don't have to honestly.

Falling in love with the world and the story is so easy. The characters are written well, I found myself invested in everything and was intrigued in every mystery. I love this podcast so much....and everything was written by one guy?

Every voiceover is done by him too...wait a minute...

Jon, Arthur, Oscar, butcher ...fucking Everyone?

What. No really, what the fuck.

Harlan you wonderful bastard, I hope all your pillows are comfortable and cool to the touch. I also hope you bang your toe on a door.

Tldr version: Fuck Kane, Fuck Larson, Love you Yellow you bitch. Please tell Jon and Arthur that I said I'd love to go on a lunch date with them and terrorize them about what happens in 2021.

[lycanlovingvampyre]

MAG 121 Relisten

Activity on my first listen: baking something with apples

This is the last episode with my favorite ambiance track :´) We haven't heard it at all in S3. All in all, the ambiance music in S3 got a lot less melodic than the one in S1 and S2. Although, S2 already used the less melodic tracks as well.

Oh right, the Patreon thanks are starting now! I haven't given all of them a listen, I think I'll do it here. 

To add something about Jon's coma: I read in a post yesterday that someone wondered how they even found out Jon was still alive. I'm kind of guessing there is something like Section 31 in medical as well. People who are somewhat trained for "weird" cases, even though they don't understand them. To fix that plot hole I'd say Elias called in, telling them this particular person is still alive even though he's neither breathing nor has a heartbeat. And considering, that Jon is dreaming, I'd headcanon his closed eyes rapidly moving.

OLIVER: "Um. Hello, Jon. Do you… mind if I call you Jon? I, I mean, you don’t actually know me. It’s just, well. 'Archivist.' It’s so formal, isn’t it?" Reasons why I love Oliver Banks, exhibition #658 xD No seriously, I think Oliver Banks is one of the most interesting Avatars out there and I'd say he's my favorite of all those Avatars we only meet tangentially. Death is such a complicated subject in itself and Oliver makes it look so... neutral. I mean, the End in itself appears relatively inactive, not having a Ritual and all. Anyway, Oliver calls Jon by his (human) name, is even unsure if he's allowed to do that, since they don’t "actually" know each other. But he respects that this is, who Jon is. Who he wishes to remain, regardless of which choice he’ll make. Oliver thinks of this although he has kind of lost touch with his name(s), since he'll just take any identity which works best for him at the moment.

OLIVER: "And I do kind of know you…? Haven’t had much choice, really. Dreams are like that, you know." I really, really wonder what that means. Did he see Jon's life hanging by a thread. Did he see nothing at all because he’s in a place where the End can’t touch him? Or does he already see a root piercing his heart? Does Jon actually have any agency in this? (He has been denied to die once before, MAG 101...)

OLIVER: "No matter how lucid you think they are, there’s always that part that just drags you along." Meta-comment about said agency?

OLIVER: "That’s how it works, right? Give you a terror; give you a dream?" Oliver in his dreams being like "Alright, I'm done checking out how person A, B and C will die, time for my Point Nemo date with Jon..."

Hmm, is there a soft crackling sound in the background?

"So. My name is Oliver Banks. In my other statements, I used the name Antonio Blake" When I was first listening I still could recall the general premise of MAG 11 quite well, including the name of the statement giver. So I already had my suspicions after all this talk about dreams, especially when talking about Gertrude. And then he says this sentence! I love those "I knew it!" moments^^

"I knew exactly what I had to do. He didn’t look anything like me, not really" Not really! Iirc, this season will have tons of not reallys. So I'll start counting! S4 Not Really #1

"There were a couple of marine biologists on board, a meteorologist, an engineer, someone who called herself a “macro-ecologist” – though at times, she looked almost as out of her depth as I did." Fake it till you make it!

“This too shall pass.” If I had a nickel for every podcast with a troubled, with eye imagery associated Eldritch character named Jo(h)n who owns a mysterious lighter and had a life altering experience while in a coma I'd have 2 nickels. Which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice...

"The rest of the crew didn’t seem to notice, walking through the immense, grasping tendrils like they weren’t there at all" Wasn't there something about "TMA will not have tentacles!"? xD

"But I barely got the first word out before the falling satellite debris hit the ship at 200 miles an hour, killing us instantly." So, did Oliver just walk on the ocean floor back to London?

OLIVER: "Honestly, I’m still not exactly sure why I’m here. But you know better than anyone how the spiders can get into your head. Easier to just do what she asks." More of the Web shenanigans to make sure Jon stays on the right path...

OLIVER: "Oh, I, I’m a friend. Of Jon’s." GEORGIE: "Are you, now." OLIVER: "Uh, y-yes." I mean, Oliver seemed to be a kind of hesitant type there at the beginning of the episode. But this seems like he's a bit intimidated? Considering this is no-fear-because-touched-by-the-End Georgie, it would fit.

OLIVER: “…have I upset you, miss –” GEORGIE: “No, you just remind me of someone.” OLIVER: “Ahhh, I’m sorry! Were they –” GEORGIE: “Evil. Yes.” Hm, another throwback to MAG 101,“Is a thing evil when it simply obeys its own nature?” What makes someone evil? It sounds like Georgie is implying that she considers Oliver evil as well? But if we going by that definition, Jon would be evil as well.. I think Oliver and Jon are quite similar. Neither of them asked for this but here they are.

GEORGIE: [sigh] "Sorry about that, but you really don’t need friends like tha…" Arg, this makes me so angry again! This constant patronizing... Georgie knew this was an End avatar, I mean she said he reminded her of someone evil - the corpse who took her fear. What was she thinking Oliver was doing here? That he had come and finally claim Jon? And she shooed him away because she didn't want that? Because she's not too happy about him waking up either, so was that the reason she wanted Oliver nowhere near Jon? Status quo can’t remain forever. So what's it gonna be? A dead human friend? Or an alive something-else friend?

@a-mag-a-day

[yanmuffins]

Have we ever stopped to consider that maybe Perry is the reason the Batfam doesn't find out about Reader's inventions? Like, as mentioned, the cameras! Perry must be constantly messing with them to cover up his escapades as a secret agent, or, if in the case of that one anon magnificent idea, (thanks anon, this'll be in my mind for a long time now) being part of the JL, to cover up his activities as a hero

And also, to make things more interesting, Dr.Doofenshmirtz exists in this universe, and he acts like a petty scientist engineering villain who refuses to fight any hero who comes to face him, because he will only fight the damn platypus

Dr.Doofenshmirtz have to do the classic Gotham villain stunt, which is to terrorize one of the members of the batfam and invade the wayne mansion in ransom and/or raid, only to end up becoming much more interested in reader's inventions than in the whole bullshittery bat thing in happening in the emo cave

Bonus points if this is how the batfam discovers reader inventions

(sorry for the english, it's my first time writing something like this and actually sending it!)

they say great minds think alike... since these asks are somewhat similar i'll answer them together! first of all, your english is perfectly fine, anon!

perry the platypus being reader's #1 supporter is an amazing idea. i like to think that the events are purely coincidental, as in perry will mess up the cameras just at the right time, delete or corrupt footage that shows reader up to no good when he's minding his own secret agent business, aka covering up his activity aroun the manor. but he's like the platypus equivalent of being a fly on the wall, so he does start taking action to make sure batfam won't find out about reader in what ways he can. the vibes are off with these people.

so yes, he will mess up the cameras even when he doesn't need to if it prevents batfam from catching you in the act, he will prevent them from seeing you inventions to make sure you can make the best of summer. like i said, the platypus is an eldritch entity in the manor at this point. damian will lead bruce to the garage where one of reader's inventions were, and everything, including welding gear and tools, is gone. only perry, the platypus, is left in its place.

reader walks in and looks equally puzzled, but exclaims, "oh! there you are, perry!" and walks away, leaving an indignant damian and a very annoyed batman standing there.

i don't think dr. doofenshmirtz, if he exists in this universe, would find the batcave or even be able to break into the wayne manor. but i raise you this: he keeps trying to one up lex luthor for the spot of perry the platypus' number one nemesis, but fails miserably everytime, because he's trying to compete with lex luthor of all people.

and as for jon, he loves participating in reader's shenanigans, and not just because he has a crush on them! he thinks it's genuinely really fun and loves being included. (˶◜ᵕ◝˶)

[archeyeved]

"no, thanks. hard pass. -- god, that would be even worse." he practically snorted, and the laugh actually managed to come out genuine. he really did appreciate the effort the archivist was making to not simply KNOW all of the deepest, most horrible things about him, to not read his every waking thought. in truth, he knew jon had a point, bittersweet as it may be. this was who ...or possibly even, as he'd rather indelicately put it, what jon was now. and yeah, that meant that sharing his traumas came with the rather unfortunate caveat of feeding that bloody fear god ...thing. -- but what exactly were they supposed to do, then? not get to know one another better? never talk about their pasts, or their fears? never open up and be vulnerable? ...martin steeled himself a bit in the face of that thought. "...y'know what? -- you're right, jon. so what if it means it gets a bloody snack? like hell I'm gonna let this whole edritch terror ...thing get in the way of my shot at a real relationship with you. I've waited too long for that." he declared, quite determined on the matter in spite of the slight tinge of color the resolution brought to his cheeks. he reached out to take the archivist's left hand in his right and began to drag him along the sprawling, uneven ground, away from the scorching ruin of the still burning building growing gradually smaller and farther away at their backs. "...but let's talk about it while we walk, alright? I know, I know; whatever's coming next is probably just as bad, maybe worse, but I ...I don't want to be HERE anymore."

a chuckle to martins reaction . " even worse ? what exactly are you afraid i'll see in there ? " brow lifts , the archivist seemed amused if only for a brief moment and smile lingered . these brief flashes of time where it was just the pair of them , not any eldritch horror or unseen force driving them to do unholy bidding . just them . " it might not be the end of the world you know but of course i'll respect your wishes , martin . " tone soft , kind . and a hint of tired ? it was as though he felt he SHOULD sound tired , so he did . despite the beasts of this new world keeping them permanently awake .

hand was taken and the near god followed behind without a word , allowing himself to be led by someone he trusted . loved . another small smile . " yes martin . " in that same amused tone , how very blackwood of him . to just take the lead despite not knowing the direction . how much he had changed over the years ? had it been years ? it warmed dead insides if it were at all possible . and then as though replaying the words now both brows lift in surprise . " uh .. how - how long exactly HAVE you waited to be a relationship with me then ? " the question was posed with a lilt of smug attitude . very slim . but mostly he was just curious . they walked together now , jon noticed they still held hands . jon let that happen too .

" i guess we haven't really spoken , have we ? talked about many things besides the uh blood , and gore . and the mmm , sprawling madness . " a clear of his throat . heat began to fade from the outside and yet inside ? inside of his chest it tightened into a ball as fingers laced with his own . where had this inexplicable affection for his once assistant come from ? and really did it matter , as long as martin was there now . that martin offered a little joy in a joyless world .

@eyesophile

[biblicallyaccurateloaf]

I am loving the new genre of gravity falls x tma ive been seeing lately, anyways Jon would not be able to see the things because of the metal plate though it raises interesting points

The metal plate is enough to keep Bill out at least, without a deal. However Bill is a demon, and only really deals in deals. The fears are comparable to eldritch terrors, however I believe Bill is very much like them in a lot of ways. They both need vessels, they cannot do things without help prior to an event like weirdmaggedon or the Eyepocalypse. The difference is that Bill has the ability to take a physical form and that’s why he’s so powerful in the mindscape, because that’s where his physical form (as much as it can be during that time) resides and maintains.

The fears, besides avatars, cannot take physical forms as far as we know which may mean that the metal plate in Ford’s head has no effect on them and they can see right through it. However, Jon obviously had a physical form which means it could prevent him from seeing but at the same time; he is a host for something more.

I believe that because he has a physical form, he can’t, though I believe that the the fears themselves would not be stopped by things that would stop Bill due to the nature of the two entities, though comparable in many ways and respectively vastly powerful, being very different to Bill.

The fears have no substance, they are like thoughts. Bill, however, is realer than them. I could go into detail about how this’d influence everything else but that’s for another post.

