#robbed of round eared human sonia the things i have seen

[scopophobia-polaris]

Did nintendo seriously release a trailer for EoW where we learn that zelda can use a sword because that totk art book released and people are realizing they were robbed

[theaceace]

I started writing a funny little piece about Martin listening to gossip, and then the spirit of hugjonsims2k19 took over. Set in a nebulous s4 au wishy-washy sort of timeline. Enjoy?

It takes Martin longer than he is proud of to realise that there’s something off – that there has been for a while, really. He’d like to say it’s because he’s always so busy these days. Peter keeps him bogged down with endless paperwork, and should he ever manage to find a spare moment between forms, scheduling, budgets, and worrying, then he’s trying to take to heart what Peter told him. That he needs to keep himself isolated – that a clean break is better for everyone involved, that dragging the process on will only hurt him more in the long run.

Hurt him more – at least Peter had the good sense not to lie and say this way would be painless.

So between all of the… everything going on, it’s a while before Martin walks in on Sonia and Rosie giggling over something Cam had supposedly said and realises that he has no idea what they’re talking about.

They don’t notice him walk in, and if they look up and see him leaving, neither of them reacts.

It’s stupid. It’s office gossip. His stomach shouldn’t be twisting and cramping like he’s about to be sick, there shouldn’t be sweat starting to bead along his hairline, he shouldn’t have to swallow down the thickness in his throat. It’s stupid.

But Martin had always known exactly what was going on. Birthdays, weddings, all the antics people’s children or nieces and nephews got up to, all the quiet little fallings-out and goings on that came with cramming so many people into one building and asking them all to work nicely together. He doesn’t remember how it started, or quite why, but he had always been considered trustworthy – a good person to talk to. Once that might have made him laugh. After all, so much of who he became at this place was built on lies; harmless, maybe, but still lies.

In retrospect, it’s impressive that it took so long for anyone to figure him out. Somewhere like the institute – the domain of the Beholding, that draws in the sort of tenacious people unable to resist a mystery – isn’t conducive to keeping secrets.

Martin, though, Martin’s always been good at keeping secrets – he knew about two pregnancies, an engagement and four divorces weeks before anyone else, and once word got around that he was a good person to talk to (compassionate, quiet, always ready with a smile and an offer of tea), well. Suddenly he had a lot more secrets that needed keeping.

He remembers, sometimes, how quickly he had given up the truth to Jon, and wonders how much of that was the Archivist, and how much was simply that he was sick, so sick, of keeping everyone’s words bottled deep beneath his ribs. If he hadn’t just been so grateful to give up this one thing that he would have blurted it out anyway. (It isn’t a fair comparison, of course. He would tell Jon anything, because he’s Jon and there’s very little Martin wouldn’t desperately wish to tell him, but was it really Jon asking?)

Now, Martin is out of the loop. He has no idea how Rosie’s nephew is getting on with preschool. Knows that Jenna’s birthday is coming up but hasn’t heard anything about her plans, even though she’d always invited him along for drinks with everyone from artefacts storage to celebrate. Doesn’t know if Dale ever managed to work up the courage to ask Rob out. His tongue feels stuck to the roof of his mouth as he hurries back to his office and near slams the door shut. When was the last time he had a conversation with someone – anyone other than Peter? When was the last time he had to say something more than ‘excuse me’, or ‘have you seen a stapler round here?’

He doesn’t know, doesn’t know, doesn’t know.

Too long, he thinks a little hysterically, and has to take a moment to get his breathing back under control. It’s good, he tries to tell himself. Or, well. Not good, maybe, but necessary. Right.

And so what if he doesn’t know all of the ins and outs of every employee under the institute’s roof? That’s not a bad thing. He doesn’t need to know any of it (doesn’t need to know in the way that Jon needs to know, that pressure, the weight of a single question that could force someone to their knees, and).

No.

Enough.

Now that he knows, though, he can’t help but listen in gently to all of the conversations he hadn’t realised he was missing.

Maybe he shouldn’t be surprised by how many of them are about the archives.

And Martin can’t help but feel bad when he listens in – like he’s spying, almost. Of course, if anyone actually paid any attention, they’d realise he’s there and listening, and probably yell at him, or throw something (and it’s awful how there are times when he thinks that’d be preferable to nothing). He doesn’t feel bad enough to stop, though. He doesn’t dare venture down into the archives, knows that he’d be lost if he did, so this is the only real way he has to gauge what’s happening beyond the odd statement tangled haphazardly in his coat pocket, or Peter’s snide little comments.

He… isn’t sure how to feel about what he hears.

