#and daisy and basira :( never liked those two too much but it was still sad :( basira confuses me from a worldbuilding standpoint | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

misterghostfrog · 4 years

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So I was reading someones post about what if Jon went back in time to save everyone, and he managed it. He kept Martin away from Prentiss, he Kept Sasha alive, Tim never even know the unknowing existed and he never had Jons paranioa to ruin him. But They never knew, there was never those moments of bonding between the terror. Martin never had that moment when he realized Jon wasn’t just his shitty boss. And sure the assistants were close, but there was no room for Jon. And it gave me thoughts.

Under the cut bc I started to Ramble and it got Long, warning; its Big Sad Hours down there. No happy endings here.

Jon solves all these problems before they start, he fixes it without anyone ever knowing. The assistants are blissfully unaware, maybe he stops sending them on ‘real’ statement followup. The archives are a normal, safe job for all of them. Sometimes it gets too much, pretending he doesn’t know them. So he’ll record, mostly for himself. Sometimes for them, though he’ll never share. He sticks them all in Gertrude's old storage locker, where he knows they’ll never be found.

And then something goes wrong. He knows the unknowing can’t work, of course it can’t. But Nikola doesn’t, none of the avatars know. And Nikola still wants her skin. She still wants his skin, actually. And she’s not afraid to play dirty to get it, she’s hands-on like that. Because why stop at the archivist when he’s got so many lovely ignorant assistants?

So he fixes the problem before she can make good on her threats, she can’t be killed that easily. He knows. But she died during the unknowing, and there are some pretty simple steps to follow to replicate that result. He knows the easiest way to make sure it works is also a death sentence for him. But that’s a simple choice to make. Alright no, it’s not. He’s terrified of death, of dying. He doesn’t want to die, but he can lie to himself. He can delude and say maybe he’ll get another chance. And just in case, he makes sure the assistants know they can quit now.

Tim, Sasha, and Martin don’t know what to make of the news that their boss died mysteriously in an explosion. They know even less what to make of the notes he left them.

Clearly the ramblings of a very unstable man. They all knew Jon was a bit off but this... Well, they all know there’s something weird about the job. But the apocalypse? Really?

Sasha believes some of it, she’s worked in artifact storage. She’s seen what this stuff can do. But, well. Jon’s never come off as the most stable person, and with no proper proof to back up any of this there’s no reason for them to follow suit. After all she’s known lots of people to quit the institute, she even knows for a fact that Eric Delano did it when she was rooting through employee records for perfectly rational legal reasons.

Then Martin gets called up to Elias’s office, and gets the news he’s the new head archivist.

He tries to turn it down, but he’s offered a pay-raise and a promise that he can step down anytime if he doesn’t feel suited to the position. Elias just sees so much potential in him.

Martin tries to feel flattered and not thoroughly terrified by the way Elias says potential. He takes the promotion, after all, he can always step down if it’s too much.

He offers as much when he finds out Sasha probably should have been given the position, but she turns him down. It’s not his fault their boss is a sexist old bastard, and at this rate he’d probably just turn around and give it to Tim.

Things are normal for a few months. Until slowly a strange noise starts to be heard around the archives, a weird sort-of squishing sound with no source. Along with a metallic scent of meat.

An infestation, of course. They’re getting the problem worked on, or so Elias says. But aside from the occasional exterminator coming in to ‘take a look’ nothing ever seems to change. Weird statements start showing up on Martins desk, surrounding meat and twisted up things, eaten alive and wrong. Suddenly he understands how Jon went off his rocker so easily.

It’s hard to believe all this supernatural stuff as it’s suddenly getting crammed down his throat, after so long of the archives being normal in almost every sense of the word it’s like missing a step on the staircase. The more awful statements he finds- that Tim and Sasha confirm -the more he realizes how much his boss was hiding from them.

He wants to quit, he thinks about it, he tries to think about it. But he just, can’t.

It’s another or two month before it happens. Meat and bone and gristle erupt from the floor, taking on horrible mangled shapes of almost-humans reaching out with hands full of teeth and hungry.

They all survive, though Tim gets eaten up a bit more than the rest of them. And they’ll all have nightmares for the rest of their lives. They’re alive.

And they find Gertrude’s body, though none of them know how to feel about it. They’ve realized by now there’s something to Jon’s nonsensical ramblings. And they’re long past regretting not quitting before this all happened.

There’s a section of document storage that got uncovered during the cleaning,an old cot that was shoved behind some of the shelves, and a box that had a few sets of clothes, an old teacup, and a key. The cleaners say they burned the clothes, but the cup and the Key are given to Martin for him to keep to return to whoever left their things in the archive.

Neither of those items belong to Tim or Sasha, so they all assume they belonged to Jon.

They start following Jons footsteps, they find out he was a suspect in an arson case surrounding Carlos Vittery’s old apartment. Nobody was there except one unidentified body. He was arrested for trespassing on a dock, though no charges were filed. There was an incident that ended in the near arrest of one Jude Perry, though no charges were filed and she soon fell off the grid. And then he exploded using C4 he had no way of getting, Nothing concrete, no proper genuine evidence except a series of weird encounters their dead boss had.

Martin Decides to try and hunt down Jude Perry, it takes some time. He has a very nice cup of tea with one Micheal Crew. Who points him in a general direction and is just a bit weird about tall buildings.

Martin finds Jude, and asks her about Jon. She laughs at him, of course. But she tells him anyway. Jon was trying to have her arrested- no, not arrested. Killed. Officer Tonner would have seen to that, he knew one of the Hunt could do her in, well. At least of Officer Tonner’s sort anyway. Jude resisted, naturally. He escaped her clutches only barely, by running. Like a coward. And she escaped the policewoman by playing innocent. She’s still on her tail though, damn dog. It’ll be a long time before she’d rid of her, but she knows better than to run. Oh, he doesn’t know what any of that means, does he? Oh he really doesn’t, how sweet. Just a little baby archivist- she was going to kill him after this. But watching him stumble into his own ruin will be so much more fun.

She sends him on his way with a burn.

Martin is terrified, he genuinely tries to quit. Almost manages it before his computer shuts off. The others try too, and then they all have a lovely freak-out together.

They decide to try and talk to Detective Tonner, which proves easy. She’s the partner of the one who’s been interviewing them. She comes to the institute, and they ask her about Jon. She tells them they believed he was responsible for killing Gertrude, seeing as he was next in line. Martin accidentally Compels her into a statement, and then into admitting she's mostly just saying he killed her because dead men don’t put up fights.

She threatens him right then and there, though Basira comes in and intervenes before anything happens. He files a dispute with the station, and avoids the police after that.

Basira brings him some of the tapes, she says it’s an apology. He’s pretty sure she’s just trying to get him to drop the dispute in the weirdest way possible. He does learn some about Gertrude though, and through her what he’s dealing with. And something about an ‘unknowing’

A man named peter Lukas visits the institute, one of the doners. Elias says he wants to see how the archive runs, Lukas says a few choice words about it. And Martin tells him in the most polite of terms to shove off. Lukas threatens him, and very briefly makes him forget everyone he’s ever loved. And then tells him he got off lucky, and that Elias should have picked a better archivist. You can hardly trust someone so childish to run something as important as this now can you.

Daisy visits him in his home, and threatens him in much more physical terms now. She tells him if he tries to do what he did to her again he’ll get more than a scar.

After that it’s a bit unclear how he gets marked by the next two (Curruption, Stranger.) but he does.

There’s a delivery, a few weeks after the stranger mark. It’s not supernatural in any sense, just a young woman dropping off a small box in the archivists office. She says her name is Georgie, and no, she doesn’t know what’s in the box. She just had an old friend tell her to deliver it if he didn’t check in after a bit. Then she found out he died on the news, and then she hadn’t wanted to deliver them- clearly whatever was in the box was going to get someone killed. And she wasn’t scared of it, she wasn’t one for fear, but the thought of putting anyone in danger made her skin crawl. But she didn’t want it in her house, and she refused to be haunted be this box forever. And there was no reason to defy the poor guys apparent final wishes- wait, why was she saying all this again?

In the box was tapes, a dozen or so of them. All addressed to ‘the next head archivist’

It’s Jon’s voice, on the tapes. Talking to who he apparently assumes to be an entire stranger, explaining the fears. And how Smirkes 14 wasn’t wrong, but wasn’t right either. It tells the next archivist to avoid eyes, paintings, doodles, abstract representations, and to keep playing dumb. There’s a lot out there, and the more you know the worse it gets. There’s no fighting, don’t struggle the nets already around you. There’s a way out, but you’re not going to like it.

It gives an odd image of Jon, the man who awkwardly tried to make small-talk int he break room, only to shuffle away after it fell flat. Carrying this world-ending secret on his shoulders. Stiff, awkward Jon. Grim, sad Jon. not so far apart but still so far outside of what Martin had known about him.

What had Martin known about him?

Tim decides to quit, Sasha stays. Elias hires Melanie. Who turns out to be another connection to Jon.

Melanie says he was kind of a prick, he belived her about her Sarah incident, but refused to give her library access. Probably because he was sexist, or maybe just a dickhead. She’d been trying to learn more about her encounter for ages. And this was finally her chance. They try to explain the way out but she won’t listen.

Martin starts following Gertrudes tapes, things about the unknowing have been popping up on his desk lately, and it sounds like Jon was right about an apocalypse. He goes to america, gets a bit kidnapped, and meets Gerry. He offers to help, and then asks about the unknowing. Gerry points him towards the storage locker. And when he gets back He and Sasha and Melanie check it out.

It’s mostly empty, apparently somewhat recently cleared out. Though in the corner there’s a large box of Tapes. There has to be dozens of them, and when they pres play it’s Jon. Talking to them. Except it’s not them, it’s another version of them, and something this version.

And there’s another Jon to add to the mystery of a man he was. The jon on these tapes isn’t stiffly awkward or forcedly professional. He’s open, sad. He cries, he laughs at memories they don’t have. He apologizes, a lot. Too much really. He talks about time travel, about forgetting faces and losing friends.

“Sometimes I-I think- I can’t help but be a bit... upset. At how unfair it all is. You’re all happy and laughing and together and i’m-

i’m alone.

I suppose it must be some sort of- cosmic Karma, I doomed the world so in this new one bright an new I pay my penance in isolation.

Or maybe it’s the other way around. I doom the world- suffer its horrors, and get a little bit of time to taste what humanity would be like.

Or maybe i’m just not that likable without an apocalypse.

Probably says a lot about me either way.

Is it bad that I- I sometimes consider letting things play their course? W-without any of you dying of course I just... I suppose it is bad, to want to end the world because you’re lonely. Just because i’m a bit sad doesn’t mean the planet should suffer, no... maybe i’ll try and reconnect with Georgie, it’s been... well. No. Perhaps best not.”

Sasha says that if she knew she would have at least brought him out for drinks or something.

But they did sort-of know didn’t they? Not about the apocalypse, but about the loneliness. After all, nobody chats so awkwardly in the break room because they have a thriving social life.

“I’m going to kill Nikola tonight- i’m not going to die. I’m not. I didn’t die last time, a-and there’s no reason for that to change. T-there isn’t. I’m going to try and be a safe distance from the blast this time, too. But... Well, it’s not like I have anyone to miss me if I do go.

I suppose... Martin, if you’re listening to this- I... I miss you. You always did say I should be more open with my feelings, and it’s weird. To miss someone who’s right there. T-to look at a face and see a friend and a stranger. To love someone you’ve known for years who doesn’t even really know who you are.

It’s all very stranger, ironic really. Considering what i’m about to do.

I love you, and I miss you. I know you’re not listening, even if I did die you’ve probably long since quit. I hope you’re happy, whatever you’re doing. Happy and safe. All of you.

And maybe you are listening, maybe... maybe we do become friends, maybe you actually choose to talk to me someday. Maybe I tell you about all of this and... And you don’t think i’m mad. Maybe you let me take you out to dinner and we’d be together again. We’d never be like before- not that that’s a bad thing what with the eldritch horrors. There’d be bits missing, memories we don’t share- but, it would still be you... It’s always been you, I think. And maybe I've decided to give this to you as some sort of silly romantic gesture.

A-and in that case. I love you, Martin Blackwood. More than you’ll ever know.

[HE SIGHS]

When I come back, i’m recording over this.”

[CLICK]

But he didn’t come back. He died that night. He died loving Martin, who never even really knew him beyond passing awkward conversation. Martin doesn’t know how to feel about it, besides guilty that is.

The tapes point them towards Georgie Barker, the woman who delivered the other set to the archives.

Georgie doesn’t really want anything to do with them, she knows whatever they’re stewing in got Jon killed. But she tells them about her encounter with The End, though she’s tetchy afterwards. Martins finally starting to understand this whole compelling business and is feeling pretty sorry about it. He redirects, he starts to ask about Jon. Who he was, really. What she knew he was like.

They talk, Martins curiosity is part Eye and part knowing that someone loved him, really, really loved him. And feeling like he missed out, like he skipped a train he hadn’t known was there. And wanting to know what kind of person would- could love him the way Jon did. And why that kind of person could end the world.

They talk, Georgie explains why they broke up (clashing ideals, he didn’t believe in the supernatural and her trauma was so inherently tied to it. He was a sleep-clinger and she kicked when she dreamed) And why it took so long for them to break up (Jon was funny once you learned to get his jokes, the Admiral loved him, he had a weird way of caring that was really sweet) they talk about things, Georgie lets him hang out with her as long as he promises to keep the supernatural out of their conversations. And how is Melanie doing by the way?

Sasha has a hard time splitting her time in the archive and helping Tim. He can manage himself of course but it’s hard knowing he’s sitting in her flat alone, he’s getting back into publishing though. Sleeping easier now he knows that not only is he free of the eye, but Jon very much killed the thing that killed Danny. He only wishes he could have been the one to pull the trigger. Sasha is getting more involved though, the eye has it’s own grip on her.

They finally confront Elias. They know it won’t do any good, Jons tapes explained what he was, who he was. But they’re frustrated. Low on options. Jon never really explained what the apocalypse was- if Martins learned anything from the other tapes it’s probably because he forgot, thought he did somewhere and didn’t.

Elias isn’t entirely surprised that they’ve figured it out, he knew something was going on. Though he wasn’t quite sure what. He claims he knows what oncoming apocalypse Jon was talking about, and that he was likely underestimating the amount.

He sends them to Ny-Ålesund. And Martin views the black sun. Gets briefly taken hostage by Manuela. And gets “saved” by a man who pops out of a door to stab her.

He says his name is Micheal, and he’s not there to help. He does his whole distortion bit, confuses them. Stabs Martin when he tries to take his statement. Says he was going to kill him, but what happens next might be much better than death. And leaves after stating that he’s very excited to watch how the rest of this plays out.

They go back to the institute, and Elias says he must have been wrong. Oopsie. Anyway the web is planning a ritual you should go check out the spooky house from all these statements.

They meet Annabelle in person, Martin gets marked by the web.

This continues on for the end the slaughter and the buried. They finally confront Elias again about these wild goose chases, he claims innocence but he’s done it enough times they don’t believe him. They stop trusting Elias. Not that they ever really did, but they stop listening to him.

Melanie isn’t as angry as she was. Though she is still angry. She didn’t go to india so no ghost bullet, but she’s still trapped. Though she knows how to quit, it’s been a scary idea. But the longer she stays the more she realizes how low she is on options. So she quits.

Martin is angry, he’s exhausted, he’s confused. Nothing makes sense. And another one of Elias’s goddamn doners is visiting. A weird old man who, when he shakes his hand, makes him feel like he just dropped off a rollercoaster at a million miles into empty nothingness. He laughs when Martins regained himself, and says that that tricks better than a buzzer every time.

He visits Georgie again, he’s thinking about quitting. But he can’t figure out what the apocalypse he’s supposed to stop is, because according to Jon it’s pretty bad. And he’s the one who can stop, or maybe start, it. But he doesn’t know what it is.

He talks to Georgie about Jon some more, it’s funny, to grieve a man you already knew. Except four years too late. There’s a sort-of helpless frustration to it, every time he talks about Jon he wishes he could be learning this first-hand. Not from someone who hadn’t spoken to him in years before this.

He also finds himself glued to the tapes, he can relate, in a way. To Jons loneliness. To have a person so, so close but so far away. He wishes he could meet the Jon on the tapes now. Then neither of them would have to be lonely. But Jon is dead. And Martin... Martin might love Jon. Jon, who died years ago. A dead man who apparently loved him enough to consider ending the world for the chance to have a real conversation with him.

He goes back to work, frustrated and so, so lost. A million questions that genuinely can’t be answered. There’s a fresh statement on his desk. It’s a statement of Jonah Magnus, regarding stopping the apocalypse.

Certainly a goddamn roundabout way of giving Martin information, but he’ll take it.

He reads the statement.

The world ends.

Sasha, Tim, Melanie, and Georgie all get their own domains. And wander free in the hills of suffering. Martin is alone, well and truly alone. He ended the world, because he was too stupid and sad to read a few extra paragraphs before starting the tape.

But Jon went back, didn’t he? He went back in time and stopped this once. Maybe Martin can too. Maybe he can stop the flesh from attacking, maybe he can stop Melanie from joining the institute. Maybe he can meet the real Jon.

He goes back, he does it. Nobody remembers but him.

Nobody remembers but him.

And things keep happening he can’t have predicted.

Worms, Sasha is gone, Gertrude. It’s all wrong. And Jon isn’t the Jon he knew, he doesn’t know Martin, he doesn’t even like Martin. Nobody is the person he knew before.

He is alone. And things keep happening he can’t have predicted, worms tables and paranoia. He starts recording. Trying to follow in Jon’s footsteps and leave information behind, easier to access this time of course. In his flat, and he’ll have the key sent to the archives if something goes wrong. He’ll record until Jon trusts him enough to believe him, Maybe he’ll even stop him before it’s too late and he’ll never need to find out what happened at all. Maybe he can't get close as he was to everyone, but he can keep them safe.

He doesn’t get to finish his recordings, he wasn’t careful enough. Jonah catches wind and half the tapes are destroyed when he dies in a mysterious housefire. But what’s left does get delivered to the archives.

And the cycle continues.

#jonmartin #the magnus archives #tma #angst #writing #ghostly scribbles #Tma is a tragedy and so is this #not a proper fic more like a really weird outline

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captaincravatthecapricious · 3 years

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Overworked Prompt fill for @haunted-by-catholic-guilt @celosiaa for the bingo

SEND ME SOME MORE PROMPTS IF YOU LIKE!!!!!!

It’s evening. At least Martin thinks it is. He’s rather lost track. Time stopped making sense for him a while ago. Had it really only been this morning when he was in his office, doing an endless stream of meaningless paperwork?

Weeks and weeks and weeks and months and months and months of small meaningless tasks.

He really hadn’t thought about it until now. Is it really that much work to fill out a single form? It shouldn’t be. It isn’t. But the sheer number of them… that’s what makes it drudgery. Makes minutes and hours stretch beyond all logical comprehension. Not to mention the endless intrusions of Peter Lukas.

No. Not thinking about that. He’s …dead? Right?

Martin isn’t sure. In the Lonely… out of the Lonely. Everything a blur. A cold, miserable, sandy blur. And all he wants to do is sleep, but apparently that isn’t happening. His brain is still trying to catalogue the endless, meaningless tasks he is leaving behind. Still trying to run the budget and the expenses, and the personal reports that have been sliding over his desk for months.

Paperwork heavy on the brain… heavy on the body. Especially when that body has nothing to look forward to at his empty flat with its empty fridge and its empty bed.

He is very tired.

He can’t shake the feeling that this is a vaguely unsettling dream that he will wake up from in that cold and empty bed and search for breakfast in that empty fridge (because breakfast is the most important meal of the day, some distant parental voice tells him every morning even though the thought often turns his stomach) and hurry out of his empty flat for his empty office and that infernal ticking clock. Measuring out every word he types. Every breath he draws. Every paper he signs. Every spreadsheet he makes. Every thought of Jon that he carefully does not think.

‘For all the compasses in the world, there's only one direction, and time is its only measure.’

Had he heard Jon say that once? A quote from a play that Jon liked. Hadn’t he read it to impress Jon, once upon a time? A lifetime ago? A death-time ago? Three deaths ago?

“‘For all the compasses in the world, there's only one direction, and time is its only measure.’” He says it out loud, this time. The first words to drop from his still frozen lips after leaving that Forsaken place. Was? Was that a joke?

Jon’s head shoots up. His eyes are wide and locked on Martin’s. (Not that that is new, Martin keeps catching him staring. Even as he tears around the archives gathering clothes and and statements and toiletries. (Has Jon really just been living here?) “Was that… that was… did you?”

Martin blinks at him. It might be his exhaustion making whatever Jon is trying to say incomprehensible, or it might be Jon’s exhaustion, for that matter.

“That was Rosencrantz and Guildenstern,” Jon eventually stutters out, looking dumbstruck, half of a jumper that Martin thought he had lost sticking half out of a very battered backpack. “You read it?”

Martin doesn’t have the energy for more words. He nods.

“I didn’t know you read it!” Jon has perked up considerably. “I read it in primary school, maybe a bit dark for a child, but my grandmother just bought me what was inexpensive… I was actually in it in uni….”

Martin would very much like to be paying attention to what had to be one of the most verbal and sharing Jon moments he has been witness to, but he’s very tired and it just sounds like white noise and he’s still thinking about that ticking clock floors above and an office he won’t go back to and paperwork that will never be finished and a half finished granola bar he had in his drawer for emergencies. He could get his phone charger and laptop, in fact Jon probably already had… but ….but all that work. All that he has done and all that he hasn’t… it’s all there. And it’s going to stay there. And Martin very much has not accepted that he doesn’t need to finish it. Because he has been told every day in every email that he needs to finish it. That there is a never ending stream of work that he can never catch up with that he can never overtake. So he stayed long hours, turning himself into quite the hypocrite. And Jon is still talking, his too-tiny form slightly revitalized with his excitement and nervous energy as he continues to pack.

They are in a car. Daisy’s, Martin thinks. And Jon is still talking. Possibly still about the play? Possibly not. Martin can’t tell. He thinks he just heard Jon mention something about Scotland being a conspiracy of cartographers? Is that right?

Martin barely feels like he is there. Is he tangible? Or no… that isn’t what he is wondering. He feels TOO tangible. Too heavy but still not solid. Like he is a wavering stack of signatures and numbers instead of a person. Just a vehicle for meaningless work. A thought that makes him dead tired. What is he without that structure, those spreadsheets. He has lost himself in the lines and fine print. And he doesn’t know what is left. Half fog. Half paperwork. All gritty eyed, and salty haired, and bone-weary.

Jon has stopped talking. He is… a passible driver. Passible at best. Having run himself out of things to say, the exhaustion is creeping back in. His hands shake slightly on the wheel and they still have to stop by Martin’s sad, empty flat before they can leave London and make the terribly long drive to wherever it is they are going. And Martin doesn’t have it in him to drive, and even if he did, he really really shouldn’t. An ex boyfriend had tried to teach him once. Once when he thought maybe he could drive a cab and maybe that would bring in enough money to fill his stomach, but that relationship didn’t last, and Martin was still scared shitless of driving anywhere but an empty suburb going 32 km/h or less.

He curls around himself, trying to ward off the guilt that starts to gnaw at him then. Jon shouldn’t have to drive the whole way. Jon is exhausted. And they don’t even have time to spend the night somewhere. At least… that’s what Martin managed to get from the conversation with Basira that he… had technically been physically present for.

No. No. No. He’s fine. He can pack. He will Not make Jon do that for him. Jon is clearly shaking. Jon can take a shower and have a nap on his sofa (or his bed a little part of his brain says, leading to a dangerous heat in his cheeks) while Martin packs. He can pack his own clothes.

But they are at his flat now. And Martin can hardly drag himself out of the car and up the two flights of stairs (broken lift). His head is swimming and his limbs are heavy. He sits heavily on the couch to gather himself, and Jon is already rushing around riffling through his things, stuffing jumpers and boxers and binders and socks and tea into a duffle bag that has seen better days. He can’t bring himself to be embarrassed. He wishes he could help.

Then there is tea in his hands. Made completely wrong, but Martin appreciates the effort. and there are their bags at his feet and Jon is next to him. There is no distance between them, and Jon leans into his side and Martin finds himself holding back tears. Or failing to hold back tears. In any case, he is tired and his face is wet and Jon is shaking slightly against his side and he can’t tell if this is the worst he has ever felt or the happiest he has ever been. Perhaps both at once.

Jon is easing him to his feet, nudging him towards the shower so he can wash the sea-salt from his eyelashes and hair.

Martin is in his shower.

Martin is divested of binder and in an overlarge hoodie. Hair wet but not salty. He can’t help trying to picture Jon in that jumper. Even large on Martin, Jon would be swallowed whole by it. Jon is in his shower. In his (Martin’s) less empty flat. But his flat is hollowed out and gutted. Jon asked him about 20 times if he would be alright on his own while separated by running water and water vapor and a door. Martin had nodded each of those times. Clinging to the sounds of Jon singing softly through the door.

Martin gets the feeling that Jon is doing that just to ground him and Martin can’t say that he minds. He wish Jon doesn’t need to, but he is grateful.

He is coming down from a panic attack, and Jon is done in the shower but has yet to return. Martin feels like he has been hard reset. He is curled up on his couch. The last of his possessions have been packed. He isn’t going back to work. He can rest. Well… soon. He can rest in the car. He can rest in Scotland. They both can, with any luck.

Jon is coming out of his washroom, drying his hair and in another jumper Martin thought he lost months ago.

Jon is in front of him, hovering and looking like he isn’t sure if he is allowed to touch. Martin reaches out and grasps his fluttering hands. And Jon sinks to the floor in front of him.

They are in the car. Martin is dozing against the window on the passenger side. Jon is behind the wheel. They are holding hands.

#the magnus archives #tma #hurt/ comfort #jonmartin #fic #tmafic #writing #m writing #art #my art #prompt fill #jonathan sims #martin blackwood #panic mention #exhaustion

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aflyingcontradiction · 3 years

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The Magnus Archives Relisten: Episode 120 - Eye Contact

A cold and well-cleaned room, sterile metal tables that overflow with a gentle trickle of blood. The hearts that beat upon them spasm and spurt without any sort of rhythm, and were they to stand still for but a moment, it might become clear just how wrong they are in their construction. - Statement of Elias Bouchard

So when I first listened to this episode, I didn't realise that the statements referenced here are SPECIFICALLY those and ONLY those that Jon took himself. I also didn't remember what some of the references actually referred to. So I'm probably going to be spending this entire relisten going "Oh, that was THAT statement", starting with this bit, being clearly in reference to "Anatomy Class" (episode 34).

The doctor cannot bring himself to look at the tables, so instead, looks to the Archivist, whose eye watches him, and cannot close.

"Eye" singular sooo ... does dream!Jon appear as a cyclops? But no, I'm imagining him more as a three-eyed being. Two eyes closed in sleep, one Eye eternally open to watch.

