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ieattaperecorders · 2 years

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Lost Cat, Do Not Find

Chapter 5 - Silence, Thought, My Alcove

Martin gets a ride home. Jon finds something unexpected.

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Several mutually frustrating attempts at communication followed, as Martin tried to coax Jon to meow in response, to point or tap with his paw. Nothing worked, of course, and eventually it sank in that Jon wasn't going to be able to respond.

"How did you even --" he shook his head, "okay, I get that you can't answer, just, how do you get yourself into these situations?"

Jon gave a vaguely offended mrr, if only because Martin was one to talk. There were still tiny red marks on his hand where Jon had bit him moments ago, trying to pull him back from the Lonely.

The revelation of a problem solved (Jon wasn't dead or missing) and a second problem introduced (Jon was currently a small tortoiseshell cat) seemingly interrupted whatever had been happening to Martin. He was solid now, opaque, and his voice had life to it again. Superficially at least, he seemed normal. But the air around him hadn't quite lost its chill, and there was something in the hue of his skin, the way that light reflected off of him that felt muted and dull. Whatever reprieve he'd just gotten, Jon doubted it was permanent.

"Do the others know? No, of course they don't, they think you're missing . . . Christ," he muttered. "I should tell them, let them know what's going on --"

As Martin glanced towards the door, Jon leapt up with alarm. As much as he'd initially tried to alert the others to his condition, the idea of telling them now was terrifying, and he let out a yowl. Martin flinched at the sound of it.

". . . Ooor not?" He paused. "Why? Don't tell me you're embarrassed. "

A frustrated growl came out of Jon. For the moment, Martin was the only one who knew about this. But if he told the others . . . Jon was sure that once Martin could pass him off to someone else, his next act would be to return to the cold, lonely office upstairs. He'd tell himself that Jon had help and wouldn't need him anymore, and Jon just couldn't bear that. Not now. He needed to need Martin now.

"I can't -- I mean, I really don't know what to do with this," he gestured in Jon's direction. "The others would probably be in a better position . . . ."

Jon placed a paw on Martin's arm, as if he could hold him in place. Martin let out a long, slow breath.

". . . Fine." He rubbed his eyes. "I won't tell the others, at least not right away, but Jon, what -- what am I supposed to do here? I don't even know how it happened. Did someone do this to you? Did you touch some weird artifact, or a Leitner?"

Jon nearly meowed at the word Lietner , but the book's influence was still hobbling him, and the sound died in his throat. He closed his eyes, making an effort not to think until the wave of confusion passed. When he came back to himself, Martin was still talking.

" --even if I did know. It's not as if there's a manual for these things." He felt around the floor until his hands closed on a phone. He turned it on and checked the time. "Christ, it's late," he muttered. "How much time did I lose? No wonder I'm so tired."

The light from the screen made Martin's face look gray and washed-out as he ran a hand through his hair. Jon took note of the offhanded way he mentioned losing time. Wondered if something like this had happened before, when no one else was there to see it. Martin turned back to him, studying him seriously.

"You've . . . just been staying here, huh? Since this happened."

Since well before it had happened, in fact. He just hadn't seen the point in finding another place after he returned from the hospital. There were cots in the back and near the tunnels, and details like whether the bed he slept on was comfortable seemed awfully trivial under the circumstances. The thought of going apartment hunting while beset by monsters from within and without had felt like an absurd waste of resources.

Besides. This was where he belonged now, wasn't it? The Archivist in its archive, in situ. But Martin didn't need to know that.

"Probably isn't hard finding a place to sleep when you're cat-sized." Martin said. He rolled his shoulder in a reflexive manner, as if his body still remembered all the nights he'd spent on the cot in document storage. "Don't you worry that a janitor'll spot you and call animal control?"

Constantly, Jon thought, but none of the ordinary staff ever enter the archives at night. Not even security. Wise of them, frankly.

"Suppose you've been all right this long. For . . . a month now, almost? If you went missing on the first. Shit, Jon, I'm . . ." he got to his feet, slowly. "We'll -- I'll figure something out, all right? Just give me a night to process this, and to get some sleep. Okay?"

