#i always draw Martin in distress and pain

[mikothemushroom]

Some Jon and Martin doodles

[frmartinshomiliesandreflections]

19th May >> Fr.  Martin’s Gospel Reflections / Homilies on John 16:20-23 for Friday, Sixth Week of Easter: ‘Your hearts will be full of joy’.

Friday, Sixth Week of Easter

Gospel (Except USA)

John 16:20-23

Your hearts will be full of joy that no-one will take from you.

Jesus said to his disciples:

‘I tell you most solemnly, you will be weeping and wailing while the world will rejoice; you will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn to joy. A woman in childbirth suffers, because her time has come; but when she has given birth to the child she forgets the suffering in her joy that a man has been born into the world. So it is with you: you are sad now, but I shall see you again, and your hearts will be full of joy, and that joy no one shall take from you. When that day comes, you will not ask me any questions.’

Gospel (USA)

John 16:20-23

No one will take your joy away from you.

Jesus said to his disciples: “Amen, amen, I say to you, you will weep and mourn, while the world rejoices; you will grieve, but your grief will become joy. When a woman is in labor, she is in anguish because her hour has arrived; but when she has given birth to a child, she no longer remembers the pain because of her joy that a child has been born into the world. So you also are now in anguish. But I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy away from you. On that day you will not question me about anything. Amen, amen, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in my name he will give you.”

Reflections (9)

(i) Friday, Sixth Week of Easter

In the gospel reading, Jesus is speaking in the setting of the last supper. He acknowledges that on the following day, what we have come to call Good Friday, the disciples will be weeping and wailing because he will be taken from them in a very cruel way. However, he assures his disciples that the sadness of that Friday will give way to the joy of Easter. ‘I will see you again, and your hearts will be full of joy’. When we are immersed in the sadness of loss, it can be very difficult to imagine happier times. Yet, Jesus wants his disciples to imagine happier times. God will have the last word, raising Jesus from the dead to new life. Jesus associates the life of the resurrection with the birth of a child. The suffering of his passion and death is like the pain of childbirth for a woman, but his rising to new life is like the birth of her child. Jesus sees his resurrection as like a new birth, a birth into a new kind of life, over which death has no power. Jesus promises elsewhere in John’s gospel that those who believe in him will come to share in his risen life. We can imagine our own death as also a moment of new birth, when we are born into a new kind of life, the life of the risen Lord, over which death has no power. Here and now in the course of our earthly life, the risen Lord is always with us, inviting us to draw strength from his risen life. In today’s first reading, he is with Paul at a difficult moment in his ministry in Corinth, assuring Paul that he is with him to protect him. The risen Lord, in whose life we hope to share, is with each one of us on our own life journey. He is with us especially in our own times of trial, to support, strengthen and sustain us.

And/Or

(ii) Friday, Sixth Week of Easter

In the gospel reading, Jesus is again speaking in the setting of the last supper, the night before he was crucified. He is aware that his disciples are in great distress at the prospect of his leaving them. Jesus compares their suffering to that of a woman in childbirth. The pain of childbirth is for the mother the prelude to the birth of new life. Her suffering heralds the joy of looking upon her new born child for the first time. In a similar way, Jesus is saying, the suffering of his disciples is the prelude to the joy of new life. Their sorrow at Jesus’ departure will very quickly give way to their joy at his coming back to them again as risen Lord and through the Holy Spirit. Jesus is referring here to the joy of Easter. It is more than just ordinary human happiness, which, inevitably, passes away. The joy Jesus speaks about endures. As Jesus says to his disciples in the gospel reading, it is a joy that ‘no one shall take from you’. This is the joy we are all invited to savour in this Easter season and, indeed, every day of our lives. It is a joy which is the fruit of our relationship with the Lord, a sharing in the Lord’s own joy. It comes from the conviction that the risen Lord is with us, is among us and is within us. It flows from the experience of his great love, a love that is stronger than sin, stronger than death, a love that shines brightly in every darkness. When Paul wrote his letter to the church in Philippi from a Roman prison he is full of this Easter joy, in spite of his grim situation. His joy flows from his total conviction that, as he states in that letter, ‘I can do all things through him who strengthens me’.

