#sure jon you literally feed on the terror and suffering of others but at least youre not a true crime enthusiast

[hezekiahwakely]

The disdainful tone with which Jon delivers this line is really funny considering the kind of person he already is and what hes about to become in the next four years

[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.

[linipikk]

About The magnus Archives: 

it surely  WAS a podcast, alright???

And it was good with horrors and high concepts that never took themselves too literally or too seriously, which I respect a LOT. And I honestly liked it. I do, I did. It was a wonderful year with TMA around!!

but.... good lord, STOP with the multiverses where the story happen in just one of them that a) is not our universe and b) will destroy all other universes somehow. just stop.

I said it once and I’ll said it as many times as it takes, It is not necessary to separate reality from the narrative magic of choice. I find it childish and disappointing when metanarratives don't own their own logic. 

At least TMA did deep his fingers on it but like, not the entire hand. Which is...meh, but at least they tried.

So ...spoilery: yes, the tapes and  the entire series comes from “another universe where all that did happen” but it left the story very away, separated. Give me the terror of living in the universe where the eldritch monsters and statements are true, damn it. 

Having the tapes being part of the web...was weak. For one reason only: Jon’s agency got snatched (i know that's part of the web but tapes were personal,” the low-fi charm” of them), our tapes our connection with Jon was severed the second the tapes where not from him .I don’t care from what horror the tapes came from as long as it was Jon’s. The thing is I’m an optimist at heart and i wanted ,oh SO Much I Wanted, the tapes to come from our Jon, to the deep need he felt of not being a mystery, of his cursed and relentless will to know. 

And even then and more deliciously!, of the Fears scratching reality THROUGH him, to never ever be completely forgotten or die. They did set up the part were time is not exactly important to the fears. I expected Jon to disappear, even Martin. But the tapes to outlive him as the thing that we got from him, and it kind of happened!! YES!

BUT-- yet again , these creators, can’t leap to the metanarrative possibilities of making their story  tangible for us, ending up trapped on their medium. It kills me every time they get to the point where we - the real audience, WE - can be part of the story and it doesn't end up happening. And worse when the set up is flawlessly perfect.

You want  a tragedy in a horror podcast? It would fill me with dread that, every time i re-listen to an episode or recommend the podcast, I would have been participant of the last hail-mary of the fears to exist. Or to torment Jon as making him our entertainer through his suffering whenever we hear the tapes. Play with the emotional connection we have to the entire podcast, make us another one of the monsters! or in a more optimist light, make us participants of his wish to not be a mystery, and the tapes being his only connection to the world, that every time we listen to them it may feed the fears but they also show us more than the monster that almost ended the world.

I sound like I don’t like it but I do! I do so much that it pains me a bit the fact that I didn’t see it cross that door of legendary storytelling. The characters were true to themselves to the very end, the rhythm was very well maintained and interesting! the tragedy was there and it was oddly satisfying. I honestly loved The Magnus Archives. And I already miss Jon.

TLTR: I'm bummed they didn't let us (the audience) be the monster at the end of the story, while the entire story is about becoming a monster.

[fakecrfan]

MAG 155 and Jon’s level of culpability

You know, I have always accepted that The Magnus Archives is a tragedy, which means that the characters (all of them!) 1) make mistakes and 2) their mistakes have grave consequences. And throughout season 4, the idea of Jon having choices available to him and being responsible for his actions even with the Eye or the Web exerting influence on him comes up a lot.

“But if you choose to believe in a free will, then yes: All you have done has been of your own free will. They have all been your choices.” (Annabelle Cane, MAG 147)

“What I’ve been doing to these people, it - it hasn’t been because I was puppeted, or controlled, or possessed.

I wanted to do it. It felt good.” (Jonathan Sims, MAG 147).

And there are certainly actions Jon did that deliberately harmed people (especially in season 4 with approaching people on the street and all) but of all these choices I have always felt like... the one ‘‘choice’‘ that I never felt was fair to judge Jon for was the ‘‘choice’‘ Oliver Banks mentioned when he was in a coma.

The thing is, John, right now you have a choice. You’ve put it off a long time, but it’s trapping you here. You’re not quite human enough to die, but still too human to survive. You’re balanced on an edge where the End can’t touch you, but you can’t escape him.

[...] Make your choice, Jon. (Oliver Banks, MAG 121)

But I mean, how could you reasonably call this a choice? The choice seems to be Jon either embracing his power or dying, but Jon was unconscious throughout this! How can you hold someone culpable for a “choice” they make when they weren’t even awake? Plus, it’s literally life or death. How could you expect someone to choose to die?

MAG 155 has an answer to my question.

MAG 155 is about Tova McHugh, a woman who does not want to die.

You’ve got to understand, I have so much to live for. Oh, okay, that’s not quite it. I know most people have plenty to live for, but what I mean is that my life does good. (Tova McHugh, MAG 155)

Tova McHugh really does not want to die, and that is a sympathetic motivation! But then, a tragic Unfair (as she puts it) accident happens to her, and she dies--she then is only able to continue living by taking other people’s lives. It is then that she starts to twist things. Not only is it okay for her to want to live, but she has to morally justify herself--and the only way to justify herself is to come up with reasons that her life is more valuable than the people she takes from.

And I know that everyone’s life has value, but I just need to be clear that my impact on the world is a positive one. My existence does a lot of good, and that’s only gotten more true since all this started. I’ve given more, spent more time on charitable stuff, and helped more people. (Tova McHugh, MAG 155)

She is clearly ashamed of her actions, on some level, but she really doesn’t want to die. So she decides that if she is a Good Person, and she is donating enough to charity and creating jobs (ugh) then that justifies her actions.

A clear parallel is drawn between her justification and Jon’s current discomfort about his own continued existence.

I’ve - (laughs) I’ve saved the world, the whole world. Does that give me the right to take what I need to survive? I’ve been reading nothing but these old, dry statements for so long, I - I feel weak. (Jonathan Sims, MAG 155).

Jon is only alive because he drew on power from the Eye to survive back in that moment in MAG 121 that was framed as a ‘‘choice’‘ in his coma. I don’t think that makes him as obviously wrong as Tova here, though. After all, the eye causes misery but at the time Jon had no reason to think feeding into the power would actually kill anyone. It wasn’t presented to him as a life-for-life choice--and again, he was unconscious.

But, the statement reveals the truth about Tova ‘‘bringing good into the world’‘ by drawing on the power she has been using. Because it turns out that the amount of life someone will give her isn’t equal. Some give her more, some give her less--and what tends to be the measure?

Eventually I realized it had nothing to do with age or health. It was about connection. About joy. The more friends, family, loved ones the person has, the further out the terror of sudden death spreads from me. The longer it keeps me alive. (Tova McHugh, MAG 155)

Tova can’t bring more ‘‘goodness’‘ into the world than she is taking out of it. Because the power she is using--one of the entities--exists to cause pain and suffering.  The very nature of the power she is using will negate or outweigh any ‘‘good’‘ Tova does to try and justify herself, otherwise it wouldn’t continue to use her.

(Sort of like how Gertrude’s utilitarian balancing turned out to be all for naught, but this is a meta about Jon so I will save that for another time :D)

So does Tova realize the obvious and stop? No, instead she doubles down on her self-justification.

Since this became my existence I’ve thrown myself into philanthropy harder than ever, and the world is so much better for me being in it. I’m not saying how I live is right, or good, but it is the position I have been put in, and a decision I have to make. I never wanted to weigh up the value of a life, to set it on the scales against my own, but that’s a choice that I am forced into. And it is one I will continue to make. (Tova McHugh, MAG 155)

Jon is completely aware of the comparisons between Tova and himself, and for a moment he has a crisis over it.

I find myself hating her, her callous self-deception. But am I so different? Daisy’s chosen to resist in her own way, knowing full well it might take her life in the end, Melanie too. I respect them for it, but I - I don’t know if I can follow their path. (Jonathan Sims, MAG 155)

And you know, I don’t think Jon and Tova are morally equivalent. Maybe it’s just that I like Jon and so am biased in his favor, but his choice seems a lot murkier than hers. He doesn’t get to see direct death as a result of his actions--so that makes it much easier to justify.

But I think the real purpose of this statement isn’t to say Jon is Just As Bad as Tova, but to wake him up to the nature of the powers--they can’t ever be used for permanent good. You might want to use them for such, the possibility of doing more good than harm might be the temptation that draws you deeper in to their use, but by their nature they bring harm into the world and negate the good you try to bring in to the world.

And also, while I dislike Tova and love Jon, morally I have to hold them to the same standard. If the only moral choice for Tova is to quit, even at the cost of her own life... then the only moral choice for Jon, also, is to quit.

(So I guess me going ‘‘you can’t just expect someone to choose to die!’‘ when I listened to 121 is just... me wearing clown shoes and the stupidest clown hat you ever did see, because it turns out that is exactly what I expect from characters I am impartial towards).

Jon might not see direct death as a result of his actions--but on the flipside, it is unclear if he will actually die as a result of quitting either. He says so himself, even.

I suppose I have a way out now. One that wouldn’t even kill me, at least, I hope not. And yet here I am still. Am I a coward? (Jonathan Sims, MAG 155)

He doesn’t think he will die if he quits--not for certain, at least. And yet he continues. He doesn’t know why, because examining his reasons is hard. I am sure part of it is that he enjoys his powers (as he has said) or that he is afraid of dying just as much as Tova is. But he ends on this thought.

I just… what if they need me? What if. (Jonathan Sims, MAG 155).

What if the people he cares about need him? What if they are in trouble? What if Martin needs him?

But, ultimately, this idea that he can use the Eye to defend the people he cares about is just as illusory as Tova thinking she can bring good into the world by killing people to extend her own lifespan. Not that Jon’s desire to protect is fake--it is very much real, but it mixes with his desire to continue for his own purposes, because he likes it and is afraid of dying.

I still don’t think Jon should be held responsible for a decision he made in a coma to save his life when he didn’t see what the consequences were. But it’s not just one decision in a coma that caused the apocalypse--he makes a decision to continue his path every waking moment. He chooses not to quit, even when he doesn’t think quitting will kill him, because being powerless when he and his friends are so often in danger scares him.

And you know, that is a sympathetic motivation, but his choices are still a mistake, and he is still responsible for them. When you make a mistake--even for sympathetic reasons, even when you didn’t know it was leading to such a horrific outcome--you still have to take responsibility and make amends.

When someone speeds while driving, for example, and runs someone over. Maybe they didn’t want to run the person over. Maybe they had a good reason to be speeding, like they were rushing to a friend who needed help. But they are still accountable for the choices they made that led to them injuring or killing someone. Same with Jon and the apocalypse.

Or at least, that is the impression that MAG 155 leaves me with. What do you think?

[soveryanon]

Reviewing time for MAG194! TwT

- Well, the episode very quickly answered my question about whether Jon&Martin would stay in Jonah’s room a bit or not. I love how the beginning of the episode mirrored Martin and Jon working their way to the top:

(MAG192) [FOOTSTEPS RING AND ECHO AS THEY CONTINUE CLIMBING THE MANY, MANY STAIRS] MARTIN: [LABOURED BREATHING] Okay, okay, hold… hold up, h–hold on, hold on, hold on. [THE ARCHIVIST’S QUICK FOOTSTEPS CONTINUE] Oi, Jon! ARCHIVIST: Uh…? [SOFTLY] Oh, right. MARTIN: Just wait a sec– … Christ, I just need a moment to… catch my breath…! […] What, you’re not tired? ARCHIVIST: Oh no, believe me, I am! It’s just, uh… It’s kind of… difficult not to keep climbing? MARTIN: What, like… you’re being called? ARCHIVIST: More like… pulled. Gently, but very definitely upwards, towards the top. MARTIN: That… could be a bad sign. ARCHIVIST: Probably…!

(MAG194) [FOOTSTEPS DESCENDING THE PANOPTICON STAIRS – THE ARCHIVIST DOING SO MORE RAPIDLY THAN MARTIN] MARTIN: [PANTS] Jon, wai– [BAG JOSTLING] Hey, just wait! [THE ARCHIVIST’S FOOTSTEPS PAUSE AS MARTIN CATCHES UP, AND THE SHUFFLING NOISES FROM BELOW ARE AUDIBLE] MARTIN: W… will you please talk to me? ARCHIVIST: I just, I–I need some air.

Jon rushing, Martin having trouble to keep up (TwT and he had previously mentioned that he was “never leading”, “always following”…), Jon respectively being drawn towards Beholding versus fleeing from it in discomfort.

Small thing, but I love how we could hear when Jon&Martin were going up, and now that they were going down? It was the distinctive sounds of people’s steps going down stairs. I don’t remember hearing the buzzing of the drones in MAG192 (while we could hear them muffled and distant in this scene), so I’m guessing that Martin&Jon were almost reaching ground level when the tape recorder turned on?

- ;; Jon had mentioned that there was “no better”, and that’s also true about safe places…

(MAG194) ARCHIVIST: I just, I–I need some air. MARTIN: In the tunnels? ARCHIVIST: … Yes! N–no! I… I don’t know, just somewhere…! Anywhere without that… thing droning horrors, and Rosie staring at us like we’re going to bite her. I just… I need to think.

They don’t have many options, so the stuffy dark tunnels are still a place where it’s easier to breathe compared to the ones directly watched by Beholding…

I’m curious about Rosie’s behaviour – does she identify Jon as someone above Jonah, now, so having the power to hurt her? Or is like in MAG192, when Martin went off her script and she immediately reacted as if he was threatening her?