Having magnus archives x gravity falls crossover thoughts and do you think Ford would be a blind spot for Jon?

like Jon wouldn’t be able to Know things abt him bc of the metal plate he put in his head to keep Bill out.,,,,,,,

[milkteamoon]

2022 fanfic review ✨

2023 is the year we are bringing BACK fic rec lists, so I wanted to put together a list of fics that I really enjoyed this year. Thank you all who made 2022 just a bit more bearable! (Note: ratings vary for these, please read the tags!)

▷ Antigonish by softlyblue - (complete, 10/10) Martin inherits a haunted house and hires ghost-seeing Jon to deal with something that wants to kill him. I love the slowburn in this fic so very much and highly recommend it.

▷ Beholding the GDPR by shinyopals - (oneshot) The Magnus Institute updates its privacy policies. This fic is so very funny and has a really neat formatting too!

▷ There Are Ghosts in This Story by whynotfly - (complete, 3/3) Something is very wrong with the Institute, but only Martin and Jon can see it. Honestly made me lie on the ground and contemplate existence after finishing it.

▷ Snare by prim_the_amazing - (oneshot) What if the Web claimed Jon long before the Eye? I really love the scenario this fic posits, as well as the characterization of my favorite girl Annabelle.

▷ Terror Management Theory by prismatical - (oneshot) Jon can’t die; this causes more inconveniences than one might think. This fic has such a fun premise and really is a wonderful and emotional ride!

▷ Mister Fahrenheit by masokissme - (oneshot) Jon deals with a fever after his encounter with Jude Perry, and Elias...sorta helps. I really loved the characterization of both Elias and Jon in this fic and think the author really captured the hilarity of their dynamic.

▷ How Not To Perform Customer Service Interactions by vienna_salvatori - (oneshot) The Magnus Institute from outsiders’ perspectives. This fic was hilarious and really captures the inherent humor of being just some guy in a world filled with eldritch horrors.

▷ Of Your Dreams by saintbleeding - (oneshot) Martin dreams of Jon while he’s in a coma. I love love love the horror of this fic; it truly left me feeling haunted long after I finished it.

▷ For a Firmament by supaslim - (series, 2 fics) Jon and his relationship to his own humanity. This is a very lovely s4 canon-divergence that has one of the best understandings of Jon’s character that I’ve read thus far.

▷ From the Highways to the Hills by blackwood - (oneshot) Georgie, Jon, and what they mean together. This fic looks at Jon and Georgie’s relationship through college, and I think the characterization of Georgie is particularly of note in its ability to stay true to her negative traits and still make her sympathetic.

▷ Jared Hopworth, Chiropractor by breekon - (oneshot) Jared’s side hustle, it’s all in the title. This fic is honestly just very funny and I love speculating as to what the avatars do in their off time.

▷ What Survives of Us by wildehack - (complete, 3/3) Jon wakes up after the Unknowing - after the end of the world. I don’t usually read post-canon but this one really got me and I think it truly feels like it could be canon.

▷ A Deeply Annoying Child by ajkal2 - (oneshot) A kid, a Leitner, and the consequences that follow. This is a really lovely look at Jon and Tim’s s3 relationship through a bit of a different lens.

▷ Won My Bride at a Poker Game by prim_the_amazing - (complete, 8/8) Martin saves a moth from a spider and deals with the unintended consequences. This fic is a very sweet slowburn that deals with fairy Jon and all of magic’s many intricacies.

▷ From Cradle to Cremation by did - (oneshot) Oliver Banks vs. making small talk with attractive people. I love fics focused on side characters, and Oliver’s internal monologue in this definitely worth the read.

[tired-beholding-bitch]

Please give us your aborted rant about Jon and Martin's chemistry and how it was not just the trauma of their eldritch horror jobs that made them compatible! I love to hear your thoughts!!

oh I’d be delighted to, you’ll never see me turn down a chance to monologue about these gays tbh ✨

also that’s so sweet I just 🥺🥺🥺

fair warning this got a bit long and might not be super coherent. mostly me just going absolutely feral with feelings but. yep.

MARTIN: Face it, John, it took almost two years of crisis and trauma to even make us compatible. And that sucks. But here we are.

And I don’t want it to be for nothing. I won’t let it.

the first time I listened to MAG199, this took me by the throat.

and it did especially because for a second there I had been like “oh, that makes sense”. I could see where Martin was coming from, the reasoning he had behind it, and on a first listen running on heightened emotions and a lot of caffeine it seemed like a sound point to make. after all, they are very different people

(yeah I have issues. no it isn’t a sound point.)

I have since had time to think back on it and I’m now declaring it bullshit.

at least in part, I think it might have been some kind of defense mechanism - they can’t have this, and thinking about what they could have had, at the time this conversation happens, might hurt too much.

mostly however it stems, like you would expect, from a place of fear.

it’s so clearly Martin’s own issues with self-worth and his past talking. the slow, insidious way in which if you are made to believe you are hard to love you will be convinced everyone who does love you is only doing it because you’ve tricked them, somehow. the idea other people’s love for you must be conditional because there is no reason for them to care about you simply because you are you. and more specifically that sounds exactly like the kind of shit your anxiety feeds you when you’re terrified you’re going to lose something you don’t feel like you deserve, like at last it's going to catch up to you, so it's easier to downplay it than to admit that, yes, you are allowed to have good things without having to suffer for them first.

and it breaks my heart that he was so convinced - right there, right at the end when anything could have happened - that the only reason they got to have each other were the awful things that happened to them, when it’s so plainly not true.

yes, proximity helps. yes, their situation was never normal and going through the kind of horrible trauma they went through is inevitably going to change you as a person. yes, maybe the things that happened to them even helped them along in realising their feelings for each other.

but it still stands that out of so many things in their lives irreparably changed and lost forever to grief and fear and trauma, their relationship wasn’t one of them.

they didn’t fall in love with each other’s grief and trauma. arguably, they didn’t even fall in love with the people they became because of said grief and trauma.

god, their whole thing is about being able to hold onto the parts of someone that aren’t touched by terror and misery tighter than they can, loving someone so much you can bring them back if they get lost inside themselves. seeing the person beyond the fear.

even when they themselves can’t.

and don’t even get me started on how, yes, Martin is Jon’s anchor to humanity and he has filled that role for a long time, but the same can be said for the reverse. Jon wasn’t only the one to pull him from the Lonely, but also the one that reminds him every day that he is worthy of love and effort when he can’t remember that himself.

which makes this hurt all the more because he’s refusing this comfort out of fear, pushing back when Jon genuinely believes that they could have found and loved each other in a better place, and he would be right.

the parts of them that fit together best were there from the start.

if instead of a worm attack they had had another excuse to get close to each other - and a lot could have worked, really, from getting stuck in an elevator together for 5 hours to ending up the only two people sitting at the table while out for drinks and ending up being bitchy about gym dudes in the corner - and work through the kinks and knots of their relationship, it’s not like they wouldn’t have liked each other.

they balance each other out and fill the spaces where the other can’t reach, and they make each other better for it.

it was just out of reach, but they could have had it.

in a kinder place and in kinder circumstances, if they hadn’t been doomed from the start, they could have had it and that’s a tragedy in its own right.

[bibliocratic]

clear the area jonmartin, post-MAG200 content warnings in the tags

They earn their ending. A happy-ever-after beyond the gaze of any eyes.

Jon endures his abdication. This world has no Archivists, has need of none, the thankless crown of Knowing finally unburdened from his shoulders. The blood washes off Martin’s hands with soap and scrubbing and scalding water. They live.

The end. In conclusion. Fin.

-

Jon’s new scar, the packaging of his skin split ragged from collarbone to sternum, fades like sun-caught paint. A maw of red pursing to a gummy primrose pink, settling into a rough cartography of white.

The first few months are hard. Brimstone flare-up silences and ice-pick shouting, open-handed forgiveness and closed-fist weeping. They drain themselves to husks with anger and worry and grief until there is enough space for better things to grow there in their stead. Jon’s nightmares were a nightly stormfront to bear, sweated sheets and dawn fanfares of panic and dread, but he is learning now, with the space for his ribs to expand, that it is ok for them to breathe here.

Jon digs up the garden with a rusty trowel until it is a bumpy canvas of mulch and soil, dirt tucked under his fingernails and decorated with smudges up to his elbows. He hums while he irons their shirts in front of the television, thoughtless and senseless with tune.

Martin has tried to, but the sound goes down the wrong way.

-

Martin is happy.

-

It isn’t the sight as such, that might sit as a film over his vision to tinge his waking sepia. The reddest thing they own is a terracotta plant plot brimming with raggedy thyme that lives a precarious cliff-top existence on the kitchen windowsill. He observes Jon’s face in all its variations, even pained – when he snags splinters in his fingers, when he stubs his toe on the stone front step and swears damnation – and his response is sympathy tempered by admonishment.

It’s not the sensation, not really, that might tremble on his skin. Martin’s palms tend to dryness inside their homely bubble of creaky central heating, hemmed in by boisterous coastal winds. He handles bread knives and butter knives and steak knives and carving knives without the muscle memory of other blades, and he thinks he might be getting pretty handy with his oven experimentation.

It’s the sound. It wakes him, the noise lingering like the echo of a slap.

The slick punch of metal into muscle. A tooth-bared, tense-jawed gasp.

Resurfacing to shocked consciousness, he would be seized by a frenzy, to know, to check. His scattering hand scrabbling for the lamp with such force he hit it off the nightstand to roll in a giddy clatter, throwing off the covers to rapidly pollute both of them with the outside air. Jon would be rocked from sleep, groggy, panicked, and Martin’s words would not come, a train of thought trying to race full steam where no one had laid tracks, so it would be just the two of them, exhausted and upset and amping the other up in misery.

Now, upon his rousing, Martin knows not to turn on the light. He does not check. The aftermath of punch-gasp curls in his ear, and he inhale-exhale-inhales with the ferocity of mantra, and clamps the threatened tears in the clench of his teeth.

He does not wake Jon.

-

“How did you sleep?”

“Oh, you know me. Like a log.”

-

He is happy. He is. Why wouldn’t he be?

--

Jon rumbles like a rusty mechanism with snoring whenever he drops off on his back, and he mumbles accusatory when Martin coaxes him to his side. Martin finds black hairs on his pillowcase, in the shower plug. Jon is a vista of experience since the Eye left him, who gets hungry and tired and grumpy and drunk and silly and fed-up and giggly. Jon searches him out with the surety of magnets, and loves him, loves him, loves him. He seals kisses to Martin’s new landscape of extensive scars. Their disagreements, when they surface, are as meaningful and lasting as stones skipped on water.

Martin wanted this. He wants this. The rhythms of domesticity fading to foam on an untroubled shore.

He is out of practise with happiness, that’s all. It doesn’t come to him like breathing. He needs to till the earth of it, shelter its seeds from a thousand circling crows until it bears harvest.

He just has to try harder.

-

Night-time.

An episode or two of something simple, Jon nodding off like a capsizing ship before the credits. Encouraging him up in grousing, unwilling increments, rubbing out the nettle sting of pins and needles up his own arm. Check the locks, the light switches. Brush teeth. Pyjamas. Put his phone to charge, read until Jon succumbs to sleep. Click the light off, pushing Jon onto his side so his mouth doesn’t dry. Jon squirming around like a fastidious octopus until he has at least half his limbs hooked over Martin.

The dark creating shadow play. In the absence, Martin colouring in the gaps with lurid shades of disaster.

A creak – the rattle of a door downstairs, an intruder unfastening the back door, transferring their weight upon the staircase. A unfamiliar scent – the recollection of smoke-stench in his nostrils, the acrid promise of gas, the ferrous pungency of blood. The rain will flood their house to drown them. The wind will blow their roof in. Jon hooks his leg around Martin, the skin void of hair where Daisy’s mouth had almost torn it off, and all he can envision is the ways this could be destroyed as he watches.

Bundle Jon close. Ignore the rain, the itch at the bottom of his stomach, the queasy roil of his fear. Drift into unkind sleep populated with its garden of earthly terrors.

-

Martin is… not happy. Not exactly. And that’s fine. It’s fine.

-

Jon is happy.

-

Jon, rubbing at the compression lines around his hips, the accusatory splay of the top button refusing to budge closed:

“I can’t fit into my jeans.”

Martin enfolds him from behind, planting his palms over the slight paunch of Jon’s stomach, filled out through sensible eating and small indulgences and a hunger that will never be ravenous but has restored its human qualities.

“Hmm. It’s a good look on you. Healthier.”

“Or it’s middle age.”

