#and then played Helen just to trick and lie to Jon

[fatherofpuppets]

I'm a simple man: every time I think about Michael The Distortion — I cry.

[celosiaa]

Submission by @entitynumber5: Hi Connor, I hope you’re having a WONDERFUL birthday and that you get to take a break from studying to do the things you enjoy and just have the lovely day you deserve!!! For this morning’s “write what I like” sprint (trying a new method of getting it all out before I have to put the brain into study mode), I wrote a lil something about 🎃 spooky season birthdays 🎃set in the Emmaverse… which turned out kind of long and a bit sappy. So there is no pressure to read it! I just love these characters :’) the working title is “Martin and Jon get proven wrong by an adorable five year old”.

Content warnings: brief mentions of blood, alcohol and minor injury (in relation to Martin working a Halloween paramedic shift); food.

Emma is obsessed with birthdays. Just not her own.

She turned five in May, and no matter how special they tried to make the day—with rainbow layer cake and carefully-selected presents and a visit to the roller-skating rink with her best friends—she didn’t seem half as excited as when it was someone else’s birthday. She would hardly sleep the night before friends’ parties. She spent hours wrapping the presents she picked for them with ribbons and bows and even confetti stuffed inside the paper. The only time they could encourage her to practice the piano for her weekly lessons was when she played the Happy Birthday song over FaceTime for her friends’ birthdays that were during school holidays.

The only thing Emma seems to have held onto from her own birthday is the notebook given to her Georgie and Melanie. Martin seems to remember there being two: one with little cartoon ghost drawn in the front by Georgie and the other with a scribble of the Admiral by Melanie. But Emma only carries the one around with her everywhere, and Martin is starting to doubt his own memory about there being a duplicate.

She has it with her now, as they sit outside the lecture theatre where Jon is currently teaching. In the too-big chair beside the door, her legs swing as she holds the notebook very close, staring intently at its pages while she wriggles her fluffy purple pen in thought.

“Daddy,” Emma says, in that voice that means she has a Very Serious Question, “When is your birthday?”

Martin is still a little dazed from nearly a week of night shifts. It’s the first time in six days that he hasn’t been working or sleeping at this time in the afternoon, and while walking with Emma to Jon’s work to surprise him at the end of the day seemed like a nice idea in practice, he really wishes he was lying on the sofa. They could be watching Peppa Pig for the thousandth time. Or getting started on dinner, which he isn’t going to let Jon make after a long day of teaching. He’s been mentally calculating how many hours it is until he can go to bed, how many tasks he has to do before then.

This feels like a selfish thought, though, and he pushes it aside quickly in favour of smiling at Emma. “My birthday?”

“Yes,” Emma replies, still very grave, “That’s what I said. At school today, Miss Jones made us all put stickers on the big calendar on the wall for our birthdays. I wrote down all of my friends’ birthdays.”

“That’s nice.”

“And now I want to write down yours.”

“Okay, well, my birthday is next month.”

Emma frowns. “Next month. That’s…” she counts on her fingers until she seems to reach the answer she’s looking for. “October?”

“It is!” Martin grins. “Well done.”

Emma’s little frown doesn’t ease. “What day?”

“Well, do you know how many days are in October?”

Emma thinks. Shakes her head.

“There are thirty-one days in October,” Martin tells Emma, “And my birthday is on the very last day.”

Emma nods and returns to her notebook, slowly enunciating the words as she writes them down: “Oc-to-ber three-one.”

Martin wonders if Emma realises his birthday coincides with Halloween. Besides birthdays, she still doesn’t seem too interested in dates, no matter how many times her teacher makes her write them at the top of every page in her workbook. And during previous years, they celebrated Martin’s birthday the day before or after Halloween itself, so they can separate the two events, although perhaps she doesn’t remember.

Before Martin can ask, the door of the lecture theatre opens and students start filing out. Emma puts away her notebook and pen, her frown of concentration replaced by a glowing smile as she waits, bouncing excitedly in the chair, for her Baba to notice them waiting just outside.