Desperate, he tries to throw the apple at his observer, but it is too late. The doctor has forgotten how the elbows work, and wrenches it to the side with a sickening crack. He tries again to scream, but he hasn’t got the throat right, and the wheezing, half-choked gurgle that escapes would stir pity in the Archivist, if he had not heard it so many times before.

It's kind of fascinating to me that the doctor's nightmares focus not so much on the idea of inhuman strangers pretending to be human but on HIMSELF forgetting how to human. To be honest, that IS actually scarier, but not what I expected, exactly, given the origin of his nightmare.

He turns to see the familiar screen, the familiar woman beneath it. She looks up at him with an expression of recognition and weary dread. She types and types and types, her fingers a blur, flying across the keyboard, and yet never fast enough to outrun the relentless words that flow like dark water across the screen that stretches off into the sky.

Episode 65: Binary

He passes those places he can no longer watch – the silent wards of peeling skin, the empty warehouse of thick darkness and frightened children, the rusted train car that smells of eager, infectious hate.

Okay, so this one gave me trouble, so I ended up checking the Wiki to figure it out. The silent wards of peeling skin is Melanie's statement about the hospital. The empty warehouse of thick darkness and frightened children is Basira's statement about Rayner. The rusted train car is, once again, Melanie's statement. Why can he no longer access these? Basira and Melanie are both still alive, after all. Is it because they're being "protected" by their own Entities? But...

The rain is still there, though it is empty. The long and desolate road, slick with the downpour; a police car’s lights flashing over the unmoving van. The doors are open, and the too-familiar statues stand either side of the well-worn wooden box.

Daisy is about as Hunt as Hunt can be and has been for a long time, so why can he get to her nightmare just fine? So I don't get why Melanie's and Basira's nightmares aren't watchable.

Here he sees the train, twisted and pressed in on all sides, nothing but shrieking metal and cracked glass. He climbs inside, and takes his seat, mouth tasting of mud and soil, his eyes moving through the dust and grit unblinking.

Episode 71: Underground

He catches a glimpse of an advert above his seat: “Dig.”

"Dig" wasn't actually a statement taken by Jon, but then this nightmare is of the Buried, so it makes sense for it to be here anyway.

There is a door in front of him. A yellow door. He knows the dream it used to lead to; he knows it well. But that’s not where it leads anymore. He does not know what is behind it anymore, and he is deathly afraid of finding out.

This used to be Helen's nightmare, but of course Helen is now melded into the Distortion so yeah, going through that door would be one MESS of an experience.

The Archivist turns away. Behind him are the ants. They move like a terrible rolling wave along the hard-packed ground, and he can see every twitching antenna, every clenching mandible. Somewhere, underneath that twitching, burrowing mass, is the exterminator.

Episode 55: Pest Control

Before him rises an incinerator door, the glowing light of the flames curling around the cracks. With a wailing shriek, the door opens, and the burning silhouette that stands within is ingrained upon the Archivist’s racing mind. They smoke and sizzle, but still the worms crawl through her charred and pockmarked flesh, her now-singed red dress shifting with the movement beneath it.

Okay, this is interesting 'cause Jon is still in Jordan Kennedy's nightmare, but given how traumatised Jon was by Jane Prentiss, this may as well be his own. And his reaction to it as recounted by Elias actually does make it sound like this is one of the hardest dreams to watch because it hits so close to home.

When faced with her, he even longs for the terrible dream of the melted woman, who would see everything desolated without rhyme or reason. But she was beyond his reach the moment she knew he was there, so the Archivist can only stand and stare, as the hive goes about its infested, long-dead work.

Jude Perry (who somehow fucked off out of Beholding's reach)

The dark building is newer, but he knows it well; knows the two lost souls who creep through it with an alert hunger on their faces. He recognizes that look from the other hunter, whose dreams he has watched for so long. They stalk the darkness itself, and hope to catch and kill it before it can do the same to them. They see him watching, but they cannot catch his scent.

And this one is Julia and Trevor's nightmare.

At last, he is in the moonlit graveyard – the oldest of the dreams. It is peaceful, cool and damp, as the rolling, boggy fields stretch out in all directions. He hears her calling pathetically from the bottom of the graves, but by now he knows there is nothing he can do but stare. She begs to be released, to dream of this place no more, but there is nothing he can do.

And this is Episode 13: Alone.

Another dissection room, another figure standing in its centre – but this one is calm. She simply looks at him sadly, a pity in her face that burns him worse than any flame. More than anything, the Archivist wants to look away, to turn his eye from her gentle sadness, from the disappointment in what she sees in him.

Is this Georgie, then, who is beyond the reach of fear, even when she is still being watched?

Elias: Hello, Inspector. Martin. I’m, uh, sorry to hear about Tim

Until this point I was still hoping that Tim had somehow survived, despite the fact that the narrative was HEAVILY signposting that he wouldn't for multiple episodes.

Martin: You didn’t just see it in me? Elias: Honestly, I didn’t look. For all my power, I will admit I am not immune to making the occasional lazy assumption.

People keep making this mistake with Martin, don't they?

Peter: Oh, and if you want to talk to a counselor, the Institute will of course cover any cost.

Okay, but like, why exactly is the embodiment of isolating-yourself-and-never-talking-to-anyone-about-anything suggesting counselling? Is this something along the lines of ... making sure Martin doesn't actually talk to his friends and colleagues thing? Giving him an impersonal outlet that won't create the same sort of connection?

My impression of this episode

So I spent most of the first listen AND the relisten trying to figure out which reference goes with which statement, but actually, looking past the "spot the reference" game, this episode is very well written and when you let the horror of it sink in, it's really rather - well - horrific: all these people, endlessly relieving their trauma every night, including Jon who's being forced to watch and cannot look away. Where the overall plot is concerned: I did not imagine Martin getting Elias arrested or Peter Lukas becoming the new head of the Institute - at all. It is a pretty lovely set-up for the next season.

#tma relisten #the magnus archives

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janekfan · 4 years

Note

hmm prompt time... jon angst about his humanity or lacktherof? worrying about him not being good enough for+worthy of+safe for martin/general guilt/self hatred? before or after apocolypse idk maybe safe house maybe post change? maybe season 4 after coma? could end up being jmart h/c or just be jon sad time whatever works

https://archiveofourown.org/works/27232381

For everyone else it had already been six long months.

And for Jon.

Well. For Jon, it was just yesterday.

Sasha.

Gone.

Tim.

Gone.

Martin.

Gone.

Himself?

And wasn’t that the question of the day Jon thought as he dragged himself up the steps of the Magnus Institute. He didn’t have anything with him. He didn’t have anything left that he knew of. Just the Oyster card and set of clothes the hospital had been kind enough to give him as his own were thoroughly shredded in the explosion. Everything else was gone.

He should be gone.

He’s the only one who should be gone.

But he’s still here.

And they’re just.

Was he even allowed to grieve?

“Jon” Melanie’s sharp, irritated voice raked over his ill-fitting skin like claws and he lifted sore eyes in acknowledgment.

“Hm, y’yes?”

“Been calling your name. You up to your spooky monster shit already?” He winced, wishing the scratchy two-sizes too big tee shirt would swallow him the rest of the way. “Barely through the door and you can’t resist.”

“N’no. Was. Was thinking, s’all.” Rubbing his arm, trying desperately to feel something, Jon didn’t know if he was allowed to leave or not. If he moved would she be upset? If he stayed?

“Least keep to your office. Don’t want you...watchin’ me.” She shoved past him, knocking him against the wall, still unsteady on his feet, the effects from the statement earlier were wearing off, or whatever the supernatural equivalent was and he slipped like a shadow through the halls to his door to hide himself behind it.

Things did not improve. He was always in the wrong, always a menace and he’d caught a glimpse of himself in the restroom mirrors a couple times, surprised at how thin and pathetic he looked. But they were afraid of him. He Knew it. Because the Eye gravitated to these heavenly tastes of fear like a starving man did to food.

So he kept to himself.

I’m sorry.

As days crept in and out, Jon tried to keep stock of what was different and the only thing he could conclude after his careful analysis and study was that he. Jonathan Sims. Was now something less than human.

Less than.

That made sense. That was okay. He’d always been better off alone because when he was alone he couldn’t hurt people and all he seemed to do was hurt people.

Wasn’t that true?

Georgie Sasha Tim Martin Daisy Georgie Sasha Tim Martin DaisyGeorgieSashaTimMartinDaisy

What was the point of learning that hard-won lesson if he had no one left?

I’m sorry.

And there was no way to go back. He’d caused it. Been causing it since he was a child, alienating, precocious, and so unlikable.

And there was no way for him to fix it. Not when he was in so deep. Not when he was addicted to these, these tales of dread and panic and horror and pain and death and terror and loss. Not when he had taken from those that he haunted and hunted through nightmare and dream. Took what they had and made it his, feeding, feeding, feeding like some animal.

But animals didn’t have a choice did they?

I’m sorry.

He’d already been judged and found wanting. Georgie was right. He should have died, or stayed in the coma, or anything other than turning into whatever he was now. Something inhuman, un-human.

Un-made.

Twisted.

I’m sorry.

Pity there was no one left who would accept his worthless apologies. Not from whatever he was now.

Jon was barely in control, not in control. Not really. Exhausted and hungry and lonely, lonely, lonely. He decided to take control back, just a little, whatever he could because to be human was to stay in control.

And he takes it.

In the only way he can think how.

Blood wells up from scratches Jon gouges into his arms, from beneath the blades of dull knives and keen razors, deep and dark and dangerous if he were human. But he wasn’t. He couldn’t harm himself enough physically, healing too fast to really feel it like he wanted to feel it and the marks never stayed long enough. Didn’t, didn’t bleed long enough, fast enough, never enough.

There’s no one left to notice the rust and ruby lining the bin so Jon doesn’t bother putting effort into cleaning up evidence. It’s around him in the florid streaks crossing the blotter, the cardinal fingerprints on old envelopes, the scarlet trails of irregular constellations mapped beneath his chair.

The answer to his problem became clear soon after. The statements. Addicted to them, it wasn’t until Basira pointed out that he should stop that he realized the easiest way to hurt was to deny himself. And they wanted him to stop. They want him to hurt and he should hurt. It’s fine, it’s okay, it’s what he’s been looking for.

Maybe when they thought he’d hurt enough, they would forgive him.

The pain was good. Every time he denied the Eye was good. Better than, it was intoxicating. The smallest act of rebellion and he revelled in it. Knowing he was weak, that he couldn’t be used for whatever purpose he’d been created for while he was like this, filled him with a perverse hope.

Restless, Jon retraced his steps through the Archives, trying to avoid Basira and Melanie where he could though they didn’t do anything more than ignore him unless he had a purpose or interrogate him about leaving, finding a victim. Compelling them against their will.

“You look shite, Jon.” He avoided their eyes, stared at their feet and watched them fade in and out, as he swayed back and forth, and he knew they were sneering because he could hear it in their voice. “Proof enough, I suppose.” Melanie lifted his face with a gentle finger placed under his chin. “Haven’t been galavanting in people’s dreams?” Back bowing under the weight of her scrutinizing stare, Jon did his best to stand straight. Removing the influence of the Slaughter didn’t make her undivided attention any easier to stomach and he put effort into quelling the ever present shiver thrumming through his bones, playing his sinews like strings.

“Uh, n’no. I don’t leave much. Or at all.”

“Mm.”

“Melanie?” Narrowed eyes stared through him, followed the quick rush through the highways of his veins. She knew where to strike to do the most damage.

Jon Knew it wouldn’t stick if she tried.

He was sure he’d seen him come this way. Martin. Whom he missed more than he ever thought one could miss someone. And, really, what did he know of Martin? Other than how best to ridicule him? He’d done this, or at the very least pushed him toward it. A victim for the Lonely. For Peter Lukas to control and manipulate and Martin assured him he was fine. He was fine and Jon shouldn’t look for him anymore because it was making it harder, it was making it worse. And Jon could do that. Could do one thing to make it easier for Martin?

But when he saw him, pale and small and Martin should never seem so small, Jon abandoned all his promises. He’d never been good at keeping them anyway. Why start now? Dizzier than he thought, the first step almost sent him sprawling and he just managed to catch himself on the wall, resting against it long enough to lose him. He pushed off, caught himself again as the hall twisted around him, spiraling like Helen’s eyes when they burrowed into his own and he followed, stumbling, a body ricocheting from surface to surface; floor, window, door, battered and bruised where no one could see. Not like the scars and the timeline they’d scripted silver and hoary on translucent brown vellum.

Martin is not there.

Jon has arrived too late.

He was good at that.

The first sob cleaved him in two, the second carved his chest clean out. Empty. Painfully empty and worse than anything he’d done to himself thus far. There wasn’t room to breathe between, there wasn’t time or space and rather than cower in the open doorway Jon threw himself into the office, crashing to his knees and pressing his face into the wood of his neatly organized desk before he gathered the wherewithal to pull himself into the chair, nicking the jumper folded over the back of it before crumpling again. Soft against his cheek, the well worn wool comforted him enough that he gained tentative control over himself again. He spent the time there dazed between bouts of crying, gradually tugged into the deep and the dark, exhausted and guilty.

He’s visited by dreams instead of nightmares. A cool palm gently coaxing the blazing, feverish heat from his skin. Stroking back tangled curls from his damp face and murmuring gentle things, lovely things, that he had no right to take comfort from. Jon dreamt of being hushed, of tears swept away by mindful fingertips, of clinging to Martin’s cardigan so tightly his hands ached. There was warmth here. Softness here. That he didn’t deserve and stole anyway, greedy and covetous because that’s what monsters did. And he took it, held it close, let it soothe the aches and the agony he carried so deep in him it hurt to let free.

Sasha.

Tim.

Martin.

Jon woke to the smell of sea air and surf.

To the last of a thick fog clinging around his ankles.

To a mug of tea, still hot.

And a statement.

#Tma #the magnus archives #jon sims #martin blackwood #hurt/comfort #self worth issues #self harm #Cutting #Blood #starvation #It's dark times up in here #Be careful #angst

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that-one-girl-behind-you · 4 years

Text

Illicio 14/?

Part 13

And really, Gerry should really know better than to underestimate an angry Martin by now; he flinches back when the door flies open without any warning.

"It's not that hard, just leave. Me. Alone." Martin snaps, and the sight of him makes Gerry's stomach drop. There's streaks of gray in his hair, and neither emotion nor color left in the eyes pinning Gerry down. "You have to stop meddling in my business."

Gerry takes a deep breath, before squaring his shoulders. "You know I'm just trying to hel-"

"Well, I don't want your help. We're not- we're nothing, Gerard. I don't care about whatever promise you made to Jon-"

"This is not about Jon-"

"Yes it is!" Martin's eyes harden. "And guess what? You won, you have him. Now leave me alone."

XIV

It's alright. It's okay, he- he can still make it out of here. Martin bats at the wisps of fog that come to curl around him; he can- someone will find him.

Tim will notice he's not at his flat. If... if Tim comes back, of course. If he and Basira and Gerry and Jon didn't all get killed in this ritual.

If Martin is not alone again.

But he- he isn't, is he? Even... even if worst comes to worst, Daisy and Melanie are still at the Archives. They have to realize something is not right, they- they have to care, don't they? It's what Gerry said the week before they left. They- they're a team. They decided to be a team, whether they like it or not, so they- even if they don't care about Martin, they have to-

The fog wraps tighter around him.

Who is he trying to fool? He's- he's been pushing them away for months. Why would they care about him, when all they have to go on is Jon's word that he's doing this for them? Melanie was clearly uncomfortable this evening -was it this evening? Is time the same here?-, probably only tolerating the awkward silence at Martin's office because Gerry asked her to keep an eye on him.

And- and Gerry really is just looking out for him as a favor to Jon, isn't he? Jon, who has moved on, but feels guilty about leaving Martin behind, just like Tim, who is only really there because he has nowhere else to go.

It's- should he feel worse about that? Should he feel any way about that?

Something pulls at him. The crackling of fire, and brewing coffee for someone he can't remember. The scent of lavender, and the feeling of exasperation that comes with it. The memory of a crooked smile.

It all makes something churn in his stomach, and Martin shakes his head. The fog gets thicker and thicker the deeper he walks into it.

"Hm... you've made it quite far in. I'm impressed," comes a voice to his left, like a demon on his shoulder. "I must admit, I was worried those two fools might have held you back too much, but I shouldn't have. You really are a natural for this."

"What are you doing here, Peter?" Martin asks, itching to move away from the man and back into the blessed silence of the Lonely.

Peter chuckles, clearly satisfied. Martin still can't see him through the fog, but just the thought of being addressed has him recoiling. "Well, loathe as I am to have to say this, I should pull you out before your guard dogs make it back to the Institute."

"I... don't think I want to go." Martin mutters almost to himself. The outside world, with all the color and the noise, with people swarming around him...

"You're not quite ready to stay. You could die here, Martin." Peter's pleased smile is audible in his voice.

"I don't think I would." This time Martin speaks with the utmost certainty.

"No, I don't think you would, either." Peter chuckles again. Martin focuses on the fog around him, tries to bend it to thicken enough to drown out Peter's presence. "Promising. I'm proud." The compliment comes through muted, as though Martin is hearing it from far away.

It's better, but not enough.

"I don't care." Martin can feel the Lonely thinning around him as the real world solidifies, and he clings desperately to the last of it. He can't go back. He doesn't want to go back to a world where he's nothing, no matter how hard he tries. Where he's pitied for not being enough to be loved. "Peter-"

"Bring it back, then." Peter says, almost too sharply; Martin flinches back in the empty office. There is no fog to hide in anymore, and the man's ice-cold stare is much too focused on him. "If you want it, call it back."

Objectively, Martin knows he shouldn't.

If what Peter said is true, the others will be back soon. Tim will... will Tim worry about him? Will Gerry? Jon has already given up on him, because he asked.

Because Martin wasn't worth fighting for.

The corners of the office start blurring again, but it's not enough. It's not enough, and Martin won't be able to hide from Gerry when he comes to get more information, or from Tim when he tries to force a conversation because he thinks the fact that they were almost friends once means something still.

"It's decent, I suppose. You'll have to work a little harder to make up for the lost time," Peter says, and chuckles again when Martin ignores him. "Remember our deal, Martin. We're almost there."

His voice fades in a whistle of static, and Martin looks up in time to watch, boiling with envy, as the last of the fog evaporates after taking the man away.

----------------------------------------------

"I need your rib," Tim says as soon as he barges through the door of Jon's office.

"Yes, for sure, Tim," Jon nods absentmindedly, lost in the steady trickle of Knowledge about a specific statement giver. He starts pulling the desk drawer open when the situation registers in his mind, and he looks up. "Wait- how do you know I have- why do you want my rib?"

"Melanie mentioned it. Also, I'm going to kill you." Tim shrugs.

Jon blinks. "I'm sorry, what?"

"It's 'symbolic' apparently," Tim marks the quotes with his fingers and Jon knows exactly what he thinks of the whole thing without having to peek into his thoughts. "I need closure, and I'm very aware if I kill you for real either Daisy or your boyfriend are going to kill me, and Martin will, I don't know, give me a very strong look of disappointment."

"So you're going to... kill my rib?"

"Listen, I told Melanie I was willing to risk your bodyguards but she doesn't think I can take any of them. Real blow to my self-esteem, by the way." Tim crosses his arms over his chest, and Jon holds back his snort. It probably wouldn't be too well received.

"I can imagine." He looks down at the open drawer. He remembers the feeling of Hopworth's big, meaty hand tearing at his insides, tugging the bone free with a well practiced move. Tim deserves it. Tim deserves so much more, for what he's had to give up. And if the only thing he's asking for is this- "you can have it, then."

"...Huh. I can?" Tim asks, and Jon Knows a lot of details all of a sudden. Tim is surprised. Tim is relieved. Tim is nervous. Tim is afraid. Tim never thought of a world in which Jon no longer holds any hope of being forgiven, whether Tim wants to forgive or not. "Good. Good then I'll-"

"I don't expect anything, Tim." Jon interrupts. "I- a lot happened. And I didn't act as I should have, I know. We were- you deserved better than what you got for me." He offers the rib on his outstretched hand, the stark white of the bone even more startling against his skin. "Go- go kill me."

It's as if time stops between them for a moment, and Jon wonders if any of them is actually breathing. Tim's messy thoughts and feelings reach him like darts, stabbing quick and sharp through him, only to fade right away.

Why? Jon. Hate. Familiar. Abandoned. Why? Hurt. Home. Alone. Betrayal. Hate. Why?

Tim snatches the rib from Jon's hand, his fist so tight around the bone his knuckles match the color perfectly. He looks like he's going to say something for a moment -Jon can't Know what it is, because Tim himself isn't sure-, but in the end he just nods sharply at Jon, and slams the door behind him when he leaves.

----------------------------------------------

"-just wish Peter would spend less time trying to convince me his new power is real, and more time telling me what he plans to do about it." The voice comes through the cracked door, and Gerry smiles, amused. He can practically see Martin rolling his eyes, like Peter Lukas' biggest crime was his lack of efficiency. Which might be true, at least in the eyes of someone as ruthlessly capable as Martin. "And where I fit in. He keeps saying I'm necessary because of my 'affiliation with the eye', but at this point I don't know if there's any of that left. Any of me left."

Rather than there being something in his tone, it's the utter lack of emotion in that last statement that has Gerry knocking on the door. "Martin?" he calls out, and the silence that follows is unnerving. "Martin, I'm coming i-"

"Don't." Martin says, his voice far too close, far too quiet, and far too muted for Gerry's taste. "Go away."

Oh.

Well, that's the shortest Martin's ever been with him, even counting back when they weren't working together. Gerry feels the nerves and the fear congealing into something cold and viscous at the bottom of his stomach.

"Martin, I think we need to have a chat." He tries again. "I could tell you about what happened up North and-"

"I don't want to know." Martin cuts him again. "Just leave me alone, will you?"

"I won't, actually," Gerry says as firmly as he can. His hand curls into a fist by his side, his entire body tensing. This is- Martin probably won't be too happy with him for forcing it but the thought of the sad, tired grey eyes behind the glasses has Gerry's stomach churning with the need to protect. "If you want me gone so much, at least have the decency to say it to my face."

And really, Gerry should really know better than to underestimate an angry Martin by now; he flinches back when the door flies open without any warning.

Gerry takes a deep breath, before squaring his shoulders. "You know I'm just trying to hel-"

"Well, I don't want your help. We're not- we're nothing, Gerard. I don't care about whatever promise you made to Jon-"

"This is not about Jon-"

"Yes it is!" Martin's eyes harden. "And guess what? You won, you have him. Now leave me alone."

For a split second, Gerry thinks Martin actually tried to shove him, until he looks down and sees the tape that's been slammed against his chest, just as Martin lets go of it. "Martin-"

"Leave."

"I-"

"I believe my assistant has asked you to go." The new voice that comes from somewhere behind Martin has Gerry gritting his teeth together, and it's all he can do to slip the tape into his pocket before Peter Lukas' face pokes out over Martin's shoulder. "But if you insist on staying, I could always... move him to a place where you won't disturb him."

Gerry narrows his eyes, his fingers itching to wrap themselves around Lukas' throat. He doesn't miss the hopeful flash in Martin's eyes when the Lonely is mentioned, and it makes his chest ache. He can't be this far gone already, he can't be craving for the Lonely, he- he was fine just before they left. Gerry should've insisted in leaving Tim behind, they would've found another way to destroy the Dark Sun, and Martin would be-

"What will it be, then?" Lukas gives him a jovial smile that makes Gerry want to knock out all his teeth. "Either you go, or we do. Your choice."

"...I'll go," Gerry says after a moment. "Lukas?"

"Yes?" The man's eyes crinkle at the corner; Gerry wants to gouge them out.

"Gertrude only cared for stopping your pathetic attempt at a ritual. After that, you weren't even important enough for her to kill you." Gerry cracks his neck to the side. "But I'm not Gertrude."

"Is that a threat?" Lukas doesn't sound nowhere near amused anymore, Gerry notices. "If so, you have inflated opinions of your role in this game, Keay. You're nothing but a chewtoy the Eye regurgitated for the Archivist, and you'd do well to remember that."

"Yes, I am." Gerry arches an eyebrow. "That's exactly why you won't touch me, isn't it? What makes you think you can touch him?"

Lukas laughs. "If you mean to imply I'm scared of that bad caricature of an avatar-"

"I'm not implying anything. It's a warning." Gerry takes a step back. "And if he doesn't come for you, I will."

He leaves immediately after, because when he levels a last look at Martin, he catches a single fleck of green in his sad, sweet eyes.

It's somehow as hopeful as it is devastating, having to leave him behind when deep down, Martin still wants to be saved.

----------------------------------------------

'Jonathan Sims. Head Archivist.'

Georgie gives the plaque a disgusted look. A tasteless joke. A heartless sentence. She shakes her head to clear the thought away, before knocking on the door.

There's a moment of silence, before Jon's voice -soft and confused, Georgie thinks with a pang of guilt- calls out. "G- come in?"

She pushes the door open, and walks into a sparsely decorated office. Bookshelves stocked with boxes of old paper and tape recorders cover the walls, and Jon sits behind a too imposing desk, looking smaller than he has any right to be on account of the hopeful, nervous expression on his face.

"Uhm. Hi, Jon." Georgie leans against the door to close it, before it occurs to her that maybe Jon doesn't want her to stay for long. She wouldn't, if she was him.

"I- what are you doing here?" Jon asks, climbing to his feet. He gestures to one of the chairs across from him with a shaky hand. "Is everything alright? I- take a seat?"

Georgie shakes her head, but she does walk towards the desk. Around it, when she gets close enough. "I came to pick up Melanie for- I'm taking her somewhere. But I wanted to talk to you. She said you were on a trip?"

"Yes, I- we were supposed to stop another ritual. It- it turned out to be a fluke, but we did destroy the Dark Sun, or rather Tim did and-" Jon stops stalking abruptly, and he averts his eyes with a pained sigh. "I'm sorry. You don't want to hear any of that."

"I really don't." Georgie gives a sigh of her own. "But it's been brought to my attention that these things don't really give you a choice, do they?"

Jon shakes his head. "You don't have to get involved, Georgie. It's- in fact, I'd prefer it if you didn't. I already put you at risk when I hid in your house, I wasn't even thinking-"

"You were scared. That's- it was sweet that you knew I'd take you in. Even after, you know, everything."

"It was selfish. But you don't have to mix with this anymore. You can stay away, and be safe." Jon's shoulders are tense and sagging, and Georgie itches to pull him into a hug. She muses, again, that Jon is extremely easy to love. It's what makes him so dangerous.

"I really can't." Georgie shrugs. "Not while Melanie's trapped here. And you."

"Me." Jon repeats; tired, disbelieving.

"You." Georgie nods. "Weren't you trying to save the world?" she gives him a soft, sad smile. What was the cost of that?

