#Not me drawing lil spiders in Martin's hair for funsies then giving them a full-on lore dump

[flyingmintbunny0]

Back by popular demand- What if More Archivist!Martin AU!!

Here's how the Hill Top Road roommates were born!

(If you can spot all the spiders in each panel, you have sharp eyes)

Get your context below the cut~

Ok, first off, I adore all the tags in my first post about this AU, they make my whole day!!! I'm so glad people latched onto the silly roommates especially, so I figured I'd show how Martin found them!

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Story (A bit of a prologue setting up The Web if you will):

CW: Spiders (but they are cute, I promise)

Martin was always a very isolated kid, he never made many connections with other people besides his mother. So when he came out to her after he'd turned 15, he had nowhere to go when she kicked him out of the house until he "came to his senses".

He wandered the streets, waiting until enough time had reasonably passed so he could go home and apologize to her. In the meantime, he found himself sitting on a park bench staring up at the swaying leaves on a nearby tree.

Then, he felt something crawling up his arm. And another something was creeping up his other hand. Looking down, there were two tiny spiders clinging to Martin, as if they were afraid he would throw them off. Which was ridiculous of course. Martin had always had a soft spot for little creatures and cooed to them softly.

"Hello little ones, where did you come from?" He giggled for the first time in... he can't remember how long, as the little critters waved their front legs in the air towards him. Martin wanted to believe they were trying to say Hi back.

Martin spent the afternoon distracting himself by watching the spiders roam around, crawling from hand to hand like an endless spider treadmill. They spun fragile webs between his fingers and Martin thought they were beautiful.

The sun set, but the two little spiders didn't seem keen to leave him, so Martin decided to bring them home with him. On the walk back, he came up with names that seemed suitable for each of them. If they were going to stick around, they deserved to be properly addressed. He thought about his favorite subject in school for ideas. They had just finished up a poetry unit and he was captivated by a few poets in particular. He looked down at the spider on his shoulder that had climbed up on him first.

"You seem like an Oscar Wilde type," Martin gently poked at the spider. The newly appointed Oscar looked offended, like it could give a sarcastic retort if it was capable of human speech.

"As for you..." Martin paused at the second one. It was sitting in a fold of Martin's sleeve, but poked its head out nervously at Martin's attention. "I'm going to call you John."

John Keats wasn't an especially inspired choice, Martin thought. But he was his favorite author at the moment. Something about his sappy verses drew Martin in like a moth to a flame, or a fly to a web.

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Later, after Martin had settled into a long-term position at the Magnus Institute, London, his mother decided she wanted to be rid of him for real this time. She asked him to set her up in a proper care home, and left him alone in their apartment. Martin was neither financially nor emotionally stable enough to stay in the lonely apartment, so he left as soon as possible with his few belongings in tow.

Annabelle Cane found him. Martin didn't understand how or why for a long time. But he eventually assumed it had to be connected to his spider friends somehow. At least she was friendly enough.

Annabelle led him back to her house on Hill Top Road. And sure, he wasn't expecting to live in a house filled with roommates that kept worms and moldy food(?) in the fridge, or a barrel drum full of wax in the basement, or an attic coated from floor to ceiling in cobwebs. But where else could he go? It's not like he could live in the library at work.

Yeah, his new roommates were weird, but he soon realized that he liked them. They were rough around the edges, but he figured out ways to be helpful, to smooth them out. He painstakingly experimented to find out their preferred choice of tea, and even convinced them to join him for movie nights every weekend.

And everything was going well! Martin was enjoying his work in the library, and he actually felt stable for once in his life.

That is, until Elias Bouchard called Martin into his office one day...

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OK I didn't mean to write a whole fic for this picture, but I couldn't stop myself pffff

All of the spider talk is 100% @lelouchootori 's fault btw ;v; I just thought it would be cute if the lil spiders I was adding to Martin's hair had lore, and they said that the spiders should have names, so it really spiraled.

Another tidbit! After meeting Annabelle, Martin realizes that she can communicate with the spiders Oscar and John. This causes him to talk to them a lot more (even if he can't understand them), especially in his Archivist office. I have a very specific scene in mind to make this a full-on office comedy:

Martin: What do you think about this creepy statement, John?

Jon (passing by his office door): What? What did you say?

Martin: Oh, sorry, I wasn't talking to you Jon.

Jon: ???