*

“Jon,” Martin whisper-shouts as he tiptoes into the house after his shift, hoping he doesn’t wake Emma—but that his husband knows it’s urgent. “Jon, Jon, Jon.”

Jon emerges from the kitchen, wearing a pair of yellow washing up gloves dripping soap suds and a look of alarm. “What’s wrong?”

Martin ushers him back into the kitchen and shuts the door as quietly as possible, hoping it won’t wake Emma—or, worse yet, the cats, who will sit outside any closed door and cry to be let inside no matter what activity they were engaged in before.

“Martin,” Jon says, “What’s going on?”

“They just released the shifts for the next few weeks,” Martin replies, “And I’m working.”

“Well, good. I should hope so.”

“On my birthday.”

Jon’s expression merges into one of comprehension: Emma. And her newfound obsession with birthdays. “Ah.”

“Yep.”

“I don’t suppose you could swap shifts with someone?” Jon asks.

Martin sits down at the table, lowering his head into his hands. He wants to shower, change out of his paramedic uniform, but he knows he won’t be able to focus on anything else until they’ve had this conversation. “No one’s going to willingly take a Halloween shift. For a start, Andrew is terrified of clowns. And people are usually drunk, and it’s actually really hard to tell the difference between real and fake blood.”

“We could celebrate the day after,” Jon says, taking off the washing up gloves and sitting opposite Martin. He reaches across the table to take Martin’s hand. “I mean, you were born five minutes before midnight. It wouldn’t be a lie so much as a… slight shifting of the truth.”

“Jonathan Sims.” Martin gapes across the table at him. “Are you suggesting we lie to our daughter?”

“No!”

“Yes.”

“No, Martin,” Jon says again, “I’m simply suggesting we separate your birthday from Halloween, as we have done every year, and not draw attention to the fact because our daughter is currently obsessed with other peoples’ birthdays.”

“And it might upset her if she knew we were actually celebrating on the wrong day.”

“Exactly.”

Martin sighs. “I don’t know. It feels… sort of wrong.”

“Apparently, children under the age of seven have no concept of the passing of time and—”

“Did Tim tell you that?”

“No.”

“Oh, god. It wasn’t Helen, was it? Please tell me you haven’t been having philosophical discussions about parenting with Helen again.”

“Martin,” Jon interrupts, “It was in the parenting book you gave me.”

“Huh. I don’t remember that chapter. Oh, god, maybe I should re-read it. The whole thing. Beginning to end. I—”

“Martin.” Jon squeezes his hand. “You deserve a day of your own. Tim and Sasha already agreed to take Emma trick-or-treating on Halloween. She will be focused on that for most of the day; she’s already talking about how excited she is. Let us spend the day after that treating you to all the wonderful things you deserve on your birthday—and every day.”

Martin manages a small smile, although every instinct inside of him is telling him not to accept Jon’s proposal. Not because he is worried about the ethics of manipulating their daughter’s concept of time—although this is a concern, too—but because he doesn’t want Jon to feel like he has to do any of this. To make a whole day about him, even if he takes great pleasure and care in doing the same for Jon on his birthday.

“Thanks, Jon,” Martin murmurs.

“I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

“Now, why don’t you go and have a warm shower? I’ve put the hot water on so it shouldn’t run out while you’re in there this time.”

Martin smirks. “Are you saying I smell?”

“No.”

“Are you sure?” Martin presses, teasing now. “Because I did have to treat a farmer who’d been kicked by one of his cows this evening.”

“Okay, alright, yes. Yes, you smell. Please go and have a shower.”

Martin laughs and gets up from the table. “I’m going, I’m going.”

“That really is disgusting, Martin.”

“It’s actually a pretty funny story. About the farmer, I mean. He’s fine, by the way. I’ll tell you about it when I’m out of the shower.”

Jon shakes his head. “Why today, of all days, have you abandoned the notion of showering before you sit down at the dinner table?”

“I had something important to tell you!”

“Fine. Alright.” Jon shakes his head again. “Now please have a shower. For your sake as much as mine.”