- Martin’s way of dealing with Jon’s behaviour when he doesn’t understand it still follows the same pattern of beginning with irritation, then heading for pragmatism, and quickly understanding when Jon is hiding something:

(MAG194) MARTIN: All right. All right, we’ll… we’ll go back to the tunnels and regroup. Figure out what our next move is. See… what other options there are. ARCHIVIST: … Yeah. Yeah. MARTIN: Jon? … [WARNING] Jon? ARCHIVIST: I just need a moment. To… to properly… consider things. MARTIN: “Consider” what, exactly?

He quickly picked up on the fact that Jon was shifty and a few steps ahead in the reasoning… and the fact he snapped so fast felt, to me, like he was indeed suspecting that Jon was genuinely considering to take Elias’s place?

(MAG194) ARCHIVIST: [QUIETLY] It… it might be our only option. MARTIN: [VEHEMENTLY] What are you talking about?! How, how is it an “option”? Okay, setting aside the fact that it’s a suicidal idea, it’s just completely stupid! What actual good would it do? Right now, as far as I can see, we’d just be… swapping one self-important, floating, hollowed-out terror zombie for another! ARCHIVIST: It’s not like that! MARTIN: Really? Then please, enlighten me. Go on, I’m all ears! ARCHIVIST: Look. Right, when I said that I would “replace” Jonah in there, that’s not… I m– … That place, the centre of The Eye, i–it’s… it wasn’t made for him. That’s why he’s like that, it’s too much, it’s overwhelmed him, his whole being just destroyed…! MARTIN: Oh yeah? But let me guess, it was made for you? ARCHIVIST: Yes! MARTIN: [PETULANTLY] Of course it is! Of course, it is! Because how could this journey possibly end with anything less than the final, supreme destiny of the Archivist, plugged into the great fear machine for all eternity and, and abandoning humanity. Breaking his promise…! ARCHIVIST: That’s not fair! MARTIN: Isn’t it?

* Between “one self-important, floating, hollowed-out terror zombie” and “his whole being just destroyed”, Jonah really is absolutely done for and dead in a way, uh.

* Jon’s phrasing regarding the “pupil” reminds me of the Coffin in relation to Daisy:

(MAG120) ELIAS: He knows the writing on the coffin has changed, though it is still carved deep into the splintered wood: [STATIC INCREASES] “I – Am – For – You.” [STATIC DECREASES] He knows it is not addressed to him, but he reaches down and pulls the chains off all the same.

… And Daisy had still been able to get out.

* It’s interesting, though, that Jon still hasn’t confirmed what his domain is, if it’s supposed to be the centre of The Eye or… something else, somewhere else.

* ;; Martin was blunt and snarky but also… knows his tropes and clichés. He presented Jon’s plan and the end he envisioned as the conclusion of a story, as if it were a script… (I don’t know if there is anything to make of it, but it’s quite interesting that he spitted this in the same episode Annabelle, the Story Spinner, finally made her move/offer.)

* … the “promise” Martin mentioned was likely the one from MAG191, when Martin asked Jon to not do things out of guilt and to actively try to find a solution that would allow him to survive. Given how they both alluded to Jonah… it’s clear that they’re aware that yes, replacing him wouldn’t count, Jonah’s current state doesn’t count as surviving/living. (Which is so ironic for Jonah, since he did everything because he was afraid of dying and wanted to ensure his immortality. But at what costs, etc.)

- “Jon, No”.

(MAG194) ARCHIVIST: Would you just listen, please? … I think… I think that I–I could… control it, t–to a degree, I–I could, I could channel the energies, remake things, like I’ve been doing on our journey but, but on a grand scale. MARTIN: And how’s that going to help? You’ve always said you can’t make less fear in the world, you’d… you’d just be moving it around…! ARCHIVIST: But that might still help! I–I could… I could rebalance things, destroy the avatars, make it so that the people suffering most were the ones who–who deserve it…! MARTIN: [SCOFF] And what? Replace them with new avatars from the people who don’t want to? ARCHIVIST: I mean, that has to be better than those that chose it right? Sure, I can’t make it “go away”, but I could at least make it fairer…! MARTIN: [MIRTHLESS SCOFF] ARCHIVIST: The Eye doesn’t care, as long as it gets its fear, it’s happy either way…! MARTIN: [INCREDULOUS] Christ, can you hear yourself? “Make it fairer!” It’s not enough that you’re the “all-powerful Archivist”, you also have to appoint yourself the literal judge of everyone as well?

It’s true that Martin initially wanted Jon to use his powers here and there and change things for the better for people suffering in the domains (and also true, as Jon pointed out, that Martin had encouraged the Kill Bill spree)… but the journey has also demonstrated how all the possibilities relying on Beholding’s power didn’t work. Killing avatars didn’t free victims from the domains, and the domains kept going regardless. Changing a victim into an avatar was still horrible and traumatic and condemning them to another kind of hell. And they had resolved to let people suffer as they headed for the Panopticon because Martin was hoping that confronting Elias would mean a solution to change things on a bigger scale and save everyone, but they know now that that is impossible and there isn’t enough left of Elias to confront in the first place. I’m not really disappointed that Jon would try to grasp at something that feels Less Awful now, and I’m not disappointed that Martin was offended and disgusted about it – I’m just sad for both of them. It also came with a few implications:

* As mentioned above, with the way Jon&Martin described Elias – they agree that being the centre of Beholding is as good as being dead.

* Martin had pointed out, in MAG186, that he didn’t want to keep feeding on people’s misery, and if they didn’t find any solution, he would ask Jon to end him:

(MAG186) ALSO MARTIN: So. What are we thinking? MARTIN: [EXHALE] I’m thinking that I didn’t ask for this. It’s not my fault they’re here…! ALSO MARTIN: True. MARTIN: But I can’t keep existing like this at their expense! It’s not… it’s not right. Whatever happens with Elias, wi–, with the rest of the world… I can’t live on the misery of others. ALSO MARTIN: … They’ll suffer either way. MARTIN: I get it, okay? I, I can’t decide what happens to them, but… I just might be able to decide what happens to me, and… and if it comes down to it? ALSO MARTIN: [SIGH] MARTIN: … I’ll get Jon to destroy me like the others. ALSO MARTIN: You don’t really believe he’d do it? MARTIN: I don’t know. Maybe? ALSO MARTIN: … This took a dark turn. MARTIN: Yeah, but… this time it doesn’t feel like despair. [BAG JOSTLING] It feels like resolve. ALSO MARTIN: Well… hopefully it won’t come to that. MARTIN: Hopefully.

We haven’t heard Martin tell Jon anything about it, so Jon might not know… but it means that if they were to settle for Jon’s idea, then it’d be the scenario where Martin would ask Jon to kill him. So, I wasn’t surprised that Martin immediately opposed that idea on victims’ behalf – he knows very well how uncomfortable it is to feed on people’s misery, and it is something he was only temporarily accepting until he found a way to fix the world.

* I like how it works within the Fears As Oppressive Systems reading: changing who is on top wouldn’t change the system itself. The problem is still the system, and the solution would still be to dismantle/change it entirely.

* … And meta-wise, I’m not sure but I feel like this might be opening up the option and leading towards another Change for the end of the show…? Since Martin felt like a solution based on a “compromise” was horrible, it would be surprising, then, that the show would end with no grand-scale change at all, unless they’re prevented from reaching it at the last moment?

- Overall, their arguments reminded me a lot of MAG154: Jon and Martin were trying to convey something underneath what they were saying, that the other wasn’t fully grasping. In MAG154, what Martin should have heard was that Jon was worried about him, cared about him, wanted Martin safe above everything (it wasn’t “only” about cutting their eyes out and getting free from the Institute, it was mostly about the idea of leaving together). This time around… I’m not sure, but I feel like underneath, it was mostly about Jon and Martin’s respective fears of losing the other?

- That “visual” information when Jon and Martin had entered Elias’s room in MAG192…

(MAG192) MARTIN: What’s wrong with him? ARCHIVIST: Nothing. Nothing’s wrong with him. He’s the pupil of The Eye…! MARTIN: Meaning? ARCHIVIST: He won.

(MAG194) ARCHIVIST: Why won’t you believe me when I say that this isn’t something I want to do? MARTIN: Because I saw your face when we walked into that room! [DESPONDENT] That wasn’t fear! It, it wasn’t even anger. It was envy. And it scared me more than anything else I’ve seen…! [SILENCE SAVE FOR THE TOWER NOISES] ARCHIVIST: … Martin… MARTIN: We’re here to stop this, not… not take it over…! [SILENCE BUT FOR THE DISTANT DRONE NOISES] ARCHIVIST: What other choice do we have? MARTIN: I–I don’t know, all right! I d–, but there is one. Because there has to be.

I do like that Martin is keenly aware of Beholding’s power of attraction on Jon because… after all, is Jon’s reasoning that he might make things better as the pupil of The Eye truly his own, or is it slightly influenced by Beholding itself, trying to make it attractive for Jon? We’ve seen that Jon could get influenced by it – Jon had to fight against his impulses in order to be able to listen to Eric’s tape, and burning Gerry’s page had also been hard for him.

- Martin saying “No” was such an echo of the end of season 4…

(MAG158) PETER: Then do it. Kill him, and help me save the world…! [SILENCE] MARTIN: … No. […] PETER: Martin. What are you doing? MARTIN: I’m… saying no. I refuse! Game over. [KNIFE CLATTERING ON THE GROUND] PETER: Martin, this is not the time for petulance; there are bigger things at stake, here. […] But you do serve The Lonely. MARTIN: Oh, I’m getting there, but if this is the final test or something? Then bad luck. The answer’s still “no”.

(MAG194) ARCHIVIST: We can’t just dismiss this. It might be our only option. [SILENCE SAVE FOR THE TOWER NOISES] MARTIN: … No. ARCHIVIST: No? MARTIN: No! I forbid it. [BAG JOSTLING] ARCHIVIST: [INCREDULOUS CHUCKLE] You “forbid it”?

With the situation being of course different: back then, a “no” was still playing the game and making someone the winner of the bet. Now, it’s just pure rejection. (And I love when Martin does that? Just refuses to accept what is offered? There is something very raw, very honest when he does, even though it’s not exactly constructive.)

- Oh Jon, oh Martin ;_;

(MAG194) ARCHIVIST: [INCREDULOUS CHUCKLE] You “forbid it”? MARTIN: Don’t laugh at me. ARCHIVIST: Why not? You’re being ridiculous. MARTIN: I refuse to accept that this– ARCHIVIST: Tough! The world doesn’t care what you accept. It just is! It just is. [SILENCE SAVE FOR THE TOWER NOISES] … I’m going out. Ou–outside, I–I… I’ll see you back in the tunnels.

* I feel like Jon didn’t understand how casually harsh he was: pointing out that Martin was “being ridiculous” was an accidental reminder that… Jon can bend a lot of things to his will. Although he is not all-powerful, he has power in this world, can decide what happens to people (he can smite avatars, he can turn victims into avatars, he can “know” things). It isn’t the case for Martin, who can indeed travel safely through domains but can’t change anything by himself.

* ;; And additionally cruel: Martin might have known that the world “doesn’t care”. He had to take care of his mother since he was a child, with no support, to the point that he had to drop out of school, and it didn’t prevent his mother from hating him… and yet, he has also clung to the belief that people’s lives still have worth for what they are (MAG151: “I think our experience of the universe has value. Even if it disappears forever.”).

* It says a lot about Jon’s state of mind, too, that he would spit about it from his position: Jon has been prone to falling into quiet despair this season, over the idea that he couldn’t do anything on a grand scale (“There is not better”, the fact that even “saving” Jordan just put him in another hell and that he resented Jon for what he was able to do…). What Jon said weren’t words of triumph or boasting: those were sad words of anger and resignation over something he hates but feels that he can’t fight against.

*  Martin’s silence… I feel like that silence and Jon calming down (still leaving, but clearly conscious that he had overstepped) “told” us so much about the kind of face Martin was making…

- When it comes to the recording: seems like the tape recorder was either on the ground or on Martin, this time around, since we heard Martin’s last words (while the sound of Jon’s footsteps was gradually disappearing).

(MAG194) [QUICK FOOTSTEPS AS THE ARCHIVIST SPEEDS OFF DOWN THE STAIRS] MARTIN: [SHAKY EXHALE] Stupid… Stupid, arrogant…! [SILENCE SAVE FOR THE TOWER NOISES] Jon? J– [SHUFFLING] … Shit!

* The end of the fragment was a bit reminiscent of the end of MAG185, when Martin entered his domain:

(MAG185) ARCHIVIST: Martin? [STATIC RISES] Martin, listen you need to get ready. [FADING] We’re about to enter– [STATIC REACHING A PEAK] MARTIN: Yeah, “my domain”, yes, right, I get it. Dream logic, and timing, heh, apparently! [STATIC FADES] [FAINT EERIE WIND SOUNDS] … Jon? Jon? [BAG JOSTLING] Oh… Shit.

* You would think that Martin had drained up his “shit” rights (especially since he screamed strings of it in MAG163 when running around the bullets, and in MAG179 to bandage Jon after he had been injured by Daisy), but no, he keeps adding new ones to the collection!

* So why that final “Shit”? Was it because Martin realised that it wasn’t a good idea to get separated? Was it because he spotted something or someone? The tape recorder, cobwebs around, Annabelle dangling from the ceiling?

- … Screaming a bit because Jon rushing out to get some air and leaving someone behind is, uh, reminiscent of something.