He wasn't sure why Martin was asking his permission. He was hardly in any position to tell him when to come and go anymore, and even if he was, he couldn't communicate those decisions anyway. The truth was, he absolutely didn't want Martin to leave. Not even for one night, not when he was finally looking at Jon and seeing him, not after he had nearly vanished before his eyes. Jon wanted him here, where he could keep close to him, grab him if he started to fade again.

But whatever was happening to Martin now, it wouldn't be helped if he imprisoned himself in the archive just to ease Jon's own fears and loneliness. So he padded over to the corner and curled up, lying down. He wasn't planning to sleep, really. Just to rest his head, to show that he was all right here. That it was fine.

"Right. All right." Martin made it as far as the door, then hesitated. He muttered something Jon didn't catch. "God -- look. I -- I shouldn't do this, but . . . would it be better if you spent the night at my flat?"

Like a shot, Jon raised his head as Martin continued speaking, still facing the door.

"Just -- if no one else knows about this . . . I mean, you can't even talk, and if something happened at night there's not a lot for you to defend yourself with . . . ."

There was no need to sell Jon on the idea, and to be frank he suspected that Martin was mostly trying to sell himself on it. It didn't matter. He rose from his corner and approached, so that when Martin glanced back again he was sitting on the floor about a foot away, looking up expectantly.

"And I'd just -- oh," he cleared his throat. "Right. Okay, then. I'll just . . . ." he glanced at his phone again, thinking. "Missed the last train anyway. I'll call a rideshare? That's probably easiest."

He waited on the floor as Martin made the call, then followed as he gathered his coat and bag.

"All right. Well. It'll be here in a minute, so--" he gestured towards the stairs.

They walked through the silent building together, moving slowly. Martin glanced back at him frequently, as if to check he was still there. It struck Jon as they approached the entrance that he was further from the archive than he'd been since his change, and it filled him with a strange anxiety. At some point he'd internalized the fear of being shut out, the thought that leaving the building would mean never getting back in. Being outside the institute felt unsafe now, frightening.

It was an irrational fear. He could push past it. He was with Martin, who was blessed with the gift of opposable thumbs and who wouldn't let Jon be trapped outside.

Unless he vanishes, something whispered at the back of his mind. Unless he fades like a puff of smoke the moment you look away. Unless the book makes him forget about you. Unless he decides to leave you behind.

He could push past it. He was used to pushing past fear.

The night guard didn't look up as they passed, and Jon wondered if they were even visible to him. As they reached the door Martin hesitated.

"Would it be all right if I picked you up? Just while we're outside."

There was no sign of assent Jon could make without muddying his thoughts, so he sat within arm's reach and simply waited. Martin bent down, slow enough to give Jon time to pull away, then hooked his hands behind his front legs and lifted him up. Reflexively, Jon walked his paws over Martin's shoulder to get himself more stability. With some juggling, Martin made a sort of seat for him with his left arm, the other arm coming around Jon's front to hold him in place. He shifted a little, testing his stability, and was satisfied that he wouldn't fall. He practically swam in Martin's arms, honestly, there was little chance of losing his balance.

The night air was a new sensation after weeks in basement rooms. The only noise came from a few passing cars, and the quiet left him vividly aware of everything else -- the alien sensation of a breeze moving his fur, the cacophony of scents in city air, the pressure of Martin's arms keeping him steady. There was barely time to take it all in before a car with an LED logo pulled up to the curb.

"Martin?" the driver asked.

"Uh, yes . . . Is it all right if I bring a cat in with me?"

"Sure," the driver said, not looking up from his tablet, "as long as it stays in a pet carrier."

"Ah. I . . . don't have one of those?" Martin said awkwardly. "I could keep him in my lap?"

The driver turned and took them both in. He sighed quietly, in a manner that suggested it was definitely not all right. Then he said "sure, that's all right" in a manner that suggested he'd rather allow it than give up his fare.

"Sorry, thank you, sorry--" Martin said, getting in. "I promise, he's very well-behaved."

"Mmm-hmm," the driver said, in the manner of someone quietly and intensely hating their job. He confirmed Martin's address and drove off without small talk.

At his back, Jon felt Martin quietly cringe. He made a point to keep still during the ride, so as not to get any fur on the seats.