“Or it’s eating things that aren’t tea and meal-deal sandwiches.”

“Or other people’s terror.”

“Oh yes, you’re right, I completely forgot about your subsistence diet of eldritch and unbidden horrors in a luscious wholegrain wrap, forgive me.”

Jon laughs at that. The sound has not yet lost its novelty for either of them.

He shifts, turns, his arms a buoy around Martin’s stomach.

“You’ve lost weight.”

“Must be all the clean air,” Martin quips. “All that healthy living.”

-

Punch. Gasp. Exhale.

Martin wakes up.

When his heart has wound down from the pace of its gallop, he extricates himself from Jon’s grip. It is a laborious task to find the places where they’ve joined in the night and pull them apart, like separating fabric snagged on rosebushes.

He gets some water from the cold tap in the kitchen. Sits heavily on the sofa, the room cossetted by the gloom.

Punch. Gasp. Exhale.

His hands shake.

He doesn’t go back to bed.

-

He isn’t happy, but he could grow to be. He could. He could. He just isn’t trying hard enough.

-

Some days, he feels like he’s waiting for the ice to give under them.

Check the passers-by as they walk. Anyone familiar, any teeth filed too sharp, anything animal or blood-shot, any eyes that glance too deep.

Check the oven. The gas knobs are angled to off but a leak is not impossible in a house this old, their alarm might malfunction, they might fall asleep and some spark from a plug socket could catch and incite a conflagration.  

Check the window latches. The opening wide enough for a body to squirm through, the claws of a Hunter marring the sill. Wriggling infestations that invade through the letter box, the keyhole, the gap under the door where the wind can whistle through.

Check. Check. Check.

-

Jon is happy. Jon has a job, work friends, a hundred small luxuries that he has struggled to earn. Jon is happy, so why can’t he be? He went through so much less, the blood washed off easily with soap, what the fuck does he have to cry over –

-

Martin has always crafted his masks from scrap, tongue out in concentration, piecing things together in low light, a make-do-and-mend of his own devising. His early efforts, the paper mâché and glue easily cracked before he learned to shore up his constructions. He has a small collection garnered over years.

The quiet-voiced, muffled-stepped, muted-smiled creation of a Good Son.

The zipped-mouth, no-refusals-no-complaints-yes-of-course-how-high earnestness of the Good Employee, the desperation sanded off the edges so no one could see.

The I’ll-get-the-first-round friendliness, the open-handed, open-hearted, too-naïve Good Colleague.

This new mask forms in increments, in the same way a rising mound of dirt marks the extent of a grave being dug.

He doesn’t mean to. It’s just he’s better at not talking about things. He always has been. And it is an ugly, easy comfort, to slip back into bad habits.

And Jon is happy.

All the things Martin does not wish to permit the light to touch he compresses inside like shaken soda. The rot in him deepens structural, the places where he papers over moulds and fungal speckles with the distraction of their new life. His smile parades simple, contented, cheeky, teasing, and there is a meticulous artistry in each. He sketches interest, paints joy, manufactures irritation out of the clay of nothingness that he allows himself to feel instead of the overwhelming rush of everything else.

I love you, his mouth murmurs, laughs, sighs, groans, and that at least is always true.

The mask of a Good Partner slips on tailor-made.

-

They find their nine-to-fives. Jon’s job is uneventful, boring, and nowhere near an Archive. He works in a registry office for the council, filing and organising and he’s cheerfully lied on his CV in order to get it. He gets the bus and texts Martin grumpy faces and GIFs summarising his mood when he gets suck in the commute or some idiot parks in a bus lane, he has a couple of colleagues he likes and a greater number that he tolerates, he gets a hot chocolate from this universe’s overpriced multinational chain on his lunch hour. When he gets home, he complains with delight at the mundanity of his dissatisfactions, regales Martin with tales of meagre drama.

Martin gets a cleaning job at a school. It is monotonous, dull and safe. Martin loses track of the time easily, quagmired in his musings. The children are wary of him and his visible scarring but it doesn’t bother him as much as he thought it would. The teachers are friendly enough, as well as the other cleaning staff, but he does not make friends. They’ll have to move anyway, if anything finds them here, if the Fears emerge again.

Martin tries not to feel like he’s waiting.

-

He wants to have a good night’s sleep.

-

“I’ll have breakfast at the school, don’t worry.”

“There were some leftovers from the canteen, so I’m kind of full.”

“It was one of the teacher’s birthdays, you know, Denise? Heh, might have had a bit too much cake. I’ll pop this in the fridge for later though, it’ll keep till tomorrow.”

“I’m just not that hungry tonight, Jon.”

-

He feels sharper when he doesn’t eat. It is uncomfortable, a scratched-out, hollowing sensation, but things focus more. He can control nothing else but this, and it feels good, to have this mastery over himself when so much is beyond him.

He drops down notches on his belt and tells Jon it’s all the walking he’s doing.

-

The world continues to happen to them. He goes to the cinema with Jon and picks at popcorn and encourages Jon’s outraged opinion. He meets Jon’s mildly interesting work friends and plays nice and excels at small talk, and he drinks half a cider that he nurses over the evening because it’s making his head fuggy. His body communicates its sharpness to him and he gains grim satisfaction from ignoring it. He goes to work and goes home and doesn’t sleep and goes to work and goes home and doesn’t sleep.

Martin does his best at living, and his mask doesn’t slip.

-

“You seem tired,” Jon pries his words out carefully, picking them out of his teeth as one would scraps. “Is… is everything ok?”

“Yeah, sure it is. Why?”

“…  you seem a bit down today. Recently. Is anything… is there anything you want to talk about?”

“I’ve just been working too hard. Been a while since I had to do double-shifts, heh, I’m not as young as I used to be.”

“If you’re sure?”

Jon shifts to a different position where he’s sat on the sofa, his legs tucking up under him. Martin endures his questioning gaze with practise.

“Yeah, I’m all good.”

Martin delivers a hand-crafted smile that’s gilded heavily with guilelessness and reassurance. He watches as Jon believes him and hates himself.

-

“You know… You don’t have to if you don’t want to, but you can – you know you can talk to me, Martin?”

Martin’s eyes focus on Jon’s chest at the point where a knife once sunk in, and doesn’t reply.

-

Punch. Gasp. Exhale.

Martin wakes up.

Jon has twisted over onto his back again, rattling like a chain-smoker’s cough with his snoring. They were quiet that evening, tangled up in their own thoughts, but there is none of that distance in sleep. During the night, Jon’s wormed himself out of the covers with a single-minded determination, his restless legs squashing the duvet to the bottom of the bed on his side, encouraging Martin’s to follow suit.

He’s shirtless, his top chucked off to pile unceremoniously on the floor. The temperature is ripe with a burgeoning summer heat, and Jon tosses and complains if he’s overwarm, and Martin didn’t think he’d get to feel the drudgery of another lived summer. He’s shirtless, and the room is palled in sweltering dark that softens the vague shapes of the wardrobe, the chest of drawers, the knickknacks of the life they’re building together. He’s shirtless, and Martin cannot see where the scar is, the only scar of Jon’s he has ever thought ugly, but he knows it is there. That he put it there. That he could just as easily be waking up alone.

His body pains him to live in it. His stomach tight and bottomed out empty.

He is so so tired.

Martin’s heartbeat does not slow down. His chest constricting, and he swallows, a sharp sound hiccupping in his throat. He stifles it with a forceful sniff but more come as a painful spasming wave, and he has to sit up if any air is to dribble into his lungs.

He should get up. He has to get up, do this in the bathroom, doubled-over the sink, stifling his weakness where it cannot be witnessed. He cannot do this here.

Punch. Gasp.

His burning face is soaked as he bunches up his sleeves against his reddening eyes. A calming exhale drains out shaky, moulds itself into another loud sob. He plants his hands over his mouth, screwing his eyes closed, and this will pass, he’s fine, this will pass…

“Martin?”

I’m sorry to wake you, he thinks to say. It’s nothing, go back to sleep, stop looking at me Jon, I’m fine, I’m fine, it’s nothing, it’s nothing…

His shoulders start to shake.

“Martin?” Jon repeats slowly. And the ice creaks and cracks and Martin gasps and then it breaks, and the force of his damned-up grief is tidal, catastrophic and he sobs into his hands.

“It’s… it’s alright – it’s… it was a nightmare, that’s all, ‘s alright…”

“It’s not!” Martin bubbles out, the words mashed to a wail in his hands. “It’s not, it’s not, it’ll ruin this…”

“Hey.” Jon brings his arm around Martin and he buries his head in the bony crook of his shoulder because he does not want to meet Jon’s eyes. “What do you mean? Martin?”

Jon rubs at his back. Martin’s body betrays him in a hundred ways as it collapses around him. His weeping wrings him out, dry-mouthed and headachy and trembling when he subsides into shivery breaths.

“Talk to me,” Jon says. “Please.”

“You’re so happy,” Martin sniffs out. “I-I want you to be happy, god, o-of course I do. Things are, they’re good, they’re good and we won, s-s-so why does it feel like I’m still holding my breath? I-I go to bed and I’m frightened of every noise, and I wake up and I’m terrified that someone somehow could take this all away, and I can’t sleep, and I-I’m tired, Jon, I’m tired of holding my breath, and it’s all – it’s all so much a-a-a-and I can’t – ”

“Oh, Martin – ”

His words fail him then. Jon holds him up and his arms do not loosen.

“We-we’re going to fix this,” Jon says after a long while. “I promise you, together, we’ll – we’ll talk to someone. You aren’t alone in this. Together, alright, we’ll do this together. We’ve survived – everything else, we can get through this too.”

“I don’t know if I can believe you,” Martin says, too drained to avoid honesty.

“…Maybe not yet,” Jon says after a pause. “That’s OK. I can wait.”

I’m sorry, Martin attempts to say but Jon presses a kiss to his forehead.

“You have nothing to be sorry for,” Jon says. He strokes Martin’s sweat-soaked hair.

“… Can we talk? Tomorrow? You don’t have to tell me everything, but… I’d like to be there for you, if you want me. If you’ll let me.”

Martin nods because he doesn’t trust his gummed-up throat. Jon takes that as an answer.

Dawn comes in slowly enough but they see it in together.

[saturnisfallingdown]

One thing I love about The Magnus Archives is that due to the world it’s set in and Jonny’s character naming system, so much of the main cast ended up with the plainest names you could imagine. You hear about Magnus a bit and you hear scattered bits about this one guy; The Archivist: Avatar of the Beholding, Child of the Ceaseless Watcher, Bringer of the Apocalypse, Demi-God of the Endless Hellscapes, Enemy of the Immortal King of a Ruined World, Unwilling follower of The Eye, Painfully transformed Eldritch Fear-Driven terror, The Archive itself, A man with the power to smite anyone who crosses his path out of justified or petty vengeance, and then you go to look him up and his goddamn name is jon. And according to the fanbase, the man couldn’t even afford an h in his name.

[therenaissancedungeonmaster]

Chapter Three: Night Hunt

Summary: Jon and Martin patrol the streets of London looking for monsters, and find a new friend, much to Jon’s dismay.

AU: Post-MAG 200 inspired by @/spooksier

The night hung over London, hot and sticky. Jon and Martin walked along the row of closed shops, Martin bat in hand, Jon with nothing but a coat. No one went out at night anymore, because even for those who truly believed the monsters and Fears were gone, there was still something in the dark that made their hearts race with terror. There were theories, as well, that only avatars would roam at night, finding new victims to feed the detritus of their eldritch overlords, which massively contributes to the lack of people.

Jon wondered how much of Martin’s insistence that he carry a weapon was a pretense to let Martin continue to feel human, or if it simply was that Martin was back to being human again. Martin hadn’t once demonstrated any need to feed through fear, and worked solemnly to resist the pulls of the Lonely with his therapist. And even if Jon could Know on command like he could during the apocalypse, he wouldn’t - he promised he wouldn’t.

“So, Jon, what inspired you to patrol tonight?” Martin asked.

“Oh… um… a woman came in panicking about someone following her. She claimed it was a mannequin,” Jon said.

“A mannequin? We’re out here in the middle of the night for a mannequin?” Martin said incredulously.

“Maybe not a mannequin, but something is hanging around. I can… feel it,” Jon said.

“Do you Know it?” Martin asked.