(MAG080) LEITNER: I have also heard it called Beholding. ARCHIVIST: And I… LEITNER: You belong to it too. ARCHIVIST: I… Uh… I… I think I need some air. [SOUND OF FUMBLING IN DRAWER] LEITNER: We don’t have time for you to have a breakdown, Archivist. [CHAIR SCRAPES ON THE FLOOR] ARCHIVIST: I’m going to have a cigarette. Don’t… [DOOR OPENS] Don’t. [DOOR CLOSES] […] [EXTENDED SOUNDS OF BRUTAL PIPE MURDER] […] ARCHIVIST: Sorry, I’ve been quit for five years now, but th– [STUNNED SILENCE]

(MAG194) ARCHIVIST: I just, I–I need some air. MARTIN: In the tunnels? ARCHIVIST: … Yes! N–no! I… I don’t know, just somewhere…! Anywhere without that… thing droning horrors, and Rosie staring at us like we’re going to bite her. I just… I need to think. […] I’m going out. Ou–outside, I–I… I’ll see you back in the tunnels.

And just like before, someone waltzed in to deprive Jon of the person he was interacting with. Jon didn’t mention smoking this time around but since he quickly calmed down once outside, and decided that Martin was indeed right as soon as he was out… where is your lighter, these days, Jon?

- Once outside, it was chilling how Jon indeed acted a bit all-powerful, right after Martin had accused him of getting a god-complex:

(MAG194) ARCHIVIST: [HEAVY BREATHES] Get out of here. All of you. … [STATIC RISES] I said: leave me alone! [STATIC FADES] … [SCOFF] Of course. [SIGH] What do you want? No, I… I know what you want.

Out of anger, he still spilled out his powers to try to get the camera and drones to comply with what he wanted.

(And aaah, the contrast between the way he talks to Beholding things and the way he usually talks with Martin… It was very noticeable how his voice was dryer and snappier when he was alone with Helen, but I like how we can still hear that he has a special “voice” for Martin, even during arguments.)

- … Jon managed to cool down VERY quickly.

(MAG194) ARCHIVIST: But maybe you’re right…! … No. No, that’s… [INHALE] Martin’s right. It’s not worth it. … Why am I even talking to you? You don’t even have a mind, not really. That’s what you want, isn’t it? Something to be your focus, your will. Keeping you fed, and placated and content! … You got something to say? [HUFF] Then say it. [CAMERA WHIRRING] Of course.

* He only needed a few seconds to admit that his plan wasn’t a good idea and that Martin had been right to oppose the concept of it.

* I love how Jon has been spitting his disgust and rage at the cameras, drones and Beholding itself since they entered London…

* I love how Jon was aware that his plan would basically mean that he would provide Beholding the satisfaction it wanted. Indeed, in any scenario, that just… can’t be good.

* And I love how his last words before the pre-statement were a bit ambiguous: was the “Of course” about the fact that anyway, the cameras/drones wouldn’t answer (because they couldn’t anyway)? Or was it in reaction to the camera whirring and the build-up of the statement – the idea that “of course”, drones and cameras would swarm around Jon since he was on the verge of giving a statement? Or was it because he felt that the surroundings would give their “answer” through the statement he was about to give?

- As for the statement: it reminds me a bit of MAG180, with how Malcolm wasn’t able to get rid of his abuser – I would have pegged MAG180 as a mix of End/Web/Beholding, this one felt more like Flesh/Web/Beholding, however! The body horror made me grin because Jonny has been playing Resident Evil lately, and the eye and face emerging from the shoulder really reminded me of that imagery. (While during the first few seconds, I thought about Albrecht, but it turned out that a whole body was emerging from Malcolm so… nop, not the same thing.)

I wonder what message Jon got from the statement, though:

(MAG194) ARCHIVIST: [DEEP BREATH] Not exactly subtle. But then you never were, were you? Not really. Well. If that’s the most compelling argument you have… [AUDIBLE SMILE] I’m going to go and apologise to my boyfriend…! [CHUCKLE]

Did he interpret it as Beholding telling him it was within him, that Jon could never get rid of it, that it was even useless seeking “love” because Jon had Beholding in his life? Was it about the idea that no matter what, there would always be someone in the “seat” of Beholding’s power? Was it about Jon’s shame, Beholding threatening to reveal his inner thoughts (“I’ll tell them. I’ll tell them all the horrible thoughts you keep deep inside…!”)?

- I love how Jon has shown absolutely no hesitation when it comes to calling Martin his “boyfriend” ;w;

(MAG171) JARED: Oh! And who’s this? Your boyfriend? MARTIN: Hum– ARCHIVIST: Yes. Actually.

(MAG187) HELEN: Sure he can wave away the theoretical idea of people suffering… ARCHIVIST: But if he sees it up close, he might try to get his boyfriend to smite you? HELEN: … Something like that.

Plus the (many) “love” thrown around. Back when they got together at the end of season 4, I thought that Jon would have a bit of trouble putting words on his relationship with Martin, but nop, he’s been very casual and almost smug about it!

- Jon had mentioned that he had trouble in the tunnels, Melanie had reminded him that it was dark, but still, it was very funny to me that Jon began to apologise before understanding that he wasn’t actually talking to Martin:

(MAG194) [DOOR RATTLES AND OPENS] ARCHIVIST: M–Martin? [DOOR SHUTS] Martin I’m… I’m sorry. You… you’re right. [SOMETHING RATTLES] I– … Oh. [CLEARS THROAT] Sorry. Thought you were someone else. CELIA: It’s okay. I, I was actually looking for you.

The way Jon’s voice just changed once he realised.

- And then, it was SUCH whiplash.

(MAG194) ARCHIVIST: Why? What’s… Sorry, uh, do you know where Martin– the, the man I–I was with, do you know where he is? CELIA: That’s what I wanted to check! I saw him a while ago, up near one of the trapdoors. I… I didn’t recognise the woman with him? So… ARCHIVIST: The– CELIA: I wanted to check if you were expecting anyone else before I woke the prophets. ARCHIVIST: [SUSPICIOUS] What, what woman? CELIA: I don’t know…! [FOOTSTEP] ARCHIVIST: What did she look like? CELIA: Uh… Youngish, Black, dressed… normal, I suppose? She had a thing on her head, like a… ARCHIVIST: [SHAKY BREATH] CELIA: I don’t known like a, a woolly hat? But… I–I don’t know, it looked a bit weird. ARCHIVIST: … A–Annabelle, hum… CELIA: I didn’t catch her name– ARCHIVIST: Shh-shh-shh! I– Please, I, I need to concentrate. [STATIC RISES] [VERY QUIETLY] Right, Martin, come on, come on…  come on, don’t try and do this to me. Not now. [STATIC FADES] Argh! Oh god. Okay, hum…

* Not the first time we had the conditions to fear about Martin’s safety: there had been the Lonely house scare, the fear that Martin would just disappear when Jon was giving a statement and unaware of his surroundings (which… kind of happened here, although distantly), the fear of Martin and Jon not finding each other back right away after Martin’s domain… so it had to happen at some point, uh.

* Well, she had already been described wearing a hoodie in MAG123, but seems like Annabelle has really stopped looking “like a vintage clothing store exploded on her” x”)

* Jon’s gradually rising panic as he slowly understood what might have happened was heartbreaking ;;

* Confirming another difference between the tunnels and a perimeter under the camera’s protection: Jon can still try to use his powers here. When he had tried to compel Salesa, it had not worked at all – no static, no power.

- Jon’s voice, this season ;w; I love how he has such a wide range lately – almost god-like around the drones, tender about Martin, bashful when he apologised thinking Martin was in the room, slightly awkward when it turned out it was Celia, absolutely panicking when he realised that Martin had left with Annabelle and that he couldn’t know about them, aggressive when he snapped at Celia to wake up Melanie&Georgie, anxious wreck with Melanie. I like how he was quick to tell Melanie that it wasn’t the right moment for her to be sarcastic through her choices of words, and how Melanie indeed relented:

(MAG194) [DOOR OPENS AND FOOTSTEPS ENTER] MELANIE: Any luck? ARCHIVIST: [FRUSTRATED] Nothing. I–is Georgie back yet? MELANIE: Not yet. [INHALE] But then she actually needs to go places to look at them. She can’t just… pop up top and check the “big picture”. ARCHIVIST: Melanie, please. … Not now. MELANIE: … Sorry.

Melanie doesn’t like Jon, she said, but that doesn’t mean she revels in his misery and active discomfort, and I like that they have this complex relationship where they can still help each other out (Jon telling her how to quit at the end of season 4, Melanie reminding Georgie that they should help Jon&Martin, and Melanie guiding Jon through what they can deduce from Annabelle and Martin’s departure).

- That was such a nice parallel (and a contrast!) with when Jon had come to ask for Melanie’s help at the end of season 4:

(MAG157) ARCHIVIST: Melanie, I… MELANIE: Jon…? ARCHIVIST: Yeah, it’s… me. GEORGIE: It’s all right, Melanie. Jon, leave. [ADMIRAL STARTS PURRING] ARCHIVIST: I’m sorry, I just… It’s Martin. MELANIE: Jon… don’t… Please. ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] … No, you’re right, I’m sorry. A–are you all right? MELANIE: Yes! I’m, hum… actually doing okay…! […] It’s, it’s okay. He’s… welcome. As a friend. But that’s it. ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] … Right. MELANIE: But you’re not after a friend, are you, Jon? ARCHIVIST: I need an ally. MELANIE: Then I can’t help you. [SILENCE] ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] I suppose not… GEORGIE: Okay [ADMIRAL MEOWS IN PROTEST], you’re done. [PURRING CEASES] ARCHIVIST: Yeah. [INHALE] Yeah, I am. GEORGIE: Come on, Melanie, let’s get you back to bed. ARCHIVIST: Look after yourself. Both of you. MELANIE: You too. Good… luck, I guess. ARCHIVIST: … Thanks.

Martin just left with a powerful avatar, Jon doesn’t know their intentions, is worried for Martin, doesn’t know what to do, doesn’t have many people around, and goes to Melanie to ask for help. Except this time, Melanie&Georgie have decided that they would help – and indeed, Georgie went to take a look around, and Melanie is (awkwardly) reassuring Jon.

- Nothing new about what the camera does, it’s the same property that had been previously established:

(MAG180) ARCHIVIST: I don’t know what’s next. MARTIN: What…? But, like, you, you can see “literally everything”, so– ARCHIVIST: I–I can, but i–it’s a blind spot! No idea why; I–I didn’t realise until we got closer, and I was looking at our route, but… I can’t see the area after the necropolis. None of it; it’s, it’s like the inside of the Panopticon, or, or wherever Georgie and Melanie are hiding. MARTIN: Or Annabelle. ARCHIVIST: … Or Annabelle. MARTIN: You think the others might be there? ARCHIVIST: [DELIGHTED] I have no idea! It’s a mystery! […] MARTIN: Get ready. ARCHIVIST: To do… what? MARTIN: What do you mean “what”? To smite them, if we need to. Wait, hang on, can you even smite people here? ARCHIVIST: I, I don’t think so.

(MAG181) SALESA: How’re you feeling? MARTIN: [BLOWING AIR] ARCHIVIST: Disorientated. It’s like, hum… li–like I’ve lost my sight o–or, uh… SALESA: Well, you have, haven’t you? [HE CHUCKLES. IT ISN’T THE FRIENDLIEST SOUND] Annabelle tells me you work for “The Eye”. […] Your powers won’t work here, Jonathan Sims, Head-Archivist-of-the-Magnus-Institute-London! The Eye can’t see this place…! […] an old broken camera. One that through some… quirk had the ability to hide you from the Powers…! It was in the possession of another scared old man, one who had long been running from his own supernatural debts. I believe it operates as a sort of, uh, battery, charging itself on all the quiet worries that come from living in hiding, and then when the sanctuary collapses, eh!, all that fear flows out at once. … No doubt if my oasis breaks before I die, The Eye will get quite the feast from me. […] I. Was. Right…! Both about the world, and about the camera: it hid me from The Eye, which, in the new order of reality, also protects where I am from the hellscape all around us. And when I realised that the power moves with the camera, well, hm!, let’s just say I loaded up a truckload of supplies and went on some journeys of my own, before I found… this place.

(MAG194) MELANIE: So, you… you didn’t see them at all with your, you know…? ARCHIVIST: Nothing. They’re hidden. A… Annabelle must have taken the camera. MELANIE: The camera? ARCHIVIST: Uh, from… Salesa’s.

If it is indeed the camera hiding her (since Jon can’t absolutely know about it, and Annabelle has known how to keep herself hidden in the past). Jon had highlighted it, but it’s very interesting that she apparently found a way to stay under the radar since season 4, even when she hadn’t joined Salesa (and the protection of the camera) yet:

(MAG148) ARCHIVIST: Did he say anything about Annabelle? BASIRA: Not really. Sounds like he’s not too worried, though. Says to just ignore it. ARCHIVIST: [SNORTING] Yeah, good luck with that! BASIRA: Any luck finding her? ARCHIVIST: I haven’t really been trying. Doing that sort of thing consciously, it… makes me hungry.

(MAG155) BASIRA: No sign of Annabelle either. ARCHIVIST: You’re still on that? BASIRA: You’re not? ARCHIVIST: … I–I mean, I don’t know how much she can predict or manipulate the future, but I think she’s proven she can at least avoid us finding her.

(MAG164) ARCHIVIST: … I think it was Annabelle Cane. MARTIN: Hm. ARCHIVIST: That’s… weird, I, I know The Web was wrapped around that phone, but, but I can’t… see her. A–at all. At least with Georgie and Melanie, I have a vague sense they’re still alive, i–in London, and, or– Well, what was London. [STATIC DECREASES] But Annabelle…? Nothing. [STATIC FADES] Hm.