“Love you,” Martin sing-songs as he exits the kitchen. He hears Jon’s gentle laugh chase him into the warmth of the bathroom, where Jon has put on the radiator and left him a fresh towel. He smiles, feeling his love for Jon balloon in his chest, and settles into the sensation being home.

*

Martin’s Halloween—and birthday—shift is so busy that he barely has time to check his phone. Tim has sent an album of photos of him, Sasha and Emma out trick-or-treating, dressed as Mike, Sulley and Boo from Monsters, Inc. Jon has been updating him on the number of trick-or-treaters who have visited their house (fifty-four, as of ten thirty p.m.), and how Iris and the cats are holding up with the constant ringing of the doorbell.

On his break, Martin quickly texts Tim to watch his glucose levels and not to forget his insulin (to which Tim replies yes, sir with a number of yellow heart emojis). He also texts Sasha to say she can take home any of the Skittles they get on their expedition, since they’re her favourite but Emma hates them. He tells Jon he loves him and to give Iris a pet on his behalf and that there’s some spare sweets under the sink, if they’re running low. Then it’s back to work.

The shift passes quickly, in the end. There is so much to do and no time to think about anything other than their patients. He does get given a toffee apple by someone dressed as a Minion at a student house party, and he narrowly avoids getting his face painted by twins who are the same age as Emma while his team are checking their mother’s twisted ankle after a fall trying to get to the door in time for a last-minute delivery of sweets. It’s not an awful shift, but it is, like always, exhausting and difficult in the same measure as it’s rewarding and hopeful.

By the time he gets home, all he wants to do is sleep. Emma is tucked into bed, fast asleep, while her nightlight projects solar systems onto the ceiling. Jon, too, is sleeping soundly with the cats for company. Iris barely looks up from her bed when he comes inside, but she gives a little wag of her tail each time he passes down the hallway to shower or get a drink of water. There’s a plastic pumpkin full of Emma’s sweets on the table, next to the empty bowl that had once been full of treats to hand out to their visitors.

Martin’s smiles—it looks like a night well-spent for his family—and this thought carries him through an exhausted shower before he crawls into bed next to Jon. Jon must be tired, too, because he doesn’t stir. Martin makes a mental note to check his joints aren’t playing up from all the getting up and down from the sofa during the trick-or-treat visits.

Sometime later, Martin wakes to the soft click of the door as it opens. He squints against the light bursting around the edges of the still-shut curtains, expecting to see Jon tiptoeing to the bathroom to get ready for the day. Instead, Emma is creeping inside, holding a tray of pancakes while Jon follows behind, balancing two cups of tea.

“Happy birthday!” Emma says, as she places the tray down on the bed next to Martin. “We made spooky pancakes!”

Martin rubs the sleep from his eyes and sits up fully. He glances at the alarm clock next to the bed: 11:42 a.m. He’s been asleep for just over six hours, but it somehow feels longer and yet not enough. “It’s not—”

Jon clears his throat.

“Oh. Oh, thank you, Emma! These are wonderful.”

The pancakes are, indeed, spooky. Emma has used a pumpkin cookie cutter to shape them and then drawn on funny faces with fruit and syrup. No longer responsible for balancing the tray, Emma looks at Jon, a little uncertain, and Jon nods in encouragement as he places their cups of tea down on the bedside table.

“I made you a present,” Emma says almost shyly.

Martin smiles gently at her. “That’s very kind of you. Thank you, Emma.”

Emma pulls something off the tray. It’s the second notebook, the one Martin thought he’d imagined, wrapped in a glittery silver ribbon and some confetti streamers. She offers it to Martin, and he takes it carefully, holding it as if it might fall apart in his hands.

“You can open it,” Emma tells him seriously.

Martin unwraps the ribbon. Emma takes it from him, along with the confetti, perhaps to reuse for another present. Slowly, Martin cracks open the notebook to the first page. There is Georgie’s ghoulish sketch, alongside a new inscription in Emma’s handwriting: Sorted Poems By Emma K. Blackwood-Sims. For Daddy’s Birthday. October 31.