Basira, he learns, spends a lot of time outside, officially following up on statements. Unofficially, she has a bad habit of dropping completely off the grid for days at a time. There’s a lot of speculation aboutlll where she goes and what she does, but never anything in an official capacity. Martin suspects that Jon knows where she is should he ever think to check, so it doesn’t really matter if half of accounts assume that she’s just slacking.

Melanie – it sounds like she’s recovering. Slowly, but when he hears her name these days, it’s less wary, more conspiratorial. Of course, there are rumours that she can’t be in the same room as Jon; that the last time Jon stumbled sleep-deprived and almost hilariously unobservant in the break room while Melanie sat sipping tea, she threw the mug at his head. Martin isn’t quite sure if he believes that one or not, but there is a suspicious new stain on the wall at roughly Jon’s eye level.

There’s also talk of a new figure that’s been seen lurking around the archives – no one’s met her, and the way they tell it, no one’s even caught more than a glimpse of long limbs in a patterned suit and a cloud of dark hair. Martin tries not to think about it, and checks that he remembers every door he opens. So far, she hasn’t done anything more than exist in the same building as him, but even so.

And there’s Jon.

At first he’d tried, tried so hard not to hear anything about Jon. Left the room when his name came up, once even resorted to sticking his fingers in his ears like a child until he was sure the conversation had moved on. But his resolve only stretched so far until it snapped, and left him hovering uncertainly in the doorway to the institute’s library and trying to look like he wasn’t eavesdropping on the gaggle of new researchers sat around a nearby desk. Though generally unnoticed these days, he hasn’t quite worked himself up to Peter’s level of sneaking around.

“No, seriously! I walked in and he was just curled up in the armchair asleep! I’ve literally never seen him set foot outside the front door of this place,” says one of them whose name Martin doesn’t know, but has spitefully decided to call Too Big Glasses. She’s speaking far too loud to be polite for a library, and waving her hands around as she talks. “And he just had actual piles of those statements lying all around him like a nest. I think someone had piled a couple of them on top of him too – like it was so funny, you know like those videos of people stacking things on cats? Yeah, like that!”

“Funny?” Asks someone Martin thinks is called Toby. “Wait, you actually think something about that guy is funny?”

“Yeah?” Too Big Glasses says – she sounds confused. “I mean, if he’d tried to turn over the whole lot would’ve toppled!”

“Yeah, but,” Toby glances around and lowers his voice as though that might encourage her to do the same. Martin has his doubts. “How can you find anything about that guy funny? He’s – ugh, he’s creepy, and I don’t say that lightly these days.”

“I guess,” says Brown Jumper, looking up from her book for the first time and blinking owlishly at them both. “But I overheard Rosie saying that a lot of shit’s happened down in archives lately, so I mean, it’s not like he’s the only creepy thing down there.”

Martin bristles, almost forgets himself, almost marches over. A thing. A creepy thing. How dare – they have no right –

He catches himself just before he steps across the threshold. Can’t go undoing all of Peter’s hard work now, he thinks sardonically.

“What kind of shit?” Asks Too Big Glasses, who must be even newer than the other two.

And Martin – he doesn’t want to hear a play-by-play account of the last six mon – the last yea – any of it. He doesn’t want to hear these strangers talking about any of the things that have happened since he moved down to archives like they know a single damn thing about it, like they have any sort of authority to be talking like that about his life, about the things he had to see and do just to keep himself sane and mostly human.

More human than Jon, at any rate, he thinks before he has a chance to stop himself, which just brings back the awful twisting knots in his stomach.

He steps forwards, purposeful and completely unnoticed, and starts browsing through the shelves for the book he’d originally come down here in search of. It’s hard to completely tune the researchers out, but he does his best – he even manages to hunt down a few older editions of the book he was looking for that might offer some valuable comparisons to the conclusions a previous follow-up had come to on his latest statement. In fact, he’s almost made it back to the door, to the corridor beyond, the stairs beyond that, and finally to his safe, quiet little office.

Almost.

They’re still talking about Jon, he registers dimly, and doesn’t notice the way his feet slow. He doesn’t listen because he doesn’t need to know. In fact, he does such a good job of not listening that it isn’t until he hears a hushed

“- dead!” Whispered across the table that he freezes up, shoulders lifting high and curling in as though bracing for a physical blow. He has no context, he tells himself frantically, they could be talking about anything now. A statement, probably, that they’ve finished researching and passed on to Jon to be archived. That’s all it is, he tells his shuddering lungs and frantic heart. More words filter in through the static suddenly buzzing through his mind, between his ears and behind his eyes, but he can barely make sense of them. He knows they’re still speaking English, but the sounds are all wrong, jumbled up.