“No… no, I don’t. It’s just a hunch,” Jon said, then he chuckled, “Still surprises me every time I don’t know something.”

“I know,” Martin said, a wistful smile on his face. Then, he swung his bat around and held it behind his neck, and asked, “Jon, do you ever think about how these patrols are eerily similar to hunts? Like… the Hunt’s hunts.”

“Sometimes, but I would be deeply humored if either of us managed to align ourselves fully with a completely new entity considering how the world is now. Especially the Hunt. I love you, Martin, but you’re not a fierce predator,” Jon said.

Martin scoffed, “Says you! I don’t see any predatory-ness in you either.”

“Exactly, then I think we’re both good,” Jon said, smiling. He sensed there was an addendum to Martin’s sentence, a ‘but’ or an ‘also’, but Jon didn’t care to know it. It wouldn’t help anyone.

The static filled his head, loud and harsh. He froze, attempting to decipher the Eye’s distant, distorted message, as his fingers went numb. In front of him, Martin kept going for a little while, stopped, and ran back to Jon, looking into his eyes with slight concern. Jon absently put his hand on Martin’s shoulder above him, holding on slightly as he closed his eyes and honed his focus. It took so much focus nowadays to get anything, to feel anything, to Know anything, but he had to try, because the moments he could truly sense that the Eye was trying to inform him of something, were the moments he needed that information most. As he thought harder, and harder, his own thoughts faded, flooded by the static. Then, the static became the flash of an image, a ghost of a word, and Jon Knew.

“To the left, down the alley,” Jon said, quietly, pointing accordingly.

“What?”

“There is a… a thing there. Be quiet, be quick, and trust your gut,” Jon said, “I’ll stay back and catch it if it escapes.”

“Alright…” Martin said, hefting his bat up hesitantly. Jon remembered when they first started the patrols, how much Martin shook. Everything had still been a bit fresh back then, but even a year after all of it, Jon could still see the memory dance in Martin’s head during moments like this.

Martin headed down the alley. Despite being such a big guy, he could be shockingly quiet, and as Jon lost Martin in the darkness, he stood at the mouth of the alley, and centered himself. He breathed in, and out, and in again, feeling each breath enter his lungs. He didn’t need to breathe, as far as he knew, but it helped keep him in the physical world when manifestations like this were about. If he wasn’t careful, he would lose himself in a vision of the creature’s past, or its victim, or nothing at all.

In and out. He could do this. In and out. He had done this before. In and-

There was a loud thwack followed by a “SHIT, JON!”, and then desperate scuttlings and pants that definitely were not from Martin.

Jon widened his stance and focused his eyes forward. When whatever it was entered the light of the streetlamps, Jon lunged forward and landed on it squarely, before ever seeing what it really was. It squirmed underneath him, knobbly and wet and sharp, small enough that Jon’s entire body encompassed it. Martin ran into the light again just as Jon reached his hands to the creature and grabbed. This was a bad idea, for whatever was on the right side of the creature had a mouth with teeth to bite, and so it bit - hard. Jon screamed.

“Jon!” Martin cried. Martin reached for Jon and rolled him onto his back, and then Martin swung his bat into it. It screeched as it flew, and clattered against the wall.

“What the hell was that?!” Martin said. Then he bent down to look over Jon.

“No, Martin, go check on it! I don’t know if it’s dead yet!” Jon groaned.

“But…”

“I’ll be fine, promise,” Jon said, with a warm smile. Martin frowned and ran over to where the creature was. Jon took a few moments, clutching his wounded hand as he slowly, excruciatingly, stood up. His head spun, and the static returned, not to tell him something, but because it could. He looked into the dark, and how it moved and muttered, and thought of how all those children ran through Night Street, as dark as this alley, but with their own homes as the set-dressing rather than a measly alley. They stare at the closet, because despite the night light they begged their parents for again, they know the darkness is thick in it, and threatens to burst open and bleed into the room, and swallow them so that the monsters can find their way to the bed-

“Aw, Jon, actually, it’s kinda cute,” Martin cooed. Jon jolted back to reality and looked over to Martin, holding up what appeared to be a rather large hand, knobby and veiny, but instead of fingers, it had teeth. Along the side of both palms, bones shot out, forming four insect-like limbs. Where the wrist would be, instead a tail of blood and veins and guts spilled out, all connected together. Martin was holding it with one hand like a bowling ball, fingers between the teeth.

Jon looked at Martin in horror, “You think that’s cute?”

“Yeah, just look at it!” Martin squealed. The creature’s bottom jaw jerked up and down, as it desperately tried to get a nip of Martin. Martin reached up and tickled the bottom jaw-thumb, and it let out a hoarse heaving noise that must’ve been laughter. Martin looked up at Jon, “Can we keep it?”

Jon blinked and shook his head violently, “No? We can’t keep it? That thing will probably try to kill us in our sleep!”

“Maybe we can train it, like a guard dog,” Martin said.

“If you want a guard dog, let’s get a guard dog, not… this!” Jon said, gesturing emphatically at the hand-mouth, as bloody drool drizzled onto the pavement.

“Okay, okay, but a dog would probably run away from the worser monsters. This thing? This thing will go ham on anybody it sees. Imagine it, Jon, huge ass candle person coming up threatening to burn down the bookshop and then this thing just leaps at it, chows down wax and all!” Martin said, grinning from ear to ear. Jon frowned, and sighed. He couldn’t say no to that face.

“Fine. But you have to take care of it. And if it eats the books, it’s your fault!” Jon said.

“Haha, score! I’m going to name you Mr. Buggykins!” Martin cried.

“That’s...” Jon began. He turned and saw the look of knowing smugness in Martin’s face, and Jon couldn’t help but smile.

He turned back and looked at his wound, and saw that, despite the bleeding and pain, the bite marks looked like nothing more than shallow divots in his skin.

[ombreblossom]

i am and i am not (what you choose to see)

This is a birthday fic for @rosy-cheekx, but in many ways I wrote it as much for myself as I did for them.

Featuring: a gender-questioning Martin in the safehouse. What better time to explore one’ gender identity than while one is on the run from dangerous eldritch forces?

Content warnings (please let me know if there anything i’ve missed): kissing, very minor internalized transphobia, and a brief discussion of Martin’s mother.

AO3 Link: here~

.

“There’s no rush, Martin. Take your time,” Jon raises his voice from the other side of their bedroom door, passing time running his fingers across Daisy’s sparse knick-knacks—just enough of them to present a front of homeyness to any errant visitors but not enough of them to clutter her otherwise spartan living space. Several Archers novels and otherwise miscellaneous reading materials line the single squat bookshelf in the entire cottage, an unbroken coating of dust overlaying everything. Jon picks up a porcelain dog (or a wolf?) and rolls it over in his hands.

“The longer I take, the more likely it is I’m never going to leave this room.” Martin almost-yells back, interrupting the muffled frustrations of someone wrangling an unfamiliar article of clothing.

“And what a shame that’d be. I rather hoped we’d trot down to the village today for a late lunch.”

"Gotta take advantage of the warm weather while we have it," Martin adds.

"Exactly."

"And I'm sure you have no ulterior motives whatsoever."

"Yes, of cour—wait, what?"

“Don’t worry," Martin says with a worrying lilt. "I know what you’re really after.”

Jon pauses and, after a beat, replies, “Oh? And what would that be?”

“Here, I’ll set the scene for you: enter Fiona’s Used Books.” Jon can see (in his mind’s eye, not his eldritch one) Martin preparing his best mock-theatrical pose before continuing. “In the far-right corner, the side of the establishment that faces the setting sun, is a raised platform. Cushions and pillows of all shapes and colors and sizes are strewn about the platform, some left contorted by their previous users before they left the shop to go about their day. Two wide-pane windows allow a full complement of the sun’s rays to gently warm the area. A lone figure lies nestled among several cozy-looking pillows, completely dead to the world but for a purring cat atop the figure’s chest—”

“Yes, yes, all right. You’ve made your point,” Jon grouses. “I hope you know that I consider spending time with you much more important than sunbathing with the bookshop owner’s cat.”

“I know, Jon; don’t worry.” An audible grin carries through the door.

Jon directs his own smile at the door and says, “Yes, well, now that you mention it, I did want to stop at the bookshop if we had time.”

“I think we can make that work. I’d hate to miss seeing you be adorable with Maggie.”

Jon sputters a bit in futile indignation. Martin has made his opinion of Jon's alleged adorableness abundantly clear, and it's not worth challenging him on it. He'd let Martin have this, even though the idea of anyone thinking he's adorable rankles him almost as much as the word spooky does.

(This is less the case coming from Martin, but he’d sooner shuffle off his mortal coil than tell him that.)

The weight of the porcelain wolf—he’s decided—in his hand grabs his attention. In fidgeting with it, he’s managed to rub all the dust off its coat, revealing a delicate blue glaze swirling around the figure. Wiping the excavated dust on his trousers, a concerning realization creeps into Jon's awareness. "Martin?" He calls out.

Martin yells back something questioning, the exact words lost in their reverberations around the inside of their bedroom.

“I know you’re trying to distract me right now,” Jon says matter-of-factly. “If you don’t want to do this anymore, I completely understand.”

All sounds of movement cease on the other side of the door—worryingly quickly.

“Martin?” Jon ventures.

“No. I…want to do this. I want to be more myself.”

Jon nods. “All right. Let’s have a look at you, then.”

It takes several long seconds, but the door creaks open, leaving just enough room for Martin to poke through the gap and reveal dark, furrowed brows set in a face that belies its owner’s vocal confidence just a moment ago. Tension lends Martin’s grip on the door a strength that looks painful from where Jon stands.

“Just gimme a second, gimme a second. Let me…let me get my bearings.” Martin’s visible shoulder, draped in a sheer dark-blue fabric, lifts and sinks with long, deep breaths.

A wave of concern washes over Jon. “What’s wrong, love?”

“I’m-I’m scared, I think. There’s no reason to be scared, but—"

“Who says you need a reason to be scared of something?” Jon interjects, and he immediately regrets the hard edge he hears in them.

Martin exhales sharply and averts his eyes away from Jon, grip tightening on the door, something Jon wouldn’t have thought possible. “Oh, you know, just the fact that we’re on the run from a body-hopping avatar of the Beholding, who can see us through anything even resembling an eye and almost certainly knows exactly where we are.”

“Yes…I know. I’ve been trying not to think about it, if I’m being honest. But even though there’s this uncertainty looming over us, you’re more than justified in feeling afraid of more…mundane things.”

Martin can’t help but scoff at that. “Yeah. Right."

“Do you…do you want to talk about what’s going on?” Jon asks, softness smothering any nascent trace of compulsion. The Beholding doesn’t get to have this, not if Jon has anything to do with it.

“I don’t….” Martin exhales again. “I’ve never tried to be this before,” he says, staring at the neat rows of hardwood planks to Jon’s left. “So much of my life has been just letting other people see me how they wanted to see me because it…I don’t know, helped me be someone specific to them when they needed it. I’ve been someone who won’t stir up a fuss; someone to project their frustrations onto; someone who cares for others for the sake of it; and, definitely most frequently, someone who presents as a man.

“There never seemed a point in saying, no, there’s more here than what I’m letting you see, you know? Sometimes it’s simpler to reduce myself to a single quality, even if it’s never helped me be close to people.

“But if I leave this cottage now, people are going to try to categorize me, try to match me up with some image they have preconceived in their minds, and they won’t be able to. And I’m not sure I should want that anymore, either. I guess the main thing is….” He pauses, collecting his thoughts. “It’s terrifying to try to be something other than what the world sees you to be.”

Jon can’t let that go unanswered. Jon needs Martin’s attention for this, so he brings his hands to rest on each of his cheeks, not so much holding him in place but gently suggesting that’s his intention. Jon wouldn’t begrudge Martin his space if he needed it.

“You’re right. It is terrifying letting people see past the outward veneer we put up.” Jon says, concern still present but receding. “It’s not really my place to tell you how to work through that terror, but I am here for you—all of you, not just the parts of you you’re used to showing the world—and I’ll support you however I can.”

“God, Jon, how can you just say things like that?”

Jon makes a sound that’s something just shy of a laugh. “Because they’re true, Martin.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. Come on out, Martin; it’s just us, and I want to see all of you, if you’ll let me.”