Martin feels something tender and soft unfurl in his chest, until he’s certain he is going to cry. He begins to flick through the pages, but Emma says: “Wait!”

Martin stops. “What is it?”

“Look.” Emma climbs on to the bed, elbowing her way into the space next to him, and reaches across Martin to open the notebook on the first page again, where her inscription is. She points at her name.

“It’s meant to say assorted poems,” Jon says, “But neither of us were sure how to spell it.”

Martin laughs, the sound a little wet and shaky with the tears he can feel building. Jon hates spelling. It’s his least favourite type of homework to help Emma with.

“Look,” Emma says again, “I wrote my name like yours!”

Martin smiles. “Blackwood-Sims? But that’s your name, too.”

“No,” Emma insists, “Emma K Blackwood-Sims. Like you! Like a proper poet.”

“Oh,” Martin murmurs, “Oh.”

He’s sure he and Jon will laugh about this later. Martin doesn’t actually have a middle name. Emma does, but it certainly doesn’t begin with K. But right now, he feels tears on his cheeks as he takes in his daughter’s hard work.

Emma reaches for his face, patting away his tears with the palms of her hands. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong, I promise,” Martin replies, sniffling in an attempt to draw back the tears, “I’m happy. And I love you so, so much.”

Emma frowns. “Will pancakes make you feel better?”

“I’m alright, Emma. I promise. These are happy tears.”

“Pancakes always make me feel better,” Jon announces, climbing onto the other side of the bed and sliding back underneath the covers. He settles Emma down in the middle of them, handing her a mug full of juice. She doesn’t drink tea yet, but she doesn’t like to be left out when they do, so she has her own mug.

“These look wonderful,” Martin tells them, arranging the tray so they can all reach. Emma takes a plate and hands it to Jon, then does the same for Martin, before grabbing the final one for herself. “You’re getting very good at pancakes.”

“Baba said we can learn French toast next,” Emma says.

“Wow. That’s big.”

Emma nods. “It’s more difficult than normal toast.”

Martin chuckles. “It certainly is.”

They distribute the pumpkin-shaped pancakes between them. While they eat in bed, they tell each other stories about their Halloween night. Jon talks about the costumes of the people who visited their house, how many compliments they got on their pumpkin carving skills. Emma narrates her trick-or-treating adventure with Tim and Sasha. Martin shares the safest tales of his nightshift, the funny costumes he saw and the extravagant decorations at the parties they visited.

Martin is exhausted again by the time they’ve finished the pancakes. Jon insists on taking their empty plates back to the kitchen and making them another cup of tea, while Emma snuggles against Martin’s side. She rests her head on his shoulder.

“I know it’s not your birthday, Daddy,” Emma whispers.

Half-asleep until now, Martin grunts himself awake. “What was that, sweetheart?”

“I know it’s not really your birthday,” Emma tells him, not moving from where she’s clinging to his arm, “Your birthday was yesterday. On Halloween.”

“Oh, Emma, we—”

“It’s okay,” Emma says, “It’s like when we had a party on Saturday even though my birthday was on Wednesday because I had school.”

“Yeah.” Martin stokes his hand through Emma’s hair. “It is a bit like that.”

“I still get to say happy birthday.”

“You do.”

“But can we have a party on the right day next year?” Emma asks.

“For your birthday?”

“No, for your birthday.”

“Oh.” Martin laughs. “Yes. It might not be a party, if I have to work again, but we can do this. This is lovely. Thank you for being so thoughtful. And I’m excited to read your poems.”

“Baba said they were good.”

“Well, that’s high praise indeed.”

“It was fun.”

“That’s good. That’s what matters most when you make things.“

Emma wriggles around until she’s grinning up at him. “Can I read your poems now?”

Martin sighs, barely supressing a laugh. This isn’t the first time she’s asked. “Emma.”

She sticks her bottom lip out, pouting in a way that breaks Martin’s heart to the point where he can never turn her down when she’s looking at him like this. “Please.”

“Alright,” Martin gives in, “I’ll read you one tonight. Before bed.”