* * *

When the car finally pulled up to Martin's apartment block, the driver paused and looked at his tablet with confusion.

"Why did --" he muttered, then his eyes caught the rearview mirror and he jumped. He turned to Martin like he hadn't been expecting him there. "Oh! Sh -- um, hey. This, uh, is this the place?"

If Martin noticed anything odd about his reaction, it didn't show. "Yeah, thanks," he said. "Sorry again, about the cat."

"No -- no problem. Really. It's fine."

A click, some shifting, and then they were outside again, night air and all. Jon shook his head, sending little bits of fur out into the breeze. He watched over Martin's shoulder as the driver left in a hurry.

Inside the lobby, Martin crouched so Jon could amble out of his arms onto the tiled floor. He was slow going up the stairs, as usual his size meant everything required that much more effort, and it was a good thing Martin's flat was only on the third floor.

"Don't expect much," Martin said as he unlocked the door, "it's kind of a mess in there."

Stepping in, Jon looked around, reflexively assessing. The flat was a little messy, he supposed. Mugs sitting out, things piled on the table by the door, wastebaskets overfull. Nothing he'd consider particularly bad, but frankly, with the way things were Jon couldn't imagine any level of mess that wasn't excusable. Martin could have opened the door onto a perfect recreation of Maggie's Dump and it would still have been a bit hard to judge. Still, he saw Martin self-consciously gather the mugs from the coffee table, taking them into the kitchen.

"Are you hungry?"

Jon must have visibly reacted to the question, based on the amused look on Martin's face. He pulled out his phone, typing on the screen.

"Not sure what I can get for you. I don't exactly keep a can of Fancy Feast for emergencies . . . though you probably wouldn't want that anyway, would you?" he paused, blinking. " . . . Actually, hang on, what have you been eating all this time?"

You really don't want an answer to that, Jon thought. And I don't know why you're looking at me like I can give you one anyway.

"I'll just add that to the running list of mysteries . . . okay." He squinted at whatever was on his phone screen. "Chicken and rice sound okay? I can manage that."

It sounded better than anything Jon had eaten in weeks. He watched as Martin busied himself, pulling a grocery store rotisserie from the fridge and tearing off meat with his fingers, dropping it into a blender with some leftover rice. As Jon's meal warmed in the microwave, he fixed a sandwich for himself and filled a cereal bowl with water. He paused, glancing at Jon, and then around the kitchen. For a moment he eyed the small, unsteady table pushed against the wall, but thought better of it and set the bowl on the floor. That was fine with Jon, really. Eating off the floor might be less dignified, but he was exhausted, sore, and didn't relish the thought of trying to make a jump onto untested furniture.

As he bent to have a drink from the bowl, Martin stepped back to the counter and returned with two plates, setting one on the table and the other on the floor beside Jon. The smell of food was overwhelming, and he found his jaws were snapping it up before he could even consider savoring. It was wonderful to finally eat something warm and filling, not scavenged from the garbage or hunted in the tunnels. It took willpower to slow down, to pace himself so he wouldn't be sick.

He pulled away from the heady distraction of food long enough to pause, have a few more licks of water and let himself digest. When he looked up, Martin was watching him -- though he turned away when Jon met his eyes, back to his own dinner.

"Sorry . . ." he muttered. "It's just weird to have someone over? Somehow that's weirder than the cat thing, even." He shook his head. "Ignore me. I don't know what I'm saying."

Jon turned back to his plate, looking away as deliberately as he could, trying not to scrutinize. Slowly, he drank and ate a bit more, feeling more full than he had in recent memory. There was a great deal left over since Martin -- who had never had a cat before -- portioned it as if for a human guest. He lay down on the kitchen floor as Martin finished his own meal, stood up and slipped the dishes into the sink.

"Dunno if you want to sleep now," he said over his shoulder. "Cats are nocturnal, right?"

That's a common misconception, Jon thought, cats are actually crepuscular, most active at dusk and dawn. Domestic cats typically sleep a good portion of the night, but because they'll still be active while their owners are sleeping it leads to popular notions--

"Didn't really think about that. Guess there's a lot I didn't think about," Martin laughed quietly. "A whole lot. Well. Dunno if you're sleeping now, but I sure am. I'm beat."