He isn’t, Martin tells himself. He can’t feel his arms. He’s fine. You’d know if he wasn’t.

At least, he thinks he would. Even Martin – secluded, isolated, lonely Martin – would have heard something. Basira would have – or, or Melanie – even Peter –

The books are on the floor, he thinks hazily, and the researchers have turned to stare – at the books, but then up at him. He doesn’t have enough space in him to be embarrassed at the looks they’re giving him. Can’t bring himself to be horrified at his lapse. So they can see him. And? And? If he’s failed already anyway then what does it matter.

He’s already hurrying down the corridor, doesn’t hear them muttering to each other about Wasn’t that Martin? Didn’t he used to work in archives? Haven’t seen him down there in a while, wonder if he knows what’s going on? Don’t know, haven’t seen him anywhere in a while. Maybe he’s scared of the spooky archives ghost too, woooo!

He doesn’t hear any of it. By the time they’ve moved onto a new conversation, he’s already racing the familiar halls of the archives, the sound of his footsteps swallowed up by the carpet. There are more twists that he remembers, an asinine part of him thinks, more branching paths than there should be, and he isn’t sure if it actually takes him twice as long as it should to reach Jon’s office or if time has just slowed to a thick, lethargic stream clinging at his legs and slowing him down. Like running in a dream.

There’s nothing dreamlike about the way the door bounces against the wall when Martin throws it open, the way it rattles on its hinges. Nothing dreamlike about the way Jon flinches so hard his chair rocks back, the way he begins to splutter –

“Good lord I – Martin? Martin are you quite alri – are you about to faint, god, come here, sit down, I – “

Jon. Stuffy, fussy Jon, with his brow creased heavily over filmy eyes that haven’t cleared since he woke up, reaching out to Martin like he wants to help him into the worn desk chair but isn’t quite sure how, hands fluttering and twitching around. For a moment, Martin doesn’t move, doesn’t speak – isn’t sure he can. His throat is dry, and he has the horrible, creeping suspicion that that’s because every drop of water in him is threatening to spill from his eyes in a horrible, humiliating mess, but he doesn’t care.

There’s more grey in Jon’s hair, he thinks as he takes a determined step forward. Deeper bags under his eyes. He’s been chewing at his thumbnails, and when Martin finally gets close enough to feel the unseen barrier warp and strain, and finally give way, he can smell on Jon’s jumper that he’s been smoking again.

The smell is almost comforting, he thinks, as he presses his nose into it.

He’s imagined hugging Jon before. Of course he has. Thought about how easy it would be to completely envelope Jon, who is narrow and angular enough that Martin sometimes thought he’d be able to wrap his arms around him twice. He’d liked to imagine Jon laughing as he did, just the softest little huff of breath against Martin’s neck.

It’s nothing like that.

Martin is still biting back tears and bowed over until they’re almost the same height; Jon’s skin is icy where Martin’s cheek is pressed against the side of his neck, and there’s no comforting thrum of his heart between their chests. Jon is drawn tense as a bowstring, arms by his sides, and Martin thinks he can see his fists clench and open, clench and open. He should pull away, he thinks, and apologise but as soon as he tries to bring himself to, he can feel that static push trying to crawl its way between them, and so he can only cling tighter.

He’s already made a mess of things. Might as well go all-in now.

“Martin?” Jon asks softly. Disbelievingly. There’s a hesitance in his voice that Martin doesn’t think he’s ever heard before – that he definitely doesn’t want to hear again. He shakes his head mutely, still afraid to try to talk to Jon (afraid that he won’t be able to) but somehow Jon seems to know what he’s trying to say. Or maybe he Knows. Martin can’t bring himself to care.

Very, very lightly, Jon’s hands rest on Martin’s back, smoothing broad strokes across his shirt so gently that Martin could almost believe he’s imagining them. But his imagination’s never been this good, and he’d never think to include the smell of Jon’s cheap laundrette washing powder, or the heavy weight on the back of his neck that feels like someone staring.

“Martin?” Jon asks again. There’s no real question to it, no compulsion – still just that faint disbelief, as though he is as afraid as Martin that this isn’t real. Martin doesn’t let go, but neither does Jon, and he doesn’t speak again. Just guides them, eventually, to sit against the wall, still clinging, still pushing back against the static that hums along Martin’s skin. There will be consequences, says a voice in Martin’s mind that sounds disconcertingly like Peter.

But consequences, Martin thinks, are for later. When he can breathe steadily again, when Jon stops running a clumsy hand over his hair. For now, he looks up and offers Jon a watery smile.

“I didn’t say it earlier,” he manages. “But I’m glad you’re not dead, Jon”