“Yay!” Emma’s grin grows even wider. "Thank you, Daddy.”

“Thank you. And I love you very, very much.”

“Love you, too.”

They settle back down. Martin dozes a little again, a smile on his face, as he thinks about telling Jon later that their daughter very much does understand the concept of time. There really are some things parenting books don’t prepare you for—like the way his love seems to grow with each day he gets with Emma and Jon, even when he thinks it’s impossible, that he already loves them more than any person can.

Some things are gifts even when they are not given as such, and Martin is beginning to allow himself to think of his life with his daughter and his husband as one. He didn’t ask for it with words or lists. He doesn’t know, even now, if he deserves it. But it’s his. And he will treasure it always.

Not featured: Martin realising what he’s agreed to and frantically trying to find a non-angsty poem he can read to his five-year-old daughter. Jon thinks the whole thing is hilarious.

<3

[haberdashing]

And Freedom’s A Fairy Tale Lie (10/?)

When Michael is transformed just before killing Jon, the face the Distortion next wears is one much more familiar to Jon than that of Helen Richardson.

on AO3

The Unknowing was...

The Unknowing was...

The Unknowing was. Perhaps that was as good a place to start as any.

The Unknowing was, and then a certain man pressed a certain button, and very suddenly the Unknowing was no longer.

There was a brief moment in which everything seemed like it was going back to normal, and the man watching it all--not the button-presser, but the other man, the one who had fought him and helped him in turn--rejoiced in the relative freedom to be found.

And then Jon--that was his name, Jon, the knowledge was coming back to him now--saw the explosions in the distance.

The information of who, what, where, even how he was unceremoniously crashed into his head shortly before a plank of wood that must have once been part of the ceiling nearly did the same.

The bright, colorful lights of the Circus were replaced by an eerie glow now, and piece by piece, the building began to fall apart.

It seemed almost as if things were moving in slow motion; the explosions couldn’t, shouldn’t, have taken more than a few seconds, and the building’s collapse not much longer than that, but Jon could track each piece of debris as it flew this way and that, a chaotic cacophony not unlike that which the Circus had tried to achieve, but without the same sort of strange rhythm underlying it all.

There wasn’t time to get to the exits, Jon knew that much. Maybe if they had been near the door--was that where Daisy had gone off to?--but not here, not when they were right in the middle of it.

Jon hadn’t planned on dying today, really. The strange serenity of Tim’s expression suggested that perhaps Jon was alone in that.

A bundle of feathers appeared seemingly out of nowhere, and Jon watched them fall to the ground slowly but surely. Some of the feathers seemed to almost hover in the air, and not just because the air was starting to act up now, wind seeming to pick up even as the better part of the building remained standing.

A chunk of concrete went flying-

There was no way that piece of concrete should have fallen to the ground that slowly. Feathers, sure, but concrete was thick and solid and very much subject to gravity’s pull.

It wasn’t just Jon’s imagination, then, or a trick of his perspective. The world was in slow motion now. But why? The Circus prolonging his agony? His consciousness refusing to give up the ghost?

Jon’s questions were answered when his eyes landed upon an intact goldenrod door standing apart from any wall, only steps away from his current position.

The door creaked open, and Martin stepped out--that door looked too small for him, at his full height, and yet...

“Tim! Sims! Over here!”

...Jon still wasn’t certain that Martin wasn’t playing some sort of long con here, that entering the corridors wouldn’t lead to a protracted and torturous death.

Jon was, however, certain that staying here was sure to guarantee him an equally ignoble death.

He would take possible death over certain death any day.

Jon stepped forward, his steps shaky but sure, until he was just within the corridors’ reach, though he was still able to look back and see the chaos continuing to unfold behind him.

Tim was facing Martin and the door now, but he showed no signs of heading towards them.

“You’re going to die if you don’t come with me!”

“Then I’ll die.” The statement was calm, cool. It occurred to Jon that this wasn’t a decision Tim had just made; Tim sounded content with this possibility, must have made his peace with it some time ago.

“Timothy Daniel Stoker, you come here right this instant!”