Still mostly hidden by the door, Martin stares at Jon, Jon with his myriad marks and scars; his long, unbound gray-streaked hair; and an extra ten years perpetually set in his shoulders. He’s pinned by the intensity of the affection in Martin’s eyes.

“Can I kiss you first?” Martin asks, voice terribly quiet.

The request shakes Jon to his core, but he recovers quickly, nodding his assent. “Please do.”

Martin steps out from behind the door and kisses Jon, Jon’s eyes closing on reflex before he can get a good look at him. The romance novels Jon used to pick up when the ache for a happy ending of his own became too painful to ignore any longer would have him feeling light and airy, almost senseless, as if suspended in space and time as he and Martin exchanged breath. Jon has never felt more grounded. He’s never felt more aware of every sensation within and without his body; the sensations of Martin’s hot breath on his face and his chapped lips pressing against his own keep him firmly tethered to the here and now. Jon’s heart hammers in his chest—so much so he’s sure Martin can feel it, too, their chests pressed together as they are.

When they break apart, Jon opens his eyes and says breathlessly, “Let’s get a good look at you. The mirror’s just over here.” Jon takes his hands back to make the journey easier but feels his heart drop when Martin looks back at the door left ajar in their haste to come together. He looks bereft. Bereft of what, Jon’s can’t be entirely sure, but Jon makes a judgment call and grabs one of Martin’s hands and pulls him along toward the far end of the room, their fingers interlaced.

It had seemed a bit odd for Daisy to have such a vanity piece, but Jon's thankful for it and thankful it wasn't as firmly affixed to the wall in their bedroom as it at first seemed. It would have made for cramped space indeed to have them both crowding around it, and Jon doesn’t want Martin to be alone for this.

They stop just in front of the mirror, Jon off to the side and Martin situated front and center. He gives Jon’s hand a grateful squeeze and looks at his reflection.

“What do you see when you look at yourself, love?” Jon prompts, squeezing Martin’s hand right back.

“I see myself wearing this dress we found rather miraculously in this northern Scottish village of three hundred whole people.”

“And?”

“And it’s…fwooshy.”

“Fwooshy.”

Martin nods with all the sage wisdom of a learned poet. “Yes. It’s light and it moves when I move. It feels like it’s barely touching me at all times, which is so different from how my normal trousers and jumpers feel.”

“Ah, I see what you mean.”

“Mm-hmm. And it’s just pretty, don’t you think?

“Indeed.” Jon debates drawing attention to the question Martin is dancing around, but he trusts Martin to get there in time. “I thought so the moment we found it.”

Martin makes a non-committal sound. “You know, this is a lovely color on me.”

“Come to think of it, I’ve never really seen you wear darker colors before now. You always wore jumpers with a lot of bright colors around the Archives.”

“Yeah. It was, um. My mum, she used to say stuff like, ‘Why do you want to look so dreary all the time? Bright colors look so much better on you,’ and I guess that stuck.” Martin’s voice takes on an affect somewhere between disappointed and exhausted as he imitates his mother, and Jon struggles not to form opinions about that until they’ve had time to talk about her more. “I think she liked looking at the brighter colors I’d wear, especially once she couldn’t really leave our flat very often. I want to think they reminded her of the outside. She never said that, though. I don’t know.

“Wearing a color like this makes me happy, though. Wearing delicate clothes like this that don’t hide me away makes me happy. I want to say I feel….” Martin trails off.

“I feel beautiful, Jon. I really, really do.”

Jon tugs Martin’s hand, still joined with his own, up to his lips and places a kiss on his knuckles, at once affirming you’re beautiful, love and urging Martin to continue.

Visibly reorienting himself, Martin continues: “I see a Martin I’ve never let myself be before. A Martin not at odds with himself. With the rest of the world, maybe, but not with himself. I want to be him, Jon.”

“Then be him.”

“What, just like that?”

“Well, not ‘just like that.’ It’ll take time to feel comfortable presenting your whole self to other people, and that’s okay. The time and effort will be worth it; the world is better for having you, all of you, in it.”

Martin nods shakily, looking for all the world like he’s adrift in the middle of the ocean with sliver of land visible in any direction.

Jon waits for Martin to gather his thoughts. It's the least he can do, lend Martin his patience, patience he's long deserved and nary gotten from Jon for most of their relationship. Plus, it gives Jon some time to look, to really look at this beloved person standing next to him.

Jon's never given much weight to a person's looks as a part of his attraction to them. More often than not, Jon would start to find someone pleasing to look at only after becoming attracted to them in other ways. Otherwise, people were people and what they looked like mattered little in the face of their ideas, their arguments, and their kindnesses (or lack thereof).

Things progressed much the same way with Martin, and now? Well, Jon would like to never stop looking at Martin, thank you very much, and the universe would do well to cooperate with him on that.

Jon looks and looks and looks as Martin twists from side to side, watching as the dress billows out around him. The dress is elegant, made more so by the person wearing it. It's long, the navy chiffon wrap falling down around Martin’s ankles in gentle fluttering waves. A more opaque under-layer provides him some coverage from his chest to his mid-thighs but by no means diminishes his silhouette: soft and sturdy in equal measures. The dress cinches together an inch or so below his pecs, highlighting the generous curve of his hips. Shoulders Jon knows teem with freckles are enveloped in wide navy chiffon sleeves. The wrap-around style of the dress creates a deep V-shaped neckline, revealing more lovely freckles spread across his ample chest.

Martin is gorgeous—full stop. He fills out the dress beautifully, fabric flush with his skin in all the right places. Jon has to keep himself from flying apart with fondness for the man. The dress suits him; there was no way Jon could have anticipated how much it would after observing its shape uninhabited.

Martin cuts through Jon’s musing with a whisper: “Thank you, Jon.”

“For what?”

“For…for being here with me. Throughout all this.”

“There’s nowhere I’d rather be, Martin,” Jon says in a tone that brooks no argument.

“Right. Cool,” he says airily, earning a light chuckle from Jon. He’s not at all surprised when he finds himself at the receiving end of a playful nudge.

“If you’re up to it, I’d still love to go into the village and share a meal with you, show you off to our lovely neighbors.” Jon stops for a moment before continuing, gesturing wildly with his free hand, “That is to say, I’m not trying to imply you’re my possession or that I get to parade you around as I please. I just mean that….” Jon looks deep into earthy brown eyes and presses on. “I just mean that I want everyone to know and see how much of a privilege it is to be with you, to be able to bear witness to you putting more of yourself out into the world—if you’re ready.”

“We’re already the novel English couple from out of town staying in the infamous nigh-abandoned cottage on a mysterious holiday—what’s another oddity for the list, eh?”

“Hey! I won’t have anyone talking about my—oh.” Jon makes a thoughtful noise in the back of his throat. “It occurs to me that you might prefer different terminology for yourself. Is it still all right for me to refer to you as my boyfriend’? Or would you prefer something without a gender connotation like ‘partner’?”

“Jon, I spent the last two and a half years wanting to be your boyfriend, and that hasn’t changed. Having you call me that doesn’t bother me and is, in fact, one of my dreams come true.” Martin lets go of Jon’s hand and wraps him up in his arms; Jon’s follow suit. “Thanks for asking, though. I’ll let you know if anything doesn’t feel quite right.”

Jon buries his face in the crook of Martin’s neck, savoring the warmth and gentle scent of something vaguely herbal permeating through the chiffon dress. They’ll return to Martin’s comment later, he’s sure. “All right. I like ‘boyfriend,’ too, just for the record.”

“I’m glad,” he says, leaning his head on Jon’s.

“So,” Jon starts, pouring all the comfort he can manage into his embrace, “how about it? A late lunch at the pub, and then we can go see Maggie if there's time?”

Martin pulls away from Jon and smiles. “Yeah. Yeah, I think I’m good. Let’s get going,” he says.

“Yes, let’s.” Jon moves toward their makeshift mudroom, which is nothing more than a sorry shoe rack leaned against the wall next to the front door and a couple of wooden pegs designed to hang heavy coats.

“And, Jon?”

Jon turns part of the way back around, cocking his head to the side in mild confusion. “Yes?”

There’s a subtle tension in Martin’s stance when Jon looks back at him, but he’s standing up noticeably straight and puffing himself up. This is familiar to him; he imagines he looks the same way when he’s about to go into a situation that involves delicate social interactions.

However, this is unfamiliar to him as something Martin does in the face of imminent discomfort. Martin isn’t a lip-worrier. Nor is he a fidgeter. Too much practice maintaining a guise of false cheer. No, what Martin does is shrink. He hunches over imperceptibly and draws his arms into himself, and makes the space he’s in feel that little bit bigger, that little bit lonelier, for his diminished presence in it.

Resolve blooms on Martin’s face. It’s a fragile thing, Jon can tell, but it’s there. Jon hopes this is just one instance of many of Martin deciding to take up his due space and filling the world with his presence. “Would you start also using ‘they’ and ‘them’ for me sometimes?” Martin starts, in a rush. He continues, slower and more hesitant, “I just want to try them out; see how they feel and all that. Might not be a permanent thing.”

“It would be my utmost honor and pleasure to use whatever language my boyfriend feels most comfortable with me using for them.” Jon says primly, bent slightly at the waist and arms swept to one side.

In a second, Martin closes the distance between them, hooking one arm under Jon’s legs and behind his back and twirling him around, both of them giggling all the while. Jon gets the impression Martin’s taking it easy (in consideration of the abundance of fabric flowing free around their ankles, if he had to guess), but it’s perfect anyway.

For his part, Jon is taking this opportunity to admire his boyfriend between giggles: the sepia highlights in their hair, brought out by the (no doubt by now) sinking sun; the double chin Jon likes tucking his head under when he wants to feel at home; the strength in all of Martin’s body but especially their arms, arms that hold him close as they spin around the room, never showing signs of faltering. Mingling with admiration for Martin’s physical form is an enduring respect for Martin’s courage and his life-long compassion. This is a person Jon would trust with his life and his heart.

Eventually, Martin returns Jon to solid ground. Jon would say it was too soon, but they’re both slightly out of breath, and time is moving ever forward. Jon practically falls into Martin, pressing their foreheads together. The smooth chiffon slides against Jon’s skin as they shift into comfortable positions. He closes his eyes and isn’t aware of much else that isn’t Martin.

“Hey there, handsome,” Martin says after more time passes. “What’s someone like me got to do to get someone like you out that front door so we can actually go on our date sometime this century?”

Jon’s eyes crinkle in the corners, deeply amused. “You might have to carry me over the threshold at this point. Just make sure to grab our shoes—wouldn’t want leave without completing your ensemble, after all.”

[shig-a-shig-ah]

re: gift basket anon — this just in, the head of american lov is definitely the unholy lovechild of cecil from wtnv and jon from the magnus archives.

Loooool. I love this so much. Very obsessed with Eyes as America's big bad tbh. Nothing like some Eldritch terror vibes to spice things up and honestly MHA is missing that.

[rosy-cheekx]

Dragged from the Deep

I will update with an AO3 link, two chapters, but I really wanted to get this out!

This is from @voiceless-terror‘s prompt:  “ Been a tough few days. How are you holding up?” with jmart in the safehouse...Not what they expected but I am VERY VERY proud of this!

--

Martin awoke to the sound of Jon mumbling in his sleep. “I took my hand, and I reached down into the darkness.” Jon’s voice is quiet, reverent. Its barely his own; his voice of the Archive.

Really should have heard from Basira by now, Martin thought, trying to tamp down the frustration rising in his chest.

“Down and down,” Jon continued. “Until my whole arm was inside, up to the shoulder. It was damp and cold, with the rough stone sides scraping my skin, but my hand was stretched as far as I could, and it still gripped nothing but empty air. Then the hole began to close, and all at once the spell was broken.”

“Jon, m’dear?” he half-whispered, stroking Jon’s cheek softly. Jon was a light sleeper, but these times were...tricky. “Hey, Jonathan,” he added, voice at a speaking-volume now. “Wake up, it’s not real.”

“I tried to pull my arm out, to get free, but it held me tight. Not quite crushing me but holding me in place. I screamed and cried for help, looking around for anyone who might be able to hear me, but the only people walking by seemed utterly oblivious to what was happening. Then I felt it, something brushing against my hand from below it in the hole. Teeth. Wet, blunt teeth, which quickly gave way to a rough, slender tongue-”[97]

Martin couldn’t bear to hear any more. He hated witnessing Jon like this, possessed by the statements, by his need to feed. Jon’s voice was like marble, smooth and cold and mesmerizing, but it was heavy and would consume Jon if he allowed it.