"I-" Jon chuckles once. "I was. Am. But I don't- I think more focused on... on saving us, now. The people I care about." He sighs again, runs a hand through his hair, messing it up even further. "I'll find something for Melanie. To- to set her free. If you two could go somewhere safe-"

"Is there anywhere safe, Jon?" she asks, and Jon's shoulders fall even more.

"I don't think there is, Georgie." He says her name like she's the answer, like she can somehow make things alright. It reminds her of when they were younger, and she fell in love with that devotion. "I'm sorry."

Georgie purses her lips. "I don't think it was your fault." Jon's face shoots up at that, and Georgie feels guilt biting at her stomach again. She- she knows Jon. Self-destructive tendencies or not, how could she ever think he chose this? Her Jon, who only ever wanted to be enough. Who she could never convince that he already was. "If you- you say you're looking for something to get Melanie out."

"I am. I don't- maybe it's not possible, or my... predecessor, would have found it. But I'm looking, Georgie, I prom-" he stops talking abruptly, when Georgie pulls him into a tight hug, tucking his head under her chin. He melts against her, both so used to the other's touch that fitting together is almost as natural as breathing, even after all these years.

"Don't stop with her." Georgie mutters into his hair. "I want you out too, Jon. You deserve to be out, please believe that."

Jon says nothing after that, and neither does her. She holds his shaming form in silence, glad to be a momentary respite of this world that won't allow him any rest.

----------------------------------------------

To Jon's credit, he notices Gerry's mood almost as soon as they walk out of the Institute.

It still takes him all the way to the flat before he says anything, but the intention was there, Gerry thinks, the spark of fondness for the man almost enough to drown out the despair in his chest.

"Did- what happened?" Jon asks finally, after he locks the door behind the two of them.

Gerry sighs, hanging his jacket on the hook before turning to see if Jon needs help with his coat. It seems like a good day for his hand, because he's already done with most of the buttons. "I- Martin gave me a new tape. But it's- I'm having a hard time getting him back."

"Ah..." Jon's face falls as he shrugs the coat off to hang it next to Gerry's jacket. "I- do you think I should try talking to him?"

Gerry flinches. He's fairly sure Martin planned what to say in order to get him to leave as soon as possible, but it still hurt. He doesn't want to even think of what sort of things Martin would say to drive Jon away, or how much of that Jon would take to heart.

"I don't- I'll keep trying. Between me and Tim, he has to come back at some point."

He has to. Otherwise he's just another person Gerry couldn't save, a gamble he took -and lost- on someone's life.

"You... you said it yourself." Jon mutters. His voice sounds as defeated as Gerry feels, thinking of Martin's faded gray eyes. "You can't stop him from aligning with the Lonely. We have to trust him."

"Doesn't mean I have to like it." Gerry sighs again, running a hand down his face. "I just… he deserves more."

"He does," Jon agrees, nodding softly. "I- would you like me to draw you a bath?"

It takes a couple minutes for the offer to actually register in Gerry's mind, and he blinks.

"I- what?"

"It makes me feel better." Jon says, his scowl nowhere near fierce enough for Gerry to ignore his flushed face.

"I'm- that sounds nice." Gerry chuckles a little, still taken aback by the suggestion.

Jon rolls his eyes, crossing his arms defensively over his chest. "You don't have to laugh about it."

"I'm not, it's just- no one's ever offered to do that before." Who would have, really? His mother? The one-night stands Gerry took whenever he wasn't hunting books or trying to ignore his mother's ghost? Gertrude? The last thought has another burst of hysterical laughter bubbling past his lips. If anything, it's almost enough to distract him from the disastrous encounter at Martin's office. "Will you get in with me?"

Jon's face closes off a little, even as his cheeks darken a bit more. "I'm- if you want me to."

"I think I'd like that. Just... just for a bath," he clarifies, because he's not stupid; he's noticed Jon keeps his touch chaste, even when they get worked up when kissing. "If it doesn't make you uncomfortable."

"Just for a bath." Jon nods carefully after a moment. "I'll just- go and start with the coffee for after. I'll call you."

Gerry makes himself scarce at the clear dismissal, busying himself with the cheap coffeemaker and the mugs.

'You won, you have him.' Martin's voice echoes around in his head, much more spiteful and accusing than the real delivery was.

This is... it's not fair, that he and Jon get to have these moments, while Martin loses himself to the Lonely. It's not fair to repay the man's bravery by forsaking him. He should've challenged Lukas, he knows. He should've stayed there, clung to Martin and dragged him out if need be instead of turning his back on him like a coward, instead of letting Martin watch him walk away, and leave him at Lukas' mercy.

"Hey." Smooth burnt skin slips over his as Jon's hand wraps stiffly around his wrist, and Gerry looks down into Jon's sweet concerned eyes. The coffeemaker beeps softly, has probably been doing so for a while, but Gerry can't find it in himself to do anything about it, and Jon doesn't seem to care.

There's not much else to say that they didn't go over at the door before, so Gerry says nothing, and instead lets himself be guided away by the gentle, firm grip of Jon's hand on his.

The bathroom is warm and full of steam with the bathtub only filled up halfway, which he supposes will be enough to keep it from overflowing once two grown men sit inside.

Gerry can, as always, feel Jon's eyes on him, but he finds that the feeling is entirely different when he's undressing. Burns and scars included, he's very aware he's an attractive man; he also knows with delighted certainty that Jon finds him distracting. Still, the slight hitch in Jon's breath when his shirt comes off completely, revealing the line of open eyes descending down his spine, makes Gerry's stomach curl with satisfaction.

By the time he starts removing his trousers and pants, there's a featherlight graze of fingers against the eye beneath his shoulder blades, and Gerry stills. Other people have taken notice of his tattoos, of course, previous lovers, even, but there's something different about Jon being the one running a fingertip lightly along the edges of the eyes. Maybe it's because Jon knows what they mean, or the knowledge that this body was remade, that it exists because of Jon and Jon alone.

Just a chewtoy for the Archivist, Lukas said earlier, like Gerry would find it hurtful or humiliating. Instead, when he turns around and Jon's adoring gaze moves from the eye over his heart to his own, real eyes, all Gerry can feel is relief, and the sticky, dangerously deceiving sensation of safety that comes with loving in a world preyed on by fear.

Jon looks away first, but he makes no attempt at covering himself as he turns to carefully climb into the bathtub, so Gerry looks his fill. Jon's body is slender, like his hands, like his face. Like a creature made for slipping between tightly cramped bookshelves and catching his victims unaware.

The body of a man life has mistreated.

Gerry eyes the thirteen marks resentfully; not all of them visible, but all glaringly obvious when he Looks. The Web at his fingertips, like dust left over after flipping a page. Spiral at his stomach, Slaughter on his shoulder, Flesh by his chest. Corruption takes what it can get, the small round marks scattered all over Jon's skin, interjecting here and there with the lines of intent where the Stranger planned to skin him.

The Vast, the Hunt and the Buried are all at his throat, the jagged lines of a scream let out while free falling, a cut meant to bleed him dry, a vicelike grip to drag him down. Desolation snakes up from his right hand, and End is a void over his heart.

The Watcher and the Dark are both at his face, like one is mocking the other. 'I tried to destroy you', say the star-like scars around his eyes. 'You weren't strong enough', says the gleam of infinite knowledge behind them.

"Are you getting in?" Jon asks quietly, and Gerry notices those eyes are pinned to his, doubt and worry mixed in their dark, well-loved depths. Jon has curled by the head of the tub, his arms wrapped around two wet knees that break the surface of the water like twin islands at sea.

"...That's what one does, right?" Gerry's voice comes out hoarse, and he huffs a little laugh as warmth spreads over his skin under Jon's scrutiny.

Instead of sitting across Jon, Gerry faces away from him, Jon's knees parting almost on reflex to let him lay his back against him. Gerry rests a hand over the eye at his chest, and if he focuses enough, he can almost pretend Jon's heartbeat is his own.

Maybe it is, he thinks as Jon's arms come to wrap over his shoulders.

It's a tight fit, but Jon's not a large man, and he slots behind Gerry like a backpack, which is admittedly not a very romantic way to describe sitting in a bathtub with your lover, Gerry thinks with a chuckle. Still, it's comfortable in a way Gerry has seldom experienced in his life.

The water's hot and soothing on his tense muscles, and when Jon reaches over to pop open a bottle, the bathroom fills with the scent of lavender.

"Did you change shampoo brands?" Gerry asks, resting his head against Jon's chest and trying to ignore the soft yield of flesh where this perfect, beautiful idiot is short two ribs. Above him, Jon continues softly scrubbing at his scalp, stubbornly quiet in that way Gerry has learned to read as him being embarrassed. "Jon?"

"I just-" Jon huffs, shifting behind him and making the water splash around the edges of the tub. "It was- you don't sleep on the sofa anymore."

Gerry scowls a little, trying to comprehend the mental gymnastics Jon is doing, until it clicks in his mind. "Oh." He can feel his face flushing in a way that has nothing to do with the heat of the water, as a pleased smile spreads over his lips. "That's- alright. I guess I can smell like a grandma. For you."

"You're insufferable." Jon flicks some water towards his face, and Gerry laughs, running his hand down Jon's calf where it cages his torso, and giving his ankle a squeeze. "I... thank you."

"For making fun of your perfume preferences?" Gerry closes his eyes as Jon starts rinsing the suds off his hair. He's going to fall asleep at this rate. Hopefully Jon won't let him drown.

"For not giving up on Martin." Jon whispers in his ear, his arms tangling together over Gerry's chest. "For caring."

Oh.

Gerry keeps his eyes closed. It's better this way. Jon's heartbeat is a steady lullaby under his head, and Gerry's suddenly assaulted by just how much he loves this man who cares that he's trying, despite the fact that he's clearly not doing enough.

"I'll bring him back," Gerry whispers, the overwhelming rush of affection at war with the guilt that his happiness comes at the cost of Martin's suffering, somehow.

"We will." Jon nods, leaning over to press a kiss to the corner of Gerry's mouth.

And well... perhaps it's a good thing, that Gerry's stupid, hopeless optimism seems to be rubbing off on Jon. Maybe they will get Martin back.

Maybe this story doesn't have to end in tragedy.

----------------------------------------------

It's not too late, when Jon sneaks out into the alley behind the Archives. Gerry won't be here for another hour and a half, but he's already done with today's work, and he doubts the Eye will volunteer anything else. It's been fairly quiet since they came back, almost as if it's annoyed Jon is choosing to regain his strength slowly through Gerry's volunteered statements instead of going out hunting.

"Spot's taken." A sullen voice breaks him out of his reverie, and Jon looks up to find Tim leaning against the opposite wall and glaring fiercely at the Institute's building.

"Oh. Sorry, I'm- I won't be long." Some of the rubbish around Tim's feet is smoking; Jon clears his throat and points at the smoldering pieces.

"Hm. My bad." Tim shrugs and stomps on a crumpled paper bag until it goes out. "Thought you'd quit," he says, and Jon notices with a start that his eyes have landed on the pack of cigarettes in his hand.

"It isn't like they can kill me now, is it?" Jon says, almost testily. He remembers how much Tim insisted back when they were frien- back in research, until Jon dropped the vice.

Tim brings a hand up to Jon's face, and snaps his fingers once. A single bright red flame spurts from his thumb, emitting a heat disproportionate to its size. "I'm rooting for them," he says, and the smile on his face is dry, but his humor is the same. Jon smiles sadly as he pulls out a cigarette to light it with the offered fire.

They stand there in silence for a moment, the tip of Jon's cigarette flaring and smoking every time Tim shifts, and Jon getting random tidbits about the passersby that walk past the alley. It would be a fun setup for a joke, Jon thinks, two monsters out for a smoke break.

"...I wish it had been Sasha that got brought back," Tim mutters after about ten minutes -nine and twenty eight seconds, the Beholding supplies helpfully-. His voice is almost careful, Jon notices; not guarded like it's been for years now, but somehow... fragile.

Jon closes his eyes, and behind his eyelids he sees flashes of moments he's not meant to be privy to. Tim and Sasha joking easily back and forth as they move boxes of statements around the Archives. Looks and touches lingering for longer than they ought to. Heading back to Sasha's flat from the pub one night.

It never ceases to amaze him, how many things he just didn't see before. Yet another thing he was chosen for without being even the slightest bit adept at.

"I don't. Sasha- she died human. She died herself," Jon says quietly. It hurts, but it's the truth. If there's anything that could qualify as fair in this whole situation is that Sasha didn't live to see herself become... like them.

"Still. She deserved a second chance," Tim exhales slowly, letting out a wisp of steam that curls and dissipates above his head. "Even you had one."

The venom in the statement doesn't strike Jon as hard anymore. He's grown immune to it, coming from Tim. "Yes, because I chose wrong. Everyone who chooses this life is wrong."

Tim lifts an eyebrow. "What about your tall glass of water?"

Jon's face heats up against the cool night air. He briefly considers Knowing which one Tim is referring to just to spare himself the embarrassment of asking, but that's a frivolous use of power if there's ever been one.

"None of them chose this," he grumbles instead, face still burning under Tim's gaze. "Martin and Gerry didn't choose this any more than you did, Tim."

"I guess." Tim blows a ring of steam into the night, and they both watch it drift and distend until it's faded completely. "Martin won't talk to me anymore."

Jon sighs, and goes to pull out a second cigarette; he's going to need it. "I was- I haven't sought him out in a while. But I can- something happened, while we were gone.

"Don't you think it has anything to do with your new boyfriend?" Tim asks, pressing his thumb against the tip of Jon's cigarette, "It's gotta be fuel for the Lonely, to see this hot goth come from nowhere and speedrun through all the stages of falling for an asshole when he's still stuck at 'unrequited crush'."

"It's not." Jon sticks the cigarette between his lips and crosses his arms over his chest, looking resolutely away.

"It's not what?"

"...Unrequited," Jon mumbles so low he doubts for a moment Tim heard him. Silence blankets over them again, as Jon's cigarette steadily burns down.

Tim shifts on his spot, and Jon Sees again, suddenly. Tim is thinking -curious, pained, angry- back at the time when he would've wanted to comment on that.

"Would you look at that," Tim says finally. Jon can feel the bite coming, but it sounds... tired. Like that day at the coffeeshop before Tim walked away. "Martin's self destructive tendencies did win in the end. Kudos to him."

"There's no accounting for taste, apparently." Jon shrugs. "But no. I don't think it has anything to do with Gerry. He's been trying to tether Martin back since before you showed up again. They... they get along. Or they did, before we left for Ny-Alessünd. Gerry hasn't had any luck talking to him since we came back, either.

Tim is still looking at him, and Jon fidgets a little on his spot, uncomfortable.

"Can't- couldn't you Know?" Tim asks, after a moment.

Jon arches an eyebrow. "I did not expect you of all people to ask me to do that."

"What, you suddenly grew a conscience about your spooky stalking problem?"

"I don't- it's not like I want this, Tim." Jon sighs.

"But you'll do it?"

Jon looks at him, and finds Tim is expecting his answer with an almost hopeful look in his face. "Yes. For- if I can use these powers to help the people I love- I'll do it."

Tim's mouth twitches around half formed words for a moment, before he nods. "Well- get to it, then."

"Actually, I could use a little help, before you go and Behold that-" a third voice makes both of them jump around to find Helen's door on the side of the building. "If you could come down to the Archives?"

Jon scowls. Helen looks... her whole shape is almost blurry. The Distortion's grip on her own form is never too stable, but there's something different about this, less like she's changing and more like she's ceasing to be. Her curled hair looks deflated and lackluster, her face looks like it's trying to slip off of her, or melt back into her skull, and her knuckles are almost white where they're clenched around the door's edge.

"What happened to you?" he asks. The compulsion slips into his voice accidentally, but Helen doesn't even seem to notice.

"If you must know, I ate something that didn't agree with me." Helen's grip on the door tightens.

Jon lifts an eyebrow. "You kept Jared Hopworth in there for months. How is this one giving you trouble?"

"I'm not exactly made of flesh. There's not too much that one could do to hurt me." Helen grimaces. "But I'm hardly a person, which is... the main problem here."

"... It's feeding on you." Jon whispers, when Helen winces again.

Tim whistles under his breath. "What the hell did you lure in?"

Helen purses her lips, or what's left of them, and Jon considers the situation for a moment.

For all that Helen has said she's on their side, she's... well, dangerous. She's not even culling her hunger like Jon himself is, and they really don't have any proof of her alignment. Helen comes and goes, and Jon sometimes wonders if she herself knows what her plan is, or if there's even one. If whatever unlucky avatar she ate is really devouring her from the inside... that's two less terrors left in the world. Who knows how many lives could be saved?

"Ah... I see how it is." Helen mutters, after a few more moments. "I should've known-"

Jon sighs. "Get your door to my office," he orders, before going back into the building.

"Hm. Monster solidarity, then? How sweet." Tim says as he descends the stairs behind him. Jon rolls his eyes.

"I don't know that I'm the one who should decide who lives or dies, Tim. Helen has... she's helped us."

"Go team Archives," Tim says sarcastically.

"I don't know what you're coming down for." Rephrasing questions around Tim is almost second nature now, a habit Jon has fallen back into, with Tim's return.

"I'm just curious." Tim shrugs, and Jon can tell he's lying even without Seeing. The mix of feelings swirling inside Tim's mind is too complex to try to decipher anyways, much less right now that they're coming into the Archives.

"What's going on?" Daisy's standing at one of the desks, one arm stretched to keep Basira slightly back and to the side. The door to Jon's office -Helen's door now- is banging and shaking, alarmingly loud.

"Something is eating her from the inside." Tim shrugs, before looking at Basira. "You should probably get out."

"Shut it."

"Of course." Tim nods.

"Helen?" Jon calls out. "You can-"

The door flies open.

Out into the room tumbles... something, long-limbed and with too many joints, looking somewhere between a mix of Helen and- ah.

It makes sense, that out of all the entities, the Stranger would be the most dangerous to Helen. Helen, who's neither monster nor person now, whose face is not actually hers because she's not really her anymore. Would it even be able to steal an identity that doesn't exist, or would that make it easier?

"Ah... Hello, Jon." Not Sasha pushes her hair back with a hand, climbing to her feet. Her eyes run over the rest of the people in the room, the same eyes that gleamed in amusement and badly concealed mischief whenever they promised that 'no, Jon, of course I wasn't looking at your emails, I would never!'. Except they aren't, because the memory of those is lost, and even Jon with all his powers will never remember them. "Tim! Sweetheart, it's so good to see you again."

"You." Tim's clipped voice is followed by the temperature in the room rising, the heat almost searing at Jon's back.

Not Sasha smiles like a knife, all cruel angles that Jon knows -even if he can't remember- have nothing to do with the real Sasha's smile. "You've got some fun new tricks! We could really get it going now. What do you say? Pick up where we left off?"

Tim steps forward, but Jon stretches an arm almost on reflex, the burn in his hand throbbing like it recognizes the heat of the Desolation.

"Step aside Jon." Tim says, his voice brimming with barely restrained anger, and Jon remembers the memories he saw just now at the alley. He can't tell how many of those were actually the real Sasha, and his heart aches a little at the realization that Tim has probably asked himself the same countless times. "I won't ask you ag-"

"You'll kill us all." Basira speaks from her spot behind Daisy. "It's what she wants. If you burn the Archives we're all dead, Tim."

It clicks, then.

The Not Them aren't stupid, or impulsive. Not Sasha knows she's outnumbered, that there's no way she's getting out of the Archives alive. With Daisy moving to stand with Basira before Helen's door, and Jon and Tim before the only other exit, she's planning on taking them down with her.

Jon takes a deep breath, before he starts, carefully. "Tim-"

"Don't," Tim snaps. "Don't even try it. You don't know- I'm going to kill her. Shut up!" he snarls at Not Sasha, when she gives a low giggle. "If I have to-"

"Kill Martin?" Jon asks, and Tim flinches back. "Basira, Daisy, Melanie?"

"Did you notice, love?" Not Sasha speaks in a sickly soft voice. "He's not in the list. He knows he deserves it if you kill him. If he'd been any stronger, he'd have known it was me from the moment I took dear, sweet Sasha. Maybe he would've even known to warn her not to come near my table!"

"Tim-" Jon tries again, but Tim lifts a hand to stop him. His eyes are glowing a fiery orange even behind his closed eyelids, his brow is covered in sweat, and the hardwood floor has begun to smoke around his feet.

"Shut up. Shut-" Tim is shaking with effort, the temperature in the room going up and down like someone's playing with a thermostat.

"Did you know she was alive? The first few months, at least. Kept trying to get you to look at my reflection so you'd see it didn't match." Not Sasha grins, when Tim crouches on his spot, burying his face in his hands. "I think she was still watching, the first time we kiss-"

"That's enough." Jon snaps, and the monster's mouth clicks shut. He takes a step before Tim's shaking form, hoping against hope that he can keep control for a bit longer. "Nobody fears you. We know who you aren't, and you have no power here."

Not Sasha's face sours, and Jon feels a rush of dark satisfaction, in seeing her try -and fail- to talk back. This is his Archive, and he's got much better weapons than a pipe this time.

"Jon?" Daisy asks carefully, but Jon shakes his head. "Jon, the qu-"

"Just kill it already!" Basira squeezes at Daisy's arm, gesturing pointedly at Tim. "We can worry about that later, just do it, before he blows."

Not Sasha makes a break for the exit, but doesn't make it too far before Daisy tackles her from the back, the blood boiling beneath her skin and the thought of Jon in her mind. Maybe this is what Gerry meant when he said they had to be a team; protect each other, by whatever means possible.

"Do you remember them? Do you remember all you took from them?" Jon asks, calling on the voice of the Archivist as he takes a step towards the struggling monster. He can see the lights flickering, hear the static rising behind his voice until it reaches deafening levels. "Remember her, because we can't. Because you took her from herself."

"Stop-" Not Sasha grunts in pain. Her features shift even as Jon watches, stretching, contracting, like she's trying to find a form that will keep her safe from him.

"Remember all the things that she was. Everything that you are not." Jon feels the words flowing through him without even a thought spared for them, like he Knows exactly what threads to pull on, to undo the weaving keeping Not Sasha together.

"Fuck you- I made her suffer, when I peeled her name off. I should've made it last longe-"

"Silence," Jon orders again, and he feels heat pooling behind his eyes, at the base of his throat, filtering through to his next words. "You will remember Sasha James-"

"NO!"

"-and you will Know that you are nothing."

The creature's scream is ragged and crackling, dissolving in the static of the eye as she changes and squirms and melts, evaporating until Daisy's weight hits the ground, nothing beneath her anymore.

"...That's new." Basira moves forward to help Daisy to her feet. "Is everyone alright?"

"I'm just... I'll sit," Jon mumbles as a wave of exhaustion washes over him.

"Could someone come into my corridors and be confused for a bit?" Helen asks through her ajar door. "I promise I'll let you out."

There's a rush of movement, and Helen's door slams shut. Jon slides down to sit at Sasha's old desk, without the energy or the words that it would take to reach Tim right now.

#jongerrymartin #jongerry #gerrymartin #jonmartin #illicio #vit writes

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soveryanon · 4 years

Text

Reviewing time for MAG181!

- Little nice touch: the fact that time was passing normally inside of the house… immediately felt through the sound of the clock in the background, marking the passage of time:

(MAG180) SALESA: [SAD SIGH] [SILENCE BUT FOR CLOCK TICKING IN THE BACKGROUND] ANNABELLE: I did say this might happen. SALESA: You did, you diiid. Well… so much for my big reveal… Shame.

(MAG181) [CLICK–] [CLOCK TICKING IN THE BACKGROUND] [CLASSICAL MUSIC IS PLAYING; LOUIS SPOHR’S “SECHS DEUTSCHE LIEDER FÜR EINE SINGSTIMME, KLARINETTE UND KLAVIER, OP. 103: N°2 ZWIEGESANG”] [SOUNDS OF CROCKERY AND LIQUID BEING POURED] SALESA: Hmmm.

(I still have the reflex of associating the sound of a ticking clock with Elias’s office, so I was expecting Big Talk from the get-go! Aaah, I wonder if we’ll “hear” Elias’s office again, before the end…)

As they discussed, time was quantifiable again, existing outside of Jon&Martin (even when they were sleeping), not solely as events succeeding to each other. … On the other hand: it’s concerning that the tape’s case number was still “########-21”: time passes and is quantifiable on a day-to-day basis, Martin was able to conclude that it was daytime thanks to the light, but there was still no date inside of the house. It’s a “little bubble” of normalcy and time, but still existing in the middle of a chaos.

- In the same vein as last episode it was also neat how we could already understand that this space was operating differently, since Jon&Martin needed to physically take care of themselves again:

(MAG180) SALESA: Ah, well. We can talk after they’ve slept, I suppose. Urgh! And had a bath. And some food. No rush. [SOUNDS OF CROCKERY MOVING] We have all the time in the world.

(MAG181) [CLICK–] [CLOCK TICKING IN THE BACKGROUND] […] SALESA: Come in! Did you sleep well? Have you had something to eat? Annabelle said she’d shown you the pantry? [SALESA CEASES THE MUSIC] ARCHIVIST: [UNCOMFORTABLE] I, er… We… slept. I, I don’t know… H–how long’s it been? SALESA: About seventy-one hours by my clock. […] Come on, sit down, have a drink. [CLINKING SOUNDS OF GLASS AND ICE] MARTIN: You’re… sure? What time is it? I– Oh, huh. Huh! I can actually ask that question here! SALESA: You can indeed. MARTIN: And the sun’s high, so… SALESA: Good eye…! Martin, was it? MARTIN: Uh, uh… Yes. SALESA: Well Martin. It’s about ten in the morning, more or less. […] You’re sure you won’t have a drink? We definitely had some tea around here somewhere. MARTIN: Uh, I… already had some, thank you, uh! Some of us know how to be polite guests. ARCHIVIST: [SHARPLY] I don’t intend to accept anything offered by Annabelle Cane.

They slept, drank and ate! (But did they bathe. We don’t know if they did bathe. Though, Salesa would have probably commented on it again, if they didn’t.)

And on the one hand, I’m laughing really hard that they needed to sleep for three whole days to compensate for time spent in the apocalypse (that’s a long nap.), on the other hand… that’s weirdly optimistic for the rest of humanity trapped out there: I was fearing that if Jon&Martin managed to turn the world back, everyone would just collapse and die on the spot from exhaustion/hunger/thirst but, no, it seems like they could recover in this case?

- More on the differences between Jon and Martin later, but I like how it was quickly clear that Jon was less in control than his usual, and very aware of it: Jon was “disorientated”, his sentences were more hesitant, while Martin was quick to notice things, bouncing off from Salesa’s or Jon’s sentences, able to make small jokes. I loved and got sad over the Beholding one, since:

(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”. [PAUSE BUT FOR CLOCK TICKING IN THE BACKGROUND] ARCHIVIST: … Well, I–I wouldn’t exactly say I, I “work” for it… MARTIN: Uh… Well, I–I mean, you say that, but when you stop to think about it, it was literally our employer, Jon, so… Mmh! ARCHIVIST: I, I suppose.