One hesitant step forward from Tim, then a moment spent glancing around--the explosions were getting close now, the debris falling fast and heavy--then another step, and another, until he had just barely crossed Martin’s threshold.

“There we go.”

Martin closed the door, and the corridors stretched on and on, and the aftermath of the Unknowing was nowhere to be seen.

[haberdashing]

And Freedom’s A Fairy Tale Lie (1/?)

When Michael is transformed just before killing Jon, the face the Distortion next wears is one much more familiar to Jon than that of Helen Richardson.

Chapter 1 /  Chapter 2

on AO3

Jon had never known that he was about to die before.

He’d suspected it a few times before, true. He’d been afraid for his life during Prentiss’ attack on the archives, had thought the not-Sasha thing might well kill him and take his place, had known all too well that Daisy’s threats directed towards him were far from idle.

But Jon hadn’t known, then, hadn’t held that same deep certainty he felt now about the end of his life rapidly approaching. Even back then, he had seen that there was the potential for him to live on, that it was possible he could survive the threat currently endangering him and live to be threatened another day. He hadn’t guessed the details of how he’d gotten out of each situation, admittedly, but he’d known that such outcomes were at least plausible ones.

Jon didn’t see any such outcomes here. The options were clear enough: die by Michael’s hand, or die by Nikola’s. No third option. No way out.

And Michael had promised that dying by its hand would be far more pleasant than the alternative. Not that Jon trusted Michael--he knew better than that, knew better than to trust a creature that had just proclaimed itself “the throat of delusion incarnate”--but... what was the alternative, really? Wait for Nikola to skin him alive, for his remains to be used to help bring about the end of the world? Even if that promise was a trick on Michael’s behalf, Jon rather doubted it could do much worse than that.

“Open it. Open it, and all this will be over.”

“All this,” presumably, meaning Jon’s life... but also possibly the apocalypse? Without the old skin Gertrude had kept somewhere beyond his reach, and without his skin (a thought that still gave Jon goosebumps, despite or perhaps because of how the concept of someone else removing and wearing his skin had become more and more normalized during the course of his kidnapping, going from a preposterous idea to a very likely fate in the not-too-distant future), could the Unknowing still go on?

Perhaps not. Perhaps if he gave in, it would save the world. Perhaps his death would be for a noble cause.

Or perhaps his death was simply an inevitability come to pass.

Either way, Jon didn’t hesitate, reaching out and grabbing the doorknob in front of him as if his life depended upon it, though he knew well enough that in fact the exact opposite was true.

But when Jon tried to turn the doorknob, it remained stationary, the sound of a lock preventing its movement clearly audible.

Jon looked over to Michael, trying to discern whether this was just another of its tricks, but to no avail. “Er, it’s...”

Jon tried the door twice more in rapid succession--perhaps Michael had only locked it for a moment, perhaps it simply wanted to further prolong his terror before consuming him--but the door remained locked each time he tried it.

“What?” Michael said.

“It’s locked.”

“It’s not.” Michael laughed at that, a strange snort of a laugh; Jon had heard Michael Shelley’s laugh, now, and Michael’s laugh was not the same. There was some surface similarity between the two, perhaps, but it was, well, it was distorted, transformed almost beyond recognition.

Jon considered trying the door again, but decided against it, letting his arms fall back to his sides instead; if Michael was trying to play some sort of mind game with him here, he wasn’t terribly inclined to play along.

“Why is it locked?”

“It can’t be!”

Jon couldn’t help but think how many things in his life were things that most people would say couldn’t be, how what could and could not be had long since proven to be a slippery slope.

Jon was quickly losing his patience as he had lost so much else recently, and rather than continuing to try the locked door fruitlessly, he threw his hands in the air and yelled, “Well, you try it!”

The words came out harsh, even to Jon’s own ears, but he didn’t have it in him to regret it. After all, what else did he have left to lose?

Jon wasn’t sure what he expected as a response, but he hadn’t really been expecting Michael to actually take him up on the request, to stroll over and wrap its impossibly large and sharp hands around the doorknob, and yet he watched as Michael did just that.