Martin would not allow it.

“Jon!” He gave him a shake, firm on his shoulders. “Wake up!”

A drowning man suddenly reunited with his lungs; Jonathan Sims gasped for air. His eyes flashed open (there it was, the cursed glint of green that seemed to glow from within) and he clutched a hand to his chest as he began to cough. Martin pulled him into a sitting position, kneeling next to him and resting a hand on Jon’s lower back as he felt the convulsions double his frame. When his hacking had settled, Martin felt safe enough to breathe again himself, lest he had stolen air from the man beside him.

“H-hi,” Jon murmured, voice shaky, drawing his knees to his chest beneath the comforter. “How-how bad was it this time?”

Martin knew about Jon’s hunger, knew that statements were his fuel more than anything organic. The arrangement with Basira had been working relatively well up until now. Every three to four weeks, Basira would call the mobile they kept stashed in the safehouse for that purpose, only her number programmed in and let them know when she was coming, typically within a day or two. She should have called almost ten days ago. Had she let them go, at last, to fend for themselves? Had something happened to her, to the Institute? Things were getting dire.

At first, a little less than a week ago, Martin thought it was the nightmares; that the mumbling had been Jon apologizing to those so unfortunate enough to have him as a feature player in their nightmares. His words were unintelligible, so Martin had hugged him tightly in the night, in the way they had held each other those first days weeks, whispering affirmations of safety and love.

When he asked the poorly-rested Jon about it the next morning, he had frowned. “Ah, no. I mean, I haven’t slept with anyone—ah, more to say, no one has been in the room while I’ve been asleep to confirm for sure besides you, but I don’t think I usually talk in my sleep.” Martin chalked it up as “Weird, But No Too Weird,” and they agreed to keep an eye on it. Every night since, Martin had repeated that ritual, the words too unintelligible to understand, Martin clutching Jon like a life vest, carrying him safe through the morning.

Jon’s flu-like symptoms had cropped up three days ago. He woke weak, hardly able to move, and couldn’t keep any food down. The tea and water Martin literally spooned him were staying down, at least, which helped combat the dehydration Jon was surely suffering from the 40-degree fever he was running. The fever reducers weren’t helping, and Martin had nearly dragged Jon to A&E before he’d been able to explain to him what was happening. He was breaking down, needed the statements or things would get worse. “And, no, Martin-” cut off by a coughing fit. “I don’t know how much worse. Bad.” Whatever role Martin usually played in Jon’s life: roommate, friend, boyfriend maybe?, it didn’t matter. Or, at least, it came to second to Martin’s new role as nurse. Nurse was a role Martin was good at it. Practically a professional home-care assistant. But caring for a starving eldritch demigod was marginally different than caring for his human mum. At least the vomit cleaned the same way.

The statements had become more distinct the first night of the fevers. Words that had typically barely passed his lips were now being told to the night air with an intensity Martin had sorely wished he would never hear again. If Martin strained his ears, he could typically hear the tired hiss of a tape recorder. He tried to smash it that first night, out of anger and exhausted desperation, but Jon had screamed when he had bashed it with a vase, weeping as if it had been his head smashed and not the spinning dials of that cursed thing. Jon’s migraine had lasted through the night and into the afternoon, with Martin unable to do anything but apologize and stroke his hair, reading to him a novel that just wouldn’t be enough.

“Not too bad,” Martin answered, plastering a soft smile over his tired face. “Just scared me was all, I don’t know if it’s better to wake you or not, but it felt weird not to.” Jon was scratching at old worm scars, skin shiny and taut, and Martin took his hands gently, pressing a kiss to his pulse points in turn. God, he felt so hot against his lips.

“M-I’m sorry,” Jon sighs, eyes already fluttering closed again. His face was pale and his muscles slack; Martin hated how hollow his eyes and cheeks seemed, skeletal in the light of the moon.

“Shh, nothing to apologize for,” Martin assured him, reaching across Jon’s side of the bed to click on the lamp, wincing at the sudden light and the clock. 4:15. Too early, even for a morning person like Martin. “Do-do you want me to read to you some more? I can make some tea, chamomile? Milk and honey? Or we can listen to some music, or a podcast?” He knew it was fruitless. It would all be for naught until he got the damn statements from Basira.

Jon had the comforter drawn to his neck, shivering slightly, eyes closed. He nodded vaguely. “The book,” he managed, voice a broken whisper, so unlike the strong and powerful intonation Martin had just heard. Martin nodded, kissing his forehead, clammy and plastered with baby hairs, and stood, passing the book into Jon’s lap, page marked with a flat-barreled pen, something that had been tucked into a journal in the bedside table. (Jon and Martin had agreed that some things are better left unread.) Martin could see Jon’s hands shaking slightly under the blanket.

The walk to the kitchen was cold and dark, and Martin took a moment to himself, while the electric kettle hummed to life, to press his forehead against the cool plastic of the refrigerator, fingers interlaced behind his neck. God, he was so tired. He loved Jon more than anything, that was true, but he was at such a loss. It hurt to know there was nothing he could do to help, short of kidnapping a random neighbor from the town and begging them to tell Jon their story. He would call Basira this afternoon. He had tried the day the fever started and hasn’t received an answer. She was probably chasing down a lead about Daisy; she was known to go off the grid when hunting after her.

The click of the kettle, and Martin is on task again, portioning out tea and honey, chamomile for Jon, English breakfast for himself; he needs the caffeine. Two travel mugs later, Martin was heading back into the dark hallway, up the stairs, and to the dimly let bedroom.

The task had taken no more than five minutes, eight max. This was apparently, long enough for Jon to rifle in the nightstand drawer, retrieve that little notebook they had found, and to begin scribbling in it furiously. Martin could already see a good quarter of the notebook had been filled already, though what measure of that had been used prior to their arrival was unclear.

“Jon? Writing anything interesting?” Jon’s eyes jerked open and he let his gaze fall on the notebook.

“Oh-ah, no. Just doodling,” the words still weak, but the half-smile on his face lifts Martin’s spirits. See? He told himself. He’s still Jon. Jon closed the notebook and tucked it into his lap, reaching for the spill-proof mug with the hand not holding the pen that had been marking the page number. Martin noticed Jon twiddling the pen between his fingers and elected not to say anything. Whatever helped. And it had seemed to help; Jon seemed a little less gaunt than he had, but maybe that was the consequence of sitting up, letting himself focus on other things than his gnawing hunger. “Page 74,” Jon sighed as Martin resumed his position next to him in bed, tucking his head on Martin’s shoulder. “Second paragraph.”

“Creep,” Martin muttered good-naturedly, before settling into the pages and resuming the book, some sort of cop thriller-mystery (because of course that had been Daisy’s preferred reading material).

Martin had been reading for nearly an hour when, while pausing to sip his tea, the scratching of pen on paper had distracted him from the story. They had been at a rather thrilling part of the chase; the detective had just discovered that his wife, who he thought to be dead, was not actually dead and maybe even a part of the mystery. Martin had felt rather invested in giving Jon a good show, throwing himself into the narration maybe a little more than was necessary for the audience of one (1) ill partner (Boyfriend? Love? Patient? Whatever). Jon had remained quiet, save for a periodic coughing fit, but didn’t seem to be asleep from the way Martin could feel The Eye in the room with him, an inescapable feeling now, consequences of his proximity to The Archivist. With the sound of the pen, however, Martin closed the book, flipping it upside down and open. (Usually, Jon would chastise him for such a horrendous act to a book. Martin wished he would.)

Jon’s eyes were cast on the book, but his mind was clearly elsewhere. He was scribbling furiously, writing continuously in the notebook that had once belonged to Daisy. Jon’s handwriting, difficult in the best of circumstances, was positively chicken scratch as Martin tried to parse out the strings of words on the paper, some he could swear weren’t even English.

“Jon?” Martin asked, placing a hand on the journal gently. “Is everything alright?”

“I-ah, yeah,” Jon capitulated, sighing softly, even as it resulted in a series of weak hacks. “I was trying to remember the dream, the statement I was reading in my sleep. I thought maybe writing it down would help.”

“And? Did it help?”

“I…I don’t know.” Jon frowned and scrubbed his hands over his eyes, blinking wearily. “I need to keep trying.”

Martin frowned internally but tried to keep his face neutral. “D’you think it’s…good? To try?”

“I don’t know, Martin.” Martin is suddenly reminded of a paranoid, frantic Jonathan Sims, angry and scared and not knowing who to trust. “But I have to try something! I can’t just sit here, waiting to wither away and die.”

“O-okay then,” Martin took a deep breath. “It was just a question.”

“A stupid one.” He’s sick, Martin reminds himself. He doesn’t know what he’s saying.

“Well,” Martin closed the book properly this time, surreptitiously dog-earing a page. What Jon doesn’t know won’t hurt him. “I’m out of tea. Need any more?”

Jon shook his head, quiet now as he continued to write, eyes glued to his page. “A-alright then,” Martin slid off the bed and frowned, catching a whiff of himself. Yikes. He had lost track of the last time he bathed, so worried had he been about missing a call from Basira. “Would you be okay if I have a shower?”

More silence, the scratching of the cheap pen the only sound in the room. At least there wasn’t a tape running. “Shout if you need me.”

-

It felt good to breathe in the steam and smell of lather, to luxuriate in the hot water rolling over him. Martin has always been a bit generous with his showers, especially as a teen. They had been his designated times to be off the hook from his mother, chores, his jobs, anything that was causing him stress. Martin felt a bit guilty remembering these things. His shower wasn’t long because he wants to avoid Jon, not at all. It’s just. Jon is clearly in a bit of a mood, so it would be good to give him some space without making it seem like he’s upset. Which, he’s not upset! Just. a break is good. Yeah. A break is healthy.

Martin turned off the water when he started to feel a bit dizzy from the heat, wrapped himself in a towel and splashed cold water on his face. There. He was feeling better already.

“Jon!” He called, cracking the door and letting steam roll out around him. “I know it’s a bit early, but I thought maybe I could start on breakfast. Maybe you can stomach down some crackers today?”

After a few beats of silence, Martin called out again. The loo, while not an en suite, was pretty close to the master. “Jon?”

Must be asleep. Martin smiled softly to himself and shook his head, ruffling his curls, more white than auburn anymore, and pulled on a fresh pair of sweatpants. Not like they were going anywhere today.

Tinged pink from the hot shower, Martin rounded the corner into the master bedroom and stopped, momentarily confused. “Oh, did you not hear me?”

Jon was awake. He was still writing, bent over the notebook and scribbling furiously, murmuring to himself, too quiet to hear. He didn’t look up. Martin frowned, shivering as a wave of static rolled over his body like a cool wind. “Jon. Jon, a-are you in there? Are you okay?”

The muttering continued, unceasing. Martin edged forward carefully, hands in front of him like he was buffeting back a storm or trying not to scare a wounded animal. Honestly, Martin wasn’t sure which sentiment was more accurate. He crept his way to Jon’s side of the bed, still apparently unnoticed by the Archivist. There was a bloody tape recorder on the bedside table. Martin knew better than to touch it.  

He bent down, kneeling on the floor and craning his neck to look up into Jon’s face. His shoulders slumped as he gazed up into an emerald glow as Jon’s own eyes, usually a deep brown, lit the page in front of him like a torch, bathing it in harsh light. Jon’s own form was crackling slightly, seemingly more solid than a usual body should, silhouette a little too crisp against the wall behind him.

Martin could hear him now, too, and his voice was the same low, consistent monologue that Martin had first loved, but had grown to hate in his years working in the Archives.

“As I said, it was one of the last boxes I opened on the second day. It was late, and I had already made my way through most of a bottle of wine. The more I think about it, the more I think that opening that box felt no different to any of the others. No hard feelings, no smells, nothing. It was just a box empty of everything except a single typewritten note and an old hand mirror.

It lay inside, utterly innocuous. If it was a trap, there was no way to tell.” [60]

That one sounded familiar. An old statement, it must be. Something about a mirror and seeing things in a reflection? Punching a camera? he wondered. Martin felt another shiver roll through his body; he turned his attention towards the notebook, towards what he knew would be there. Now that he knew what to look for, he could read the handwriting with little trouble. As the Archivist spoke, he wrote the words in Jon’s handwriting, transcribing the statement.