(MAG167) MARTIN: Do you know where she was calling from? ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] No. She… No; she is still… hidden, somewhere, I–I could… see her voice coming down the phone line, but the closer it gets to her, the harder it is to see. … Hm, Christ, this all feels so… obtuse; it’s like I have the power to drink the whole ocean, but I… have to do it through a straw!

(MAG172) MARTIN: … And Annabelle? ARCHIVIST: Still can’t see her. If it wasn’t for the phone call, I’d have said she was probably already dead…! MARTIN: Yeah… [SIGH]

(MAG181) ARCHIVIST: Look. I–it’s no accident we finally meet face-to-face in the one place I–I can’t get any answers out of her. ANNABELLE: [SMUG] I’m sure I don’t know what you mean…!

To the point that even now, Jon conjectured that she was protected by the camera, but we can’t be sure if it’s indeed the case (due to the camera itself, and Annabelle’s credentials when it comes to hiding herself).

- ;_; It was kind of expected since Salesa had mentioned the likeliness of him dying, but still, aouch that he indeed died…

(MAG181) SALESA: I don’t know what you want me to say, it’s a big house and I don’t see her much. Can’t even say which corner she’s made her nest in! Whatever she’s doing… all I can do is hope it doesn’t wreck my little oasis. And if it does… then I hope that by keeping her in good graces, she’ll at least do me the courtesy of killing me first? MARTIN: Mm-mm… SALESA: … Anyway. Let us talk of happier things, or perhaps just take a moment to enjoy not being out there…! […] In the end… I find myself quite happy. I’ve supplies, for a good few years, and then I… plan to take my own life. I think perhaps that’s the greatest blessing the camera can bestow: I – can – die – here. Escape this place. Not yet, of course; and maybe the wine will do me in before I have to take matters into my own hands, but still… it remains a comfort.

(MAG194) MELANIE: The camera? ARCHIVIST: Uh, from… Salesa’s. MELANIE: O–oh. So does that mean he’s…? ARCHIVIST: … Dead. MELANIE: Right. ARCHIVIST: Yes, I… [INHALE] I checked. [EXHALE] I guess she liked him enough to do that for him before she stole it. MELANIE: Remind me not to get on her good side. ARCHIVIST: No, i–it’s what he wanted. What he… said he wanted, but… [FOOTSTEPS] i–it–it means there’s… there’s no way I can find them!

* He went far in the Battle Of The Recurring Michaels (Mike Crew, Michael the Distortion, Mike-as-Tim’s-VA), but still, this Mikaele too got killed off in the end.

* I love Melanie, I love how quickly she pointed out that it was messed up.

* I appreciate Jon’s nuance regarding Salesa’s wish, correcting it into “what he said he wanted”: the fact that he had thought about his own ending (either killed by Annabelle, either by the wine, either by his own hands) and found it a “comfort” that he was able to… was still fundamentally sad and horrible? It’s mostly that, with the world as it is since the Change, it was this or an eternity of torture, and he made his choice while weighting the two… but I like Jon’s precautions, here, with that “what he said he wanted”, and the contrast there is between this and “what he wanted”.

- I really wonder how the scene went and if Annabelle will describe it – Jon immediately assumed that it meant that Annabelle had killed him, but it’s also possible that she warned him that she would take the camera and that Salesa did it himself? (Would still be Annabelle pushing him to it in a way… unless she offered Salesa the option to come with her, protected by the camera, and he declined that.)

If we go with the idea that Annabelle liked him, and killed him as a favour before taking the camera… that’s, uh, a bad sign for the whole state of the world? It kind of implies that no, Annabelle’s plans aren’t to turn the world back or to cast the Fears away – if it had been the case, wouldn’t it have been better for Salesa to accept to suffer hell for a little while before Annabelle succeeded? Unless he didn’t believe that it was possible, unless Annabelle didn’t like him enough to protect him, etc., but hum… if we go with Jon’s assumption that Annabelle killed Salesa as a favour, that’s worrisome for what Annabelle is aiming for on a larger scale, if that death is still a “mercy”…?

- I love the ways Melanie awkwardly tried to reassure Jon, while being clearly uncomfortable with Jon spilling his guts, but that she still understood that Jon was worried sick for his partner and that this was still something she could relate to. And the fact that Jon was now also worried for Georgie!! The fact that she doesn’t feel Fear and that she’s mostly insulated from The Eye doesn’t mean that she’s invincible…

(MAG194) ARCHIVIST: [FOOTSTEPS] I–it–it means there’s… there’s no way I can find them! MELANIE: Hey, hey! ARCHIVIST: And I– MELANIE: Hey! Keep it together. Okay? Georgie might have better luck. She’s actually looking in person, and from what you said… ARCHIVIST: Yeah, no, I, I mean– MELANIE: Yeah– ARCHIVIST: –that could work, but… but if she finds them alone…! Uh, I mean, if anything were to happen–! MELANIE: They can handle themselves…! Right? ARCHIVIST: You’re right. Uh, you’re… [INHALE] You’re right. MELANIE: [EXHALE] It’s, it’s fine. I’m worried too.

… I’m Worried about Melanie using “they can handle themselves” as a reason to not be too worried, though, because it sure puts to mind one of Annabelle and Martin’s only exchanges:

(MAG181) MARTIN: We could make her tell us. ARCHIVIST: No, we couldn’t. I don’t have my powers, if it came to a physical fight I really don’t rate our chances…! MARTIN: Hey, I can handle myself! ANNABELLE: But can you handle me? [SILENCE] MARTIN: … I don’t like you. ANNABELLE: I know.

MARTIN…

- It’s less funny for Melanie when she has to hear about Jon’s life when it comes from Jon rather than from Martin, uh.

(MAG190) MELANIE: Yourself? MARTIN: Oh, uh, I’m the antichrist’s plus one. MELANIE: [CHORTLES] Oh, that… that sounds like a rough gig! MARTIN: [SMILING] It has its perks. […] So how are you and Georgie doing? MELANIE: Hm! Honestly? Uh… well. These were not the early relationship hurdles I expected. MARTIN: God, tell me about it…! […] MELANIE: And what about Jon? MARTIN: Oh. You know Jon. He’s a complete mess, but, so am I, and… I think we’re making it work. Communication can be… difficult when you’re on an unholy pilgrimage, hm! MELANIE: Modern dating, eh? MARTIN: [CHUCKLE] Nightmare.

(MAG191) ARCHIVIST: … This is my fault. MELANIE: What? ARCHIVIST: We… We had an argument. MELANIE: Oh… ARCHIVIST: I–I said some things I shouldn’t have, if… if I hadn’t we would have come back here together, and I–I’d have been there to stop her taking him. MELANIE: You don’t know that’s what happened. ARCHIVIST: I mean, he wouldn’t have gone willingly! … Would he? MELANIE: You tell me. You said there was no sign of a struggle. ARCHIVIST: But if it happened in the tunnel, I can’t “know” that! MELANIE: But we’d have heard. Stuff echoes down here. ARCHIVIST: I suppose…! What, so you think he chose to leave with her? MELANIE: Does it matter right now? ARCHIVIST: I mean, if they left together willingly, they could already be miles away…!

(* Extra-dose of awkward for Melanie since she’s kind of reassuring her girlfriend’s ex over his own relationship.)

* Same thing as Jonah using Jon for his ritual: it superficially feels like it could have been avoided in a million of ways… but at the same time, it feels like the end result would have happened anyway, because Annabelle was searching for an opening. If it hadn’t been now, it would have been another time in the tunnels.

* I’m surprised that Melanie and Jon both considered that the absence of a struggle was hinting that Martin had gone willingly… given that it involved a Web agent. As Breekon had pointed out: “The Spider’s always an easy job – no fuss, no complication, everything planned and prepared. It knows too much to truly be a Stranger, but hides its knowing well enough to endure.” (MAG128) It feels like if Annabelle wanted to take Martin out without a fuss, she just could have done that?

- I like how Melanie took over Martin’s role to make Jon think of practical things when Jon is stuck on his own fears and worries. It’s just like in front of the Panopticon when Martin suggested how Beholding might work against Jonah too and had taken actions to enter the building: Melanie tried to evaluate what Jon could “know”, what had happened, what connection they had with Annabelle, what they could conjecture from Martin leaving with her.

- Every time Jon more or less summarises Annabelle as being One with The Web, I’m a bit more mmmm about the concept:

(MAG130) ARCHIVIST: And the question is now simply … how much I trust the Spider to have my… best interests at heart. … Hm. I suspect my assuming it has a heart might be a clue I’m looking at this the wrong way.

(MAG146) ARCHIVIST: I–I want to know; can The Web control another avatar, one that serves a different power? HELEN: [HELEN LAUGHS AND LAUGHS, ECHOING] ARCHIVIST: Make them do things they don’t want to, make them… [BREATHING FASTER] find victims, feed?

(MAG147) ARCHIVIST: I’m sure the flares will work fine. … I mean, un–unless it’s all some… elaborate… plot… to have us… burn this place down again. BASIRA: So what if it is? ARCHIVIST: I don’t follow…? BASIRA: I mean. Anything we do could be part of the “Grand Master Plan”. So – what, we do nothing? Just… sit on our hands, and hope that’s not what the spiders want? ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] […] ARCHIVIST: So, she is… watching the Institute. Interfering with things. … [HUFF] Is that reassuring, or… really, really bad…? I can’t say I’m… [HUFF] I can’t say I’m sad to have another ally allegedly on our side, but I don’t like the idea of being important to The Web. … That’s a really bad place to be…

(MAG150) ARCHIVIST: Melanie, could you… could you describe your therapist for me? MELANIE: [CHUCKLING] What? You think I wouldn’t notice if she had cobwebs down her face? ARCHIVIST: … No? […] O–kay. [SIGH] It’s just… The Web can be subtle, you understand? MELANIE: And? For all you know, its plan is to paralyse you with indecision…! ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] MELANIE: Leaving you… sitting here, terrified that… everything you do is somehow all part of its Grand Plan… And who do you think that fear is gonna feed? ARCHIVIST: Yes, well. [INHALE] You are… not the first, to make that point.

(MAG172) MARTIN: [LONG SIGH] Jon, what does The Web want? It’s… I mean, we know it’s got a plan, can’t you just… see what it is? ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] “Knowing”, “seeing”… i–it’s not the same thing as… understanding. Every time I try to know what The Web’s plan is, if it can even be called a plan, I see… a hundred thousand events and causes and links, an impossibly intricate pattern of consequences and subtle nudges, but I–I can’t…! … I can’t hold them all in my head at the same time. There’s no way to see the “whole”, the, the point of it all. I can see all the details, but it doesn’t… provide… context or… intention. I suppose The Web doesn’t work in knowledge, not in the same way.

(MAG180) ARCHIVIST: So… Annabelle, what are you playing at, what are you doing here? ANNABELLE: I really wouldn’t worry about that. I’m just helping out around the place a little bit. Making myself at home. You know how it is.

(MAG181) ARCHIVIST: [SHARPLY] I don’t intend to accept anything offered by Annabelle Cane. MARTIN: [SIGH] SALESA: Oh, you know Annabelle? [SILENCE BUT FOR CLOCK TICKING IN THE BACKGROUND] ARCHIVIST: … Sort of. You do know she’s part of The Web? SALESA: [SARCASTICALLY] No? I assumed the thread holding her head together was due to a childhood knitting accident! [CHUCKLES] MARTIN: Ha! SALESA: Of course I know she’s with The Web. ARCHIVIST: … And that doesn’t bother you? […] And perhaps you’re now just trying to humanise yourself so we underestimate your next move…! […] I don’t have my powers, if it came to a physical fight I really don’t rate our chances…! […] That’s the trouble with old houses, I suppose. Full of spiders.

(MAG194) MELANIE: So, what other reason might she want him? ARCHIVIST: To get to me? To… turn him a–against us, or–or make him an offer or… I don’t know, she serves The Web! So i–it’s probably some… bullshit domino… cause-and-effect… thing we can’t even begin to guess!

Jon has not been the only one to refer to The Web as the Fear that will always get its way, but every time Jon gets defensive and antagonistic towards it, ready to blame everything on it… I wonder if it’s not a projection of Jon’s own fears and trauma (the fact that he barely managed to escape Mr Spider’s clutch, and that it took his bully instead of him) rather than anything grounded in reality. Knowing that The Web is around is enough for him to get antagonistic, to go spiralling, to refuse to assume anything obvious… and there is such consistency in Jon’s perception of The Web that I have trouble taking it at face value? Is it really the nature of The Web to function on obfuscated plans, or does Jon present it as way more threatening thanit actually is because of his personal trauma…?

(And in return: not sure either that Martin has a full grasp of Jon’s fear of The Web. He has known since season 1 that Jon didn’t like spiders; he didn’t question that Jon would worry about Annabelle; he was aware that The Web could get in people’s head in MAG172 when he refused for Jon to take a look in his mind to see if he was influenced, and had been afraid of the fact that he had began to wander in the domain. But does Martin know that Jon was traumatised by The Web as a kid, that even Jonah thought that The Web had sent Jon towards him for his ritual? Does Martin know about Mr. Spider, did Jon ever tell him? Jon hadn’t told him about how his worst recent experience, the one that had made him feel the most “powerless”, had been at the hands of Daisy…)

- Best sound descriptor of the season:

(MAG194) ARCHIVIST: [EXASPERATED] How am I supposed to know? I… I can’t see anything, down here! MELANIE: For god’s sake! Pull your head out of your arse, stop trying to use it as a bloody antenna, and actually try thinking! ARCHIVIST: Just listen, Melanie, I– argh! Ow! [THE ARCHIVIST IS STRUCK, NOT WITH A REVELATION BUT MELANIE’S CANE] MELANIE: Think! ARCHIVIST: Ow…! I don’t know!