Jon rose and followed as Martin walked through the living room, then stopped at the bedroom door.

"I'm just going to get changed for bed?" he said. "I'll be right back."

Right. Embarrassing to realize he was so underfoot that Martin had to remind him not to follow him into his own bedroom . He took a few steps back as the door closed between them.

Left to his own devices, he walked around, idly taking a look at the place. The living room was narrow, with space for a small couch and end table, with little else in the way of furniture. Despite the size, and despite Martin's comments about the mess, the room wasn't cluttered. If anything, it was oddly sparse.

That was . . . different, wasn't it? Jon tried to recall. He'd been in Martin's flat once before, if only briefly. After Prentiss's attack on the archive -- when Martin had been back in his flat a little more than a week but still couldn't sleep through the night, Jon had offered to look the place over with him, suggesting that a second pair of eyes could help assure him that the building was still free of worms. Of course, he'd had a less noble motivation for offering -- he recalled with a hint of shame how eager he'd been to get a look at Martin's flat. Some asinine notion that he'd spot something suspicious there -- an incriminating letter left out, perhaps, or a firearm labeled ‘the gun I used to shoot Gertrude Robinson.'

The memory of what Martin's flat had looked like then was fuzzy with time, but he was certain that the couch used to have a few soft-looking blankets draped over it. Hadn't there been things hanging on the walls as well? Some sort of artwork or a framed poster or two, something like that? There had just been more things lying around, more stuff in general. What little clutter there was now consisted of work documents, loose dishes and a coat tossed casually aside, nothing personal or comforting.

The only spot in the room -- possibly the entire flat -- that still held anything sentimental was a bookcase pressed against the wall, which had a handful of knick-knacks, a cracked mug filled with pens and a shelf and a half of books. Climbing onto the arm of the couch, he could get close enough to see the spines, though the words were still gibberish to him. Frustrated, he wished he could still read. He'd have liked to know what sort of books Martin owned.

Jon began to wonder if this was reaching the level of snooping.

He didn't think it was. He wasn't opening drawers or rummaging through cabinets or peeking in closets, surely that was the line where it became strange. He wasn't trying to uncover any secrets, he was just curious.

But curiosity wasn't something he could trust in himself, not anymore. It was hard to ignore how eager, even hungry he felt for any details he could glean from Martin's living room. Was he being invasive? Was the Eye pushing him as it had before? Looking at someone else's books and knick knacks, that was basically normal, surely? Maybe it was. But he'd been made the Archivist for a reason, always the one who pushed too far, who asked personal questions, who pressed. It was difficult to tell sometimes.

Before he could chase himself in circles over this for too long, something new caught his eye and ground his thoughts to a halt. On a shelf above the books, inconspicuously sitting by a small wooden box, was a hematite bracelet. It was distinctive, with an alternating pattern of beads -- two thin, one thick -- and a small, sun-shaped charm at the center. Jon recognized it. He could almost hear the soft clack clack clack the beads used to make when Tim fiddled with it on quiet afternoons -- first in research, then in the Archive. Clack clack clack. He kept it close. Said it was his good luck charm. When he wasn't wearing it it would always be on his desk, wrapped around a pen like a figure-eight.

It was the same one. Jon didn't need Beholding powers to know that. He didn't know how long he stood there, staring brokenly at the bracelet, before Martin emerged from the bedroom.

". . . Jon? What are you -- oh. "

Martin's voice went soft on the last syllable, and Jon turned to him. He was looking at it now too.

"Yeah. It's Tim's," he reached over, picking it carefully off the shelf. "Afterwards . . . well, his family sorted out his apartment but no one ever came to clear out his desk. Basira and Melanie didn't really know him, and you were . . . you know. So I went through it."

He looked down at his hands, running his thumbs over the smooth, dark beads. Jon imagined him going through Tim's desk. Sorting papers into piles, deciding what would go back into the archive, what would go into the trash. Hesitating over small things -- legal pads that had a few notes scribbled in them, chewed pens, trinkets. Detritus that would have been meaningless before, but had now become a finite resource -- evidence that Tim Stoker once existed.