They were actually talking about two different levels, each correct in his own way? Back in season 4, Martin had already pointed out to Jon that working in the Archives meant working for Beholding (MAG129: “I just– I worry. You’re working for someone… really bad!” “Yes, I’m not an idiot, Jon, but it’s no… worse than working for something really bad, so…” “At least, The Eye hasn’t gone after our own. Lukas has vanished two people!”); but on the other hand, Jon… has tried to distance himself from The Eye and what he wanted (by stopping to take live statements, by refusing to indulge in any contentment induced by the apocalypse, by deciding to stop the smiting spree): “working for” is both true (as a neutral stance, since they were tricked into working for Beholding through the Archival contract) and wrong (“working for” also implies some level of active participation?). It reminds me of Melanie’s stance about it (MAG150: “I didn’t say I was going to quit. I said: I’m not going to do my job. No researching; no filing; no… field trips. Nothing that is going to help the Institute in any way. […] Because this place is evil, Jon! And so… doing this job… Helping it out… even in small ways, i–is in some way… evil too! Every time we try to use it to do good, it just seems to make everything worse, and… and I will not be a part of that anymore. […] If I’m… just another cog, er… Maybe I can’t leave the machine, but from this moment? I–I–I’m not turning. I’m… jammed.”), and makes me wonder whether Martin and Basira’s ties to Beholding have been more or less protecting them in the apocalypse… Basira said that she thought she had been protected from the first wave because she was in the Institute, and Jon told her he couldn’t ensure her safety if they went their separate ways, and it didn’t prevent Daisy (who had been bound to the Archives by her own archival contract since season 4) from losing herself to The Hunt, but I still wonder if their ties to the Institute will factor in at some point…

- Blowing kisses in Martin’s direction for being a Polite Boy… and also absolutely doing with Salesa what he did with Peter and Simon – he KNOWS how to play older and potentially terrible men like cheap whistles and/or to get information out of them, and how to get them to like him!

(MAG120) MARTIN: W… what… What are you doing here, mister Lukas? PETER: Please, call me Peter. MARTIN: N–no. No, I think I’m okay.

(MAG151) SIMON: Let’s start over. Simon – Simon Fairchild. Peter asked me to look in on you and… have a small chat. Well! A big chat, really. Answer all those… nagging questions. MARTIN: Simon Fairchild. [PAUSE] [NERVOUS CHUCKLE] Wait, “Simon Fairchild” as in… SIMON: As in “all those people who said I did horrible things to them and their loved ones”? Yes. They have been in, haven’t they? I’d hate to think I’m underrepresented in here, not when Peter tells me that that… “bone” fellow has at least half a dozen. MARTIN: N–no, no, [NERVOUS CHUCKLE], not… not at all. Y–you’ve sent plenty of people our way. […] Right. SIMON: Sorry. Too “big” picture? I get that a lot. MARTIN: No, it’s… [INHALE] Thank you. This has… actually been quite helpful.

(MAG181) MARTIN: Uh… Mr.… Salesa? SALESA: Mikaele, please. Come in!

(MAG126) PETER: He managed to convince himself that he could get his ritual off first, which would have made all of this a… bit moot, but that’s not really an option anymore. So it’s down to us. You and me. The dynamic duo.

(MAG151) SIMON: And he’s not at all certain the world as we understand will come out the other side. MARTIN: And let me guess – you think he can’t see the “big picture”? SIMON: [INHALE] I see why he likes you! MARTIN: [SIGH] […] I thought you said that the maths doesn’t work. SIMON: Oh, you are a quick one! […] And this has been fun! [INHALE] Now. [CHAIR SCRAPES ON THE FLOOR] If we’re about done– MARTIN: We’re not. Sit back down. SIMON: Boooold~ [CHUCKLE] [CHAIR SCRAPES ON THE FLOOR] I like it.

(MAG181) MARTIN: Uh… Well, I–I mean, you say that, but when you stop to think about it, it was literally our employer, Jon, so… Mmh! ARCHIVIST: I, I suppose. SALESA: [FRIENDLY CHUCKLES] I like this one! [SHUFFLING] Come on, sit down, have a drink. [CLINKING SOUNDS OF GLASS AND ICE] MARTIN: You’re… sure? What time is it? I– Oh, huh. Huh! I can actually ask that question here! SALESA: You can indeed. MARTIN: And the sun’s high, so… SALESA: Good eye…! Martin, was it? MARTIN: Uh, uh… Yes. […] [SCOFF] In my experience, open books can actually be pretty dangerous…! SALESA: Ha! I do like this one! […] MARTIN: [LAUGHS] So–sorry, sorry! Y–you did look kind of funny, it was… li–like, like you were flunking an exam or something! SALESA: [CHUCKLES] Yes! Exactly that! […] MARTIN: Look, fo–for what it’s worth, I’d, I’d also quite like to know how this all happened? SALESA: … Fine. I’ll tell you how it happened. But you must sit quietly while I tell it.

I love Martin’s ability to get what he wants by weaponising his politeness/social niceties/a sense of familiarity.

- How Dare You, Salesa.

(MAG181) MARTIN: [SCOFF] In my experience, open books can actually be pretty dangerous…! SALESA: Ha! I do like this one! [SOUNDS OF CROCKERY BEING PUT DOWN] Now you mention it, you actually remind me of Jurgen a bit. In his– MARTIN: Ah, uh… SALESA: –younger days of course.

That was SO RUDE (who, in their right mind, would like to be compared to Leitner), and:

* Martin’s comment was quite interesting given that he never got directly involved with a Leitner, unless there is a Secret Story incoming from the time he worked at the Institute library, before the start of the show? But statements-wise (the ones Martin recorded, at least), the “DIG” book from MAG088 hadn’t been identified as such… and Martin had however speculated that Dexter Banks’s book, destroyed by Alexia in MAG110, was “a Leitner”. And it was a Web one.

* Not a direct experience, but he witnessed someone use one:

(MAG158) MARTIN: … That’s a Leitner. PETER: It is! MARTIN: And the, hum… the blood on it? PETER: That’s Leitner too! MARTIN: … Riiight… PETER: Do you want to see how it works? MARTIN: Uh, n–no; no, I’d really rather you didn’t mess it up– PETER: No, I insist! Watch. [SILENCE] MARTIN: Very impressive. PETER: I’m reading. Shush.

… And had been the one to discover the body of Leitner himself, alongside Tim, at the end of MAG080. Martin, especially Martin, wouldn’t want to be compared to Leitner given how he lived his life and how he ended.

* “In my experience, open books can actually be pretty dangerous” says Martin, who WANTED TO TOUCH THE BOOKS:

(MAG113) MARTIN: Ooh! Ooh! There’s a book in this one. ARCHIVIST: [HASTILY] Don’t…. touch it! MARTIN: Ooh… OH! Right. Yes. ARCHIVIST: Let’s… not touch any books we don’t know. MARTIN: Right.

(The books, and the plastic explosive. Arsooooon!)

- … So, Martin hadn’t had a direct first-hand experience of how dangerous ~open books~ could be, but meanwhile, someone who had a direct encounter with a Web one withdrew from the exchange and only chirped in when prompted, and to be distrusting of the Spider person. Jon wasn’t having a perfectly excellent time at the moment, uh?

(MAG181) SALESA: You’re sure you won’t have a drink? We definitely had some tea around here somewhere. MARTIN: Uh, I… already had some, thank you, uh! Some of us know how to be polite guests. 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!

* … I’m REALLY, REALLY, ABSOLUTELY NOT SURPRISED that Jon, especially Jon, would want to avoid any “gift” from a Spider-person, given how 1°) he read enough statements about Hill Top Road to know that Raymond Fielding was making the teenagers eat apples full of spiders to turn them into eggs sacks (don’t accept the Spider’s food!), 2°) it mirrors guests bringing gifts to Mr Spider in the hope of not getting devoured. Was Jon internally panicking during their stay, fearing that Annabelle would take Martin like Mr Spiders had taken the gifts and the people bringing them, including Mr Horse’s son…? (I doubt that Martin made that “guests” comment on purpose; I’m still not sure he knows the details of Jon’s childhood encounter with The Web? He knows that Jon hates spiders and is wary of them, that he has suspicions about Annabelle Cane, but did Jon tell him the whole story about the book?)

* … However, that brings to mind the lighter again: Jon “I don’t intend to accept anything by [Web-related individual]” has kept the Web-design lighter since he realised it had been delivered to him in MAG036, had been unable to question it when prompted by Gerry (MAG111) and Daisy (MAG136), complete with static-indicating-that-something-supernatural-was-going-on in the latter case… So, hum. Jon, your lighter. Think about your lighter, Jon. Was it a gift, and for what, Jon. Is it a 100% Web-flavoured gift, or is there a bit of something else (Desolation, Agnes) in that one making it more acceptable, Jon.

* Uh, so quite strangely, we got confirmation that Annabelle does look like the description we previously had of her, with her head injury:

(MAG069, Darren Harlow) “With a sudden, unexpected motion, he charged at her and slammed his full weight into her side. The attack took her completely off guard and she fell hard against the edge of the broken window, the side of her head making a god awful crunching sound as it hit. […] I looked at the crumpled form of Annabelle Cane just as it started to get back up. I could see the side of her skull had been caved in, and beneath the wet mess of blood and bone, I saw a mass of dull white cobweb.”

(MAG123, Angie Santos) “As he told it, she was young, rail-thin underneath an oversized brown hoodie, which she kept pulled up, trying to cover up a network of pale stitches that stretched over one side of her head. […] All through it, she just kept staring at him, hands pressed into the pockets of her hoodie – occasionally pushing long, spindly fingers out against the fabric, smiling to herself.”

(MAG136, Alison Killala) “It was almost six months ago when the woman came to our door. She looked like a film student, and at first I took her for a fan. […] 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.”

… Which is… rather distinctive, so how come Jon apparently got a bit of trouble recognising her immediately when she opened the door?

(MAG180) [DOOR OPENS] [MUSIC CAN BE HEARD PLAYING MORE CLEARLY] MARTIN: Oh. Oh no, uh… [FOOTSTEPS] ANNABELLE: Good morning. ARCHIVIST: [FAINT GRUNT] MARTIN: Uh… Yes… ANNABELLE: Come on in. He’s waiting for you. ARCHIVIST: Oh. And who exactly– MARTIN: J–J–Jon. Jon. ARCHIVIST: What? MARTIN: I think… Hum… Annabelle? Annabelle Cane? ANNABELLE: Come on. He’s very excited, you know. [FOOTSTEPS AS SHE TURNS TO LEAVE] MARTIN: [FAINT GROAN] So, do we… follow or…? [PIANO CEASES] ARCHIVIST: I… I suppose. [FOOTSTEPS] [DOOR CREAKS] [STATIC RISES ABRUPTLY, WITH A GLITCH, AND FADES] ARCHIVIST: Oh… MARTIN: Oh, hum… ARCHIVIST: Oh. [PIANO RESUMES] [DOOR CLOSES] [FOOTSTEPS ECHOING AS THEY GO] MARTIN: [INHALE] [SIGH] ARCHIVIST: So… Annabelle, what are you playing at, what are you doing here?

Was it Jon recognising her but not making a fuss about it? Being so used to relying on his powers that he didn’t even have the reflex of connecting the dots himself? Was Annabelle’s head covered, or was she showing another side of her head?

- Letting The Web do whatever is confirmed as the most popular tactic to deal with it, uh.

(MAG121) OLIVER: Honestly, I’m… still not exactly sure why I’m here. But… you know better than anyone how the spiders can get into your head. Easier to just do what She asks!

(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]

(MAG148) BASIRA: Or that we were being stalked by some freaky spider woman. Don’t tell me you didn’t know about that! ELIAS: Ah, uh, y–yes… W–well… To be honest, I’d… advise you to leave that one – well alone. BASIRA: Oh yeah? ELIAS: Uh! Look, look, look. I’ve… been doing this a long time now and, if there’s one thing I’ve learned about The Web, it’s that it plays its own game. All you can really do is… hope it doesn’t get in the way of whatever your plan is. Because the Spider usually wins…!

(MAG150) ARCHIVIST: 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.

(MAG181) SALESA: Of course I know she’s with The Web. ARCHIVIST: … And that doesn’t bother you? SALESA: Not especially. And even if it did, what good would it do? MARTIN: … Uh, so what’s the deal with you two anyway? SALESA: It’s an odd situation, but not a complicated one. Shortly after I decided to stay here, she arrived; wandered in from the chaos out there and told me she was going to stay with me. I didn’t get this far by pitting myself against The Web, so I welcomed her in. ARCHIVIST: … “And”? SALESA: And sometimes she cooks. ARCHIVIST: She “cooks”? 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…! […] She keeps… mostly to herself, and when she does talk, it’s usually more of the sinister monologue variety– MARTIN: Ah! SALESA: –or cryptically telling me I’ve got “guests”…! […] ARCHIVIST: I… It’s going to be difficult to relax, with a spider lurking around. MARTIN: [SIGH] SALESA: … It gets easier with practice.

I mean, as mentioned by Salesa, there is still the risk that Annabelle will kill him or make him suffer worse, and has just been using him for her own goals… But also: not worrying about it means not feeding The Web? Unlike Jon, who spiralled so heavily into paranoia during season 4, worried about being trapped in The Web’s plans, about being potentially influenced and threatened by it.

I love how Salesa depicts Annabelle’s arrival and behaviour towards him: it’s… absolutely spider-like? She entered the house, made herself at home (she even has a “nest”), and gets rid of the insects. She had told Martin&Jon that Salesa was waiting for them:

(MAG180) ANNABELLE: Come on in. He’s waiting for you. […] I’m just helping out around the place a little bit. Making myself at home. You know how it is. MARTIN: … Jon, I don’t like this. ANNABELLE: You can relax, Mr. Blackwood. You’re safe here. […] Well. There you go, then! Just in here. [OPENS THE DOOR] Your guests are here, Mikaele. [PIANO CEASES] SALESA: Hoo-hoo-hoo! Excellent! Come in, come in! Ah, a pleasure to meet both of you. Thank you, Annabelle! ANNABELLE: You’re quite welcome. [PIANO RESUMES] Have fun.

… but it was initially her who just Informed Salesa That Yep, He Has Guests Coming, Lucky You, and Salesa rolled with it.

- On the one hand, Salesa is going with the flow hoping that Annabelle doesn’t intend to make him suffer much even if she needs/wants him dead, and sounds pretty rational about it… But on the other hand, OOFT, BIG RED FLAG that Salesa, who sounds like his situation is still on his terms… was and is at the same time shown as a heavy drinker, who could potentially die from over-consumption:

(MAG141) FLOYD: He was drunk for the next two days, and we kept sailing on towards Cape Town. We no longer had anything to deliver there, but no-one was really sure what else to do. Whenever there’d been similar disasters before, Salesa was quick to make a new plan, let Captain Gaultier know what the next steps were. It was one of the reasons the crew trusted him so much. He just always seemed to know what we needed to do next. This time, though… felt different. He was distant, quiet. His words, when he spoke to you at all, were blurred with alcohol and regret. Nobody knew what the plan was, so we just kept going.

(MAG181) SALESA: Well Martin. It’s about ten in the morning, more or less. [PAUSE BUT FOR CLOCK TICKING IN THE BACKGROUND] MARTIN: … And you’re drinking. SALESA: Of course! Even in my little bubble of peace, I find drinking after dark leads to some rather morbid thoughts. […] 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. [MORE CLINKING GLASS AND ICE] No reason to not live the apocalypse in style…! [STIRRING NOISES] 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. Anyway, no more stories, I think. Let us relax, and talk, and drink […].

Which. Is self-destructive on its own, and clearly indicating that Salesa hasn’t been quite as fine as he likes to pretend (assuming his role, hiding himself behind it with his friendliness and knack for stories), but also concerning when associated with Annabelle’s presence:

(MAG147, Annabelle Cane) “Looking back, of course… and remembering the crunch of used syringes beneath my feet, I realise that addiction… is one of the strongest vectors of control there is.”

We-oops.

- Did Annabelle gossip about Jon&Martin here and there?

(MAG181) SALESA: 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…! […] You know, Gertrude once used that little trick to ask if I was trying to sell her a forgery? Admittedly I was, so I don’t hold a grudge; but I didn’t much care for the experience. Anyway.

He knew about the compulsion from Gertrude, as well as the nightmares induced by giving a statement (MAG115: “So I suppose if it’s a statement you’re wanting… it’s no inconvenience to me. I don’t sleep well anyway.”), Annabelle apparently introduced Jon&Martin a bit (and had warned him that they would pass out when entering his “little bubble”)… but what about Jon’s title as “Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, London”? It was Jon’s way of introducing statements from season 1 to 3, not Gertrude’s (“Gertrude Robinson recording.”)

Did Annabelle make him listen to a few tapes? Specifically the ones about Salesa? Or did she report the way Jon used to introduce himself, a lot, to the point of Salesa internalising it as a way to chide and make fun of Jon?

- Oh JON…

(MAG181) ARCHIVIST: What is this place, how did you find it? SALESA: [SLIGHTLY CURT] I didn’t find anything. I made it. ARCHIVIST: [COMPELLINGLY] Tell me what happened. SALESA: … “No”. ARCHIVIST: I– Uh… Wh… Wh–what? SALESA: [DEEP AND LONG CHUCKLES] The look on your face! [CHUCKLES] Look, he’s so confused! MARTIN: [LAUGHS] ARCHIVIST: Martin! MARTIN: [LAUGHS] So–sorry, sorry! Y–you did look kind of funny, it was… li–like, like you were flunking an exam or something! SALESA: [CHUCKLES] Yes! Exactly that! MARTIN: [CHUCKLES] SALESA: Your powers won’t work here, Jonathan Sims, Head-Archivist-of-the-Magnus-Institute-London! The Eye can’t see this place…! [SILENCE BUT FOR CLOCK TICKING IN THE BACKGROUND] ARCHIVIST: … So what now? SALESA: Ah, no need for the suspicion, I’m not going to hurt you…! You’re quite safe! I’ll tell you soon enough; like I said, I have no secrets. But it will be… in my own time. ARCHIVIST: … Right. SALESA: You know, Gertrude once used that little trick to ask if I was trying to sell her a forgery? Admittedly I was, so I don’t hold a grudge; but I didn’t much care for the experience. Anyway. For now, just relax, and no doubt I’ll get there eventually; I haven’t had anyone to talk to properly in months! MARTIN: I thought… What about Annabelle? SALESA: She keeps… mostly to herself, and when she does talk, it’s usually more of the sinister monologue variety– MARTIN: Ah! SALESA: –or cryptically telling me I’ve got “guests”…! MARTIN: Uh…! Yeah, that sounds familiar. ARCHIVIST: I’m trying to be less cryptic…! MARTIN: I know, I know.

* That was incredibly rude of Jon, technically, so I laughed altogether with Salesa&Martin! Jon… is not used to people refusing to answer anymore, uh? But, on the other hand: YIKES that Jon is not used to people refusing to answer him and that he would try to rely on his compulsion… on someone who had been pretty chill and friendly so far, and wasn’t actively hiding anything or saying that some topics were forbidden. Jon was cut from The Eye in there, so it’s really… him, and him alone, who still has the reflex to ask / order people to give him an answer? It’s him and him alone trying to rely on his powers to gain control of a situation, when said powers weren’t currently influencing him? He wasn’t asking/ordering for The Eye or pushed by The Eye? I wonder if the few days he spent in the house helped him a bit to think about the habits he grew as Archivist, what had become a reflex that he had to let go of…

* Keyboardsmashing over Salesa cheerfully explaining that Gertrude had compelled him to check if he was trying to swindle her, and that he was, so he found it fair. Though, “I don’t hold a grudge”: he might have been a bit more pissed at the moment? I remember his MAG115 statement, where he was clearly annoyed and frustrated and toying with her, after one of his artefacts caused damage in the Institute – I like the permanent ambiguity, in Salesa’s words, making you wondering if he’s absolutely sincere… or “playing his role” of the good-natured and jovial merchant, who does awful things but is above feelings like regrets, heartbreaks or annoyance. There is definitely a bit of unreliable narrator vibe to his whole persona?

* Sarcasm was through the roof, tho (Annabelle’s knitting accident, Jon’s face when failing to compel, Annabelle being cryptic), but AHAH for Martin joining him – he’s getting to see many new deluxe Jon faces! (Pretty sure Martin must have found Jon’s bewilderment super cute?)

- I love how Martin can be laughing and the instant afterwards be firm about words that could cross a line:

(MAG181) SALESA: So what’s it like out there? I assume the Archivist must be a rather… powerful position, since you seem to be travelling through it pretty freely? ARCHIVIST: It’s, uh… Uh… Hum… MARTIN: … Jon? ARCHIVIST: Uh, sorry, I–I just, uh… Hmm. MARTIN: Uh, i–it’s bad. Really bad. [SIGH] It’s, it’s all carved up between the powers, and everyone has just been, sort of… scooped up and chucked into their deepest fears, it’s just… it’s just nightmare after nightmare after nightmare, and… I… uh… Why are you smiling? SALESA: I’m sorry. You’re quite right, it’s inappropriate. It’s simply… [INHALE] I have spent the last decade preparing for this to happen. Not just something like this, but almost exactly this situation. There was every chance, in fact, the great likelihood… that I was wasting my time, and throwing away years of my life on a ridiculous precaution. But I was right. I. Was. Right. … And now here I am, safe, warm and comfortable while out there the whole world screams! I don’t mean to sound… uh, uh, a–as if I’m happy that people are suffering– MARTIN: Good, ‘cause it does sound a bit like that. SALESA: … Then I apologise. I’m just not sure I can fully communicate the sense of… of vindication that I feel, all those long nights I spent wondering if I was paranoid or overreacting. But no! I am here. And I am safe. MARTIN: [SIGH] I mean… I guess that makes sense?

* So, unlike other avatars, who were able to tell on sight that Jon had a “powerful position” in the new order, Salesa deduced it from facts! That was a nice touch.

* … Worried over the fact that Jon… didn’t seem able to describe the apocalypse spontaneously. Was he trying to “know” about it from inside the house, once again hitting a blank wall, just like when he tried to compel Salesa? Has he lost the habit of just… storing, remembering and using information regarding what he experienced? It’s interesting that there was no static at all during the whole exchange: Jon was indeed unable to use his powers there.

* LOVE HOW QUICKLY MARTIN REACTED when he saw Salesa’s reaction; Martin was probably gauging him? He had been quick to ask for smiting (and was even planning for the possibility when they were at the door of the house), so… did Salesa dodge a bullet. (Martin, please.)

* Salesa has been shown to be quite prideful, uh? “I made it”, “it will be… in my own time”, “I was right”… (And I can’t tell whether he’s absolutely sincere about that pride! Is it, genuinely, an absolute comfort, or is he grasping at straws because what’s the point of being right when you’re alone and basically waiting for your death with a few luxuries?)

- So, confirmation that Annabelle does know about their journey! It was rather obvious but technically… we didn’t know for sure, since Martin had bullshitted a bit when reporting her words to Jon:

(MAG166) MARTIN: Just, what do you want? ANNABELLE: I want to help you, of course. [SILENCE] MARTIN: … No. Thank you. ANNABELLE: It’s a hard place to find yourself in, maybe I can be of some… assistance…! MARTIN: You can assist me by giving the… “creepy phone” thing a rest…! ANNABELLE: He is more powerful here than he’s ever been, isn’t he? [PAUSE] And you’re not sure what that means for you. MARTIN: [INHALE] I’m hanging up now. ANNABELLE: Does he even need you at all?

(MAG167) ARCHIVIST: Help us with what? MARTIN: ‘xcuse me? ARCHIVIST: Annabelle, help us with “what”? Our–our, our journey, killing Elias, vanishing the Entities – what? […] So. What did Annabelle say? MARTIN: 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.

(MAG181) SALESA: So what of you two, what, what, wh–where are you going? You seem to be travelling with some purpose…! ARCHIVIST: Did Annabelle not tell you that? SALESA: She said you were travelling to the Tower, the, hm, “Panopticon”, she called it? Whatever that might be; she didn’t say what for. [SUSPICIOUSLY] Nothing that might cause me trouble, I hope? MARTIN: We’re going to try and end this. Turn the world back. ARCHIVIST: Martin…! MARTIN: Wh–what? Okay; maybe he can help. We could use some support and it’s, it’s not like he wants the world to stay like this either! SALESA: You are right. To a point. [INHALE] I would welcome a return to the real world. Eh! To be the only man to weather the greatest disaster in history of reality, utterly unharmed… What an achievement that would be, quite the boast! But alas, no, [INHALE] I can’t help you. MARTIN: What? Why not? SALESA: I have nothing to offer. Well, except perhaps some… basic provisions. I have food, drink, a few luxuries, but none of that would help you out there, and I’m certainly not going to follow you. No, I think the best thing I can do is to welcome you to stay in my sanctuary as long as you wish…!

* Annabelle at least knew their destination already; which means she might have a good eye on the map, and would know that (according to real-world geography) they’re also coming closer to Hill Top Road…? Also: was she expecting them to change their mind about their initial plans to turn the world back? Or did she not tell Salesa because she assumed it was doomed already, or in order to not worry Salesa too much?

* … I keep hearing Salesa and going “Welp, that’s someone who is VERY depressed and also good at hiding it”: the way he jumped with such curiosity and passion on Martin&Jon’s current journey, the fact that they had a “purpose”? It feels to me like someone who currently doesn’t have any, is missing company, and wants to hear about anything that could manage to break his routine.

* Martin had mentioned with Helen already that they were lacking allies, and he&Jon just separated from Basira… So he really craves any help they could get, uh… AND AT THE SAME TIME: Martin is very good at weaving truths when he’s trying to manipulate people; he did that with Elias to make Elias accept (/feel like he had decided) that Martin would stay behind at the Institute in MAG116, he did that with Peter all through season 4 (believing in The Extinction, wanting to stop it… but also, loathing Peter and refusing to serve his plans)… so was he trying to do the same with Salesa, sneaking into his good graces and pretending to be absolutely transparent, nothing to hide sir!, before evaluating whether Salesa was a threat to be disposed of or just harmless?

- … So, Annabelle had been there for at least a month, so she definitely banked on them finding this place on their way… or did she find ways to influence their journey in order for them to walk by the house…?