MELANIE……………

(It was harsh, but she had a point that Jon was instinctively trying to rely on his powers rather than trying to think things through. Understandable given that he’s worried for Martin, but Jon kind of did the same thing at Upton House, when he tried to compel Salesa to get his story instead of asking it the non-spooky way. The way Jon will instinctively reach for his Beholding powers rather than making a conscious decision to use them every time is a bit worrisome…?)

- YAY FOR HILL TOP ROAD.

(MAG194) MELANIE: Think! ARCHIVIST: Ow…! I don’t know! Somewhere she’d be strong? A, a place of power, a, a Web domain… MELANIE: Yeah… I… ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] MELANIE: I… don’t think there’s anywhere like that in London… ARCHIVIST: No. I–it’s all Eye, one way or another. MELANIE: So, what about nearby? … Hmm? … Uh, Jon? ARCHIVIST: [REALISING] Oh god… MELANIE: Wh… what? ARCHIVIST: … They’re going to Hill Top Road.

* HTR as still being a place-of-power for The Web had been established for a while:

(MAG139, Eugene Vanderstock) “The compromise we came to… was Hill Top Road. We knew it was a stronghold of The Web, full of other children Agnes’s age.”

(MAG146) HELEN: There is… something wrong, with Hill Top Road. You know it as well as I do. Some strange “scar in reality” at the centre of… whatever it is the Spider is spinning.

But it also means “Agnes”, and “the scar in reality” after her fight with Fielding…

* I’m surprised that Melanie didn’t think of Hill Top Road either, since she had been part of the expedition there in MAG147, had seen the cobwebs, had been there the previous episode when it had been established that they were going there to precisely find Annabelle, since Jon thought she might be, and was also there when it turned out that Annabelle had left a statement in the house. I mean! Where else could Annabelle have gone?

* I’m super excited that Martin is going first with Annabelle since… he hadn’t been part of that expedition in season 4, and I remember the interrogations about whether he wasn’t supposed to go (yet) but was meant to visit the place on his own at some point.

* Following Martin&Annabelle’s trail, for Jon, means directly going against one of Annabelle’s “orders”:

(MAG147, Annabelle Cane) “Or perhaps I am simply telling you what you need to hear, in order to behave exactly as the Mother wishes you to. [STATIC RISES, GRADUALLY] Perhaps… I have never even seen a beach. Don’t… go to Hill Top Road again.” [STATIC FADES] ARCHIVIST: … Statement ends…! [INHALE] That was, er… I d– … I–I didn’t like that. I couldn’t… [STUTTERING] [CLEARS THROAT]

And he did end up… not coming back, and there was static when she said it (plain old static, which usually indicates that something supernatural is going on). Was it a compulsion, a supernatural order…? Will he have to fight against this to be able to go and enter Hill Top Road again…? Why was he not meant to stay around the house even before the Change, what is hidden there, what was he not supposed to interact with…?

- Annabelle had dangled her “help” to Martin for a looong while this season – the question wasn’t really if but rather when she would finally make her move:

(MAG163) MARTIN: Uh… Jon? [OLD PHONE RINGING] Uh, Jo–Jon, the, uh, the payphone that’s… here, for some reason, it’s–it’s ringing? [OLD PHONE RINGING] Jon, is–is that… [ASKING AROUND] I–is anyone gonna get that? [OLD PHONE RINGING] … Unless it’s for me? [OLD PHONE RINGING] [SIGH] Yeah, it’s for me. Uh… nnno. [OLD PHONE RINGING] N–no, no, I don’t think so, actually! Hum, thanks, but that, that sounds like a really… terrible idea! [OLD PHONE RINGING] Hm, sorry! [SILENCE] … Huh. Wwwell, all right then! [BODIES WADING THROUGH LIQUID] ARCHIVIST: Martin, you need to keep up. It’s not safe. … Martin? You okay? MARTIN: Uh, I… Th–ther–there was a phone – that phone. ARCHIVIST: … Oh. MARTIN: It… Yeah, it was ringing? ARCHIVIST: Oh. Right… Did you answer it? MARTIN: No. ARCHIVIST: Hm. [INHALE] Probably for the best…! MARTIN: Yeeaahh.

(MAG164) MARTIN: Fair point~! Okay, okay, uh, what else, what else, hum… Oh! Hum, uh, who was, uh–uh, phone – hum, wh–who was calling me? [STATIC INCREASES] ARCHIVIST: … I think it was Annabelle Cane. MARTIN: Hm. ARCHIVIST: That’s… weird, I, I know The Web was wrapped around that phone, but, but I can’t… see her. A–at all. At least with Georgie and Melanie, I have a vague sense they’re still alive, i–in London, and, or– Well, what was London. [STATIC DECREASES] But Annabelle…? Nothing. [STATIC FADES] Hm. MARTIN: W–well, I’ll… I’ll ask her, next time she calls. ARCHIVIST: Well, I know that’s a bad idea…!

(MAG166) MARTIN: For god’s sake…! [WIPING HIS HANDS] [NOKIA RINGTONE, CLEARER] [MUFFLED BUZZING] [BAG JOSTLING] [BEEP] MARTIN: Hello? ANNABELLE: Hello? Is that Martin? MARTIN: Don’t do that. ANNABELLE: What? No stomach for games? MARTIN: Well, your “games” aren’t exactly fun for everyone, are they? ANNABELLE: Very few games are…! MARTIN: [SIGH] Look, look, look, I’m talking to Annabelle Cane, right? ANNABELLE: You never gave me your name – so why should I offer mine? MARTIN: Just, what do you want? ANNABELLE: I want to help you, of course. [SILENCE] MARTIN: … No. Thank you.

(MAG167) [STATIC RISES] ARCHIVIST: Help us with what? MARTIN: ‘xcuse me? ARCHIVIST: Annabelle, help us with “what”? Our–our, our journey, killing Elias, vanishing the Entities – what? [FOOTSTEPS STOP] MARTIN: Please don’t do that. […] She offered to help, but she didn’t say what with; she… asked us where we were going. I didn’t tell her, but… [SNORT] it was pretty obvious she had a good idea. ARCHIVIST: Did you… feel like she was… influencing your mind at all? MARTIN: I don’t think so, but I mean… who knows? ARCHIVIST: I could. MARTIN: But look. She didn’t control me into asking you not to look into my head, if that’s what you’re thinking. That’s all me.

(MAG181) ANNABELLE: Perhaps I just value my privacy. MARTIN: Fine, fine! Why did you call me before? ANNABELLE: Perhaps I thought you could use a friendly voice…! MARTIN: “Friendly”!? You told me Jon didn’t need me! ANNABELLE: Objectively true. MARTIN: [AGGRAVATED SIGH] ANNABELLE: And more importantly, perhaps I thought you might need a little bit of righteous indignation to help you power through the next steps. MARTIN: … I, I don’t like being manipulated. ANNABELLE: Then we probably aren’t going to be friends. […] Don’t worry, Martin. We’ll meet again. Hopefully when you’re feeling a little bit more… open-minded…! MARTIN: I wouldn’t count on it. ANNABELLE: I would. MARTIN: [SIGH] ARCHIVIST: That’s the trouble with old houses, I suppose. Full of spiders. ANNABELLE: You boys better take care of yourselves. I’m sure we’ll see each other again very soon. Here! Why don’t I show you out?

My questions are still: why Martin, and why didn’t she make her offer when Jon&Martin were at Upton House? Regarding the latter: Annabelle had implied that she was waiting for Martin to be in better dispositions (“open-minded”), which wasn’t the case at Upton House. During their previous exchanges, Martin was wary and antagonising towards her, but something kind of changed with this episode: Jon just insisted that they should consider the idea that Jon would sacrifice himself, which was the scenario Martin felt strongly against, and as Jon pointed out… there are now lacking other options.

(MAG186) MARTIN: So. This price. What do you think? Are we going to have to kill Jon? ALSO MARTIN: … I don’t know, because you don’t know. But… it seems like something we should at least consider. MARTIN: … I… have thought about it, and… I won’t. I, I don’t think I could…! ALSO MARTIN: Mmhmm. MARTIN: But anything else? Any other price? I’ll pay it. ALSO MARTIN: Even dying? MARTIN: Yeah! ALSO MARTIN: Jon’s as bad as we are. He wouldn’t let it happen. MARTIN: It’s not his decision. ALSO MARTIN: Fine. So flip that round, then. What are you going to do when he tries to sacrifice himself, because you know he’s going to try? MARTIN: I don’t know all right? [SIGH] I don’t know.

(MAG191) ARCHIVIST: Martin, when the time comes, I need you to promise me that you won’t try to stop me. MARTIN: … I promise. I love you, Jon. ARCHIVIST: [FOND HUFF] I love you too. MARTIN: But I’m not going to doom the world over it. ARCHIVIST: … Thank you. MARTIN: [INHALE] And you have to promise me that you’re going to do everything in your power to live. That you’re not going to… sacrifice yourself at the first opportunity, just because you feel guilty about what happened. ARCHIVIST: [BREATH] … I promise.

(MAG194) ARCHIVIST: [QUIETLY] It… it might be our only option. MARTIN: [VEHEMENTLY] What are you talking about?! How, how is it an “option”? Okay, setting aside the fact that it’s a suicidal idea, it’s just completely stupid! What actual good would it do? Right now, as far as I can see, we’d just be… swapping one self-important, floating, hollowed-out terror zombie for another! ARCHIVIST: It’s not like that! MARTIN: Really? Then please, enlighten me. Go on, I’m all ears! ARCHIVIST: Look. Right, when I said that I would “replace” Jonah in there, that’s not… I m– … That place, the centre of The Eye, i–it’s… it wasn’t made for him. That’s why he’s like that, it’s too much, it’s overwhelmed him, his whole being just destroyed…! MARTIN: Oh yeah? But let me guess, it was made for you? ARCHIVIST: Yes! MARTIN: [PETULANTLY] Of course it is! Of course, it is! Because how could this journey possibly end with anything less than the final, supreme destiny of the Archivist, plugged into the great fear machine for all eternity and, and abandoning humanity. Breaking his promise…! […] ARCHIVIST: … Martin… MARTIN: We’re here to stop this, not… not take it over…! [SILENCE BUT FOR THE DISTANT DRONE NOISES] ARCHIVIST: What other choice do we have? MARTIN: I–I don’t know, all right! I d–, but there is one. Because there has to be. ARCHIVIST: But what if there isn’t? How long are we going to wander around hopelessly searching before we end up back here anyway? MARTIN: You were the one that wanted to take some time to think things over…! ARCHIVIST: We can’t just dismiss this. It might be our only option. [SILENCE SAVE FOR THE TOWER NOISES] MARTIN: … No. ARCHIVIST: No? MARTIN: No! I forbid it.

Martin’s initial declaration was precisely that he would refuse to kill Jon, which is not the exact same thing that he made Jon promise when they were resting in the tunnels – that Jon would actively try to find another way than sacrificing himself, and wouldn’t do it out of guilt. Martin also told Jon that he wouldn’t “doom the world” over his love for him, but… deciding this in quiet circumstances is yet again different from being directly confronted by the possibility. So, in any case: Jon&Martin had begun their journey with the intention of confronting Elias (MAG162: “Do you think it’ll do anything? Confronting Elias?” “I… Maybe?” “No, I’m serious. Do we… Is there a chance that we can undo this?” “Gertrude didn’t think so.” “… Right.” “But she’s dead. Let’s find out for ourselves.”), they did reach Elias but discovered that a “confrontation” was impossible anyway, that it might even have been Beholding trying to lure Jon here to take Elias’s place, they don’t have any more info, they’re lacking options and the only potential “solution” presented by Jon isn’t, as Martin pointed out, really one. That’s not utter desperation yet, but still dire enough to understand that Martin would finally be in ~better dispositions~ to hear Annabelle out, even if he’s probably planning to backstab like with Elias and Peter (while knowing that Annabelle knows that he knows that she knows that he knows that she knows… that he doesn’t trust her and will seek any opportunity to neutralise her).

But still, why Martin and not Jon…? Annabelle tried to contact him at the beginning of season 5, and once again addressed him when they left Upton House. Martin had also reacted strangely inside of The Web’s domain:

(MAG172) MARTIN: … Sorry. You were starting another and, I didn’t want to wait. We should get going. ARCHIVIST: Y–you were listening, I… I–I–I thought that you– MARTIN: No, I… Not for most of it. I just thought I heard… something. Whatever. I went exploring, all right? I don’t know why; I shouldn’t have. ARCHIVIST: No, you–you shouldn’t have! […] MARTIN: Can we just go, please? ARCHIVIST: Of course, but… You were safe here. And after everything that’s already happened, I… I–I just don’t understand why you would– MARTIN: [SHAKEY] Me neither, okay! ARCHIVIST: What? MARTIN: I mean, that’s it, isn’t it?! I don’t know! I don’t know why I went exploring! ARCHIVIST: Are you saying you were… compelled? MARTIN: I’m saying I don’t know, do I? I thought I was just curious, it felt like curiosity, but… given where we are, and with The Web everywhere, and Annabelle Cane still out there playing mind games with payphones, I just… [SIGH] I mean, how do you even know if it’s your motivation, you know? Being here… [SIGH] I–it just makes me second-guess all of it, and I… I don’t like it, it… really scares me.