“Jon,” Martin’s voice was soft. “If you can hear me, I’m going to take away your pen now. I think…I think that will let you rest. I’m going to count to three, okay? One. Two. Three.”

As soon as Martin reached for the pen, he felt himself being thrown backwards, as if by a tidal wave. He felt his body hit the wall, heard his skull hit the wall with a sickening thud.

                                        ------Chapter 2------

When Martin woke, he was confused. Last he knew, he had gone to sleep in bed, right? Not on the couch watching telly or drunk in a bathtub. So why was he so stiff—ow. He rolled his neck. And sore. He was on the floor, for one thing, head against the wall and legs splayed in front of him. God his head hurt. Was he hungover? No, he hadn’t drunk anything. Just eaten dinner in bed with Jon, done dishes, read, and fallen asleep.

Oh shit. Jon. It rushed back to Martin in a dizzying spiral; Helen would be proud. The mumbling, the writing, the pen, the eyes. Had Jon pushed him? Not physically, maybe. But hadn’t he heard through the grapevine something about Jon and the delivery man—Breekon? Or maybe Hope? Whichever one hadn’t died in the Unknowing. Something about him shoving him backwards with sheer force of a word? Jon had thought they were exaggerating. But maybe…maybe not.

Martin’s eyes were still closed, he realized. He was afraid to, he realized. He wasn’t sure what he expected to see: maybe a big, unblinking Eye where the body of Jon had been? A torrent of books and pages spinning around Jonathan Sims in a dramatic flourish as he commands them? Hundreds, if not thousands, of tape recorders piling around their bed, drowning them both in magnetic tape and words? Slowly, painfully, Martin opened his eyes.

None of those were there of course. There was just Jon. Sitting in bed, gaunt and frail. Writing and reciting as if nothing happened. That was almost worse, in a way, that he had flung Martin against a wall and continued as if it hadn’t hurt him to do so. The Archivist’s movements were stiff and mechanical as he turned the page and continued to write, voice now in a language Martin couldn’t understand but was probably Chinese.

Stopping the writing was no longer an option, he supposed. But what else could he do? Maybe it could recharge Jon a little, like sucking the marrow from a bone. Only Martin wasn’t sure if the statements or Jon was the bone in that scenario. God, he wished he could Eldritch Google “Eye statement starvation: stages of bad?” Unfortunately, his Eldritch Google was out of service and there was no one else he could ask who wasn’t also trying to actively kill him.

What were his options then? Wait and hope Jon doesn’t die. Call Basira again. Kidnap a stranger and have them read a statement. Well, he wasn’t that desperate. Not yet.

Martin sighed, running a hand through his hair and feeling a lump throbbing gently on the back of his head. He checked the rest of his body for injuries and was grateful to find nothing too bad. Probably just a concussion.

Hauling himself to his feet (using the floor and doorknob to a closet as his supports), Martin teetered his way to the kitchen. He threw open the cupboard beneath the sink and grabbed the small black phone with Basira’s number saved.

Dialing, he slid himself into a chair at the kitchen table, resting his forehead against his free palm and closed his eyes again.

“Hello?” The faint voice Basira Hussain rang out into the air.

“Basira? It’s Martin. Any word on the statements? It’s getting a little dire here.” He could hear the exhaustion in his own voice.

“Dire? How do you mean?” Basira was always a little too direct for Martin’s taste; couldn’t she hear how drained he was?

“He won’t stop repeating and writing old statements. I tried to stop him and he—well. It wasn’t on purpose…But he threw me into a wall.”

“Shit.” Basira was quiet for a moment. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” he bit back. “I would be better if we had the statements.” There wasn’t time for him to feel guilty about his delivery.

“I know, and I’m sorry. I caught wind of Daisy being in Italy, so I’m there now. If I take the first flight out of Rome, I can be at my flat tomorrow and yours the next. Two days, max. Less if I can. Can he make it that long?”

“Better bloody hope so.” The fight drained from him. “Please, Basira,” he added, sighing. “I don’t know what to do. He was sick and feverish and I could handle that but now he’s just…empty.”

“Maybe it’s like a diet.” He could practically hear her mind spinning through the phone. “You know, how when you starve yourself for too long? You start losing weight and all’s dandy. But the longer you wait, your body starts taking nutrients from your own organs?” Martin hummed an affirmation. “Maybe he’s sucking out every bit he can from himself to survive.”

“So…how do I fix that?”

“I mean, when I get you the statements, we can force-feed him. But until then? I dunno. I’m at a loss too. Keep him safe, I think? But don’t let yourself get hurt either.”

Martin nodded, momentarily forgetting he was on the phone. “Oh, yeah. Um, thank you Basira. I’ll do my best. Call me when you’re at the flat?”

“Of course. Call me if you get lo-bored.”

“Please hurry.”

Martin hung up and dropped his head to the table unceremoniously, wincing as the impact rattled the back of his skull. Now what? He didn’t want to sit in the room while the Archivist worked, but he was afraid to leave him alone. He hated how it felt to be in the room, the low wave static and the feeling of being known permeating every pore. He was afraid what staying in there would do, if Jon would Know him too well after he came back. Looking around, Martin grabbed the egg timer Jon used when he cooked and spun it to an hour. If he checked in every hour, that would be fine, right? He could let the Archivist have the bedroom; he’d stay downstairs, and check in every hour.

The first few hours crept by, but each ding of the egg timer was much too soon for Martin’s liking. He iced his head, wincing again when he realized it was the late morning and he had been unconscious for quite a while. He made himself an unassuming brunch, cheese toasty and curry left over from dinner a few days ago. Made some more tea, obviously, and took some acetaminophen to reduce the swollen goose-egg on his head. Read, watched an old DVD of some American TV show Daisy must have liked. Tried to keep his mind off whatever had taken over his boyfriend in the upstairs bedroom.

Each time the timer went off, Martin would repeat the same process. He would ascend the stairs, knock on the doorframe of the bedroom, tell Jon he was coming over to check on him, and would watch and listen to him for almost a minute. Some of the statements he recognized, some he didn’t. His eyes were always that throbbing, blinding green, staring into nothing, his face hollow and gaunt. Around two in the afternoon, Martin went in to see that Jon had moved from the bed. The notebook lay abandoned, filled to the last page. The Archivist was standing, in baggy sleep boxers, facing the wall, still intoning the fears and terrors of those who had contributed their stories to the Institute. Their stories were stark when written against the robin blue pant. Martin left the room before he could Know he was crying.

Afternoon turned to evening, and Martin continued his ministrations. The egg timer ran his day and he got little done, managing maybe half of a book from the meager shelf downstairs. He wasn’t even sure what it was about; he had to keep rereading the same pages over and over. The writing had grown to cover half the wall in Jon’s slanted script. Martin wasn’t sure he wanted to find out what would happen if he tried to smudge it. Between checking up on The Archivist, he half-heartedly ate scrambled eggs and chugged some wine; he figured he’d earned it. It was weird to feel strangely like an Archival Assistant again; knowing things were bad for the man he desperately wanted to be there but not knowing how to help.

KRRRRRRRRRRG!

Time to check on him again. Martin trudged up the stairs for what felt like the hundredth time that day. The Archivist was in a different position this time. He was kneeling, head bowed. Martin could have sworn he was praying; the monotony of words slipping from his lips as easily as the nuns Martin had seen growing up. Martin paused. It was…almost beautiful, in a way. The slight form of a man paying his service to a god to whom he was so completely indebted. The green light reflecting off the wall, covered in his scripture, casting a glow on his skin and through his curls, mussed from fever.

Would’ve been, anyways, if Martin hadn’t seen the drop of blood snaking its way down Jon’s thigh, creasing where his leg was folded along the calf. All at once, the beauty he had been caught up in was gone and all he saw was a helpless, broken man, compelled to write the words of the desperate, the lost, the broken. Martin shook a pillowcase from the bed, letting the pillow fall unceremoniously, and cautiously moved to the Archivist. As worried as he was, he needed to know what was going on before he could help.

The sight made him slightly sick. Jon was bent over his thigh, holding the pen as if it were a dagger, and was using the ballpoint tip to carve words into the meat of his leg. He hadn’t gotten far, apparently the effort took more out than the body of a weakened Jon could take.

“a fac-” [54]

Confused, Martin looked up to the wall where he had been writing and figured out the problem. The pen had run out of ink. The words got paler and less distinct until they were barely readable. Judging from the smears, the Archivist had tried to use Jon’s blood to write, using the pen as a quill. It clearly hadn’t worked, judging by the thin, weak curves of red and brown. Jon was still mumbling the statement, eyes blank and voice even, but the lines of his face seemed frustrated and dark.

The letters on his skin were weeping dark red now and Martin could see his hands weren’t the only ones shaking. He was afraid to touch him, afraid that trying to press a cloth to his wounds could quite literally be both of their deaths.

The more he stared, trapped in indecision, he watched as the decision was made for him. Jon had been ill, dehydrated and fever-laden, and the assault to his body was more than he could handle. His face, an ashen brown-grey-green from the glow of his eyes, went slack and as the emerald lights went out, Jon slumped, falling into Martin’s lap and shoulder as his body gave up. As soon as their skin touched, Martin’s mind snapped into focus. Fix this. You have to fix this.

Martin was immediately comforted by the fact that Jon was breathing. He hadn’t run out of fuel, not yet. Martin pressed a kiss to his hair (still hot) as he gently laid Jon flat, tearing open the sealed end of the pillowcase clutched in his fist so he could slip it up Jon’s leg and press it down, trying to stem the blood flow. You need something better, he thought, mind racing. It was oozing, not squirting, so Jon hadn’t hit an artery. That was good. Thank god Mum’s hospital soaps were worth something in the end. He needed a thicker fabric; the sheet wasn’t doing any good. Martin scoured the room, looking for any sort of thick fabric.

His towel from his shower. Thank fuck for his laziness. In less than ten steps, he had retrieved the towel from where it was haphazardly abandoned by the dresser and brought it back, folding and pressing it to his thigh, exchanging it for the thin white pillowcase. Sorry, Daisy.

Kneeled beside Jon, Martin lent most of his upper body weight to pressing down on the towel, keeping a cautious eye on Jon’s face and his chest, each shallow breath another blessing. He’s not sure how long he sits there in, that position, whispering platitudes to the pallid-faced man laid in front of him. Maybe an hour? Maybe three? Maybe twenty minutes? Time is blurry, intangible to him.

It’s dark when Martin felt okay to cautiously lift the towel and examine the letters carved in his leg. They’re starting to clot, he nodded to himself, feeling safe enough to leave Jon there on the floor to get the first aid kit from the lav. Carefully, lovingly, Martin pulled the ace bandage tight around the cotton pads on his leg, freshly doused and swabbed with cleansing alcohol. Daisy was nothing if not prepared for injuries.

Satisfied with his care, he gently pulls Jon into his arms and takes him downstairs. He didn’t want Jon to wake up and see the room like this—bloody and covered in the writings of the Archivist. Between the carpet and walls, it would take a while to clean anyways. The couch was certainly big enough to hold the man he held in his arms (and god he was way too light).

One Jon was laid on the couch, Martin made a fresh cup of tea, black tea with as much caffeine as he could stomach and pulled a cold compress from the freezer. Lifting his shoulders carefully, Martin situated himself to act as a headrest for the unconscious Jon, a cold compress acting as a barrier between them to hopefully aid the fever. One hand in Jon’s curls, the other holding a book open (still, no idea what it was about), Martin settled into the evening, saying a prayer to anything that was out there that Basira would hurry the hell up.

Martin read aloud to Jon all night, trying in vain to keep himself awake. Apparently, the book was a romance novel, some trashy erotica about a woman and a werewolf. Martin was just graceful it wasn’t sci-fi and horror. He annotated it as he read, giving Jon his stream of consciousness thoughts. “You know, I haven’t done that,” he chuckled to himself, brushing Jon’s hair from his face. “Especially not with a woman, but I don’t really think it’s anatomically possible.”

His eyes were starting to droop around three or four in the morning, the adrenaline draining out of him. Resting a hand on Jon’s neck, he felt for his pulse point and, after finding it, light and shallow as it was after the coma, let his eyes close, comforted in feeling the life fluttering beneath his fingers.