Jon certainly hadn’t expected the door to stay every bit as locked when Michael tried to open it as it had been for him. Judging by the expression on its face, neither had Michael.

Michael tried the door again and again, laughing shakily as it remained as steadfastly locked as ever no matter how forcefully and frantically he grabbed it.

“Th-Tha-That-That’s… not-”

It was hard to read the expression on Michael’s face at first, perhaps unsurprising for a creature that was more eldritch fear monster than man, but as Jon continued to watch its futile attempts at opening the door, he took in the furrow of its brows and the widening of its eyes...

Was that fear he saw on Michael’s face? Jon wouldn’t have thought Michael capable of such a thing, and yet...

“Oh.” Michael’s voice was almost calm in its resignation, but its shaking hands, letting go of the doorknob after one final fruitless jiggle, betrayed its true feelings clearly enough. “Oh no.”

And then Michael began to scream.

Jon had never heard anything quite like it. It was a scream human enough to chill Jon to the bone, yet still recognizably inhuman, with all the echoing and distortion that Jon had come to associate with Michael and its particular brand of fear. It was more human-sounding than Prentiss’ death screech, certainly, but similar enough that Jon would have recognized it for what it was even without watching Michael writhing before his eyes, his form warping and glitching in impossible ways before disappearing from view entirely.

As the screaming ended and Michael vanished, the door that it had tried so desperately to unlock creaked open.

Except, when Jon looked more closely, it wasn’t the same door as before. He hadn’t seen it change, had been watching Michael much more closely than the door, but while the door was still yellow, it was a different shade of yellow now, a soft and muted goldenrod. The doorknob was different, too, bronze instead of black, with carved details that looked oddly old-fashioned, though trying to look too closely at the carvings just gave Jon a headache.

Then Jon looked past the door itself to the one standing in the doorway, the one who had opened it, and he could swear his heart skipped a beat as his brain raced to put together the pieces.

It was Martin.

Martin, who nobody had seen since before Leitner was murdered. Martin, who almost everybody had written off as dead or worse by now, especially after hearing Tim’s story of their separation in Michael’s corridors. Martin, who Jon had thought he would never see again...

Except... except it wasn’t quite Martin, was it? It resembled Martin, as Michael likely had resembled the late Michael Shelley, but while the overall image was more or less intact, some of the details were grossly off. Martin had always been taller than Jon, but now he was a giant, taller than any human could ever grow to be, with hands eerily similar to the huge, pointed hands of Michael, albeit covered with Martin’s freckles...

Jon was still trying to process all of this, staring silently at Martin-not-Martin, when he heard “D’you want to come in?”

And it sounded like Martin’s voice, too, it really did, which didn’t help matters any...

“Wh... M-Martin? But... but y- Michael...” Jon could tell well enough how incoherent his attempts at speech were, was mentally berating himself for not managing to sound more put-together... but to be fair, he had just been convinced he was about to die, still wasn’t sure that that wasn’t about to happen, and was now staring at somebody he thought he’d never see again, except that it wasn’t actually him, just a monster wearing him like a costume, or, or something along those lines... so sue him if this wasn’t his finest hour when it came to conversation.

Martin (or the thing that looked like Martin) didn’t seem to have the same difficulty, though, shaking his (its?) head gently before saying, voice steady and calm, “Michael isn’t me. Not now.”

“What happened?” The question, at least, flowed out naturally enough, as did Martin’s response to it.

“He got... distracted. Let feelings that shouldn’t have been his overwhelm me. Lost my way.”

That was... tricky for Jon to wrap his head around, especially given the seemingly-arbitrary change in pronouns halfway through, but then again, what else was new?

“And now? Y-you’re Martin?”

Martin bit his lip in a way Jon knew well, the way Martin always did when he was trying to concentrate on something, except it didn’t look quite right. Martin’s teeth poking out from under his lips looked... what was it about them that made them look so off? Were they bigger than before? Sharper? Whiter? His teeth were different, at any rate. They were wrong.