 And/Or

(iii) Friday, Sixth Week of Easter

One of the greatest of human joys is the birth of a child. The joy of the child’s father and mother at the moment of birth has a unique quality about it. For the mother, the trials and labours of pregnancy and childbirth are forgotten, momentarily at least, when her child is born and she looks upon him or her for the first time. When Jesus looked for a human experience of joy that captured something of the joy of his resurrection, it was to the joy of childbirth that he turned. In this morning’s gospel reading, Jesus speaks in the awareness of the deep sorrow that his disciples are experiencing at his forthcoming death, ‘you will be weeping and wailing... you will be sorrowful’. His death which was to happen on the following day would be a truly traumatic and devastating experience for them. Jesus acknowledges that dark reality, but he also looks beyond that painful experience of his death to the wonderful event of his resurrection, and he assures his disciples that their sorrow will turn to joy. They will experience a joy akin to the joy of a mother at the birth of her child. New life, in whatever form, is always a cause of joy. We are destined to share in the Lord’s new life, his risen life, beyond death, when our joy will be complete. Yet, Jesus assures his disciples and us that we can begin to taste something of that joy here and now because the risen Lord sees us, is present to us. Insofar as we are open to his presence and really take to heart the Lord’s words to Saint Paul in the first reading, ‘I am with you’, we will begin to experience something of that heavenly joy that awaits us.

 And/Or

(iv) Friday, Sixth Week of Easter

In the gospel reading, Jesus tells his disciples that they will soon experience great sorrow, but later on they will experience great joy. ‘You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn into joy’. They will be sorrowful because Jesus is soon to be put to death, but their sorrow will turn into joy when Jesus rises from the dead and comes back to them. Their sorrow will give way to joy. We all know both sorrow and joy in our lives. Sorrow is associated with times of loss and bereavement, loneliness and isolation. Joy is associated with experiences of communion, of togetherness, of being present to those who have become significant for us. In times of deep sorrow it can be hard to envisage times of joy. Yet, the gospel reading this morning suggests that sorrow is not destined to have the last word. Jesus says to his disciples and to all of us, ‘Your sorrow will turn into joy’. ‘The Lord is risen’, and because we live in the presence of the risen Lord, we know that life is stronger than death, and joy will triumph over sorrow. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of the risen Lord, and Paul speaks of joy as the fruit of that Spirit. This joy is the deep-seated joy which comes from knowing that we can do all things in the risen Lord who strengthens us.

 And/Or

(v) Friday of Sixth Week of Easter

In the gospel reading Jesus acknowledges that what is to happen in the following hours, his passion and death, will bring great sadness to his disciples. ‘You will be weeping and wailing… you will be sorrowful… you are sad now’. They would experience a sense of loss when Jesus returns to the Father and that loss would bring them a great deal of sorrow. We have all known the sorrow and sadness that comes from a sense of loss. It might be the loss of a loved one through death, or having to let go of someone we are fond of to another person, or some loss of health or energy or mobility. Loss in all its forms generates sadness. Jesus makes a very firm promise to his sorrowing disciples, ‘your sorrow will turn into joy… I shall see you again, and you hearts will be full of joy’. The Lord tells his disciples that sorrow will not have the last word; rather joy will have the last word because in and through his death he will be present to them in a new way. The Lord’s presence to us will see to it that sorrow will not have the last word in our lives either. He can fill the emptiness caused by our many losses. He has come full of grace and truth and we are invited to receive from his fullness, grace upon grace. In times of sorrow and loss we can hold on with confidence to the Lord’s promise, ‘your sorrow will turn into joy’.

 And/Or

(vi) Friday, Sixth Week of Easter

We have all known sorrow in the course of our lives. Very often our sorrow will be associated with some loss, the loss of a loved one who moves on from us in one way or another, the loss of some hope or expectation we had, the loss of our health or of some work that was important to us. In this morning’s gospel reading, which is set in the context of the last supper, Jesus acknowledges the sorrow that is in the heart of his disciples, a sorrow that comes from their sense of loss, their awareness that Jesus is moving on from them. Jesus says to his disciples, ‘you are sad now’. Yet, he seeks to encourage them by assuring them that their sorrow will turn into joy because he will see them again. Jesus looks beyond his death to his resurrection, when he will begin to be present to his disciples in a new way. That promise has come to pass for all of us. The risen Lord sees us; he is with us. In the first reading the risen Lord says to Paul, ‘I am with you’. In all our losses the risen Lord is with us. In the sadness which all those losses bring us his presence to us can keep us strong and even joyful.

 And/Or

(vii) Friday, Sixth Week of Easter

In the gospel reading, Jesus is very honest about the impact which his death on the following day will have on his disciples, ‘I tell you most solemnly, you will be weeping and wailing... you will be sorrowful’. The death of someone close to us always generates strong feelings of sadness and loss within us. Jesus speaks to his disciples in the awareness that they will experience all these feelings when he is taken from them in death. Yet he also assures them that these feelings won’t last forever. Their sorrow will turn into joy, a joy that no one will take from them, because Jesus will see them again when he rises from the dead. He reassures them that because his death will be an opening to new life, their sorrow and pain will be a prelude to joy, just as the pain of a pregnant woman is the prelude to the joy of new life. Jesus is assuring us all that sorrow and pain and death will not have the last word in our lives either. Because he has triumphed over death and has passed from death to new life all our sorrows, pains and losses will be ultimately transformed by him. Because he is present to us here and now in the power of his risen life this transformation can begin to be experienced here and now. Because he journeys with us as risen Lord, he can say to us, ‘your sorrow will turn to joy’, not just in the life beyond death but on our present life journey. This was something the two disciples on the road to Emmaus discovered, and that we can all discover for ourselves.