"I felt weird taking it, but if I hadn't it'd have just been thrown away. Or worse, shoved in some closet in the Institute. He'd have hated that, having a part of him stuck there even after he was gone."

He would've. It was odd that he'd left it in the first place, hadn't taken it with him to Yarmouth. Another sign that he hadn't been planning to come back. Or perhaps a sign he'd stopped believing in luck. Then again, maybe he'd just forgotten it, and trying to apply some deeper meaning to it all was the height of foolishness. Jon didn't know. He had no illusions of understanding Tim's mind at time of the Unknowing, save that he'd been in a bad, bad place.

Because of me, the back of Jon's mind reminded him. Martin sighed, returning the bracelet to its place. A mournful feline sound came out of Jon, and Martin ran a hand across the back of his head, just once. Jon pressed into the motion, something tight in his chest.

"It's late," Martin said quietly.

It was. He hopped down from the couch and followed him back to the bedroom.

As they entered, Jon's eye was caught by something on the floor -- it looked like a couple of pillows wrapped in a blanket to hold them together. He eyed it, then looked back at Martin, who shrugged, glancing off to the side.

"I thought I'd set up something for you to sleep on? Though I suppose you can just sleep wherever, I mean the couch is comfortable, if you'd rather sleep there."

The awkwardness of his tone was jarringly mundane, like the apology he'd made about the mess. As if Jon was just an unexpected guest, and Martin was only fretting over the state of his flat or whether he had sufficient sheets. It was a small, harmless sort of strangeness. He would have been fine with the couch, or even the floor, but he climbed into the makeshift cat bed out of politeness. It was comfortable enough.

"Right. Good night, then."

Martin turned off the light and climbed into his own bed, his silhouette turning and shuffling as he settled in. Only after he'd been still for a few minutes did it occur to Jon that he should probably stop staring at him.

It would be fine. Martin was there, and he was solid, and Jon was very, very tired. He closed his eyes.

* * *

There was no knowing how long he'd been asleep before the cold woke him. He came to disoriented, trying to reach with hands he didn't have to grab at blankets that weren't there, before his eyes opened and he remembered where he was. Alarmed, he looked around and found nothing out of place -- Martin's silhouette was still there, solid under the blanket. But it was cold , far too cold for a warm summer night. A cold that numbed his paws and burned his eyes. Something predatory. Stumbling on paws he couldn't properly feel, he hurried to the side of the bed and leaped up.

As soon as he landed, Martin turned calmly to look at him. He wasn't startled or groggy, it was as if he'd been awake the whole time. He took in sight of Jon as he stood, shivering on the bed, and got up without a word. He went to the closet and rummaged around until he came back with a thick flannel blanket, which he placed on the makeshift cat bed.

"Sorry." His voice was quiet. Not the distant, muffled quiet it had been before, just the hushed tones of someone whispering into the dark. "Gets cold at night, sometimes."

Gets cold at night. He talked as if it were a matter of poor insulation or freak weather, when both of them knew very well that it wasn't.

"It might be warmer in the living room," Martin sat back down on the bed, opposite Jon. He didn't look at him directly. "But the blanket should help, either way."

Jon stepped closer and saw Martin flinch subtly. It was a small enough motion that he'd likely have missed it if his night vision wasn't so sharp. He hesitated mid-step. Martin turned, just a little, in his direction.

"Don't worry about me. I'm used to it."

Of course he was. He believed that Martin was used to this cold , and that was in fact more worrying. Jon was shivering, hard enough that he felt like he might shake apart, but Martin was perfectly still. Did he think Jon didn't see what this was?

(Did he think he didn't care?)

He meowed, and Martin pulled in on himself again.

"Just leave it," he muttered, voice fragile with dread. "Please. Go to sleep."

What could Jon do? Martin's breath wasn't visible, his form was solid. Whatever was happening, he wasn't going to vanish into thin air. This was something that had been here for a long time.

Reluctantly, he crawled back to the little cushion and burrowed underneath the blanket. It did nothing to take the edge off the chill. Eyes closed, he heard the creak of bedsprings as Martin lay back down. He shivered in the dark, and tried to sleep.

#tma fanfic #jonmartin #cat!jon #tma #fic slowly grows like the Corruption #martin would later leave a guilty five star review for his uber driver

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