-

Martin woke up to a pounding on the door and he snapped awake like the knock had been a gunshot. The care he took to lay Jon’s head back down was deeply contrasted by the way he bolted to the door, unlocking it with haste and resisting the urge to throw his arms around Basira, wincing at the bright daylight that streamed inside.

“Woah—Martin,” Basira took a step back involuntarily. “Is there a reason your hands are covered in blood?”

“What? Oh-yeah, I’ll tell you about it. Things were bad. It’s fine now. It’s-It’s not my blood.” Martin swung the door open, letting Basira in. “What time is it? How did you get here so fast?”

“It’s quarter-three; I may or may not have found a plane that wasn’t on the official flight plans. And there’s more than one way to get in the Institute besides a key.” Martin shook his head and decided it wasn’t worth asking about. He beckoned her to the couch, where Jon lay, limbs limp.

Basira handed him the first statement on the pile and opened one for herself. “Ready?”

“Statements begin.”

-

Jon’s first thought was how wet his neck felt. His second was why he heard so many words. His brain floated between living dolls and a message in a bottle, washed up on the beaches of Greece. His teeth were chattering and he felt so cold. He grasped his hands out, reaching desperately for the comforter. Martin must have stolen it, he smiled to himself. Oh, that’s Martin. Martin’s voice.

“Hmm…Mm’tin,” he murmured, shifting towards the sound of his voice. Martin’s voice continued, telling him a story about a doll with painted lips and angry eyes. A hand reached out and cupped his face. Jon leant into the touch hungrily, grateful for the heat on his skin. He let Martin’s words carry him away again.

-

When Jon woke again, he felt more alive than he had in days. If his illness recently had been him submerged, he finally felt like he was breaking through the surface. The Choke released him, and he felt oxygen return to his lungs. But he was not in the Buried, he was on the couch. He was not drowning, he was breathing sweet air and felt it wafting over him in the drafty house that felt like a home when he was with Martin. Martin. God, he could hear his voice and he didn’t think he had heard anything so sweet than Martin speaking and reading to him. He was reading, yes, and Jon knew immediately what it was: the statement of Herbert Conklin, an Irishman who watched his son turn to plastic before his eyes, piece by piece. Jon’s eyes flew open and he craned his neck to find Martin’s face. His eyes were cast down on the statement in his lap, but his hand was folded in Jon’s, running his fingertips over the smaller man’s knuckles gently.

Jon felt paralyzed, unable to move as he let the statement wash over him, hating how good it made him feel to hear the statement, lavishing in the words. He felt a sharp pain in his leg throb to dull ache as the healing words flowed through him. As Martin uttered those forsaken words: “Statement Ends,” he brought his eyes to meet Jon’s, a pale smile ghosting his face before it solidified into something more real, more Martin.

“Hi love. Been a tough few days. How are you holding up?”

Jon was lost for words for a moment, gaping like a fish before he brought Martin’s clasped hand to his lips. Kissing it, he pressed the words into his skin, begging them to impress themselves there forever.

“Better that you’re here.” His memory was a blank, sure, but he knew it must be true and didn’t need to ask the Eye to confirm. Martin was here. All would be well.

[captaincravatthecapricious]

Collapse- Prompt Fill

Jon is a Dune fan. How can picking up one book change things? Idea from a tumblr prompt and a post by @roseunspindle (permission was granted for writing this)

cw all the typical episode 160 stuff and references to nausea and of course manipulation and fainting. Some dialogue from 160, and a quote from Dune, of course!

I am still accepting bingo prompts (card by @celosiaa​) Pick a prompt from the card and a character and let me know if you want art of fic! (I am much faster at art). I have several outlined that I need to write, and I will get to those... Soonish?  Have an excellent day and I hope 2021 treats you well!

Jon isn’t sure why he grabbed the book.  He’s read it before so it doesn’t hold the same interest it once did.   He had to work on that reading habit of his in school, and now he’s managed a few rereads, but he still prefers the unknown and interesting.

But he did love this book when he read it.  He was too young for it, of course.  But that hadn’t mattered.  He sucked the whole world into his young and greedy mind.  

And now that glossy, second hand cover.... makes him pause over it.  He doesn’t know how it survived evictions and his absences.  He must have subconsciously stored it out of the way.  But he grabs it, with a few statements, and his small collection of clothes into a very battered backpack that he’s sure once belonged to Melanie.  

He wishes he had more books.  Maybe once he and Martin reach the train station, he can pick up something else to read.  Or maybe he can borrow some books from Martin….

He stuffs Dune into his backpack.  It’s on the top, distending the fabric slightly, straining the zipper as his grandmother had always reprimanded him for when he shoved too many pleasure books into his school bag, (always to read under the desk and he was always inevitably caught and reprimanded again, but what could you do with an inattentive student who still pulled good marks?).  

He boards the train with Martin.  Battered and aging backpacks filled with worn clothes and statements and books and granola bars.  The station had been loud and busy enough to send Jon reeling with the information spilling off a crowd of people as well as the less eldritch sensory overload.  His head aching dully as they settle into their seats.  

Medicine for motion sickness sends him drowsy as soon as it is effective.  He spends the time before it works staring queasily out the window, clammy hands holding tightly to Martin as much to sooth his uneasy stomach as to hold Martin in this plain of reality.  He nods off, hands still clasped with Martin’s.  Wrapped up in the elation of having Martin with him, around him, talking to him…. almost safe.  

He wakes up in a storm of hurried breaths and crashing thoughts…. precarious as the crashing waves that haunted the lonely, but far closer and more oppressive.  Statements tumbling with his own crashing thoughts.  Fear on his breath.  His fear making him Hungry in the nauseous way of autocannibleism.  

He presses his face into Martin, only just then realizing that he’s been using Martin as a pillow.   Martin, who is dozing.  Martin, who is still a little foggy.  The last of the haze burning off with the contact.  Jon can see the steam rising between them, mainly and gentle.  The sun burning the fog off a meadow in the early morning.  

Jon sits himself up, but stays pressed against Martin.  The imprint of Jon slowly thawing Martin as the train gently sways them both.  

Jon doesn’t want to sleep more.  He would much prefer to read, but it is still more than a bit of a gamble for him to even medicated.  But…. he’s bored.  

Dune.  

Right on the top of his bag.  Leaning over starting to make him queasy (which doesn’t bode well for reading attempts), he pulls it out and straightens up.  

He turns it over in his hands a few times, until his stomach settles.  He’s fine.  Just a few more minutes before the medicine works… probably anyhow.  

He flips through the pages, still waiting for his breathing to calm as well.  

Oh.  

He remembers this words… in a half remembered haze of childhood and tracing those words on his limbs and his walls.  With his eyes, and markers, and pencils.  On the inside of his eyelids.  Carved into the air about his bed as he repeated them to himself.  

‘I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past, I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.’

Reading those words again makes his hands shake like they had when he first read them… with Mr. Spider fresh in his nightmares.  Still missing the life he could never have with his parents.  

Jon fumbles for a pen.  

He traces them again on his forearm.  

Poorly written, of course.  Hands far from steady with the rocking of the train and the rocking of his stomach and the rolling of his world after the day he’s had.  But he is once more too tired to focus on anything much, so he tucks his book away again, and shoves the pen in his pocket.  

He tucks himself up against Martin again, using an old jumper as a blanket.  He knows he is taking a bit of a liberty, but he buries his face in Martin’s neck and breathes deeply.  He’s asleep again in moments.  

The trip isn’t eventful.  Lots of track clicking past.  Lots of drowsy hours.  A disappointing sandwich and a tasteless cup of tea.  Jostled shoulders.  Cramped restrooms.  Cramped necks.  Jon’s bad leg protesting the seating arrangements.  Then the slightly uncomfortable walk to the safe house.  Weighed down with hasty shopping and their lumpy bags.  Jon limping more heavily by the time they drag themselves over the threshold.  

In the domestic bliss, time stretches.  Lazy afternoons on the couch Jon and Martin entwined stretch into years in the golden light of afternoon.  Two weeks of cups of tea.  Of trips to the store.  Of statements that Jon goes through way too fast, try as he does to ration them.  Frantic phone calls to Basira as Jon can’t make the trip to town anymore.  More cuddling on the couch.  Bickering over who does the dishes, over who makes the best eggs.  Over what to have for dinner.  Discussions of what counts as a sandwich and whether cereal is a soup.  Jon being appalled that Martin eats cereal from the box directly with a spoon.  Martin being horrified that Jon eats dry cereal from a bowl with a glass of milk.  Playing footsie through dinner.  “Yes Martin, another soup.  Means less cooking.”  Sloppy kisses over glasses of wine.  Jon being too dizzy to go on walks.  Jon retracing Frank Herbert’s words on to his arm.  Over.  And over.  And over again.  

“I must not fear…”

“I must not fear…”

“I must not fear…”

“I must not fear…”

Until a package arrives.  

It’s unassuming and labeled in Basira’s careful penmanship.  If Jon expects to see tear-staines over a lost partner, he doesn’t see them.  

Martin kisses him soundly, and leaves to take pictures of good cows.  

Jon has been tucked up on the couch.  Under a thick blanket.  Finally in better spirits now that he has statements again, ready …so ready for his limbs to feel like his again.  

He tastes copper as he started to read.  The words don’t sit right in his mouth.  Before he can even properly start… before his mind is lost to him, he can feel the wrongness building.  And when the betrayal occurs, he can’t find it in him to be surprised or hurt.  All he can feel is a hollow fear…. a hungry fear.  Gaping and endless.  Tearing into his skin as he tears at his clothes, his skin, the statement that does not belong to Hazel Rutter and has nothing to do with a fire.  Aside from the fire in his throat and in his hand, and leaping from mark to mark as Jon learns what they actually are.  A map of manipulation.  A tool to make the actual tool.  The wood and hammer and nails that make him the door.  The door that he… that he.  “ Come to us in your perfection.                         

                                                                                               Bring all that is fear and all that                    

                    is terror and all that is the awful                    

                    dread that crawls and chokes and                       

                    blinds and falls and twists and                        

                    leaves and hides and weaves and                        

                    burns and hunts and rips and bleeds                    

                    and dies!                                              

                                                                                               Come to us.                                            

                                                                                               I-“

“I…”  Jon chokes.  His eyes sliding helplessly over the room.  Over many tokens of a happy life that he is never going to have.  Because of this…. this… he can’t even call it a betrayal.  His entire life has lead to this.  Every unhappy moment.  Every instinct he has ever had.  Every poor choice.  Every step another step towards the inevitable.  His eye catches on a familiar cover.  Somehow still glossy.  Despite Jon having carried it around like a safety blanket for the last few weeks.  And he catches those smudged and traced over words on his arm and he tears at himself, trying to stop.  

“I…”

He chokes again.  Around those last few words.  The words that will wrench the thunder from the sky and rend it asunder.  

“I…”

He breathes.  Possibly for the first time since his hands ghosted over the unassuming manilla folder.  

“‘I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past, I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.’”

His vision cuts out.  He must have stood at some point, because he is falling.  Stings cut.  Nothing to manipulate.  The puppet is broken.  

He wakes with a head full of cotton, but a heart devoid of fear.  There is a clarity in his limbs.  But exhaustion sits heavily on his chest.  He feels… clear.  And real.  And… like utter shit.  

But the arms around him are solid and warm and smell like tea and toast and all the good things Jon can think of in the world.  And even if Jon could bring himself to move… he wouldn’t have dreamt of doing so.  

There is burnt ink in the air.  

“Wha’?”  Marble-mouthed.  Heavy with the exhaustion of years of poor sleep, of running and fearing and the adrenaline crash of something horrifying being…over.  

“It’s alright, Jon.  Everything’s fine.  I…. I don’t know how you did it, but you stopped reading… and I burned it.  It’s gone.  We’re okay.”  

And Jon isn’t sure he understands…. but he doesn’t care.  Because he is not afraid, and Martin told him that everything is okay.  And he thinks… just Maybe.  Just… maybe… that it might be.  

He lets himself be tucked in.  He lets himself sleep.  

Jon takes up calligraphy.  He hates it.  Utterly despises it… but he becomes decent enough to write one thing for their mantel.  In the safe house.  Miles away from fear and Jonah Magnus… if the bastard is even still alive…  

Framed in gold, traced out in neat and flowing calligraphy:

‘I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past, I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.’ - Frank Herbert, Dune.