 And/Or

(viii) Friday, Sixth Week of Easter

In the gospel reading Jesus refers to the forthcoming weeping and wailing of his disciples. He speaks of their being sorrowful, of their sorrow. These are natural and unavoidable emotions in the face of loss. Jesus will soon be put to death. His disciples will be plunged into grief. We have all known the sadness and sorrow that Jesus speaks about. Everyone’s grief is very personal to them. It is good to be able to name our grief, to acknowledge it to ourselves and to others. Jesus names the disciples’ grief. There can be no escaping the sorrow to come. Yet, Jesus also declares that their sorrow and weeping will not last indefinitely. It will turn to joy, because Jesus’ death will give way to his resurrection. ‘I shall see you again, and your hearts will be full of joy’. Their sorrow will pass. Sometimes when we are in the midst of great loss and sorrow we need to be able to say to ourselves, ‘this sorrow too will pass’. This sorrow will not have the last word. As followers of a risen Lord, we can say that with a special conviction. Jesus’ promise to his disciples, ‘I will see you again’, is addressed to each one of us. In times of loss and sorrow, the risen Lord sees us. He is present to us; the light of his risen presence shines upon us. He journeys with us through the valley of darkness. Even in the midst of sorrow, he helps us to find moments of joy, a sharing in his own risen joy. If we remain open to his presence, then, at the end of our own lives, he will come to take us to the many roomed house of God his heavenly Father.

 And/Or

(ix) Friday, Sixth Week of Easter

At the beginning of today’s first reading from the Acts of the Apostles, the risen Lord says to Paul in the course of his mission in Corinth, ‘Do not be afraid to speak out… I am with you’. So many times in both the Jewish Scriptures, the Old Testament, and in the gospels, the Lord says to people, ‘Do not be afraid… I am with you’. Speaking to Paul, the Lord does not make little of the opposition Paul will encounter in preaching the gospel in Corinth. The Lord’s words to Paul, ‘do not allow yourself to be silenced’, presupposes that there are people who are trying to silence Paul, and that becomes evident further on in that reading. Some members of the Jewish community drag Paul to the Roman governor in Corinth on trumped up charges. The opposition is real, but the Lord says to Paul, ‘do not be afraid… I am with you’. This is the message that Jesus gives to his disciples in the gospel reading as well. He acknowledges the pain and sorrow that the disciples are experiencing and that lies ahead for them, ‘you will be weeping and wailing… you will be sorrowful… you are sad now’. Yet, Jesus also says to them, ‘I will see you again’. In other words, ‘I will be with you’. Because of his presence to them, Jesus says to them, ‘your hearts will be full of joy, and that joy no one will take from you’. In both readings the Lord assures us that his presence to us will help us to get through whatever negative experiences come our way. It is good for us to hear that simple but profound message in these difficult days. We are not on our own. The Lord is with us and he will give us the strength to get through these demanding days. Indeed, according to the gospel reading, in the midst of so much that can understandably make us sad and sorrowful, the Lord can give us a share in his own risen joy because of his sustaining presence to us.

Fr. Martin Hogan.

[coulson-is-an-avenger]

50 or 33 with jmart for the smooch prompt list :mimhonk.emoji:

#33 - An unexpected kiss that shocks the one receiving it, and #50 - A kiss, followed by more that trail down the jaw and neck. POR QUÉ NO LOS DOS!

thank you tem!!! :D I had a lot of fun with this one, and because of that it also got Long As Fuck so bear with me on that. Set in the safehouse also! Hope you enjoy ^_^

It’s been a very, very good day at the safehouse. The Lonely has been quiet, lurking almost entirely out of sight rather than clinging onto the both of them, and Martin’s been relaxed and open, happy in a way Jon hasn’t honestly seen him in months. The Eye has been quiet as well, and even Jon’s pain levels have been down today - no small miracle given the chilly weather - and it feels like a day for new beginnings, a day for truths.

So, “I missed you,” is what tumbles out over dinner, over beans and soup and tea.

Jon hears Martin’s breath catch before he sees it, before he looks up to see the stunned smile that takes over his face. “I missed you too,” he replies softly, and Jon pretends not to hear the crack in his voice where the unused muscle of emotion splits the air.

Jon holds his gaze for an admirable amount of time, but even he wavers. He’s never been a brave man, and he looks down at the table before speaking. “There were spiders, while you were gone,” Jon begins, tracing a finger along the grain of the table. “God, I really should have gotten more in the business of squishing them.”

“Yeah?” Martin offers, encouraging. The anecdote feels clumsy, foolish, but Martin is laying a hand across the table to show his patience, and Jon is grateful.