“I don’t know. I never know, not really. ...do I need a name?”

“...no, I, I suppose not.”

Martin paused for a moment before adding, “Martin is... better than Michael.”

“But he’s gone.” It wasn’t a question, not really. Jon had known for some time now that Martin was gone, one way or another, and this new wrinkle didn’t change that, really, only complicated it. Whoever or whatever the creature standing in front of him now was, it wasn’t the Martin Blackwood he knew so well.

“Yes. As is Michael. There’s only me.” A wry smile made its way onto Martin’s face there as he spoke, the tone oddly reminiscent of the sort one might use to explain things to a preschooler.

“I...”

Jon wanted to know more, wanted details, wanted explanations, but he had a feeling that no matter what questions he managed to come up with, all he would be left with were responses that inspired even more questions in turn, a never-ending cycle of uncertainty and confusion. Maybe he would never fully understand this, but all he could do was try to accept that lack of understanding. It was better than trying to fight it, at any rate.

“Okay.”

Martin looked pointedly over at the door, then back at Jon before asking, “Do you still want to leave here?”

Jon let out a soft, humorless laugh. “A-are you still going to kill me?”

“No!” The response was swift and certain, and Martin’s face looked almost... offended? Silly, really, that, it was a fair enough question given the circumstances... “That was Michael’s desire, not mine.”

“So... s-so what do you want?”

Martin cupped his chin in one hand, which just served to highlight to Jon exactly how disproportionately large his hands now were, how unnatural that once-familiar gesture now appeared. “I don’t know. Martin liked you... rather a lot, actually...” The laugh that came out of Martin’s mouth was shaky and echoed far more that the room’s acoustics would normally allow, but his face grew red at the same time, and even if Martin’s laugh had an unnatural echo and his fingers were closer to elongated claws now, Jon knew that blush. “...so there’s a lot to consider. But I will help you leave.”

A distant warning bell went off in Jon’s head. Whatever Martin... whatever it looked and acted like now, it was still a monster, still a being whose very existence was tied to distorting reality, to falsehood... and it was still trying to get him to enter its corridors, even if the supposed reason behind it had changed...

“Wait, is this a... Mic- Y-you’re the Distortion, the, the, the Liar. W- How do I know this isn’t a, a trick?”

Jon could tell he still sounded like a stammering, incoherent mess, but in a way, that only strengthened his point in his mind. After all, Martin, or, or whatever it wanted to be called now, wasn’t acting nearly as flustered as Jon was now, despite seemingly having gone through some major changes itself, so either this was a trick or... or “Martin” was being surprisingly unemotional, which didn’t entirely track.

Martin snorted loudly. “And if it was... what would you do about it, exactly?”

The answer, of course, was nothing. Trick or not, Jon had exactly as much power as he’d had before over his situation, which was to say almost none. Trick or not, Jon was faced with the same choice as before: enter the corridors, be they owned by Michael or Martin or a being without true name, or just wait for Nikola to kill him.

And Jon still stood by his previous assessment that whatever this being could do to him, it would still be better than dying by Nikola’s hand and going from trying to prevent the Unknowing to being a part of its completion.

“...right, right...”

A thought occurred to Jon. “How long have I... b-been here? There’s no... It was hard to keep track-”

His voice comes out weaker than he would have liked, the question sounding almost more like a plea, but he doesn’t have much time to consider the implications of that before Martin interrupts him.

“Time is hard, A-and it’s difficult to follow without a proper mind, especially here. A while.”

“Right.” Jon knew “a while” could mean anywhere from days to years (though he was fairly sure it hadn’t been the latter), but also knew better than to push for a more definite answer.

“The door is open, if, if you’re ready?” Martin shot Jon an awkward, toothy smile, and despite everything Jon couldn’t help but smile back.

“No, not, not really, but...” But when had that ever stopped any of this? When had him not being ready ever made a lick of difference to the rest of the world? Not since he was eight years old, at the very least...

Jon sighed a little, but as Martin shooed him on, he flung open the door and walked into the corridors, willing if not ready to face whatever face awaited him within.