(MAG181) SALESA: It’s an odd situation, but not a complicated one. Shortly after I decided to stay here, she arrived; wandered in from the chaos out there and told me she was going to stay with me. I didn’t get this far by pitting myself against The Web, so I welcomed her in. […] ARCHIVIST: … Alright, I… [INHALE] I guess we can stay. Just for a bit. SALESA: Excellent, ah! I haven’t had guests since the world ended. ARCHIVIST: [FLAT] Lovely. SALESA: Oh, saying that, I suppose there was that insect thing that stumbled in here a month or so back… MARTIN: Oh, uh, uh, in–“insect thing”? SALESA: Some creature of the Crawling Rot. Anyway, it didn’t actually make it into the house before Annabelle managed to get rid of it. So, I refuse to count it as a guest. MARTIN: Mmm. ARCHIVIST: I suppose that makes sense…! SALESA: Of course, I can’t actually stop things crossing the border into my hideaway, as you both discovered. Another reason I’m content to leave Annabelle to whatever schemes she might be weaving.

Or did she influence Salesa in taking residence there? The fact that he would be there and that Jon&Martin would come close enough for Jon to notice that the whole area was weird (and that they both agreed to take a look) is… a lot of coincidences. Jon “baited” Basira when they were close enough, and they then hunted Daisy; and as for Helen, she has been explicitly following them – those weren’t coincidences, but intended. On the other hand, the current layout is a bit more suspicious?

… It also takes us back to the start, for a Web-affiliated person to go against a Corruption-thing. We had witnessed this since season 1: spiders attracted by worms because they’re food (as Martin suspected in Carlos Vittery’s building), a spider warning Jon of the incoming Prentiss attack (end of MAG038), big spiders eating worm corpses in the tunnels under the Institute…

(… Salesa mentioned that Annabelle was cooking, WHAT IS SHE COOKING. DID SHE COOK THE CORRUPTION THING… DID SHE FEED THEM ALL WITH THE CORRUPTION THING…)

- Aaaaah, I’m having so many feelings over Jon asking so many questions and being so curious!!

(MAG181) ARCHIVIST: What is… this place? SALESA: I just told you. It’s my little bubble. My silver lining on an otherwise cloudy day. ARCHIVIST: [HUFF] That’s not an answ– SALESA: Now tell me […]. ARCHIVIST: … So, you wouldn’t mind answering a few questions? SALESA: [SIPPING FOLLOWED BY CONTENTED SIGH] … I am an open book. […] ARCHIVIST: What is this place, how did you find it? SALESA: [SLIGHTLY CURT] I didn’t find anything. I made it. ARCHIVIST: [COMPELLINGLY] Tell me what happened. SALESA: … “No”. ARCHIVIST: I– Uh… Wh… Wh–what? […] How big is your safe zone, is it… is it always the same size? H… How did this happen? SALESA: [CHUCKLES] Look at him! Not three days without his master spooning knowledge into his head, and he can’t bear it! I thought ignorance was meant to be bliss? ARCHIVIST: [FRUSTRATED SOUND]

Same as last episode, that was Jon! It was Jon being himself and curious… Georgie had pointed out that it was Jon’s personality (MAG093: “If your job is asking questions, I mean. You were always the one who pushed too far, and asked smart-arse, awkward questions. I always was surprised you never got punched.”), even before the influence of The Eye – and now, we have the additional dimension that Jon might have grown a bit too accustomed to, indeed, Knowing things, and to getting people to answer him whenever needed or desired… But still. It feels like he was back to his roots?

(And Salesa was doing his best to frustrate him, cutting him off or commenting on it, pfft.)

- While Jon was more pressuring and blunt, I’m reeling over Martin who sugarcoated his approach a bit (joking with Salesa, sometimes agreeing with him or not antagonising him too much while having clear limits)… and got Salesa to give up his story:

(MAG181) SALESA: Of course I know she’s with The Web. ARCHIVIST: … And that doesn’t bother you? SALESA: Not especially. And even if it did, what good would it do? MARTIN: … Uh, so what’s the deal with you two anyway? […] Mm-mm… SALESA: … Anyway. Let us talk of happier things, or perhaps just take a moment to enjoy not being out there…! You are, of course, welcome to stay as long as you like. MARTIN: Uh, that’s… very generous…! […] I thought… What about Annabelle? SALESA: She keeps… mostly to herself, and when she does talk, it’s usually more of the sinister monologue variety– MARTIN: Ah! SALESA: –or cryptically telling me I’ve got “guests”…![…] I am here. And I am safe. MARTIN: [SIGH] I mean… I guess that makes sense? […] SALESA: No, I think the best thing I can do is to welcome you to stay in my sanctuary as long as you wish…! MARTIN: … Oh, well. [EXHALE] Thank you. I–I think we just might. Jon? […] Look, fo–for what it’s worth, I’d, I’d also quite like to know how this all happened? SALESA: … Fine. I’ll tell you how it happened. But you must sit quietly while I tell it. MARTIN: [CHUCKLE] Don’t worry, I have had lots of practice. SALESA: … And you? ARCHIVIST: [DISGRUNTLED SOUND] MARTIN: He’ll behave. SALESA: … My story is not a long one.

(GRUMPY JON WAS SO CUTE… JUST LIKE AN ANNOYED CAT…)

Martin has had experience with Peter and Simon, knows how to be strategical, and it worked. Salesa was clearly craving to give his story, to be the centre of the attention (the main star of the show?), and Martin… played the right cards to get him there?

There was no static, Salesa pointed out that Jon couldn’t use his Eye powers here, Salesa insisted that his statement was on his own terms… but I still wonder if he wasn’t compelled a bit? We didn’t learn much, it had a bit more flourish than our usual (but it’s not unheard of: avatars were shown to be very happy to portray themselves at their best during them), there were some potentially unreliable bits here and there (not unheard of either), but it was also… pretty coherent. Flowing naturally. A long tirade going straight to the points.

Could Salesa have been influenced by Martin? Simon had made it clear that Beholding had compelled him (through Martin) to give him his piece. Or was it… the tape recorder, somehow? It turned on when Jon&Martin were arriving (so, when a discussion would happen), and turned off after Salesa was done:

(MAG181) SALESA: Anyway, no more stories, I think. Let us relax, and talk, and drink, and… not worry about who might be… listening. [CLICK.]

So it was there for Salesa’s statement. Did it compel him?

- I like how we technically didn’t learn much through Salesa’s statement! Well, not much factual info, at least: we already had gotten a recent-ish written statement from him (MAG115, from January 2007); we knew that he had been Leitner’s assistant and had fled when he understood what Leitner was dealing in, that he initially mostly wanted to use his list of clients and had ended up dealing in supernatural artefacts almost coincidentally, that he let (rich) people acquire the artefacts they wanted and too bad for them if they caused them misery, that he was getting angstier between 2011 and 2014, culminating in the last mission to retrieve the camera, and that he had then vanished, presumed dead.

But I feel like we mostly learnt about his personality, in contrast to MAG115 (in which he was a bit more on the defensive, given that the Institute and/or Gertrude was going at him for a Slaughter artefact that had… got out of control) and MAG141, in which Floyd Matharu, who clearly kinda liked and respected him (“He was a good boss.”), had given us another look on Salesa: someone who was tired, who had lost people and was growing tired of this life. I find it really interesting to compare MAG141 and MAG181 since, in this episode, Salesa is clearly putting on a show of his own story:

(MAG141) FLOYD: Once found him pouring over an old photo album. The ship was there in the pictures, but a different captain, different crew. I asked him who they were, and he just looked at me, eyes sunken like he hadn’t slept, and for a second I felt like he was seeing someone else, not me. But then he just shrugged. “Dead now,” he said, “doesn’t really matter.” […] I followed slowly, unsteadily, but got there just in time to see Salesa throw both him and what looked like a blank rug over the side and into the ocean. Then he collapsed against the railing, a look of intense exhaustion passing over his face, and I left him there. He was drunk for the next two days, and we kept sailing on towards Cape Town. We no longer had anything to deliver there, but no-one was really sure what else to do. Whenever there’d been similar disasters before, Salesa was quick to make a new plan, let Captain Gaultier know what the next steps were. It was one of the reasons the crew trusted him so much. He just always seemed to know what we needed to do next. This time, though… felt different. He was distant, quiet. His words, when he spoke to you at all, were blurred with alcohol and regret. Nobody knew what the plan was, so we just kept going.

(MAG181) SALESA: But the years, they wear on you, and as I talked to more and more people versed in that secret world, more acolytes and would-be cultists about “rituals” and “destinies”, I began to come to a conclusion. As the number of people in the world grew, and the amount of fear grew with it, I began to become convinced that it was only a matter of time before one of them… succeeded. Before the world was transformed into… Well. You’d know better than me…! So I began to plan for my… retirement. I spent most of my fortune preparing. Some on supplies, but mostly hunting down an artifact that I hoped might give me some… protection. One I had sold right at the start of my career: an old broken camera. One that through some… quirk had the ability to hide you from the Powers…! […] Staging my death was a… comparative, erm, afterthought. In some ways… just a happy accident. And so I waited, and lived out my days in comfort. For the longest time I thought that, well… maybe I had simply entered normal retirement really dramatically! But then… well… I was right.

* “a happy accident”, says the person living with a Web person who knew he was there and threw Jon&Martin at him. (What happened, back then? Why the explosion, why did Gaultier report that they had been “betrayed”? Was someone else after Salesa, or “helped” him hide? If Gertrude was behind the explosion, it would have been mentioned at this point… Was it Annabelle, to ensure that Salesa would be a reliable trump card in the apocalypse?)

* It had been addressed during Arthur and Gertrude’s discussion, and has been a reccurring theme in the series: who really are these characters?

(MAG145) GERTRUDE: What was Agnes like? ARTHUR: … What? GERTRUDE: Well, for all The Web bound us together, I never actually met her. What was she like? ARTHUR: I… [PAUSE] I don’t know. Not really. You got as many answers to that as… folks who met her. Never really knew what she felt ‘bout any of it! Not really. Not in her own words. Guess that’s the thing about being the… Chosen One, or… I mean, Agnes was always quiet; but even if you spend all day, every day, throwing out commandments and… laying down parables… At the end of it, you’re always just the… point of someone else’s story. Everyone clamouring to say what you were, what you meant, and… your thoughts on it… all don’t mean nothing.

Is the real Salesa the self-serving and self-centred man who explained his story to Jon and Martin, all about money and then self-preservation, not giving any retrospective thought about his crew and the people who were following his orders and yet died because of it? Is the real Salesa the “good boss” Floyd had described, who was clearly nostalgic and affected by the losses throughout his life (why keep pictures of the deceased, if they hadn’t mattered at all)? Or is the truth somewhere within the mix, every statement a bit of it – how these characters used to be perceived, how they want to be perceived right now, how they acted then and how they act now?

* There is a bit of a parallel with Jonah, with the way both reached the fatalistic conclusion that someone would eventually manage to bring forth the apocalypse:

(MAG160, Jonah Magnus) “Why does a man seek to destroy the world? It’s a simple enough answer: for immortality, and power. Uninspired, perhaps, but – my God! The discovery, not simply of the dark and horrible reality of the world in which you live, but that you would quite willingly doom that world and confine the billions in it to an eternity of terror and suffering, all to ensure your own happiness; to place yourself beyond pain, and death, and fear. It is an awful thing to know about yourself, but the freedom, Jon, the freedom of it all…! I have dedicated my life to handing the world to these Dread Powers, all for my own gain, and I feel… nothing but satisfaction, in that choice. […] Of course, this desire did not manifest overnight. When Smirke first gathered our little band – Lukas, Scott and the rest – to discuss and hypothesise on the nature of the things he had learned from Rayner… I felt what I believe we all felt: curiosity, and fear. But as he compiled his taxonomy and codified his theories on the grand rituals, I began to develop a very specific concern. Smirke was still so obsessed with his ideas on balance, even as our fellows began to experiment and fall to the service of their patrons: I began to worry that if one of them successfully attempted their ritual, then I would be as much a victim as any, trapped in the nightmare landscape of a twisted world. At first, I attempted prevention, but the cause seemed hopeless. The only way to ensure I did not suffer the tribulations of what I believed to be… an inevitable transformation, was to bring it about myself. So what began as an experiment… soon became a race.”

Both came to the conclusion that an apocalypse would be likely to happen, and both of them worked on a way to mitigate the effects for them and them only, instead of ensuring that others wouldn’t succeed. … And in both cases, it doesn’t feel like they realised how they might have been used rather than in control: Jonah could have just NOT LAUNCHED ANY RITUAL when he discovered that anyway, a ritual would never work unless all the Fears were to be brought through together; and Salesa… had a few holes in his story? Admitted that there was an “accident” leading to his official death, allowing him to go into hiding? Is drinking heavily while having a Web-person as housemate, who explained how “addiction is one of the strongest vectors of control there is”?

- I wonder whether Salesa knew what had truly happened to Leitner, or not at all?

(MAG181) SALESA: … My story is not a long one. Not the parts that you care about, at least. The Powers I first learned about from Jurgen Leitner – you’re familiar with him? Then I don’t need to explain further. When I say I was one of his assistants, you know exactly the kind of education that would be. Terrifying, fascinating, misguided. The man was a genius, and an idiot. It didn’t take me long to see what he was blind to his whole life: that trying to control the Fears was a good way to get yourself killed, or worse. … I left long before he got what was coming to him, and tried to forget what I knew.

He probably assumed that Leitner had died when his library was attacked? Not brutally pipe-murdered by Elias.

(And sidenote, but: Salesa wasn’t presented as an avatar but he also joins the list of people in season 5 not even mentioning Jonah at all as an agent who matters, while Jon was identified as A Big Deal in the apocalypse. I don’t know if Jonah is still in any state to know and watch these things (merged with the Panopticon? Trapped within his old decaying body at the centre of the tower?), and he was certainly not able to see anything inside of the camera’s domain, but I hope that it Stings.)

- I’m not so surprised that Annabelle and Salesa seem to be getting along, since they both sound aware of their “role” in the overall narrative frame:

(MAG147, Annabelle Cane) “Now, I believe the tradition is to tell you the story of my life; the sinister path that led me inevitably to the sorry state in which I now find myself. Well, let it never be said I do not dance the steps I am assigned.”

(MAG181) SALESA: I lived my life, and I lived it well – successful, wealthy, and a little bit feared…! Smuggler to the rich and famous! There wasn’t an art dealer or curator out there who didn’t pretend not to know me! But the trouble is, once you’ve seen backstage, it’s hard to believe in the show anymore. You understand, I’m sure. You can never quite shake off the desire to have a peek…! To see what’s waiting in the wings…! […] Again, I made a lot of money, and remained untouched. It’s the sort of thing to set a man thinking about his life, you understand? I began to think hard about the world, about my place within it, and about fear! About the figure of the merchant, the trader who deals in strange and dangerous goods – how it can be found in so many myths and fables, dealing in second-hand nightmares. And how rarely the merchant themself is ever punished in those stories. […] To tell you the truth, I got a real kick out of playing my role. To think of myself as a purveyor of curses, walking softly through the most dangerous edges of reality, so that the rich and arrogant could buy their own doom.

(+ in some ways, Peter, too: “Thinking about it now, perhaps one of the reasons I lasted as long as I did was that I was, at the end of the day, predictable. A ‘known quantity’. I had my little patch, sending my poor lost sailors to their Forsaken end, but I rarely stepped outside of it. When I think of all those I met who travelled in this secret world we found ourselves in – Gertrude, Simon, Mikaele, even Rayner… there are plenty whose lives might well have been easier with my death, but it was rare that I strayed outside my habits.” (MAG159))

- So, who was the thing/person Salesa was “working for”?

(MAG181) SALESA: Sometimes people would come to me for solutions, protections or talismans to ward off the attention they had already called down on themselves. I sometimes did what I could to help, but I had to be careful. I could never afford to forget who I actually was working for.

Himself? The Fears, given how he made them more impactful by digging out and spreading cursed artefacts?

(Also, aaaah, I’m guessing that Noriega had been asking for help, back in MAG016, while he was suffering from Angela’s curse and had met with Salesa…)

- Salesa reminded me a bit of Leitner, and he would haaaaaaaaaaaate it? Leitner also wanted to take on a “role” and it… had backfired very badly:

(MAG080) LEITNER: I… thought that I could control them. That I alone had the knowledge to contain them. Back then, I believed they were simply books. Horrifying, powerful, yes; but with rules, limits that could be charted. … I was a fool. I had no idea what forces lay behind them, or that they had other servants that might come searching. […] I saw myself as a guardian, a reverse Pandora, gathering the evils of the world and locking them away. And so I branded them with my seal. I told myself that if any should escape such a mark could help me retrieve them. But I think, in my heart, I dreamed of my work becoming known. That “The Library of Jurgen Leitner” would stand as a symbol of courage and protection. Hubris. I suppose it is fitting punishment that my name has become a watchword for evil, spoken by those who only know it as marking the darkest, most terrible of secrets. My name has become a curse.

Is the merchant truly never punished in all these stories? Quite clearly, Salesa has it waaay better than the people out there (he’s not trapped in a personal nightmares, forced to relive terrible experiences over and over again)… but it’s also such an empty existence, with him having become what he used to loathe – as someone who felt like he was punishing the rich, he’s now living in luxury (Upton House, playing the piano, listening to classical music, drinking alcohol in the morning in nice crockery and assuming that said alcohol might end up killing him)…

- Aaaah, I love how the way the camera works does feel like it makes sense within that universe:

(MAG181) SALESA: So I began to plan for my… retirement. I spent most of my fortune preparing. Some on supplies, but mostly hunting down an artifact that I hoped might give me some… protection. One I had sold right at the start of my career: 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. But in this new world, I would hope it has other things to keep itself busy. […] 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.

I also like that… just like a regular camera, it puts some distance between the one who is protected and anybody else, cutting them from reality. It explains why everything went to hell on that island after they took the camera (MAG141) and might be a curse in itself: feeding from the fears of the people into hiding… and anticipating their demise? (We also got told how Salesa could “end”, if it happens offscreen: if Annabelle’s plan is to use the camera without him… either she’ll be charitable and kill him, or tell him in advance for him to kill himself beforehand, either she will just leave with the camera, and Salesa will have it worse than everyone else.)

Also explains why Jon didn’t “know” anything about Salesa’s fate after talking with Floyd, and why he might have been drawn to him? Since he was a blind spot for Beholding, someone hidden from it. It’s quite interesting that we’ve seen so many different ways to get a (temporary or permanent) protection from Beholding? Gertrude was cutting eyes from pictures all around her (and Elias admitted that she had grown quite good at hiding from him); Leitner had the A Disappearance book, preventing Elias and Beholding from seeing him; Eric and Melanie discovered that gouging out their eyes freed them from the Archives; and now, Salesa pointed out that the camera was even specifically anti-Eye – thus, Jon not being able to use his powers around it… Was it initially a Dark artefact? Or an Eye one, just with a delayed reaction (as the fear of “being watched, being followed, having your deepest secrets exposed”)?

- CRIES, because it was to be expected that Jon wouldn’t fare for long in this place:

(MAG181) [PACKING NOISES] MARTIN: You’re sure we can’t stay longer? ARCHIVIST: Yes, I–I–I’ve been, hum… Uh, these last few days I–I’ve been… getting weaker. Dizzy spells, vagueness, you’ve seen it. Being cut off from the Eye, i–it’s not good for me. MARTIN: Yeah, but if… [INHALE] If you’re that connected, that… dependent, what happens if we actually, y’know, do manage to– ARCHIVIST: We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. For now, I just need us to be moving on. MARTIN: Hm… […] Feeling better? ARCHIVIST: Uh… Yeah. I’m afraid I am…!

And he reminded me a lot of how he sounded during his partial withdrawal (from live statements), in the second half of season 4: raspier voice, tiredness, the feeling unwell…

(MAG150) ARCHIVIST: … Still feeling weak. Restless. I want to be proactive, but there hasn’t…! That hasn’t been going quite so well for us lately.

(MAG152) HELEN: Hungry, are we~? ARCHIVIST: That’s not…! I haven’t done anything– HELEN: Yet. [SILENCE] ARCHIVIST: I feel like if I don’t… I might die. Fade away into nothing.

(MAG154) MARTIN: No, ’t’s fine, I ju– You just surprised me, that’s… Jesus, you all right? You… you look like hell. ARCHIVIST: Oh! Uh, right, I, em… ki–kind of weak. Hungry, I–I guess, sort of. I–I’ve been trying to a–avoid, being, hum… Sticking to old statements?

(MAG155) ARCHIVIST: I feel weak. Like I’m… fading away. Do I restrain myself, keep my appetite in check, even at the cost of my life? Or do I try to rationalise what I am, like… Ms. McHugh? I find myself… hating her, her… callous self-deception. But am I so different…?

Except that, back then, Martin hadn’t directly witnessed it – Jon went without statements after MAG159, for three weeks at most (after taking Peter’s live statement), and he sounded mostly fine if eager to read when they received Basira’s statements. Here, it feels like Jon’s degrading state went much quicker and more impressively… and it was a reminder of Jon’s connection to The Eye. Jon cut the conversation short, but they really will have to talk about it, and about how setting the world back, as of now, really sounds incompatible with Jon’s survival…

(Sob at Jon’s “moving on”, because it echoed MAG180’s title: back then, “moving on” had given the feeling of… reaching another chapter, accelerating after a stagnation? But now, “moving on” means returning to the apocalypse, the Fears, their journey towards the Panopticon, and did they learn anything that could help their quest inside of the house? The camera could be useful, maybe, but then…)

-I am HOWLING at Martin’s outburst of rage towards Annabelle because AHAHAH, who used to accept her tea and be a ~polite guest~?

(MAG181) SALESA: Did you sleep well? Have you had something to eat? Annabelle said she’d shown you the pantry? […] You’re sure you won’t have a drink? We definitely had some tea around here somewhere. MARTIN: Uh, I… already had some, thank you, uh! Some of us know how to be polite guests. ARCHIVIST: [SHARPLY] I don’t intend to accept anything offered by Annabelle Cane. […] [FOOTSTEPS] [A DOOR CREAKS OPEN] ANNABELLE: All packed? ARCHIVIST: Mm. MARTIN: Oh! Finally showing your face? ANNABELLE: I’m sure I don’t know what you mean. MARTIN: Oh, pffft! All week, you scuttle around with… with food and drinks and all that other stuff, whatever we need, and just when we need it, but if we actually try to talk to you, you’re gone. ANNABELLE: [SMILINGLY] I’m very busy…! ARCHIVIST: Martin, don’t… bother, we–we’re not going to get any answers out of her. MARTIN: You–you’re joking, right? She’s been lurking at the edges of this whole thing since the beginning, and now we can finally actually talk to her, and…! What, you’re just going to pass? You don’t have any questions, nothing at all?

WHO usually provides food and drinks to get some results with people?

(MAG053) MARTIN: I was just going down to the café, did you want a sandwich? ARCHIVIST: Uh, that, that depends. Are you… hum, are you going to keep hovering around me if I go to the canteen? MARTIN: [SIGH] I just worry. You needed five stitches after you “accidentally” stabbed yourself with a breadknife. If you’re still claiming that’s what happened. ARCHIVIST: I am. MARTIN: Then you’ll forgive me for worrying when you use sharp knives. ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] Fine. I’ll come with, just… give me a second to grab my coat.

(MAG069) MARTIN: … Look. Jon… when was the last time we all just… talked? Just talked, without all of this– ARCHIVIST: Thank you for the tea, Martin. MARTIN: … Oookay. Fine. [DOOR OPENS] He’s not wrong, you know. [DOOR CLOSES]

Annabelle is just doing The Usual Martin Things, and Martin accepted it at first, probably thinking that it could put her into good dispositions to talk, except that tactic is NOT working with her and he’s SO PISSED about it =D Oh, Martin…

I’m super amused at Annabelle having so much fun being domestic and taking care of the guests while looming in the background; it’s an interesting dynamic where you can clearly feel like… everything is happening on her terms, and Martin and Jon don’t have any control over it. (And Martin is SO annoyed at the lack of control, ooooh Martin…)

(- And this is how Web!Martin can still w- (No but, seriously, I thought about how spiders can be territorial and usually don’t share the same living area?))

- I adore how you could HEAR Annabelle’s smile while she was clearly having fun.

(MAG181) MARTIN: Oh! Finally showing your face? ANNABELLE: I’m sure I don’t know what you mean. […] 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…! MARTIN: … Why are you here? Mm? What’s your game? 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…!

Not committing to any answer, and it was driving Martin mad, uh.

- LOVING HOW MARTIN IS JUST “RESENT AND REMEMBER”:

(MAG166) ANNABELLE: He is more powerful here than he’s ever been, isn’t he? [PAUSE] And you’re not sure what that means for you. MARTIN: [INHALE] I’m hanging up now. ANNABELLE: Does he even need you at all? MARTIN: Bye! [BEEP] [SIGH] [LOUDER, CLOSER HOWL] … I know, right?

(MAG181) 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]

(Jon was out of it for most of the exchange, but… If he had been in a better state of mind, he might have reacted to this: Martin hadn’t told him about that part of the phone call, Martin hadn’t shared that with him in the following episode. So, that was new information… unless he had already “known” about it from Martin’s mind and didn’t tell Martin?)

And! We! Still! Don’t! Know! What Annabelle! Wanted! To Achieve!

(MAG181) ANNABELLE: And more importantly, perhaps I thought you might need a little bit of righteous indignation to help you power through the next steps. […] For what it’s worth, I’m sorry. The call was… clumsy. There were so many things to keep track of at the moment. I must confess it did lack my usual… nuance. ARCHIVIST: And perhaps you’re now just trying to humanise yourself so we underestimate your next move…! ANNABELLE: Perhaps.

* What was that “righteous indignation” about? At this point, Martin was already pro-smiting. Did she want him to focus on his resentment towards her? Did she want to prompt a conversation between Jon&Martin, as it happened in MAG167, leading to Jon admitting to Martin that he was his “reason”? I still feel like if that exchange hadn’t happened, Martin would have had it way worse in the Lonely house a few episodes later…

* It feels like the “Jon does(n’t) need Martin” might be about two different things? It’s objectively true that Jon would still be fine without Martin… but would he keep going on his quest without him? Jon said that Gertrude likely would have given up (implying that his difference with her is that he had “a reason”, in Martin). And Jon himself had told Martin, that it wasn’t just about what he needed in the “survival” sense; it was… about what he wanted for himself:

(MAG159) ARCHIVIST: Listen – I know you think you want to be here, I know you think it’s safer and w– … well, maybe it is… But we need you. I need you. MARTIN: [DISTANT, VOICE ECHOING] No, you don’t. Not really…! Everyone’s alone, but we all survive. ARCHIVIST: I don’t just want to survive!

- Martin and Being Manipulated~~

(MAG126) MARTIN: But if I could just explain– PETER: And how do you think Jon’s going to react, to that explanation? Hm? Do you think he’ll accept it calmly? Come through with a well-considered, rational response– MARTIN: That’s not fair– PETER: –or would he assume he knows better than you and do something rash? [SILENCE] MARTIN: … I don’t like being manipulated. PETER: That’s fair. But I’m not wrong.

(MAG181) MARTIN: … I, I don’t like being manipulated. ANNABELLE: Then we probably aren’t going to be friends. MARTIN: Urrrgh! [SIGH]

(And both times, about Jon.)