Why does Annabelle and/or The Web seek Martin first and foremost, and not Jon…? Is it only to use Martin as bait to get to Jon, as Jon mentioned, since direct contacts would be more likely to go very badly (he was aware that Annabelle had only decided to show herself when she had the guarantee that Jon wouldn’t be able to use his powers on her, in MAG181: “Look. I–it’s no accident we finally meet face-to-face in the one place I–I can’t get any answers out of her.” “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean…!”), or is it about something inherent to Martin…?

It’s very funny, in a horrible way, because alongside a long list of parallels with the end of season 4 (Jon panicking because a reccurring avatar linked to another Fear has taken Martin in a place that is still a mystery to Jon), we’re also back to the same questions we had back then – why did Peter need Martin specifically? It turned out that he needed him as a dual Lonely/Eye candidate to take control of the Panopticon, which would allow him to win his bet against Elias, Martin’s final decision of whether or not he would take Jonah’s place deciding of the outcome. Does Annabelle need him as a Lonely/Eye avatar? As someone who could also dip his toes in with The Web? As Jon’s anchor?

- There is the question of why Martin followed her, and whether he did so “willingly”… given that we know how The Web interacts with free will:

(MAG056, Trevor Herbert) “she locked eyes with me. The weirdest sensation began to flow through me; I wanted to leave. It wasn’t like with a vampire, where I would feel like I’d been spoken to. This was just a sudden awareness of my own desire. I’d been sober for three years at that point, but I felt like I desperately wanted to get high, and I knew that the best place to get some was out in the night. Looking back, I think it might have been my own mind rationalising the way I felt my will being tugged out of the room, but it was still very powerful. If I hadn’t had a lifetime’s experience of identifying and fighting off the effect of the vampire’s gaze, I probably would have done it, too.”

(MAG059, Ronald Sinclair) “There was something about living there, though, that… dulled the urge. My memories of a lot of my time there are, well… not exactly foggy, but feel almost like I’m watching someone else’s memories. I remember that it sometimes felt like I do things without actually deciding to do them, like it was just muscle memory moving me, or a string gently guiding me. It was never bad, or dangerous stuff, just… things I wouldn’t normally have done, like brushing my teeth. […] Then, without warning, I wasn’t waiting anymore. I had turned around, put down my suitcase, and started walking back towards Raymond Fielding’s house. I didn’t want to go back. I had no reason to go back, but I had apparently decided to anyway, because I knew that’s where I was going. After two and a half years, I was rather used to this feeling, but there was something else there, this time, something in the back of my mind – a frantic scuttling terror. It didn’t do any good, though. I was returning to Hill Top Road, no matter what I might feel about it. Choices didn’t even come into it. The door was unlocked when I returned, and the house was quiet. My eyes darted around looking for anyone who might be able to tell me what was going on, why the fine threads that pulled me through my life had dragged me back here, but I was alone.”

(MAG081) ARCHIVIST: “MR. SPIDER WANTS ANOTHER GUEST FOR DINNER” it reads, “IT IS POLITE TO KNOCK”. I feel my hand closing into a fist and reaching for the door, preparing to rap my knuckles on the grimy old wood. It was at that moment that a hand far bigger than my own slapped the book from my grip, before shoving me hard in the chest and sending me sprawling onto the floor. I was in the park a few roads away from my house. Had I taken the book there to read? Or did I somehow wander there while engrossed in it. To this day I don’t know, but I was in the park, and standing over me was… you know for the life of me I can’t remember his name. […] But as he did so, he flicked through it, and as his eyes passed over more and more of the page, the words tailed off, and he seemed to be reading it himself. His hands shook ever so slightly as he slowly made his way through it, and his legs began to move. It was jerky and unsteady, and he didn’t seem to notice that he was doing it.

(MAG110, Alexia Crawley) “According to Dexter, Kumo was an old tokusatsu movie which, he believed, had come out sometime in the mid-to-late sixties. It was about a Spider – just the one, despite the title – that grew to a colossal size and terrorised a small unnamed island off the coast of Kagoshima. What struck him about it, though, was the utter absence of anything resembling a hero or a protagonist. No one fought against the monster, and although there were vignettes in the lives of those under the Spider’s shadow, they all ended the exact same way – with the character in question marching slowly, and calmly, into its waiting jaws.”

(MAG123, Angie Santos) “She just mumbled something about custom requirements, and told Greg to drink his latte. Which he did, so he tells me, though… he can’t stand milk in his coffee. […] I haven’t given the name of this mystery client because to be honest, Greg’s never told me. I’ve asked him plenty of times, but whenever I do, he gives me this… surprised look, insists he’s told me before, and then immediately forgets and changes the subject.”

(MAG136, Alison Killala) “I was about to ask her to wait while I checked with him but as I started to speak, she turned her head, revealing a mass of white thread, criss-crossing all over the side of her temple, standing starkly against the dark brown of her skin. She told me to sit down. And I did. I heard the levers and pulleys move behind me and I could tell that Neil was being walked down the corridor towards this woman… but I couldn’t see. I couldn’t turn my head. […] He called her “Annabelle”, and she sent me to his screening room. She told me I was to watch his original cuts – “Just until we’re all done here,” she said. And as I walked away from Neil, the last time I saw him alive… he was dancing. The cables shifting, and moving him in a graceful, sweeping ballet. And he was crying with joy. I don’t know how long I was watching those films. They don’t… It was hard to keep track of time. According to my daughter, I was missing for five months. When Annabelle let me out, Neil was dead. […] She told me to take the films. His… “original cuts”. She told me to come here. She told me to give them to you. I resisted for some time, but I’m done now. She’s won. And I’d… very much like to go home.”

I’m ready to write off a lot of Annabelle’s statement as things she said to mess with Jon on purpose (it worked.), but we nonetheless got a few demonstrations of Web agents or items being able to make people do things they didn’t necessarily want or that were actively harmful to them, and Annabelle in particular does have those powers according to the statements, so… there are various hypotheses regarding Martin following her:

* No choice at all, just like the kids at Ray’s house – he might be aware of what he’s doing but can’t do anything about it.

* More subtle manipulation along the lines of: he thinks he’s choosing to go, but the Spider is inside his head anyway, so he’s not aware of his own lack of decision on the matter. (Annabelle highlighted that this conception of The Web was a bit of a rabbit hole, since how does one know that their actions are not influenced by anything or anyone, at which point do internal mechanisms stop being just “our” decision? But we got Trevor highlighting what had happened to him, that he could feel that something was pulling strings.)

* Ugly blackmail: there were survivors in the tunnels, Celia was even around (since she saw them), so could have been a case of threatening to harm them if Martin didn’t follow her?

* Nothing supernatural, just the mundane manipulation of Annabelle offering her “help” to Martin when he’s lacking options. As mentioned above, I feel like after the beginning of the episode, Martin would have enough reasons to cling to any new possibility, even if it’s coming from someone he loathes, in case it could lead to a better alternative than Jon’s current one? With Martin thinking/hoping that he could outsmart her in the end?

- Another question is then why Annabelle went to fetch Martin when Jon wasn’t around, and why Martin agreed to leave without Jon…

* It’s interesting that Martin’s departure was still seen by someone, Celia, who could report to Jon. It wasn’t as sneaky as it could have been – so it sounds a bit intentional as a message (making sure that Jon would know that Martin left, and with whom).

* Regarding Martin’s choice: as far as urgency goes, the fact that he left for what-used-to-be Oxford has the added benefit of ensuring that Jon won’t fall into Beholding’s embrace at the top of the tower, because Jon would obviously follow Martin.

* … Timing-wise, it’s extremely interesting that Annabelle apparently went to get Martin while Jon was giving a statement outside. The tunnels are mostly insulated from The Eye (hence Jon mentioning he had trouble seeing and knowing) but it’s not a perfect protection – Jon pointed out that his condition there wasn’t as bad as at Upton house, and we could still hear static when he tried to use his powers while there had been truly nothing at Upton House. Did Annabelle need to sneak in and out when something else was focusing on Jon and wouldn’t notice her? Is it about Beholding? Is it about the tape recorder while it was focusing on Jon?)

* Relatedly: interesting that no tape recorder caught Martin’s departure. We know they’re not affected by the camera, so… is it because they’re Web/Annabelle and didn’t need that information when doing something, is it that they can only focus on one thing at a time, is it because Martin’s privacy mattered in that moment…?

- Once again, What Does The Spider Want but some things I like to keep in mind: we tend to equate “Annabelle” to “The Web”, which is not necessarily true. Jon’s description of Beholding artefacts and their level of consciousness was quite interesting in that regard:

(MAG194) ARCHIVIST: … Why am I even talking to you? You don’t even have a mind, not really. That’s what you want, isn’t it? Something to be your focus, your will. Keeping you fed, and placated and content!

The Fears, as themselves, are mostly drawn to being fed: is Annabelle really working to keep The Web fed, or are her intentions different? We’ve met various people who were actively hating their patron and going against it – Archival assistants, Gertrude, Jon, even Jonah postured as using Beholding for his own gains rather than truly worshipping it like other avatars. They were all Beholding folks, plus the ambiguous case of Agnes (who may have truly hoped that she would be able to carry out the cult’s ritual… or may have sabotaged the Lightless Flame by pretending that they had to wait for her and may have been actually fine with her daily life), who was bound to Gertrude and could also have been influenced by Beholding through that link (Agnes was described as staring a lot in the café, while Gertrude began to mostly use fire and explosives during her operations).

Is Annabelle absolutely in synch with her patron and working for its supremacy in yet another form (taking Beholding’s place at the top of the pyramid?), or could it turn out that she is in the same sort of situation as Jon, resentful towards the Fear that transformed her and made her rely on hurting others to thrive…?

We know that Annabelle hurt people, or was involved in things that ended up hurting people – the participants in the experiments leading to her creation have disappeared since then, the website Annabelle had commissioned led to a few people’s deaths (the Chelicerae’s website developer disappeared, we know that people had tried to contact him to apologise because they were suffering from the consequences, we know of at least one person who was turned into a spider husk, and Carlos Vittery died of spider and his name was in the website code), that Neil Lagorio died when she was in his home… but I still wonder. The whole Neil Lagorio statement had felt to me like, in the background, an older generation was passing down their knowledge to a younger one and/or that the younger one had come to grant their last wish (dancing). Was it a similar “mercy-kill” as what Salesa hoped for, or was it something else…? Was it even truly a mercy-kill in Salesa’s case? I can’t help but remember the differences between Salesa, who decided to stay in his safe protected bubble rather than actively helping, and Georgie&Melanie, who took the active decision to provide help, even in feeble measure… and who were there, sleeping and absolutely vulnerable. Annabelle had the capacity to be way more lethal than what she actually did, so I’m still at a loss about her intentions – on the one hand, it feels like she might have actively helped to get Jon marked, on the other hand… what she personally get from the apocalypse, how is it a mean to an end? Is it to strengthen The Web? Is it to destroy the Fears?

(- Another thing is that… it would have been easy for Annabelle to just kill off one of the survivors in the tunnels, if her intention was to take Martin with her and/or make Jon panic? We know that Helen had tried to grab Celia – the tunnels are not an absolute protection. But she didn’t.)

- Same thing with Hill Top Road as with Annabelle: we knew she would try to do something, the question was “when”, and in the same way, we knew Hill Top Road was coming – the season 4 Q&A had mentioned that we weren’t done with it, and MAG147 had felt like Annabelle was sending the signal that it was narratively too early for Jon to go there. Well, another question was also whether we would hear the whole story about it there, or through something left in the Panopticon/the Archives.

I still wonder if the Web domain near Helen’s hotel was Hill Top Road?

(MAG187) [STATIC INCREASES] HELEN: … Or you could just stand there glowering, that’s fine too. ARCHIVIST: I’m trying to know if there’s another route I can take. HELEN: And? [STATIC DECREASES] ARCHIVIST: Turns out there is, actually. But it is rather full of spiders.

Helen had lurked around HTR and tried to lure people inside to learn about it, so it would have been fitting for her to have taken roots nearby?

Regarding HTR: we’ve had many indications that time&space were wobbly concepts there even before the Change:

(MAG008, Ivo Lensik) “It must have been 8 or 9 in the evening, as it had been dark for a couple of hours. I was working on the ground floor wiring when I heard a knock at the front door. […] I opened the door to see an unassuming man in a tan coat. He was quite young, white, maybe mid-twenties, clean-shaven with shaggy, chestnut brown hair. His coat was quite an old cut; it seemed to me he looked like something out of an old Polaroid. He said his name was Raymond Fielding and that he owned the house. As he spoke, I felt my grip on the hammer tightening although I have no idea why. I asked him if he had any ID or documents and he handed over to me what seemed, as far as I could tell, to be the deed to the house, as well as the land beneath, and did indeed list a man named Raymond Fielding as the owner. So I let him in. […] After a minute or two, I became conscious of a sharp, unpleasant smell. I thought maybe I had wired something up wrong, but no, it smelled like burning human hair. I looked over to where Raymond had been standing but he was gone. Where he had been there was just a patch of scorched wooden floor, still apparently smouldering and giving off that dreadful stink. […] Even so, there were occasional moments when I would find myself the only one working in a room, or when silence fell across the building. And then I would smell it again, that whiff of burnt hair, or catch a glimpse of brown pigtails disappearing around a corner.” […] ARCHIVIST: Two families have lived in the house since this statement was originally made but no further manifestations have been reported on Hill Top Road.