- Jon was exhausted, but also kind of fatalistic over the fact that they couldn’t do anything against Annabelle anyway; had Salesa been right when he had told them they would get used to it? And in a way, Jon being less angsty over it… might be good for him – not spiralling into paranoia, being just aware that anyway, he can’t know anything for sure about Annabelle. (… Or is the feeling of powerlessness feeding her anyway?)

(MAG181) MARTIN: So, so that’s it, then? We, we’re just going to leave her here? ARCHIVIST: Yes. 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.

GNIIIIIIIIIIIIH over Martin just. Being absolutely too honest and just telling her, to her face, that he doesn’t like her. Martin, you rude brat.

I got Michael flashbacks, too, because it wasn’t the first time that:

(MAG079) MICHAEL: I think I might also kill you. It would be easier than killing the Archivist; none of you are protected down here. MARTIN: No, no, now hang on… MICHAEL: You are going to try and help him. And I want to see what happens without you there. TIM: Martin… MARTIN: No, no, okay, because there’s two of us and there’s one of you, okay. He’s not killing anyone! TIM: Martin, look at his hands! MARTIN: Oh.

MARTIN WAS READY TO THROW DOWN.

- YIKES over what Annabelle has ~in mind~:

(MAG181) ANNABELLE: 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?

* Was the “open-minded” a reference to the fact that her own head was opened and is currently stitched together thanks to spiders.

* So, they’re meeting again “soon”… at Hill Top Road, maybe?

* Annabelle is implying that they were refusing something about her, as if there was currently an offer on the table – what was it? Was it about the fact they were antagonising her? Jon didn’t trust her (or at least raised the possibility that she could be trying to make them underestimate her; she had explained that “I have always believed that the key to controlling people… is to ensure that they always under, or overestimate you. Never reveal your true abilities or plans” in MAG147), they were wary of her… and were they right about it? She made sure they drank and ate, she encouraged them to be well; she needs them functioning and still going, but what for? I’m still really curious about Annabelle; it felt to me that she needed them to reach a certain conclusion by themselves, and that they have failed so far… Or is it way more sinister than that, is she waiting for them to ask for her help regarding Jon’s current state?

* Overall, it feels to me like she’s focusing on Martin more than Jon, as if Jon was a “given” in her equation but Martin a more active and rebellious piece?

- Ooooh, Salesa… he really was craving for company, uh.

(MAG181) SALESA: Aaah! You are off, then? [FAINT SOUNDS OF MUSIC IN THE BACKGROUND; LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN’S “9TH SYMPHONY: FINALE”] ARCHIVIST: … Yes, uh… MARTIN: Uh, thank you, for all your hospitality. SALESA: You are sure you won’t stay a little longer? You’re more than welcome! ARCHIVIST: N–no, I, uh… I got to, hum… leave. MARTIN: What he said. SALESA: Ah, such a shame. And you’re sure I can’t give you a little something for the road? Uh, food, wine? MARTIN: Uh, no, thank you. Uh… [SIGH] Nice things, they… tend not to stay nice out there. SALESA: [SCOFF] True enough.

And sob about the fact that Martin has learned to not trust “comfort” too much. (What about the tea he had stored in his own bag? And the bandages he used on Jon didn’t turn against them either, so a few things stayed safe.)

- I love how Annabelle and Salesa seem to be getting along with their cruel humour:

(MAG181) SALESA: Well: best of luck I suppose. And if in the end, you can’t save the world… you know where I am. ANNABELLE: Actually, he doesn’t. SALESA: [CHUCKLES] Of course. What a shame. [INHALE] Well then, I guess it really is goodbye. Travel well. Don’t be Strangers! [MORE CHUCKLES, LOWER AND DARKER]

(SOB, Salesa, “Don’t be strangers” had been copyrighted by Georgie in season 3 already!)

… Really curious that Annabelle seemed to already know that Jon would quickly forget about the place, as soon as they would leave; in the same way that she predicted that they might pass out when entering the domain protected by the camera. She… knows… stuff… and understands how things work, uh…

- Cries about Jon just fading from conversation, it REALLY was time for him to leave:

(MAG181) ARCHIVIST: Yes, I–I–I’ve been, hum… Uh, these last few days I–I’ve been… getting weaker. Dizzy spells, vagueness, you’ve seen it. Being cut off from the Eye, i–it’s not good for me. […] MARTIN: You don’t have any questions, nothing at all? … Jon? Jon! [CLICKS HIS FINGERS IN FRONT OF THE ARCHIVIST] ARCHIVIST: [DISTANT] Wha… Oh, yes, uh, sorry… Look. […] MARTIN: God, fi–fine. Fine! [BAG IS GRABBED] Come on, Jon. ARCHIVIST: [VAGUE] Mm… Oh, I’m… sorry, what? MARTIN: We’re leaving. […] SALESA: You are sure you won’t stay a little longer? You’re more than welcome! ARCHIVIST: N–no, I, uh… I got to, hum… leave. MARTIN: What he said. […] Y–yeah, uh, come on, Jon. Let’s go. ARCHIVIST: Mm, what? Oh. Yes, ri–right. Yes…

Jon prompted their departure, but it sounded like he forgot about it multiples times during the conversation… He was absolutely drained and ready to collapse, uh?

(Or is it linked to his other memory losses, such as forgetting his bully’s name, or that he had gone for ice-cream with the assistants for Martin’s birthday? I think it really was exhaustion in this particular case (head empty), but…)

- … Jon’s sense of humour…

(MAG181) MARTIN: Feeling better? ARCHIVIST: Uh… Yeah. I’m afraid I am…!

“Afraid I am” – said he, who is currently back to feeding on fear.

- I’m glad that Jon apologised for making them leave, was aware of what Martin had to give up for him, but also that Martin was clear about his Priorities (and differences from Salesa, who was satisfied being protected and safe in his “little bubble” while others are suffering) and absolutely not holding it against him:

(MAG181) ARCHIVIST: I’m sorry, I… It would have been nice to stay. MARTIN: [WISTFULLY] Yeah… I’d almost forgotten what it was like, you know? A bit of peace, eh! ARCHIVIST: I mean, you could have… MARTIN: No, don’t say it, Jon. You know I never would. I–I can’t just “forget” about all the people out here! Besides, I’d rather be trapped in a post-apocalyptic wasteland with you than spend one more moment in paradise with her. ARCHIVIST: [FAINT CHUCKLES] That might just be the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me!

… But it also makes me worry about the alternatives Martin didn’t mention: what about “spending time in paradise without her nor you”, or “going back to the normal world without you”…

- I personally interpreted the last scene as the camera taking back the memories with it, since it was supposed to protect itself and the perimeter around it from The Eye, and Jon knowing/remembering about it would mean giving Beholding access to it:

(MAG181) [STATIC RISES] ARCHIVIST: Ah… Pity. MARTIN: What? ARCHIVIST: It’s, uh… It’s going away. That… peace; the, the safety, the memory of ignorance… MARTIN: That’s… [INHALE] Yeah, I guess that makes sense. [STATIC FADES] Do you… remember any of it? Wha–what Salesa said? Annabelle? ARCHIVIST: Some. I–I think. It’s, uh… Do you mind filling me in? MARTIN: Wait, you need me to tell you something for once? ARCHIVIST: I guess so! It’s, uh… It’s gone. Like a dream. … What was it like? MARTIN: … [SIGH] Nice. It was… It was really nice.

(“Ignorance” both as willingly ignoring something you’re aware of, and not knowing what’s happening out there…)

But CRIES about the tinge of nostalgia, at the fact that Jon had been so hopeful during MAG180 while discovering this place (… and was now walking out of it with mixed feelings), and the fact that… these nice memories are stored within Martin, and Martin only.

… And the tape which recorded Salesa’s statement.

- WHAT ARE THE TAPE RECORDERS…

(MAG181) SALESA: Hmmm. [SHUFFLING] Interesting… […] Now tell me, do you know why there’s a tape recorder here? I noticed it just now, but I don’t believe I actually own one. ARCHIVIST: … Uh… Not really. MARTIN: They sort of just … follow us round? SALESA: Hmmmm. Interesting. Did you carry it in? Things shouldn’t be able to manifest in here like that. ARCHIVIST: … You had one in your… bag, I–I think, Martin, did, did you drop it here? MARTIN: Uh… I, I don’t think so…! SALESA: … Very well. In that case, we shall leave it to be. It’s hardly valuable, and it’s probably best not to upset whatever it might be involved with. Besides! I have no secrets to hide. […] Anyway, no more stories, I think. Let us relax, and talk, and drink, and… not worry about who might be… listening.

Jon had already told Tim back in MAG114, but the fact that this place was an anti-Eye zone kinda confirms they’re not Beholding? But outside of that…

* It’s interesting that Jon immediately asked Martin if it was his. Did Jon have his own in his pocket and could tell it wasn’t his? When did Martin acquire one: was it the one drifting alongside him in the water (or not water), in MAG163? Or was the one in MAG170 different?

* We’ve seen with the mention of the Corruption creature that people can go inside of Salesa’s property. We’ve seen that Jon was cut off from Beholding, but what about other powers? Jon was still fearful of Annabelle – so The Web could still be active inside of it? Is the recorder Web, another power?

- Why did Annabelle want them there? Was it for them to learn about the camera, to use later? To close the Salesa chapter? To give them some respite, for funsies? To introduce herself properly while in control of the situation, where Jon couldn’t compel her? To make them lose time because something was happening outside?

- It’s getting clearer and clearer that there are maaaany holes in Jon’s pseudo-omniscience: he’s unable to see inside of the Panopticon. He can’t see the future. He can’t know about The Web’s plans due to it being too fragmented and complex. He doesn’t know about Melanie&Georgie. He couldn’t know about Salesa’s “little oasis” since it was safe from The Eye.

What else is he missing from the big picture?

- So now, what’s coming next?

* If it was indeed Upton House, they’re getting pretty close to London, and with a slight detour, Oxford (and Hill Top Road) could be on their way; given how Annabelle told them they would meet again “very soon”, they might revisit the house… well, Martin would be visiting it for the first time. It was already weird before the apocalypse; how is it as a place, now?

* We still haven’t seen Georgie&Melanie, so they could be coming soon, unless Jon is reuniting with them in MAG189, right before the hiatus, in the same way as they managed to trap Basira in MAG176 as the ending to Act I… (And as usual, where are they? Unlike Annabelle, Jon had been able to hypothesise that they could be in London (MAG164: “Hm! I’m… I’m not… sure, I–I can’t really see Melanie o–or–or Georgie. […] if they were dead, I– I think I would know that, I just… I–I don’t know… where they are, w–what they’re doing. L–London, maybe?”). Are they in the Institute? Behind Helen’s door? Protected because Melanie cut her connection to The Eye and Georgie can’t feel fear, putting them off Beholding’s radar?)

* Basira was supposed to meet them again at the Institute; given that Martin&Jon stayed at Salesa’s for a while, I wonder if she’s ahead of them, now…?

* Last time we saw Helen was in MAG177, and we know that she was usually spying on them…Was she able to materialise her Door into Salesa’s house, or not even? I’m guessing she could be popping up soon, if she couldn’t get her hands on Jon&Martin for a while… (Oh no: given how she liked to casually torment them, she probably witnessed Daisy’s death and bring that topic back on the table just for funsies…)

I’m a broken record, but wow, MAG182’s title is concerning (WHEN IT SHOULDN’T BE…). Spiral (and Helen), Corruption or Lonely stuff? And with the second meaning, a discussion about Jon’s status in the apocalypse? (I’m also thinking about The Admiral ;_;)

#mag181 #tma liveblog #long post/#tma spoilers/#tma season 5 #the magnus archives

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calliope-love-corner · 3 years

Text

Aftermath

♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡

It’s bright. That is my first thought. Bright, and pleasantly warm. My eyes flutter open, but I quickly cover them with my arm, shading them from the sun. I roll over onto my side and curl up tight, savoring the feeling of the breeze on my skin.

It’s over.

It comes back to me quickly, but I am not alarmed. I am too tired to sit up or cry any more than I already have. Too tired, dehydrated, hungry. My whole body hurts. I shove off my battered and bloody backpack, casting it aside. I take off my cracked glasses and roll onto my back, the dry, prickly grass beneath me as the best bedding I have felt in a long time. I crane my neck a bit and see the ruins of hilltop road- the old hilltop road- just behind me. I sigh and close my eyes.

Finally, I can rest.

As I drift off to sleep, the world around me can finally take a breath.

Soon after, the world begins to wake up. People like me, hurt and broken but very much alive, take their own rests. They sleep and they eat and they bathe away their suffering. Soon enough, the world does its very best to recover from hell.

Five days after it ends, I’m shaken awake by a stranger. Once again, my eyes slowly open. The face is friendly, though unfamiliar. It’s a burly man, who looks like he’s already had his sleep and his bath. He crouches next to me.

“Hi.” he gently greets. I grunt and slowly push myself off the ground, rubbing my eyes. “Do you remember your name?”

“Cal,” I yawn. “It… it’s really over, then.”

He nods, and sits next to me. “You remember everything, then?”

“Mm.” I lean back on my stiff arms and look up at the sky. “I missed sleep.”

He laughs. “I felt the same way.”

We sit in silence for a moment.

“How long has it been, then?” I finally ask. He checks his watch.

“131 hours, just about. Most people woke up on their own after a few days- as far as I know, people are grouping up and finding their way home.”

I let out a whistle. “That’s a new record for me, I think.”

He laughed again. “The people who’ve stuck around this area, we came from a slaughterhouse. It wasn’t pretty. D’ya remember where you were..?”

I bite the inside of my cheek, wondering the best way to explain to him how easy I’d had it.

“It’s… complicated.” I finally settle on. He nods.

“No pressure. Some people… are doing better than others. No one will blame you for keeping things to yourself.” He holds out a hand. “I’m D’Angelo, by the way.”

I shake it, not quite making eye contact. “Where are you from?” I ask.

“Ontario. You?”

“Oh. California, really, but I was in London when it all happened. You’re far from home.”

“Most of us are. I think there are a couple of other locals in our group if you’d like to come back with me? You seem pretty stable, so I’d understand if you wanna find your own way home.”

I think for a second.

“Maybe I’ll join you guys. Company sounds... nice.”

He smiles. “Good choice.”

After that, things start to feel quite dreamlike. I return with D’Angelo to a group of survivors. They’d set up camp at an intersection in town. Some were adjusting well, others would wake up in the night screaming. Despite everything, for the week I stayed with them, we felt like family. Only a third of us spoke English, but the language barrier wasn’t much of a problem. We stuck together all the same. I found myself comforting my companions in their panic attacks often. We cooked and ate together. We looked after each other. Those of us with stories to tell did so. We rode out the aftershock, and when a helicopter came around taking folks to London, I was sad to say goodbye.

When I got home, I knew where to go. I found Basira, Georgie, and Melanie at the ruins of the institute. I told them my side of the story, and they told me theirs. I grieved for Jon and for Martin and for Daisy and once more for everyone we lost along the way. Even though Basira and I never really got along well, we offered each other some comfort, with a shared experience of losing the person we cared for most. We went for coffee a few times. I’m proud to call her my friend.

I stayed with Georgie and Melanie for a few weeks. I cried to them about losing Annabelle. They told me it was the right thing to do for her. Melanie never liked that I was with her, but she cried for me, too.

My parents died shortly after it ended. I made my way back to the states as fast as I could and stayed with them and my brother their last few nights. They said they were proud of us. They’re in a better place now. I’m glad they got to see the world fixed.

My brother joined a clean-up team to help put things back together, to help restructure. When airports started functioning again, I went back to London. It’s where I belonged.

Some avatars still roam around. People tormented by the vast go their hands on Simon Fairchild pretty quick- the old bastard is easy to find in a crowd. He didn’t make it longer than a week before some revenge-hungry survivors came for him. Callum Brodie- the kid- went into intensive therapy. I worry for him often. Arthur Nolan died the same as Fairchild. I ended up meeting Oliver Banks when I came back to the ruins of the institute, which at that point was a fenced-off empty lot. I doubt anyone will build there again, not after what happened. He’s a nice guy- still sees the roots, but does his best not to think about it, apparently. He’s doing his best to adjust.

Like that, things returned to a sort of normal. Governments rebuilt themselves, people found ways to rebuild and keep busy, made their homes in communities, not unlike the one I was briefly in when the world had just come back. I hate to say it, but… the world feels better now. More tolerant. More understanding. Basira and I agree that the only way to move forward now is to accept the atrocities as things that you can’t change and focus on the good that became of everything.

I found work at a cafe two months in- the same one Annabelle and I went for coffee at so long ago. It reminds me of her. Many things do. I’ve cried over her many times since the end. But slowly, I’m healing. Every day is new, and I take it as best I can. I meet with the girls often- they’re the only real friends I have left, the only ones who really understand my perspective.

Penny- Annabelle’s spider- survived the end. She returned to normal size, tucked away in my backpack. I cried when I first saw her. I held her gently and sobbed. She was just a normal spider now. I set her up a nice, big enclosure in my new apartment. Took to taking care of animals like her- lizards and snakes and beetles and two rescue cats, which I named Cain and Abel.

Months slowly turned into a year. Life went on, just like she said it would. I took a few college courses, got my degree in anthropology- Tim always made it sound so interesting. Every morning I try and recreate Martin’s tea in a new way, but I’ve never quite got it right. Every night I read before bed instead of look at my phone- Jon always preached how bad that was for you. Every day I try new things and am kind to people with my whole heart, because Sasha was always so kind to me, and I want to pass that on.

Wherever the fears are now, they’re far away from us, and far away from anyone they’ve hurt. I’m okay with that.

<< Part 1

>> Part 3

#all part of the master plan 🕷💐🕸#theres more. stay tuned.#moving on hurts so im speedrunning it #f/o #fictional other #selfshi #selfshipping #a little creative touch #tma selfship

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katrandomwrites · 4 years

Text

Wierdly Human

Alternate title was "Jon the Archivist is Kinda Hot"

Little in between snippets from the assistants and their impressions of Jonathan Sims.

I declare this a fluff and humor only zone! Episode 160 can kiss my butt.

You can also find this on AO3 under the same title.

I got the inspiration for this from a tumblr post about Jon being a clean boy despite crawling through hell and back but I think the writer deleted it because I spent forever looking for it and couldn't find it :n: Also 2 Drink Jon is a reference to 2 other fics I've read so his wild ass is not mine.

Supplemental Headcanons at the end.

Pre-Show

There was somebody new at the Institute.

He was short and dark with black hair neatly trimmed and styled. A pair of browline glasses perched in front of wide brown eyes that seemed to absorb everything around him.

“Hey, uh, Tim,” Martin whispered as he leaned over to where his coworker was digging through a drawer, “Who’s that?”

“Hm?” Tim’s eyes widened as he looked up, “Oh shit, he’s cute.”

“Not helpful, Tim.”

“Um, I think he might be Daniel’s replacement. I think his name is Joe or something,” Tim swallowed, “I wonder what modeling agency Bouchard raided for him.”

Martin elbowed him in the ribs hard, his face going as red as his hair, “Shut up!”

“But look at him, Martin! He has to have a skincare routine an hour long and don’t tell me you didn’t notice that those trousers are bloody tailored. I see you looking at his arse!”

“SHUT UP!”

”What are you two fighting about now?”

Both researchers jumped away from each other as Sasha popped up behind them.

“Hot new guy,” Tim said, earning another jab and a hiss.

Sasha looked at Martin and grinned, “Short, scrawny, Persian, and angry?”

“He’s Persian?” Martin stuttered before slapping a hand over his mouth.

“Yeah, I got to talk to him during his follow up interview. Smart guy but kind of grumpy and super awkward. We got talking about foriegn food and he offered to give me his grandma’s recipe for chelow kababs,” Sasha said.

“What’s his name.” Tim asked, looking back at where the new guy was glaring at a row of filing cabinets with several drawers ajar.

“Jonathan Sims.”

Pre Episode 44

Basira watched as Sims limped away with the tape clutched to his chest like a lifeline before sighing and heading out to the car where Daisy was waiting.

“Well?” Daisy asked, “How’s our favorite murderer?”

Basira swatted her feet off the dash, “He looks like he hasn’t slept in 3 weeks and recently got hit by a car.”

“I wasn’t asking about his nasty, worm-eaten face, Basira,” Daisy said, “Does he know we’re watching him?”

“I don’t think so -put your seatbelt on- it seems like he’s more invested in what’s on those tapes for now. I get the feeling he’s more worried about watching the people he works with than us.”

“What a sad little librarian. I’m looking forward to how he managed to kill Robinsen without getting his ass whipped.”

“She was old.”

“Yeah, but Sims looks like he’d get knocked out by a light breeze even before he got munched on by some nasty fucking bugs. Did you see the surveillance from Robinsen’s initial investigation? I went back through to track Sims and watched him struggle move a box that was in front of a filing cabinet for a solid twenty minutes; the big ginger guy had to move it for him.”

“That’s-” Basira snorted, “That’s pathetic.”

Daisy grinned, “He has to be one manipulative bastard to get anything done.”

“Is that your theory?”

“I mean look at you.”

“What about me?”

“He gives you the puppy eyes once and now you’re smuggling him tapes from the evidence locker? I have never known the great Basira Hussain to ever cave to a suspect’s wishes in my life- and don’t say it’s to keep a closer eye on him. We have less illegal tactics for that.”

Basira opened her mouth to argue but found that Daisy had a point. She really only gave into suspects if the circumstances were dire. This was technically classed as a low priority case.

What was going on here?

Post Episode 76

Melanie flopped dramatically onto Georgie's couch and let out a long winded sigh.

"Oh?" Georgie asked from the kitchen door.

Melanie sat up slightly to let her sit down before plopping her head down on Georgie's thigh, "I had to go talk to Sims at the Institute again."

"How's Jon?"

"A fucking bastard is what he is."

"Well I knew that," Georgie laughed, gently beginning to brush through Melanie's hair with her fingers.

"I don't know, he's was wierdly defensive and I think he was trying to gaslight me about one of his new assistants."

Georgie paused her brushing, "I haven't seen Jon in a while but that seems… out of character for him. He's a grump, sure, but I've never known him to be a bully -on purpose that is."

"Yeah, well…"

The pair lapsed into a tense silence.

"Would it make you feel better if I show you a picture of Jon in university that he is very embarrassed about," Georgie ventured after a few minutes, "He's still mad I have it.~"

Melanie twisted her head back and grinned, instantly breaking the tension and sitting up to look at the phone screen presented to her.

On it was a picture of Jon passed out, mouth wide open and drooling, on the ugliest couch she'd ever seen.

"He still owns that couch by the way," Georgie said. Melanie waved a hand in her face to silence her as she took in the details.

Jon was in a pink crop top that Melanie was sure she'd seen in Georgie's closet, union jack boxers, gladiator sandals, and The Admiral was planted square on his chest, though he was about half the size of the fluffball that roamed the flat now. Surrounding them where piles of papers and books on the paranormal.

Melanie began to cackle.

"Our friend group used to call him '2 Drink Jon' and this was after he'd done four shots in the kitchen and decided to lecture us on how ghosts are bullshit and he could beat one in a fist fight," Georgie elaborated, "I'm still not sure when he ended up in that outfit but honestly, if we had recorded his rant he probably could have used it for his Masters thesis."

Melanie wheezed into her shoulder as tears began to stream down her face.

"2 Drink Jon was actually a lot more charismatic than sober Jon. This one time he almost had us convinced that he could talk to plants after two gin and tonics, granted we were also drunk but-,"

"Stop, please," Melanie wheezed, "I'm dying."

"Gosh, one of these days I'll have to tell you about tequila and the alien conspiracy. Randall could almost recite the whole speech from memory."

Melanie fell off the couch.

Post Episode 109

Julia and Trevor exchanged a look as the Archivist powered through the spiciest Thai food they could find without even breaking a sweat.

It was supposed to be a joke, spiking Jon's food, the cashier had even given them a panicked look at the restaurant and Trevor's eyes had been watering the whole way back to the safe house. They'd even waited by the door in case Jon tried to make a break for the case of water bottles in the car but he just unwrapped the plastic fork and dug in without even asking for a drink.

Julia picked at her own food but couldn't quite manage to eat it and glanced back at Jon, "Are you sure you don't need a water or anything?"

Jon looked up for a moment, his eyes were more alive than they had been all day and practically sparkled in the shitty fluorescent light. He shook his head and instead reached for another packet of chili sauce to add to his food.

"What the hell is he," Trevor whispered to Julia in horror.

"I don't know but he's definitely not normal."

During Episode 132

Daisy had misjudged Jon. She'd grossly misjudged him.

She flexed her fingers around his, ignoring the way the sand dug into her skin, and gently pulled him closer. The man she'd called prey gave her a soft smile and compiled, pressing against her side like she'd never held a knife to his throat, like she hadn't just admitted to planning his murder before she was trapped here.

Daisy turned her head awkwardly and dug her face into his shoulder savoring the human contact, her tears soaking into his shirt.

The Hunt in her blood tried to sing, tried to fight the Buried, "Safe, Mine, Pack, Protect", it echoed faintly.

Jon said something and began to move, pulling Daisy forward along with him.

"Safe, Mine, Pack, Protect"

Hours past as they shimmied through the coffin, the pain of being scraped and crushed was overpowered by the sheer ecstasy of moving more than an inch every few days.

"Safe, Mine, Pack, Protect"

There was a door, Jon tucked himself under her arm and pulled her up the stairs to the blinding lights of the institute. She ducked her head down to his shoulder again and grimaced as her joints popped and groaned.

"Jon, you stupid idiot! What did you think-"

Daisy looked up to the person she thought she’d never see again and smiled.

"Hi."

Post Episode 132

Martin had horrible timing really. He just needed to pee, was that really too much to ask?

Of course it was. The universe hated him.

So instead of slipping into the private bathroom upstairs which was magically broken, he had to go down a level and walk in on Jon shaking dirt out of his clothes.

Martin was going to die here but at least he'd die happy.

Jon didn't even seem to register that someone else had joined him (thank the Lonely) so Martin took a second to sneak a guilty look before darting back out and hiding for 40 years.

Jon was painfully thin. Martin got the idea that he could count every vertebrae and rib if he was allowed and even at a glance he could spot the sunken area where at least one rib was now missing.

Worm scars and burns were peppered up his back along with a few moles and freckles. Little red marks circled his chest in a way that Martin immediately recognized as being from the black fabric crumpled at Jon's feet.

And to top it all off, much to Martin's delight, were a set of three black gears tattooed down Jon's right shoulder blade. Sasha had mentioned once that she had gone out for drinks with Jon when he first started and they'd managed to get on the topic of tattoos. Tim had spent months trying to get Jon to show it to him before 'giving up'.

Martin stepped out and stood in the hall for a moment, red faced and giddy, before stumbling off in search of another bathroom.

Somewhere between Episode 132-154

"Hey, guys?" Melanie called.

Daisy and Basira glanced up to see Melanie holding a giant plate of the best smelling food they'd seen in weeks. Steam wafted up into her very confused face.

"Did either of you make this? I went to ask Martin and I can't find him."

"I didn't make it," Basira said, "Daisy?"

"I once made spaghetti and lit it on fire.

Basira grimaced and walked up to Melanie, "Kebabs, Tahdig rice, flat bread, and jam cookies. Those are Iranian dishes, or Middle Eastern at least.”

Daisy looked at Basira, "How do you know that?"

"Took a foreign cuisine course focused on middle eastern food a few years ago," Basira said as she made her way to the kitchen area with the group in tow.

Sitting on the table were three more huge plates of food and two empty plates sitting in the sink. Martin was standing next to the table with pure confusion on his face.

"Did you make this?"

Martin jumped and looked at the group, "Uh, no? I really only do pastas… this is a little outside my skill set. I think-"

"It could be a trap," Daisy interrupted, "Maybe it's laced with something?"

"No, I'm pretty sure-"

"Could be, but who would go to this effort, the Web?" Basira said.

"Guys, it was probably-"

"It was the Archivist!" Helen exclaimed from behind them, somehow having opened her door without making a sound and scaring the shit out of them, "He is an excellent cook."

"Bullshit," Melanie wheezed, setting her plate down before she dropped it.

"No, she right," Martin sighed, "Jon actually cooked something similar a few years ago for a company thing. He gave this whole speech about how grandparents immigrated here from Iran, well Persia at the time, and his grandma made him learn to cook what she called 'real food'."

"You mean to tell me that Jonathan Sims, the skinniest guy I have ever met, can cook like this," Basira said in disbelief before cautiously sitting down at the table with the rest following suit.

"He called it his grandmother's curse," Helen provided cheerfully, "He said that no matter what he does, he always makes far more than he needs and never has people around to give it to. So he just never cooks."

"You talked to him?" Melanie asked. Daisy began to pick at a plate and made a sound of confusion and delight at the taste.

"Oh yes, he even let me help by getting things off high shelves!"

"This is amazing," Daisy said in disbelief before grabbing a fork and beginning to eat in earnest.

"It is! Jon and I had a lovely chat and I'm not much for 'real' food these days but he really convinced me!" Helen declared, spinning back around to re enter her door, "And I must say it was delightful."

"Huh," Basira shrugged and began to eat.

Not bad.

Post Episode 159

For the second time since he woke up, Martin pinched himself. He had to be dreaming, the smaller body smooshed up against his chest and the boney limbs clinging to him had to be a figment of his imagination.

Jon huffed in his sleep and burrowed deeper into Martin before settling again. A few stray rays of the morning sun slipped through the blinds highlighting Jon’s gray hairs and the raised edges of scars that trailed along his skin.

Gently, Martin carded his hand through the wild mess of hair, marveling at how soft it was despite everything. Jon sighed, leaning into the touch without stirring.

He could stay like this forever, with Jon safe in his arms and the dangers of the world outside, away from his happiness.

"Wha' time?" Jon mumbled, stretching before re-draping himself over Martin. He looked up and the light caught his eyes in a way that Martin could see all the blue heterochromatic spots in Jon's left eye through dark, heavy lashes.

"Doesn't matter," Martin whispered as he pulled him closer, "We have all the time in the world."

Supplemental Headcanons: - Jon is a 3rd gen Persian/Iranian immigrant. His grandparents on his dad's side moved to England post WWII. (Persia became Iran in 1979) They took the last name Sims during immigration. - His mother was full blooded English. - He can out cook 87% of the local grandma's when he really gets into it - He built an unnaturally high tolerance to salt and spice as a kid to keep people from taking his lunch or trying to mess with his food and now thoroughly enjoys spicy foods. - Jon does care a lot but his grandma never taught him to show it in any other way but tolerance and mute acceptance. It's hard to know where you stand with Jon because of this. - Was a runner while in school. - Was forced to take violin lessons as a kid and Georgie taught him some piano in University. - Jon is and always has been feral little man though he is more bark than bite (unless he's under the influence of something). He learned it from his grandma. - He's one of those drunks that often wanders/ runs away from his drinking group. He has strong drunk college girl tendencies. - He changed his middle name to Ulysses when he got his first name legally changed because he’s a nerd. - Jon has had the same pen pal since he was 10. They are one of the few points of normalcy he has left. - Jon and Daisy are trans mlm and wlw solidarity. Fight me.

Fun Fact: Sims means "the Listener" which seems almost too on the nose.

#the magnus archives #tma #jonathan sims #jon sims #martin blackwood #daisy tonner #basira hussain #melanie king #georgie barker #my writing #fanfiction #jonmartin #spoilers #dasira #what the girlfriends

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haberdashing · 4 years

Text

Open Up My Eager Eyes

TMA fic set just after MAG 168. Jon and Martin have an important talk about what once was and what might have been.

on AO3

They didn’t speak much right after Jon returned, but the tension in the air was palpable as they made their way forwards, the only sounds that of their footsteps crunching against what passed for ground here and the whispers of the dying.

Eventually, Jon couldn’t stand it anymore, so he stopped walking, turning towards Martin as he said, “Can we... let’s talk.”

“About what?” Martin’s tone was a little sharp, but he stood still as well, looking Jon in the eye as he did so.

“You know, the whole jealousy thing.”

Martin’s face tensed up, and he made a show of breaking eye contact with Jon as he said, “I think we’ve talked quite enough about that already, thanks.”

“No, not... look, we already discussed how you’re jealous of Oliver Banks for, for some reason, and how I’m not going to kill a man just because you’re jealous of him-”

Martin scrunched up his nose in a way that would be patently adorable if he wasn’t currently trying to convince Jon to murder someone. “He’s not really a man anymore, though, is he? I mean, that’s kind of the point.”

“Martin, if just being an avatar of a fear god during, well, this, is enough for somebody to deserve getting killed in your mind... I’d like you to think a bit about what that implies about me.”

Martin blinked a few times and furrowed his brow, thinking for a few seconds in silence before letting out a long, solemn breath. “Alright, yeah, point taken.”

“Besides, if you just let me explain what actually happened, maybe you’ll understand that there’s really no reason for you to be jealous of...” Jon tried to hold back the laughter in his voice, but a bit of it sneaked through just the same as he finished, “...of Oliver Banks, of all people.”

“I mean, you did wake up for him and not for me, though. That’s just a fact.”

“It wasn’t... it wasn’t for him, is the thing. Because of him, maybe, but not for him.”

“Fine, because of him, then. But he- he still did something for you there, then. Something I clearly couldn’t.”

Jon threw his hands in the air. “Yes, because he was an avatar of death! Look, if you’re really that desperate to throw away your humanity, feel free to give Annabelle Cane a ring, I’m sure she’d be glad to hook you up-”

“Jon...”

“I... It was a joke. I was joking.” That wasn’t entirely accurate, truth be told--Jon kept wondering if that was Annabelle Cane’s endgame in all of this, recruiting Martin to her side--but that was a very different conversation to be had than the current one, and not one Jon terribly felt like delving into at the moment.

“Sure.” Martin sounded less than convinced.

“It’s not like I- I cared more about Oliver Banks than you, or anything like that, if that’s what you’re thinking! He just... let me know what I needed to do to wake up. Gave me information I had been lacking.”

“I thought you knew everything!”

“Now, maybe. And there’s still a few limits even now. But back then it... it wasn’t quite that simple.”

“So, what was this information he had and you didn’t?”

“He explained that, that what had happened... it left me trapped somewhere in between life and death-”

“You couldn’t have figured that much out for yourself?”

“Let me finish! At the time, I was... how did he phrase it... not human enough to die, but still too human to live. And I had to make a choice. Either I could pick my human side and just- just die, or I could give up on being human and wake up as a full-fledged avatar of the Beholding.”

“And you chose the latter?”

“I’m still here, aren’t I?” Jon let out a sharp bark of a laugh, looking around at the desolate, nightmarish landscape surrounding them before adding, “Knowing what I do know... I don’t think I made the right choice there.”

“Don’t say that!” Jon hadn’t been expecting the desperation in Martin’s voice, hadn’t been expecting him to reach out and clutch Jon’s arm as if he were going to fade away at any moment. “Don’t... don’t you dare say you want to die, alright?”

Martin looked like he was on the verge of tears, suddenly, and Jon pressed one hand against his cheek, ready to brush away any teardrops that might fall. “I mean, I don’t want to die now, I’m not suicidal. At this point, the damage has already been done. Dying now wouldn’t do anyone much good.”

Martin released his grip on Jon’s arm, but that sad, desperate look in his eyes remained all too present. “But you still think the world would be better off if you had died back then.”

“I mean...” Jon used his free hand to gesture towards the hellscape that surrounded them. “If I had, none of this would have happened. And the rest of the Archives staff would be free to leave, to escape from this mess. You would be free, Martin. Free to live your life without having to worry about any of this.”

“But without you.”

“Without me, and without being tied to an eldritch fear god, and without the apocalypse unfolding in front of you. That seems like more than a fair trade-off.”

Martin laughed, but it was a laugh more of sorrow than of levity, and Jon felt a single teardrop fall onto his finger. “After all this time, you still don’t get it, do you?”

“Get what?”

“None of that matters to me if you’re not there. The only reason my working with Peter Lukas became more than just- just a death wish was because you woke up, because I could see a life for myself outside of the Lonely with you. Maybe it’s selfish--no, strike that, I know it’s selfish--but I’d rather be beside you here and now than in a world where none of this happened, but you’re not there to share it with me.”

“...thank you, Martin.” Jon broke into a shaky smile. “But even if you’re fine with how things worked out, the others-”

“-are better off with you here too.”

Jon let the hand that had been pressed against Martin’s face fall to his side, tried not to focus on how it was now shaking due to some emotion he couldn’t quite name. “I don’t see how that works.”

“Alright, let’s go through this one by one. If you hadn’t woken up, Melanie would still have a- a ghost bullet from the Slaughter stuck in her leg, right?”

“That she wanted in there!”

Martin rolled his eyes. “Right, because that’s healthy. Look, I’m not saying the way you went about things was the perfect solution, but I do think it beats doing nothing and just letting her become an avatar of unthinking violence. And if you’d died, she’d have had to find another target for all that rage...”

“...fine, let’s say for the sake of argument Melanie’s better off. There’s Basira, too.”

“Basira...” Martin bit his lip for a moment the way he often did when he was deep in thought. “I’m not sure what she would have done if you had died, honestly, but I do know she wouldn’t have gotten Daisy back without you. You’re the reason she knew Daisy was in the Buried, and you’re definitely the reason Daisy got out of there.”

“Because I jumped into a coffin where the whole idea is that once you go in, you can never come out.”

“Again, not claiming it was a great plan or anything, but it did work. You saved Basira from not knowing what really happened, from mourning a woman who was still alive. And you saved Daisy from being stuck in the Buried literally forever.”

“And now she’s succumbed to the Hunt. I can’t imagine that’s much better.”

“You were down there with her. You tell me.”

Jon’s silence as he considered this was as much of a response as any words could have been.

“Basira might have stayed, too. It’s not like she had anything left outside the Archives, after all. And if she did? Maybe I would have actually gone along with Peter’s plan and killed Elias-” Jon gave Martin a look, and Martin corrected himself. “Killed Jonah Magnus, and then she would have died. Along with everybody else who works for the Institute. Rosie from the front desk, who always greets everyone with a smile? Dead. Sonja from Artefact Storage, who actually seems to accept all of this weirdness? Dead. Hannah’s children would lose their mother. Hundreds of families would be torn apart.”

“That’s still a lot less pain and suffering than I caused by reading that damn statement. You can’t claim the world wouldn’t be better off if I hadn’t done that.”

“Okay, no, I’m not gonna come out pro-apocalypse here or anything, but... think about it. Jonah Magnus was planning all of this for two hundred years. You really think he would have given up if you died?”

Jon hadn’t thought of that, and his vision blurred as he considered the implications there.

“He would’ve found another Archivist, he would’ve made them go through hell instead, and we’d end up back here soon enough. The only way he would’ve stopped is if I killed him, a-and then Peter’d have the Panopticon for whatever the hell he really wanted it for, and maybe it’s not the same, but you can’t tell me a world under Peter Lukas’ control would really be that much better.”

“...I suppose not, no.” Jon cleared his throat as he prepared to change the subject as smoothly as he could manage. “So. Oliver Banks did what he had to do, as did I, whatever the consequences. And I’m pretty sure either option of his choice would be better than being eternally stuck watching other people’s nightmares. You’ve seen for yourself that those can be... rough on me, and that’s after just one night.”

“That’s what it was like? Just- just six months of nonstop nightmares?”

And suddenly Martin’s arms were wrapped around Jon’s body, Martin tucking his head against Jon’s shoulder, and he could feel tears dampening his jumper. Jon did his best to reciprocate, to reach out to Martin in turn, and tears of his own began to fall as well.

“I’m sorry you had to go through that, Jon.”

“It’s fine-”

Martin looked up at Jon with a fiery gaze. “It’s not fine.”

“Well, it’s fine now. And- and maybe now you can see why I’m grateful to Oliver Banks for letting me know that I had options besides being stuck like that forever.”

“...yeah, I guess so. Though I still wish I could have been the one to help you.”

“I know you did everything you could.” Jon’s lips turned into a wry smile as he added, “I heard you, you know. The only other things I heard were statements--Oliver’s and Jonah’s, and please don’t tell me you’re going to be jealous of Jonah Magnus now-”

“Nah, I think we’ve got better reasons for killing him than that.”

“Quite.” Jon snorted. “But I heard you, at one point, too. Not a statement, of course. Just... you, talking to me. Begging me to come back. And I wanted to, I really did. But at that point, I didn’t know how.”

“...I didn’t know you heard any of that.”

“Well, we never really talked about it before. Understandably so; it’s not exactly the most pleasant of conversation topics.”

Jon leaned over, tilting his head just so before planting a kiss on Martin’s damp cheek.

“I’ve also never done that to Oliver Banks, so hopefully that will help you get over that jealousy of yours.”

Martin’s eyes were sparkling as he looked up at Jon, and only partially due to the half-formed tears still lingering in his eyes. “Hmm... I don’t know. Might need to give it a few more tries just to be sure.”

Jon raised an eyebrow as he broke into a wide grin, though he tried to keep his voice calm and level and faux-academic. “Ah, a firm believer in the scientific method. I can certainly respect that.”

And Jon kissed Martin again, and again, and again, until the kissing dissolved into a mutual fit of giggles and both their tears were well and truly gone.

#tma #tma spoilers #the magnus archives #the magnus archives spoilers #tma s5 #tma s5 spoilers #mag 168 #tma 168 #tma fic #tma fanfic #the magnus archives fic #the magnus archives fanfic #personal #my writing

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catfishofoldin99colours · 3 years

Note

For the 'give me a character' thing:

Basira, Caddy and Molly and/or Daisy (just in case nobody else sends them in for you ^^)

i love you, you’re a gem, i am kissing you very gently mwah <3

Basira:

How I feel about this character: love her, she’s amazing, she’s very very cool, i think she’s really well written and really compelling, i love her a whole lot :>

All the people I ship romantically with this character: DAISYYYYYY idk i know their relationship is fucked up but i like to imagine sometimes it’s not and they’re sweet together,,,, and i can always imagine a better timeline for them too,,,,, dasira my beloved,,,, otherwise i also like the sound of basira and melanie, thats quite good, they have a good dynamic and i like their vibe ^^

My non-romantic OTP for this character: again probably basira and melanie, i just really like how they interact and kind of immediately clicked, i like seeing them together

My unpopular opinion about this character: i don’t know if i have one? i imagine her shorter than daisy i guess (but thats cos i imagine daisy 6 foot 2 and built like she fights trains hjfdksla;) otherwise i don’t really think i have an unpopular opinion

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon: hjgfdkls im only at season 3 still but uuuhhhh i think she and sasha would have been interesting to see interact. maybe not great friends but i would have liked to see their interactions play out, i think it would have been cool.

Caddy:

How I feel about this character: GOOD BOI PRECIOUS LOVELY STRAWBERRY COW MAN I LOVE HIM HE’S A SAINT

All the people I ship romantically with this character: fjord, very much so, also kind of yasha?? but in an ace/qpr way. also molly because i Want To See it. and maybe jester, they have good vibes.

My non-romantic OTP for this character: with beau!!! i think he’d be a very good friend to her and help her a lot and she can help him in return. also yasha, i like the vibes they have together ^^

My unpopular opinion about this character: idk if i have any????? uhhh apparently the rest of the cast doesn’t appreciate him (i stopped watching after epsiode 24 hjgfkdl) and that makes me sad but idk i’d have to watch to find out

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon: i want him to meet Molly so badly, i think they’d be good chaos friends together!

Daisy:

How I feel about this character: mmmmmmmm sexci werewolf ladyy,,, she’s so prettyyy and i love her so much,,,, daisy if you’re free on friday i am also free... but seriously i do love her a lot and think she’s SO INTERESTING as a character and i love how mean and nasty she is to people its so hot and gfhjdksla;dkflj im big gay for herrrr

All the people I ship romantically with this character: BASIRA. no question, thats it (except i’d be curious to see how she’d interact with sasha, and maybe i’d ship them if they met). otherwise its Only basira

My non-romantic OTP for this character: uuhhhh. jondaisy friendship make my heart go *sobbing noises*... truly i love their quiet unspoken relationship its Soft....

My unpopular opinion about this character: hmm do i risk saying my hcs for her as a transwoman??? (obviously im Well aware of the connotations and i don’t hc this Because she’s violent and cruel and dog-themed, im smarter than that jesus... i just think about it and think its interesting and have Thoughts but idk if i wanna share em publicly)

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon: ok i REALLY wanted to see her interact with tim more, i think they’re very similar people and i would have liked to see them interact and clash more than they did before end of s3... pls jonny sims give me the daisy-tim arguments...

Molly:

How I feel about this character: PERFECT HE’S THE BEST CHARACTER EVER I LOVE HIM SO SO MUCH WHAT AN ANGEL WHAT A GEM GOD MOLLY I HAVE NEVER LOVED SOMEONE THE WAY I LOVED YOU

All the people I ship romantically with this character: c a l e b!!! widomauk owns my heart i will not stop. also!!! yasha!! controversial but i think mollyasha as romantic/sexual is also good as well as platonic!!! im love them together they go well!!

My non-romantic OTP for this character: molly and beau friendship is so so important to me....... my best friend loves beau and i love molly and we’re like total opposites in our friendship than those two but still the Vibes are similar in a comforting way and it makes me happppyyyy mollybeau is so so good ; ;

My unpopular opinion about this character: he’s FAT and CHUBBY and has A DAD BOD like TALEISIN DOES. fat molly is so important to me i love he.... also he has a mullet and he’s trans. best boy.

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon: i wish he lived lmao :’) truly i can’t imagine the story or party (through what i know from the fandom) without him now and i don’t know if they all would have developed as much as they have without him dying but still... god i never even got to episode 26 and i still miss him so so much

#impossibleclair

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backofthebookshelf · 5 years

Text

MAGSeason 4 Depression Timeline

Since timelines are the meta I’m good at, and since Jon Sims’s crippling depression is the metaplot most amenable to a timeline right now, a summary:

121 - Oliver Banks, Jon wakes up

122 - Zombie, Jon is forsaken by all his friends and allies (word chosen advisedly)

123 - Web Development - Jon comes back to the Archives, gets attacked by Melanie and dressed down by Basira

124 - Left Hanging, Jon gets brushed off by Martin

supermarket cleaner - first victim (probable)

125 - Civilian Casualties, Jon ruminates on control, Knows about the bullet; amateur surgery hour

woman in the street - second victim (definite)

126 - Sculptor’s Tool, Jon wishes he understood Gertrude better now that he’s a monster but it just makes him sad

127 - Remains to be Seen, Beholding shit

128 - Breekon, Jon collapses after the statement

129 - Submerged, Jon tries to talk to Martin again, fails

130 - Meat, recorded by Gertrude; Jon gets the idea about an anchor

131 - Jared Hopworth, Jon has to lie down after getting his rib removed

132 - Submerged, Jon rescues Daisy from the coffin

man rejected by all who knew him - third victim (definite)

133 - Dead Horse, Jon and Daisy talk rituals & being taken over by a Power

134 - Time of Revelation, Martin’s first recording this season; Peter explains very few details of his plan

(the timeline starts getting fuzzy here - before this it’s reasonable to assume that there’s about a week between each episode, but as soon as we start getting recodings from Martin they clearly overlap sometimes)

135 - Dark Matter, Jon worries about the Dark Sun, complains that no one talks to him and he doesn’t know what he’s doing

136 - The Puppeteer, Melanie goes to therapy

137 - Nemesis, recorded by Gertrude, stolen from Elias’s office; Jon worries about the Watcher’s Crown but still has no direction

138 - The Architecture of Fear, Martin’s recording; more Beholding shit

139 - Chosen, Gertrude and Agnes and the Web bond; Jon muses on destiny versus random chance and complains about feelings, attempts to Know Peter’s plan

140 - The Movement of the Heavens, Jon looks exceptionally awful, Basira makes plans to leave for Ny-Alesund

Jess Tyrell - fourth victim (definite)

141 - Doomed Voyage, Floyd Matharu - fifth victim

142 - Scrutiny, Martin’s recording of Jess Tyrell’s statement

143 - Heart of Darkness, Manuela Dominguez, Jon goes home via Helen’s corridors

144 - Decrypted, Martin’s recording; Daisy checks in on Martin at Jon’s request and he orders her out

145 - Infectious Doubts, recorded by Gertrude; Jon mourns that the answers he wants don’t seem to exist, has a horrible conversation with Georgie

146 - Threshold, the girls find Martin’s tape of Jess Tyrell’s statement and confront Jon about his victims

147 - Weaver, Annabelle’s statement very pointedly not given in person; Jon admits that no one has been forcing him to take victims and that he doesn’t want to stop

148 - Extended Surveillance, Jon grumbles about autocannibalism and stale statements, says he no longer cares about followup or what happened to the statement-givers

149 - Concrete Jungle, Martin’s recording; he fights with Georgie, goes whoosh to avoid Melanie

150 - Cul-de-Sac, Jon shows some awareness of the danger of the Lonely, complains again about having no action to take; Melanie announces her work stoppage on the principle that taking action can only be evil while they serve Beholding

So Jon’s taken eight statements directly this season, three from avatars (and those seem to drain him rather than restore him) and five from unsuspecting victims; none from ordinary people that were volunteered of their own free will, like all the earlier ones were. But there’s a huge gap between three and four - six to eight weeks, maybe? Where the first two are maybe a week apart and the third another five or six weeks after that, and after the coffin. It’s pretty clear that he realized, at the latest after the second, what he was doing and tried to do less of it.

And if the “about one episode a week in canon time” holds, then it’s been nine weeks now since Jon’s had a victim, eight since Manuela. No wonder he’s having a hard time concentrating if he’s as starving as he was before Jess Tyrell - although I do have to say he sounded worse in The Movement of the Heavens than he did in Cul-de-Sac, so possibly having the secret out has been good for him, too. I hope so. (Keeping a secret has to feed the Beholding too, after all, particularly a secret like that.)

More to the point, though, there’s only one thing that’s actually improved in Jon’s situation all season and that’s the fact that Daisy likes him now. It’s not enough; one person can’t be enough support for anyone, never mind someone who’s going through the shit Jon’s dealing with, especially when the support person is also dealing with their own shit. But that’s literally the only positive thing that’s happened. (You could count the intervention/coming clean about his victims as a neutral, I think - he seems more comfortable but I’m not sure you can say he’s actively helping.

I’ve said it before but I do think this season could have benefited from a broader content warning. There’s a big difference between “the one-off character in this episode is suicidally depressed” and “your main character and narrator is suicidally depressed basically the entire season,” and I for one wasn’t anticipating it. But going through the episodes all at once, rather than spacing them out one a week, it’s easier to see the trajectories. Jon’s starving, or going into withdrawal, and meanwhile he has nothing else to lean on - one friend, who he’s keeping secrets from and who’s suffering herself, but no work, which has been the center of his attention for (let’s be honest, probably) most of his life. Add to that the fact that he’s always been pretty hilariously bad at figuring out what any given statement is trying to tell him, plus Melanie’s point this week that anything they do seems to feed the evil thing they work for, and it’s no wonder that he hasn’t done much of use in ages, and no wonder that he can’t think clearly about it at the same time.

(I do think it’s interesting that the Watcher’s Crown seems to be falling out of his head in the same way the spider lighter does; he mentions it twice, once very early on and once about midway through the season, he’s talked about how it’s likely to happen in 2018, the 200 year anniversary of the founding of the Institute, but he hasn’t put any focused attention into it. That’s...more than a little suspicious, really.)

#the magnus archives #it's a meta party #tw depression #tw suicidal ideation #i don't know what's changed that i can finally think about this #maybe i'm less depressed?#maybe martin's statements are more optimistic?#maybe learning that there is never going to be a straight up climate change episode let me relax?#but this season brutalized me and i have so much sympathy for anyone else who feels the same way #also kudos to jonny for writing a really good depressed character #well done sir please stop

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patricianandclerk · 4 years

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Complete. 6k. Set pre-160, after they're settled into the cottage together.

Jon looks... hungry. Martin can't stand it.

Jon had been skinny when Martin had met him. Well, not— Was skinny the right word? He’d been small, that much was certain, except he was really only small in comparison to Martin and to Tim, because when Martin saw him out in the street, around other people, he did seem a little bigger than the average, but he was skinny. Square and angular, and sort of thin, with the bony bits of him seeming exaggeratedly bony, but not so skinny that you noticed it on the parts of him that were meant to be meaty – his forearms, his legs, his chest.

Meaty.

Bad choice of words. Bad choice of words, now, now that the actual meat on his body was pockmarked over the arms and the hands where the worms had burrowed in, and when the burn covered shiny-slick up his left hand, and there was a ragged cut at his neck, too, one that only showed when he let his shirt get unbuttoned…

Skinny was the wrong word, and little didn’t seem right either, when Martin really looked at him, but when you weren’t looking at Jon, it was easy to think of him as little. He just had that sort of personality, except that maybe it wasn’t his personality, and maybe he’d used to seem bigger, before he started—

That isn’t a helpful train of thought, and it makes Martin feel a bit sick.

He’s watching Jon in the little cottage, his arms crossed tightly over his chest, his knees drawn partly up to his chest, and he’s managed to cram himself onto one of the windowsills like a cat. Folded up like this, he looks like he’d be bigger, once you unfolded him, and Martin again gets the weird, uncanny sensation that Jon should be bigger in his mind than he is, and he doesn’t like it. Doesn’t like the idea that when he isn’t looking, whatever magic there is might make Jon fade away to nothing, might make Martin forget.