(MAG114, Anya Villette) “Obviously it was my decision. I remember the little handle was warm. I don’t know if that’s just my memory playing tricks on me, but I do remember that. It opened to reveal stairs going down into a basement. Nobody had mentioned a basement. Not when they gave me the job, not on the floor plan they’d given me; I’d had absolutely no idea it was there. […] But now… everything’s wrong. I went to clean that house on April the 23rd 2009 which, according to all of you, is tomorrow. But it can’t be. That was two weeks ago.”

(MAG147) MELANIE: When did you say they finished rebuilding? ARCHIVIST: 2008? MELANIE: Hm! ARCHIVIST: Doesn’t look like anyone ever… moved in, though. BASIRA: So this is… ten years of cobwebs? DAISY: More than that. [FOOTSTEPS] MELANIE: [INHALE] No, I’m sure this is just the normal number of webs that grow up organically…! […] DAISY: Clear. [DOOR CLOSES] Looks like nothing downstairs. BASIRA: You wanna… take a moment, before we head up? ARCHIVIST: What about the basement? DAISY: Can’t see one. ARCHIVIST: Huh…

Ivo had seen Raymond Fielding and glimpses of kid!Agnes, there is the question of what happened with Anya, there is the question of whether or not the house had been occupied for the last few years, there is the question of whether or not there was actually a basement in the new house that was built there (and whether it’s the same basement Ray used to take the kids to become spiders eggs sacks once they were legally leaving his house). There is the overall question of what happened at Hill Top Road between Agnes and Raymond, leaving the place ~scarred~:

(MAG139, Eugene Vanderstock) “I was… not one of those assigned to watch our chosen one, so I can’t say much about exactly what happened within the walls of that house. But it seems the fight scarred the place in a way far deeper than simple fire. A scar in reality, that I believe has since been compounded by the interferences of other powers. Regardless, the effect it had on Agnes was unanticipated. As far as we could tell, she had destroyed the place utterly. And yet, she remained bound to it, tied to it in some vital way.”

(MAG146) HELEN: There is… something wrong, with Hill Top Road. You know it as well as I do. Some strange “scar in reality” at the centre of… whatever it is the Spider is spinning. When young mister McKenzie passed, it seemed like a good opportunity for an experiment. To see what would happen if I… lured him inside. But it seems I just don’t have The Web’s gift for… manipulation, or persuasion.

*whispers* I know that the popular theory is that HTR leads to a parallel universe, usually citing Anya’s experience, but I’m really not convinced – her whole statement still sounds like textbook Spiral to me, confusing her sense of time and space…? (Down to her name, “Anya Villette”, which sounds like a distortion of “Anne/Annie/Anna Willett (/Kasuma)”, the nurse who had told the HTR story to Father Burroughs in season 1). At the same time, back in season 4 I was seeing the hints and clues regarding Elias potentially being Jonah Magnus body-hopping and I wasn’t really “feeling” it either, and look at what was revealed at the end of that season, so who knows.

- Anyway!! I love that yep, it feels like the Panostitute is partially “done” for now (we won’t hear more information from there) so the last big scene is at HTR, which had been relevant for a looong while (since MAG008, and historically, from Gertrude’s time), whether we go back to the Panostitute at the end or not.

HTR was already weird before the Change (there was constant static in the background when the group visited it in MAG147, it was spooky), I wonder how it will look now… and we might get the Agnes statement I’ve been hoping for, whether through Jon (like he did with Gertrude in MAG167), or from Annabelle, or from a tape, or from a ghost of her…? Or a statement from the house itself, in situ from Jon?

- I wonder whether Georgie and Melanie (or one of them) will go with Jon to Hill Top Road? The people they rescued might be a reason for them to stay behind: they’re partially protected in the tunnels, but we know that Helen had visited them and had tried to get Celia, and there are the old Archivists near the stairs. Melanie&Georgie still offer an additional protection. Melanie had also pointed out that their protection didn’t work for long for other people outside (MAG190: “And… that’s when we discovered that we can keep others hidden as well. Not completely, and, and, not for long, but… it’s enough to get them here to the tunnels.”), so it won’t be a case of the whole group (Jon, Melanie, Georgie, the seven survivors) striding off together to Hill Top Road. So I don’t know if one of them will leave with Jon, or both (despite what it would mean for the survivors), or if precisely, the fact they have to protect the others in the tunnels will be a reason for them to stay behind and not go with Jon…?

(The situation is already very reminiscent of the end of season 4 with some changes in that previous narrative: unlike MAG157, Georgie&Melanie are currently helping Jon. They don’t need to come along with him to get Martin back for us to already feel that they’re helping.)

- I wonder if Jon will have to knock to enter Hill Top Road again. Someone whisked away inside of it and, contrary to the incident from his childhood… Jon having to go through that door, too, this time (“MR. SPIDER WANTS ANOTHER GUEST FOR DINNER. IT IS POLITE TO KNOCK”).

(One of my favourite details of early seasons is how people who knew Jon and expected him to be in his office… never knocked on his door, as if they knew that it made him uneasy. And season 5 had begun, in the trailer, with a “Knock Knock” joke…)

- List of stuff that is still left hanging:

* Jon’s lighter, which was mentioned for the last time at the end of MAG162 (when Martin pointed out that Jon still had it). Funny thing: next episode is MAG195, 35th episode of the season… and Breekon&Hope had delivered the table and the package at the end of MAG035. Jon opened the package at the end of MAG036, interrogated Martin about it in MAG037. So MAG196/MAG197 for when the nature of the lighter will finally be revealed (what it might have done to Jon, what is its purpose, who sent it in Jon’s way, if someone owned it before him)?

(* Since Jon is likely to leave London quite fast too: it seems nothing ominous after all was to happen involving the gas main in the tunnels, which had been brought up by Leitner&Gertrude’s tape in MAG162? I’m still uneasy about its existence and the fact that it had been moved down there for maximum destruction.)

* What Are The Tape Recorders – is someone listening through them, is someone curating what we hear of this story, is someone/something making them appear, etc.

* Annabelle’s and/or The Web’s intentions.

* Relatedly: what the camera might be used for? It’s possible that Annabelle only needed it to not be perceived by Beholding, but it’s also possible that she mostly needed to put it in a certain place – how will it interact with Hill Top Road? Will it ban the Fears from the house, thus making it… absolutely normal, deprived of any influence?

* What the fuck happened in Hill Top Road and what is the place like nowadays.

* Basira’s whereabouts? She was on her way to London. Will she join up with Jon before he leaves the tunnels or on his way to Hill Top Road? Will they miss each other? Will Annabelle orientate her towards Hill Top Road or has she already snatched her up too before Martin…?

Only six episodes to go…

At this point in time in previous seasons: Dr. Elliott was giving his statement about the anatomy students and pointing out to Jon that they had a worm infestation going on in the building; Jon was wondering what Michael got from his victims, and had discovered that someone was living in the tunnels and sometimes going up in the Archives; Jon read Anya’s statement, still had no clue about Hill Top Road, and finally got to talk with Tim, allowing them to find common ground; Jon had fought against Beholding’s pull, managing to find Eric’s tape, learning how to quit the Archives, and had immediately rushed to Martin to offer him to gouge their eyes out together to flee the Institute. As I mentioned, MAG194 reaally reminded me of MAG154 in some aspects, mainly around Jon and Martin’s argument ;w;

MAG195’s title is just PLAIN RUDE. It puts the Martin&Jon and Agnes&Gertrude bonds into my mind, or more precisely, well, the concept that those bonds got ruptured. Could also refer to Basira-without-Daisy, though she seemed to be doing more or less fine…? I’m not sure we’ll get to Hill Top Road directly, this episode might be a “regular” domain before it is reached; the title could work well for a Lonely or Vast domain? And Jon’s current, uh, state of mind…?

[pardonmymannerssir]

happiness throws a shower of sparks (Final Part)

Part Three (AO3 Link)

Warnings: Mention of past abuse; PTSD symptoms

Rating: Mature

“Well, Jon, what the fuck are you gonna do about it?” Tormund asks over the noise of the bar, setting down his half empty mug and leaning close enough to Jon that he can smell the beer on his breath. Tor has no sense of personal space. 

Jon grunts, staring into the deep amber liquid of his own glass, wishing like hell he’d never told Tor about Sansa. And he sure as hell shouldn’t have let him guilt him into coming out at all. He’s felt like a raw, exposed nerve since she left; the world too bright and loud without her in it.

“What can I do?”

Tor snorts, the sound muffled as he downs the rest of his beer. “You go after her, dumbass.”

Jon, aware that the answers to his problems aren’t going to be found at the bottom of a chipped beer mug, finishes his fourth pint anyway. He’s never been much of a drinker –he’s seen far too many families torn apart by it, first in the Army and then at the station- but the booze is helping to take the edge off. It’s only been a month and a half since she left but it feels like a lifetime. Only the things she left behind, most of her clothes, her hair products and a pair of pretty silver earrings, convince him it wasn’t all some pathetic dream he concocted in his head.

“It’s not that simple.” Jon says, signaling the bartender for another round. But it sure is tempting. 

He can feel Tor rolling his eyes. “Sure it is. You hop on a fucking plan, find her, and drag her ass back here. Or profess your undying love or some shit.”

Jon chuckles but it sounds humorless and dry even to him. “Brienne is a lucky woman, Tor.”

Tormund, begin Tormund, takes this compliment literally and beams, beer gleaming brightly in his red beard.

Jon is saved by his cell vibrating in his back pocket, and his heart immediately jumps into his throat as he pulls it out. Maybe… but no, it’s Arya.

“I gotta take this,” he mumbles, Tor waving him off, and Jon steps into the heavy night air. He draws in a deep cleansing breath as he answers.

“Hey, Arya,” he says.

“Jon,” is all she has to say for him to know something is very, very wrong. “Jon its Sansa…”

-

Jon’s only been to New York City once, shortly after his last deployment, a few months before getting out of the Army. Ygritte had met him at the airport and they’d stayed a few days, playing tourist. To Jon, it had been just another big, overcrowded city like a hundred other big, overcrowded cities. Now it feels like a living, breathing monster that Jon has to somehow overcome.

Arya is waiting for him near the baggage claim, a worn backpack dangling from one shoulder. He hadn’t brought anything but a backpack himself; blindly throwing random clothes together before getting an Uber to the airport. She’s pacing, arms crossed, the dark fringe of her hair gleaming in the too bright fluorescents. Relief is clear in her eyes when she spots him.

“She left me the message yesterday,” Arya says immediately, grabbing Jon by the arm and steering him toward the exit. She fishes out her phone with a free hand and fiddles with it for a minute before shoving it at him. “Listen.”

Shaking a bit, Jon presses the phone to his ear, heart lurching to hear Sansa’s voice again. “Arya, I know we haven’t spoken in a while and I know that’s mostly my fault. Don’t get me wrong, you can be pig-headed and stubborn… but you were right. Right about Joffrey, about my life, about everything. I-I left him, Arya, I want to get my life back, I want my family back. I’ve been staying with Jon in Chicago, he helped me get back on my feet… and I think, and well you’ll hate it, but I think maybe that he and I have a chance at something… but I need to sort out my life first. I-I hope you can forgive me… I hope-” her voice cuts out suddenly at the sound of a door slamming open and he can hear her sharp intake of breath. “No…” she murmurs, and Jon can all but taste the fear and loathing in her voice. “How? N-No, don’t touch me! Don’t you fucking touch-” there’s a scrabbling sound, a short cry of pain, and then silence.

“Jon,” Arya says quietly, shaking him gently, and he realizes he’s stopped dead in the middle of a busy thoroughfare and is breathing heavily. People are staring. “Jon, pull it together.”

“We have to find her,” he says, hardly aware he’s speaking. He gives Arya back her phone and dials Tormund on his own cell. If he doesn’t keep moving he knows he’s going to completely lose it.

Tor had called in a missing persons as soon as Jon had told him what was going on, relating to him what Arya had explained was in Sansa’s message. He’d gone full cop mode.  

“They haven’t found her,” Tor says gravely when he picks up, “But I did get a possible address out of them, got a pen?”

“Arya, take a note in your phone,” he tells her as they emerge from John F. Kennedy airport and into the madness that is New York City. Tor gives him the address and Arya quickly types it out, her hands shaking too.

“Be careful Jon,” Tor says meaningfully.

“I will,” he says, voice hard, as Arya manages to hail down a cab and they shuffle inside.

Jon gives the cabbie the address and tries to get control of himself, the sound of Sansa’s broken scream replaying over and over again in his head. God, if anything’s happens to her he doesn’t know what he’ll do. It’s just like Ygritte all over again. He’d failed her too, been too late to help her, to save her-

Arya takes his hand and squeezes, hard enough to hurt, forcing him to look at her. “We’re going to find her, okay?”

Jon nods, and there is murder in her eyes reflecting back at him. Today… today he chooses violence.

-

The police are already at the upscale apartment building when they arrive. Apparently Sansa and Joffrey had owned the penthouse on the top floor but, according to the police Sargent who meets them in the lobby, no one has been there in nearly a year.

“No sign of struggle and the doorman hasn’t seen either of them come in or out. We’re verifying with the surveillance feed, but this looks like a dead end.”

Arya scrambles for her phone as Jon processes this information, his heart falling somewhere into the vicinity of his boots.

“H-Here listen to this,” she says, handing her phone over, “Maybe it will help or something, I don’t know...”

The Sergeant listens to Sansa’s message with a grave face. When he’s done he waves over one of his officers. “We need to get more men on this, I’m gonna call the Captain and see what we can do. Make sure they comb the residence thoroughly, we’re looking for some clue, any clue as to where whoever took her might have gone.”

“Yes, Sir.”

The man turns back to Jon. “Alright, I need you to tell me everything you know about Mr. and Mrs. Baratheon.”

-

Two hours later, Arya finds him in the alley behind the apartment building. He’d snagged a few cigarettes from one of the detectives and is working his way through the last one. He hasn’t smoked in years, but there’s a cynical sort of comfort in the taste; blood and smoke on his tongue, the sound of gunfire in his ears, the heat of the desert burning his skin.

She hunches down next to him in the dark, arms wrapped around herself. Arya had always been larger than life, her slight body never seeming quite able to contain her large personality, but she seems very small in that moment. He feels wrung out, drained.

“I-I didn’t know…” she says quietly, breaking a long stretch of silence and Jon huffs.

“Yeah you did,” he says darkly, leaning his head back against the concrete wall, then, to soften the blow, “We all did, at least a little.”

Arya nods, a few tears slipping down her cheeks. “You’re right… we all suspected. D-dad was so worried, he and mom fought about it a lot. And then… after the accident, I was just so angry I-“

Jon puts a hand on her shoulder. “It doesn’t matter anymore, Arya, we just have to find her now. I don’t know what I’ll do if we can’t-” He breaks off, voice cracking and he presses his eyes closed. Her face is burned into his eyelids, however; it’s engraved on his very soul. Her smile, her laugh, the taste of her skin, they’re all shards of glass in his gut, cutting and slicing him apart from the inside out.

It’s just like Ygritte all over again.

Arya takes his hand and they sit like that for a long time.

Then, “So… you and Sansa, huh?” Her voice wavers and he smiles, it feels broken and sharp on his face.

“Yeah.”

“You did moon over her all the time in high school.”

Jon throws her a dark look and she chuckles a little, rocking back on her heels as she wraps her arms around her knees. “What? You did. Don’t think we didn’t notice. Robb tried to ignore it, of course, Mom too, but Dad…” she looks at him, dark eyes glinting in the city lights, “Dad hoped she’d end up with you, or at least someone like you. He used to smile all, I don’t know, soft or whatever whenever the two of you were together.” She draws in a shaky breath and looks away. “Don’t get me wrong, its super weird and gross but… I think Dad would be really happy she found you.”

Jon tosses his half smoked cigarette into a mysterious puddle nearby and pulls Arya into his arms. He can feel her trembling with suppressed tears, knows a few are leaking out of his own eyes, a dam only barely held at bay. They stay like that for a long time, two shipwrecked sailors, clinging to each other for dear life as the storm rages on around them.

-

“Here’s the name of a hotel nearby,” the Sergeant says, handing Jon a bit of ripped paper, “We got you a good discount.”

Jon takes it with a curt nod. “Thanks.”

The other man rubs the back of his neck, real compassion and regret in his eyes. “Wish we had more to tell you, but we’ll be in touch as soon as we know more, alright?”

Jon swallows against the terror and rage in his throat. “Yeah.”

He and Arya stand listlessly on the street corner, staring into the unfeeling, unflinching traffic, the city immune to their suffering.

Arya finally steps forward to hail another cab when a pretty woman in towering heels and a short blue dress descends upon them.

“Arya Stark?” she queries breathlessly, “Are you Arya Stark?”

Arya frowns, studying the pretty woman skeptically. “Yeah, who are you?”

The woman deflates in on herself. “Oh thank god. I’ve been going mad trying to get ahold of someone.  I recognized you from this picture she had in college. Anyway, I’m Margery, a friend of Sansa’s.”

Jon’s heart lurches, and Arya perks up, gaze sharpening to knife points.

“Have you seen her?” he asks, not bothering to keep the desperation out of his voice. Margery turns, eyes curious and assessing. There’s intelligence there, and cold calculation beneath an honest sort of concern.

“Not for the past two days, and she was supposed to come home after some meeting, I’ve been worried sick. She’s been staying with me while she handles the divorce.”

“The divorce?” Arya asks, trading a glance with Jon.

Margery frowns. “You didn’t know? Yeah, she came back to town to file for divorce, she had some lawyer friend she was talking to that she was sure she could trust, but I wasn’t so sure… I’d heard some creepy rumors about the guy but-“

Jon snags her arm, startling her. “What’s his name?”

She blinks owlishly, caught off guard, and he immediately lets her go. She purses her lips, eyes a bit cooler than before. “Petyr Baelish, some big shot corporate lawyer type. Sansa said he’d been a friend of her mom or something, but like I said, there were some gross rumors about the guy.”

“Do you know where she was going for this meeting?” Jon presses, feeling as though he might fly out of his skin.

Margery bites her lip, thinking, “She said something about Brooklyn, and she wanted to visit some café or something after...”

“Do you know the name of the café?” Arya snaps, clearly losing patience.

Margery nods and pulls a pen and paper from her purse, writing it down quickly and handing it over to Arya. “Here. A-are the police inside?”

“Yeah,” Arya says absently, and Jon can see the plan forming in her mind, the same one forming in his own. They aren’t going to wait for the police.

They turn as one to grab a cab, Jon’s thoughts a torrent of rage and desperation, and Margery grabs his arm.

“You’re Jon, aren’t you?” she asks quietly, intelligent eyes sizing him up. He nods slightly, not trusting himself to speak.

“She told me about you… I’m… I’m glad she found you,” she tells him careful, shadows behind her eyes. “Please find her.”

“I will,” he croaks, and follows Arya into a cab.

-

They narrow down their search to three office buildings near the café Margery told them about.

“We’ll start with the closest one, alright?” he says, unearthing skills he’d hoped to never need again. He knows how to hunt people down, how to find them when they don’t want to be found. He could do this. He’d do anything to protect Sansa.

Arya nods and they hurry down the street, his heart a drum beat in his chest, forcing himself to focus, to not think about all the horrible things that might already have happened to her.

They’re nearly there when Arya stops dead in her tracks, face deadly pale.

“Arya, what-“ she grabs him by the arm, fingernails biting him through his shirt, and hisses. “It’s him, Jon it’s him.”

Jon follows her gaze across the street, eyes darting, until they settle on a blaze of gold. Despite the years, Joffrey looks basically the same. Pretty, slim, well dressed. Jon's almost halfway across the street, mind cycling through the various ways he might ruin Joffrey’s pretty, scowling face, when Arya grabs him by the arm.

“Don’t,” she hisses, tugging him back, “We need to follow him.”

Jon breaths in, trembling with rage and nods, unable to speak. They wait for Joffrey to round a corner before hurrying after him. He’s easy to keep track of with his gleaming, well coifed hair.

They don’t have to follow him for long. Three blocks later he keys into a business complex and Jon dashes forward, only barely managing to catch the door with his foot. He stands paralyzed, framed in the glass doorway, but Joffrey doesn’t bother to look back. He swallows and waves Arya forward as Joffrey’s footsteps echo up the staircase.

Together they slip inside and he presses a finger to his lips and demonstrates how carefully she needs to step. Joffrey whistles too himself, some vaguely familiar tune, conveniently masking any misstep on their part as they follow after him. Near the fifteenth floor of the clearly disused build, Joffrey finally turns and steps out of the stairwell, Jon and Arya hurry the last few steps to crouch behind the door.

Carefully, Jon half stands and looks through the small window in the steel door. A nondescript and deserted hallway stares back. There are no doors and the taupe carpet is old and stained; the whole building smells of rat piss and decay.

“Jon,” Arya whispers and he turns to watch as she fishes something out of her backpack. Jon goes cold as she frees it.

“Jesus, Arya, what-” she cuts him off, shoving an H&K P30 pistol into his hands.

“It’s Gendry’s, he gave it to me.”

The gun feels like a living thing as he wraps his fingers around it, suppressing half a decade of demons in the process.

“Alright,” he says quietly. “Alright, stay close to me.” He’d rather she stayed behind but knows better than to say so.

He takes a moment to steady himself, recalling skills and training he’d hoped to forget, and quietly presses the door open, easing into the hall. Voices echo up the hall, muted and indistinct behind closed doors, originating from the left fork in the hallway. He presses himself against the wall at the corner and chances a glance. Another empty hallway with a single steel door at the end. The florescent light, dirty and old, flickers faintly every few seconds. The voices have grown louder. A woman’s and a man’s –no, two men.

He’s considering his best course of action, sorting through a library of possible scenarios, when Sansa lets out a heart wrenching scream and all he can see is red.

Jon busts into the room, the door hadn’t been locked, gun in hand. Sansa is tussling on the floor with Joffrey, both of them spiting and cursing, another man is slumping against the wall on Jon’s left, leaving a bright trail of blood on the wall behind him. He looks stunned as he touches the knife embedded in his chest. Jon doesn’t spare him another thought as he tackles Joffrey to the floor, the impact dislodging the gun from his hand.

The element of surprise wears off quickly and Jon only manages to land a single, solid punch to Joffrey’s nose, blood spurting, before a fist meets his temple and they’re rolling across the floor. The little prick is stronger than he looks and Jon is out of practice. Dazed, he remembers Sansa’s face that day on the pier as she revealed all her demons to him one by one. Rage gives him strength as he rips back Joffrey’s mop of golden hair and sinks his teeth into his throat, tasting blood. Joffrey makes a high-pitched squealing sound and pushes Jon away from him.

His high-end suit is torn, blood dribbling from his nose soaking into his blue silk shirt, and his hair is standing on end. Pure, unadulterated hatred radiates from his blue eyes and his pale face is flushed and distorted, made hideous by rage.

"You fucking freak!" Joffrey hisses, pressing a hand to his neck. "I'll fucking kill you!"

The sound of a gun cocking draws both their attention.

Sansa is trembling, but not with fear, no, her eyes radiate fury and disgust as she levels the gun at Joffrey who looks utterly shocked. She has a fresh bruise on her cheek bone and there’s blood soaking the front of her once green summer dress, he knows it’s not hers, it’s likely the blood of the other man slumped motionlessly on the ground, but it’s enough to make him want to strangle Joffrey with his bare fucking hands.

The sound of approaching sirens breaks the silence as Arya steps into the room with her phone pressed to her ear, murmuring muted instructions to someone on the other end.

“Sansa,” Jon says softly, but she won’t look at him, though tears well in her eyes. “Sansa, honey, give me the gun,” he presses, taking two short steps toward her. She shakes her head, her eyes never leaving Joffrey.

“He deserves to die,” she whispers.

“I know, love, I know,” he says, reaching her side but not touching her; he can sense he shouldn’t touch her, not yet. Her hands are coated with blood and God, he knows how hard it will be to wash it all off. “He deserves to be punished, but not like this, not at any cost to you, okay?” Death, killing, it always has a cost. Always.

The sirens are blaring now as Sansa lowers her arm, tears spilling down her face. Joffrey immediately makes a break for it.

Arya began taking karate at age five, a natural brawler, and has been an avoid practitioner her entire life. She knocks Joffrey out cold before he makes it halfway across the room. She kicks him once in the face for good measure as Jon carefully pulls Sansa into his arms and the gun clatters to the floor.

She murmurs his name over and over again, burying her face in his chest as her slim body trembles with the force of her sobs. Together, they sink to the floor and he’s shaking with her; feeling as if he's coming apart at the seams. He’d come so very close to losing her. So very, very close.

He presses his face into her hair and smooths his hands up and down her back murmuring comforting nonsense, so grateful he’d made it in time, so grateful he's not alone.

-

Two years later...

Jon slams the door of the moving van shut and wipes the sweat from his brow with the sleeve of his shirt.

“That’s everything,” he announces and Arya breathes an exaggerated sigh of relief from below. He hops off the back of the truck with a chuckle as Bran and Rickon finish setting down the last few boxes in front of the garage; Gendry, Arya’s boyfriend, looks on from the shade of a massive oak tree sipping from a water bottle. Jon braces his hands on his hips, a light breeze cooling his face and neck, and takes in the house that had been like a second home to him.

It doesn’t look so empty and lifeless anymore, no longer a monument to everything they’d lost but something more, something better.

“It’s good to be back,” Arya murmurs, coming to stand at his side, and Jon is shocked to see tears in her eyes when he looks down at her. He’s never seen Arya cry. “This is where we belong.”

“Yeah,” Jon agrees, putting an arm around her slight shoulders. “Yeah it sure is.” It feels right, all of them begin here, here where their lives began.

She lets him half-hold her for only a few moments before shoving him off with an awkward laugh, rubbing at her eyes and sighing.

Sansa appears then at the front door, one hand on her protruding belly. “Lunch is ready! But first, I want to take a picture,” she announces, and Arya and the boys all groan.

Jon laughs and snags Rickon, almost as tall as Jon at only thirteen, tousling his curly auburn hair as he tries to escape. “Come on, don’t upset the pregnant lady.”

Arya grumbles and hands her phone off to Gendry as they all gather in front of the house that had raised them. Sansa steps to Jon’s side –waddles, really, she’s only got a few more weeks till their daughter arrives- and he feels warm and ridiculous like he always does when he looks at her. She’s beautiful even with her swollen ankles and messy hair, skin glowing and eyes bright with joy. She beams up at him as Gendry starts snapping photos, ribbing Arya for not smiling, and leans in for a kiss. Bran makes a puking noise and Arya groans, but Sansa only smiles against his lips and throws her arms around his neck.

Jon eventually pulls away, resting a hand on her belly and feeling as though he might burst with happiness. “Welcome home, Sansa.”