The cottage is small. It’s only three rooms – the living room and kitchen, which is sparsely furnished with an electric fireplace, some dressers, and a few bookshelves which are mercifully crammed full of books; the bedroom, which has one queen-sized bed with what feels like a fifty-year-old mattress, and two chests of drawers which had at least been full of blankets; and the bathroom, which has a bath but no shower, and is so small, with a slightly slanted roof, that Martin has to bend his head slightly if he wants to use the sink. The books on the shelves are varied, and Jonathan had wryly commented as they’d started clearing all the dust off everything that she’d just bought some boxes from a car boot sale to fill them, so that they would be harder to move.

There’s ammunition and weapons behind them, the bookshelves, buried in the wall. Jon had known that when they’d come in, and then gone sort of quiet, like he felt guilty, but it wasn’t as though it was his fault, just for knowing.

There are a lot of blankets, at least, although honestly, Martin hadn’t expected the cottage to hold the heat as well as it does, but it really does – the windows are thickly glazed, with that cross-hatching that some windows have (“It means if someone shoots through it, it won’t shatter too explosively.” More guilty silence.), and the walls are tightly insulated, the roof not seeming to let out too much heat. There’s an attic you can get into from the outside, but Jon had put his hand on Martin’s and said quietly that he didn’t want to go up there, and that he didn’t want Martin to go up there either.

Martin had been distracted by how cold Jon’s hand was, and immediately clasped it in his own to try to warm it up. Jon had gone quiet then, too, but he couldn’t really tell at the time if it was guilty or not. He still couldn’t.

Martin has a copy of Ballantyne’s The Coral Island in his lap, but it’s very old and the font is very small, and when he looks at the etchings of the ocean and the boats, he thinks of Peter Lukas, and it makes him feel sad, and lonely, and sort of yearny, in a way he doesn’t really like, and when he feels like that he doesn’t much want to go for a walk around the area.

Jon doesn’t seem that small, when they’re in bed together. He folds out instead of inward, and although he doesn’t sprawl – Martin doesn’t think Jon is capable of sprawling, even if he’s trying to – he sort of spreads out a bit more, a bit longer. Martin can tell he isn’t used to sharing a bed with someone, but that he isn’t self-conscious enough to apologise if he brushes Martin accidentally, and the night before, Martin had woken up with his nose pressed into Jon’s black-and-grey hair, Jon’s stubble scratching at Martin’s neck, and he’d been amazed at how much his head had spun with it, when he was only just awake. He likes… Once they start touching, it’s so easy to touch one another all over, but when the gap between them is like this, it’s hard to bridge it, to start with.

It’s easier to touch Jon than he expected, though. When he fantasied about it, when he first started having a crush, he’d always thought it would be hard to touch him – he used to imagine that Jon would take charge, that he’d maybe tie Martin down and take control, or tell Martin when and where he was allowed to touch.

That was before he knew Jon wasn’t really interested in sex, of course. He wonders if it’s bad to think about having sex with someone you know isn’t interested.

“I’m sorry,” Martin says.

Jon glances at him. He looks tired, and thin – thinner than he used to, definitely, and not just because of the new Archivist thing. Martin is certain of that, certain, because when Jon had sat up this morning it was easy for Martin to see that he was missing two ribs, because he could count them all easily, and no one’s thighs should be as thin as Jon’s are. Jon doesn’t look emaciated, not like Daisy had, does, does, but then she mustn’t look quite the same now, it’s been weeks—

“What?” Jon asks softly.

“I don’t mind getting you cigarettes,” Martin says. “Just— I didn’t mean, I didn’t want to, um, to stop you, just that I don’t like the… but it would be fine if you smoked them outside. I can get you some.”

He’d asked for them. When he’d seen Martin’s face, he’d actually recoiled a little, although Martin wasn’t sure what his face had looked like, although he had said that he wouldn’t let Jon smoke in the house, and he’d been stern, almost, and assertive, and he hadn’t meant to be like that, it wasn’t the sort of person he was – but maybe it was, now, maybe he was assertive, maybe he could be. He was trying to be.

“I don’t mind,” Jon says lowly. “I’ve been smoking too much the past few months anyway. More than I used to.”

“They’re appetite inhibitors,” Martin says. “Like chewing gum.”

“Yes,” Jon says. His tone is a little more tight, and he isn’t looking at Martin, but instead on some fixed point out over the drably green fields outside. Martin wonders what he’s looking at, who he’s looking at, if he’s looking at something other than damp grass and uneven fenceposts and a dank, grey sky. “My grandmother used to tell me that, too.”

“I was going to cook a chicken for dinner,” Martin says. “And potatoes, and carrots, and there’s… I got some, um, gravy. Bisto.”

Jon smiles at him. It’s drawn, and haggard, and it makes one of the scars on his cheek seem longer.

“You’re a good cook, Martin,” he says quietly. “You’ll have to tell me what to do, if you want things chopped a certain way.”

Mum used to tell him he was a good cook. Martin didn’t think that it was true – he just cooked things, and they tasted fine, but he wasn’t a chef or anything, and he wasn’t really that into recipe books, or interesting things. Tim had liked interesting things, Tim had cooked all this creative stuff, and Basira seemed to know how to cook everything, and Sasha had known all kinds of things about cuts of meat and wine and mushrooms and ingredients and… And Martin didn’t know any of all that.

Mum used to tell him he was a good cook because he was the one cooking, and she didn’t like that, but felt that she should say something, he supposed. Jon at least seemed like he meant it.

“Are you hungry now?” Martin asks, and he watches Jon’s face, watches the little twitch of his mouth, the hesitation. Martin is a good liar, because his mum was a good liar too, and he had to get good – Jon isn’t great. He’s fine, he’s decent, but he’s not good, not like Martin is.

The pause before he says, “I could eat,” is revealing in a way a “No” never could be.

“Jon,” Martin says.

“Martin,” Jon replies.

He’s already said thank you. He said thank you a hundred times, in his head, and then once they were alone together in the cottage, he’d actually said it out loud, and when Jon had turned his head away, Martin had grabbed him by both cheeks and made Jon look at him, and Jon hadn’t felt small then – he hadn’t looked small, or felt small, or fragile. He’d felt gigantic, like Martin was holding a star between his palms, and when Jon had reached up to loop his fingers around Martin’s wrist – and those were skinny, Jon’s fingers were long and skinny and scarred, whereas Martin’s fingers were shorter, plumper, and scarred – Martin had felt his stomach drop out of his chest, expecting Jon to push his hand away, but he hadn’t.

He’d just squeezed, gently, and then pressed his cheek more tightly against Martin’s palm, and Martin had been so overwhelmed he’d felt like crying. “Thank you,” he’d said a second time. “For saving me.”

“Martin,” Jon had said, “it was just one favour for… I don’t know, a few hundred others.”

And Martin had laughed, a kind of giggly laugh he didn’t like that he actually did, and he’d made to pull away in case he was making Jon uncomfortable, but Jon had hung onto his wrist and kept his hand on Jon’s cheek as though—

Not as though. Because he wanted Martin to touch him, just like that, and so they’d sat down together on the dusty couch and Martin had just touched his face, just touched it, just traced the scars there and the threat of shadow that hadn’t come true yet, and stroked Jon’s hair and traced his teeth and his bones through the skin, and he hadn’t felt all that skinny, not really—

“Martin?” Jon asks again.

“We had a cat, when I was a little boy,” Martin says. “He never let me touch him, but when he got hit by a car, I went and I picked him up, because I needed to carry him home. He was already d— He was already dead, but he was still warm, and I think it was, um, fast.”

“Spock,” Jon says. “It was fast. The wheel snapped his spine, so he didn’t really feel it.”

Martin swallows, and he watches the guilt on Jon’s face as he turns his face away. “Yeah,” Martin says. They’ve been trying to keep things light, trying not to talk about hard things, but it’s hard, he thinks, because Jon is such a hard person, and Martin isn’t as soft as he used to be, as he used to want to be. “I didn’t realize how skinny he was until after I touched him. He was an old cat. They get skinny.”

Jon seems to understand where this is going, and he presses his lips together, but then tries a weak smile, tries to joke. “I’m not that old, Martin. You can touch me whenever you want.”

They’ve been trying to keep things light.

“Just— Basira will send the statements soon. As soon as the Archive isn’t a crime scene anymore, really.”

“I’m fine,” Jon says, and he smiles in a way that Martin supposes is supposed to be comforting. “Really.”

“Is it—” Martin starts, leaning forward, setting The Coral Island aside, and then he stops, because he feels guilty, and weird, and… “Is it hard?” He asks anyway, because he’s meant to be not quite so soft, he’s meant to be harder, and that means being more assertive, and not just rolling over on anything, everything, that means…

“Is what hard, Martin?” Jon asks in a low voice.

“You’re hungry,” Martin says. “You look hungry. You look thin – not as thin as Daisy, maybe, but thin, like you’re not eating properly. You tell me everything I cook here tastes good but I don’t really know if you even taste it.”

“I do,” Jon says. “Your cooking’s nice, Martin. When I have the statements, I’ll be—”

“But the statements aren’t the same, are they?” Martin asks, demands, which is too hard, too assertive, but he can’t stop, the words flow out of him like they’re rushing to get off his tongue. “It’s more like the ghost of a meal, isn’t it? Or a snack, like it’s not something with enough substance? And two weeks have gone by and you haven’t even had that.”

There’s a long silence. This one is very guilty, Martin thinks, and Jon looks small in a way that has nothing to do with being the Archivist, or being skinny.

“Maybe we should go for a walk,” Martin suggests, trying to soften his voice.

“I don’t want to come across anyone by accident,” Jon murmurs.

“Because you’re hungry,” Martin says.

“Martin, I’m always hungry,” Jon says exhaustedly, and then winces, like he’s just heard what he’s said and hates himself for it, and he stands to his feet. “I’m going to… I’m going to take a nap, I think. I’m… sorry. I know this is difficult for you, I don’t mean to—”

Martin doesn’t mean to lunge, per se. He isn’t really the sort of man that does lunging, he’s not really big in an athletic sense, and his mum used to describe him as lumbering, he’s not that fast, but he does lunge, now, and he shoves Jon up against one of the walls, covered over as it is with a blue wallpaper that must have been here before Daisy bought the place.

Jon’s head tips back against the wall, his jaw set, and he doesn’t even look surprised – had he seen it coming? Did he know it was coming, like Elias, like Magnus, always did?

“I’m sorry,” he says again. “I know this probably isn’t what you wanted.”

Martin stares at him. “What? You think that I didn’t, that I didn’t want for you to become the Archivist and have to be hungry all the time because you can’t— because you have to read statements, because taking them from real people is too traumatic for them, because— you think that’s what I don’t want?”

“I can’t imagine you wrote it down in your wish list, no,” Jon says. “But I just mean… Martin, I’m not very… Even before all this, people used to think that they wanted me, sometimes. And I’m not…”

“What, you think I’m disappointed?” Martin asks, surprised by how hard it hits him, like a punch to the gut. “I knew what you were like. You’re not disappointing. And I don’t mind that you don’t like se— that you don’t want… I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but out of the two of us, I’m not exactly the hot one.”

Jon’s head tilts, just slightly. “Aren’t you?” he asks.

It hurts, actually, because it feels like he’s making fun, except that Jon isn’t a good liar and he isn’t good at making fun either, so Martin knows that he isn’t, knows how genuine it is, but then that just hurts more, compounds the hurt and spreads in a layer of guilt like it’s jam between slices of bread.

“I could give you a statement,” Martin says.

“What?” Jon asks. “Don’t be ridiculous.” It’s the first time he actually starts to pull away from Martin’s grip, tries to struggle out from between his hands, but Martin holds him fast in place, and the Eye doesn’t exactly give its people super strength, does it? “Martin, even if I wanted to do that, even if I wanted to hurt you like that, I already know—”

“Only stuff that happened to me after I joined the Archive,” Martin says. “Not from before.”

There’s a sort of sheen that appears in Jon’s eyes that makes a shiver run down Martin’s spine, but it’s only there for a second before he shakes his head, turning his face away and trying not to look at him.

“No,” Jon says. “No, I don’t… I already— I’ve taken far too much from you, Martin, do you really think—”

“What have you taken off me?”

“What have I…?” Jon laughs, a sort of indignant, huffy sound, gasping.

“What, I’m such a stupid child now I can’t even decide who I like and who I want without you deciding—”

“That isn’t true! That isn’t what I’m saying at all, Martin, you’re being—”

“Oh, harmless Martin, he’s got this big crush, can’t possibly be because he can actually decide who and what he likes, obviously he’s just an idiot who—”

“I didn’t say you were an idiot! I just—”

“— must have been tricked into liking me, and is only staying out of guilt or something—”

“Well, are you? Because, Martin, I know I’m not exactly a catch, and—”

“Jon, you’re so arrogant, usually, and when you come across as all self-deprecating to someone who’s really self-deprecating, it sort of feels like you’re trying to steal my act. So. Stop.”

Jon stares at him, his mouth ajar. It’s not exactly keeping things light, but it’s closer, and Martin gives him a small, shyer smile than he means to. Jon laughs, in a small way, a tiny way, a breathless way.

“You don’t want to take live statements from strangers because it’s awful to just go up to somebody and rip things out of their head,” Martin says. “I get that. But I’m not some stranger, and I know what it’s like. You’re not ripping anything out, I just… I’m, you know. Feeding you.”

“Like your dead cat,” Jon says.

“Well, I haven’t fed Spock in decades, Jon. Frankly, it’d be weird if I did,” Martin says, and Jon actually laughs, properly, a little chuckle instead of a nose exhale and a huff, and this time his head falls forward so that his forehead touches Martin’s plushly cushioned sternum, his fingers brushing the side of Martin’s waist. “I don’t get why you think you’re so hideous. I mean. Not because of the monster thing, I get that, but that doesn’t bother me, I just mean, you know, you, as a person. You’re not that bad.”

“Martin, everyone we know thinks I’m a prick.”

“Well, yeah, you are a prick,” Martin says. “But people marry pricks all the time.” That’s a bit weird to say, isn’t it? That’s very forward. He’s made it awkward, talking about marriage, and he tries to make it less so by adding, “And date them, and kiss them, and find them attractive,” but he thinks he just makes it worse.

“I don’t like sex,” Jon says to Martin’s chest.

“I like to wank,” Martin says in the same tone, and then feels himself blush, as if someone’s just lit two matches in his cheeks. Jon slowly leans back, looking up at Martin with his eyebrows raised as highly as they’ll go, and Martin coughs. “I mean, that is, er, that is to say, that I like to— to… What I mean is…”

“Yes?” Jon asks, looking as though he’s trying not to laugh. Martin’s pretty sure his cheeks are glowing right now.

“It doesn’t bother me,” Martin says more seriously, trying to come off as genuine. “It’s not like I haven’t… You know, I’ve had sex. But wanking is… It’s fine. I’d rather have you and not have sex then go have sex and leave you all alone.” Jon’s face shifts, and Martin says, “No, no, it isn’t just that. It’s not obligation. I… like you. I want you. For some reason, Jon, I actually enjoy your company.”

“Really, why?” Jon says. “I don’t.”

“I know,” Martin murmurs. “But you’re… You’re funny, and I know that you’re acerbic, and sharp, but you do actually care underneath all that, way more than you like to admit. And I’ve always had a weakness for prematurely grey hair.”

Jon’s fingers spread over Martin’s chest, gently pressing on the flesh there. “I don’t deserve… you.”

“What do I do?” Martin asks. “It was when I was… when I was nineteen, I think. With the Hunt.”

The glint comes back into Jon’s eyes, but Martin can see him trying to hold it back, trying to keep himself reined in. He shakes his head, but Martin inhales slowly, keeps Jon framed in between his hands, and says, “I think it was the Hunt, anyway. I knew it wasn’t, um, that it wasn’t normal… I was working in Kwik Save at the time, back when there was still Kwik Saves about, and I’d been working there a year, got invited to a party. A lot of them were uni students, and I wanted to be impressive, you know, show them—”

“Martin,” Jon says, urgently, and Martin pulls him slowly back toward the sofa, trying to move slowly and deliberately. He all but drags Jon into his lap, and he can feel the warmth that radiates from him, can feel the way Jon stiffens slightly, looks at him. He doesn’t know why it’s so easy to touch Jon, but it’s easier than talking, somehow. “You hate— You don’t like it when I…”

“I don’t like hearing you read statements,” Martin says. “But because you get so… You get so into them. The whole empathy thing. You don’t just read them, you experience them.”

“So why—”

“Jon,” Martin says. “Let me make a statement.”

He doesn’t know where the tape recorder comes from. It’s just there, whirring away on the coffee table and Jon says, lowly, “Statement of Martin Blackwood, regarding an encounter with a believed agent of the Hunt on the night of the 19th of July, 2010. Statement recorded the 13th of October, 2018.”

Jon licks his lips. Martin’s throat feels thick and full, a sort of nausea stirring in his gut – he doesn’t know why he’d never committed this one to tape. Because he wasn’t the real victim, he supposes, because he was just at the edge of it, but also because it always seemed… unrealistic.

“I’d been working at Kwik Save for nearly six months,” Martin says, and it feels different, somehow, the way that the words come out of his mouth, perhaps because of how intently Jon is focused on him, how unblinking his eyes are, all of a sudden. Elias used to look at Martin like that, sometimes, but that doesn’t matter now. “And I wanted… I wasn’t very popular at school, and it wasn’t that I was unpopular at work, I just knew that I wasn’t… You know, people didn’t really want to hang out with me. I didn’t really have friends. I’ve never had friends.”

It’s too honest, but it flows out of him so easily – and it isn’t comfortable, exactly. It reminds him of being a kid, when he’d messed up trying to tie a piece of thread around a loose tooth and had swallowed a little ball of it, had had to pull it out of his throat bit by bit. It feels inevitable to tell him this, sort of a relief, but not comfortable, not natural.

“So when Jonathan Radley, this guy who was working part-time, he was a student, invited me to a house party, I jumped at the chance. I knew it was just because he was inviting everyone else, that he probably didn’t care all that much about me particularly, but it was a party, and I’d never been to a party before, not… not since I was a kid, and back then, people would only invite me because their parents made them invite everyone. But it was like… I don’t know, people were nice. They weren’t cruel or anything, I wasn’t even bullied that much at school, really – I was too big for that, I think. People didn’t want to say anything too bad because I was big enough to be bad back, even if I chose not to.

“It was busy. There was loud music playing, but I ended up in the kitchen, and this girl, her name was Anna, and her boyfriend had walked out on her. She sort of, um, I don’t know, adopted me? She kept grabbing me by the hand and leading me around, introducing me to people. I don’t know what it was she saw in me specifically, I think she just wanted someone to look after, and because I’m so broad and tall, if anyone came over, I could just stand in the way. We looked after each other.

“That was why I got as drunk as I was, I think. I didn’t mean to drink that much, because my mum was at home with my grandmother, and I was only going to be out for the night, but I didn’t want to be too hungover because I knew my mum would… She hated it when I got drunk. I think she was bitter about it.

“We did shots. I drank a lot of vodka, a lot more than I’d ever drunk before – I usually got drunk off, you know, cider and sours and cocktails that were more mixer than anything else, not spirits.

“And then this guy came in. He was… He was my height. Which is tall, right? That’s tall. He was tall, with really broad shoulders, muscular arms. A bit like Tim – he was a… He was a bodybuilder, I think. Handsome, too. He had dark hair, and this jaw that was, you know, when people say chiselled I don’t always see it, but it did look chiselled, like someone’d made him out of marble and then painted him, and there was this cleft in his chin. He was… He was hot. Handsome, but handsome like a model, handsome like an actor. It was unreal, overexaggerated, like he couldn’t really be real – and I thought at the time it was just because I was drunk.

“He started talking to me. I was sat down, and he came in and I still remember the way his fingers felt when he touched my neck – he traced up from my throat up to my chin, and it was as though he… I don’t think I’d ever been as suddenly desperate for a man’s attention. It just felt so good, to have him look at me – not even touch me, just look at me, just be in the spotlight. When he smiled, I felt like the world could end and I wouldn’t even notice.

“It was ridiculous! Stupid! As soon as I got home, later, it faded right out, I couldn’t understand why I’d been so into him. It was like he stopped being so intoxicating, when I wasn’t in his presence anymore. Pheromones, maybe.

“He started talking about… I don’t even know. I wasn’t really drunk anymore, all of a sudden, but he was still stroking my chin like I was a dog in his lap, like he didn’t… I remember he was talking about exercise. He was asking me what sort of exercise I did – he said I looked like a strong guy, asked if I’d done any sport, and I said that I had, that I’d played rugby at school, but that I didn’t like how rough it was. That I liked to walk in the countryside, that I liked to ride my bike, sometimes. He asked me how much I could carry, and it was…

“It was a bit like you, or Eli… Like Magnus. It didn’t feel like he was compelling me, exactly, just that before I even realised what I was doing, I was telling him that I could lift my mother up and carry her up and down the stairs, how much she weighed. He asked me how fast I could run. I told him I didn’t know, that I was more of a slower and steadier guy than a sprinter, you know?

“He asked me… He asked me what I’d scored on my last beep test, at school, and I told him I couldn’t remember, but that I’d been in the third to last level. He sort of… I remember the look he gave me. He kind of pouted, you know? Actually stuck out his lips and pouted a bit, and patted my chest as if he was consoling me.

“He said, “I suppose you’ll do,” he said. “Maybe you’ll surprise me.” But then Anna came over, and she was a track runner. She jogged 5k every day. You know, he went through the same interrogation with her, and the whole time he kept just… just stroking my chin, and I let him, it was… It felt normal.

“I fell asleep. I remember that, that I fell asleep, and when I woke up the party was still going, but I was nearly completely sober, or I felt it, anyway. I got a lift home with someone who was going the same way, but Anna, she was… She was gone.

“It was in the paper. It was in one of those freak stories, that she’d gone for her jog in the morning, but that she’d sprinted, that she’d… They found her out on the moor. She’d had a heart attack. Her clothes weren’t torn or anything, but she’d just run herself so fast, for so long, that her heart gave out.

“I remember his eyes. I used to dream about them, sometimes – they weren’t yellow or green or anything bright. They were a silvery blue, like shallow water in sunlight. I thought back on how it felt, once I started at the Archive. I didn’t remember it being frightening. It didn’t feel like he was going to do anything dreadful, or even… It didn’t even feel sexual, at the time. I didn’t even think about having sex with him – I just wanted to be close to him, and I wanted him to like me. To pick me.”

He looks at Jon’s face for the first time since he’d started, and he looks…

The bags have faded a little from under Jon’s eyes. His skin doesn’t look so pallid and chalky as it had before, and there’s a brighter light in his eyes, and even his lips seem less chapped. He looks… healthier. Not as thin.

Martin’s done this.

Martin’s made him… better. Healthier. He’s nurtured him, and he looks…

This shouldn’t be quite as sexy as it is. It shouldn’t turn him on, he shouldn’t feel…

“End statement,” Jon says hoarsely.

Martin waits for the tape recorder to click off, and then hauls him closer by the front of his shirt, crushing their mouths together. Jon lets out a low noise, but when a sudden wave of guilt makes itself known, Jon opens his mouth wider and kisses Martin back. He’s a good kisser, better than Martin – he kisses like he doesn’t like being in charge of them, but like he enjoys them, and when they kiss, Martin is aware of how loud the noise is, the wet smack of their mouths—

When Jon pulls back, his eyes are heavily lidded, and h looks blissful – Martin’s done that, too, Martin’s made Jon feel like this, Martin’s taken care of him…

“Do you feel better?” Martin asks.

“Yes,” Jon says. “I didn’t… Why did you kiss me?”

“You look good,” Martin says. “Better.”

“Oh,” Jon says, looking relieved, and Martin drags him closer, bundling his legs up against Martin’s chest, so that he can hold all of Jon’s body in his arms at once. “I feel… I feel better. I should feel guilty, I suppose, but—"

“You need to eat,” Martin says.

“But you don’t have to be the one feeding me,” Jon says. “Except that you… I’m not imagining it, am I? You liked it.”

“I like taking care of people,” Martin says. “I like taking care of you.”

“This is a bit more direct than handfeeding me dog treats at the dinner table.”

“God, how did you know I wanted to do that too?” Martin asks, and Jon laughs, breathlessly. Martin puts his fingers up and into Jon’s hair, running it through his fingers again. Jon’s hands come over Martin’s own, loosely gripping his wrists, guiding them up higher, to touch his scalp. “I like touching you. You… You come off as someone who isn’t used to being touched. I like being the one to touch you.”

“You can do whatever you want to me,” Jon says. “I trust you.”

It’s a hundred thousand miles away from the fantasies of Jon telling him he couldn’t touch, of being all stern and in command – it’s everything Martin never realised was impossible, back in the beginning, and yet somehow… “I— Are you trying to make me hard?”

Jon grins at him, shows his teeth, tips his head back slightly, looks for a moment like he’s completely energised, and Martin laughs. He knows it won’t last. He knows he couldn’t see Jon like this all the time – he knows that it comes with nastiness, and horror, knows that most of the statements are horrible, traumatic, much worse than this one. He knows that would be the payment, for Jon to be like this.

But—

“Yeah,” Jon says, tone teasing. “Maybe a bit. What, got a problem?”

“Pretty big problem, actually.”

“Oh, is it big?” Jon furrows his brow down low, twisting his lips – it’s more Carry On than seductive.

Martin laughs. “As if you’d know. As if you’d even have a frame of reference.”

“I’ve had sex! I’ve seen penises! Tell you what, Martin,” Jon adds, and he lowers his voice, “I’ve even got one.”

“Is it in your desk drawer, next to your rib?”

“Yeah. Different box, though.” Martin’s never seen Jon smile so much – it’s still a tired smile, but he looks… sated. It’s nice. Martin likes it.

“I used to think you didn’t have a sense of humour.”

“That’s in the third box. Rib, sense of humour, penis. Ranked in order of importance.” Jon’s fingers trace down the inside of Martin’s wrists, and the sensation is ticklish, but not unpleasant. “I never used to have friends either.”

“I don’t want to make you uncomfortable,” Martin says. “With… Sex.”

“I’m not uncomfortable. I don’t mind that people have it, that they want it. I just don’t really like the idea of participating, but I don’t mind… I don’t mind teasing. If it doesn’t bother you.”

“It doesn’t bother me,” Martin murmurs, feeling his cheeks burn with a slight blush. “Sort of the opposite, actually. Do you still want to nap?”

“We could take that walk, if you want,” Jon says. “I feel a bit more up for it.”

“Yeah,” Martin says. “Me too, funny enough.”

Jon smiles, and he hesitates, but then turns his head, slowly, and presses his mouth to the inside of one of Martin’s wrists. His lips are surprisingly soft where they press against the pulse point there, and Martin’s mouth feels dry.

“Let’s take that walk,” Martin says, and Jon nods.

They hold hands. Martin’s never walked with someone and held hands with them before. He’s never even fantasied about it, never even dreamed of…

It’s nice.

It’s really nice.

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