“I never quite could make myself do it though, I guess I just-” He trails off, starts a new thread of the story. “They always made me think of you, in a way. You always cared so much about all the little things. Always insisted on carrying them out. Dreadful things that still deserved kindness in your eyes.” Like me, he doesn’t add. “I always admired that about you. So I didn’t squish them as much.” He finishes clumsily, glancing up with a flash of his eyes before looking down at the table again to pick at the grain of the wood.

Martin blinks at him. Stares at him in silence for what Jon can only assume is an eternity, until he has to look up and make sure he’s still there. And then Martin stands, tea forgotten, maneuvers himself around the table, and darts in and presses his lips to Jon’s.

It only lasts for a moment - half a heartbeat of a touch - but it’s warm and vulnerable and a bit awkward and it sends Jon’s eyes flying wide open in shock.

Martin pulls back just as quickly as he had dived in, retreating so fast he bumps into the nearby counter, his eyes widening, and the first thing out of his mouth is “Oh, shit.”

Jon can’t blame him, he’s utterly dumbstruck himself. His head feels pleasantly fuzzy, but confusion swims up to trump every other emotion until the only thing he’s able to push out of his lungs is; “I- excuse me?”

Martin blinks, his panic floundering in confusion. “I- sorry, excuse you for what?”

Jon’s brows furrow together as he tries to piece his thoughts together. “You... don’t,” he says like it’s obvious, and then hesitates. “I-I mean, you- you said... you did, but not... so why-” Jon looks hopelessly out of his depth as he gestures, not making sense. “Why did you do that?”

Martin stares, the tips of his ears burning dark red. “I don’t what, Jon?”

Jon curls in on himself, shame bubbling to the surface. What has he gotten wrong? What has he missed? “I-in the Lonely. You said you loved me.”

Martin’s breath hitches at his own words repeated back at him - words he doesn’t even remember saying. The fog had been so intense, so much and yet so pointless all at once, it had been so hard to keep anything straight, to hold down any memory or emotion. He hardly remembers saying those words, but they draw a wobbly smile out of him anyways. He supposes it makes sense that he would say them, though. Not much could cut through the fog, but Jon did. Jon always did. He still does.

“Did I? I didn’t know I had it in me to share.”

Jon shakes his head, now looking frustrated. “But you didn’t.” He insists. “You don’t... that means you don’t anymore.” His expression stalls for a second, before something akin to horror blooms on his face, and he scrambles to his feet to face him. “Martin, if you think- God, if you think you somehow owe me this after all that, let me be abundantly cl-”

“No!! No, no.” Martin cuts in, sensing Jon’s building distress and moving away from the counter to rest a hand on his shoulder. “No,” he repeats, softer. He takes a deep breath and lets himself run his thumb over the fabric of Jon’s sweater. “I don’t think I owe you. Not in that way. Christ, of course not.”

Jon is silent for several long minutes, before his voice begins working again, and he stutters back into a sentence. “O-okay. Okay. Good.” He clears his throat. “Then why-? I-I-I thought-” He gathers up what brain power he has left to sort his thoughts. Something like hope tinges his voice, and Martin marvels at how deeply Jon seems to have resigned himself to this truth, while still being eager to save his life and run away with him all the way to Scotland. Love is a funny thing. When he speaks again, his voice is so, so quiet. “After the Unknowing, I thought I lost my chance. Thought you’d moved on. N-not that I would have blamed you, I just- but you-”

“Jon,” Martin says softly, ducking his head to catch his eyes. “I wasn’t quite myself in the Lonely. I didn’t mean that as an ending.” He breaks his gaze away, looks down at his own hand on Jon’s shoulder. “I was mourning something I thought I’d lost.”

“Oh,” The word escapes Jon’s lungs in a rush; several years worth of longing filling up his chest and squeezing his throat like smoke, making his eyes sting. “Oh, I’m sorry-”

“No, no,” Martin shakes his head. “That’s over now.”

Jon presses a hand to his eyes, breathing, letting everything settle in.

“Well. That certainly makes me feel foolish.”

Martin laughs, a free, wonderful sound that fills the air with electricity and warms Jon down to his bones. He realizes he’s staring at him, watching how his shoulders move with adoration, watching the joy radiate from him with nothing short of beauty. A moment of insane courage passes through Jon, and he moves his hand to cover the one Martin still has resting on his shoulder.

He steps closer. “Do you want this then? The way that I do?” His voice is eager, and he’s afraid to breathe.

Martin’s expression absolutely melts, and he sways closer. He Saw Jon in the Lonely, in all his hopeless lovestruck worry, so he knows what he means. “Yes,” he answers. “More than anything. I don’t-” he makes a pained face, and looks down, prepares himself for the undressing that comes before the acceptance of love. “I don’t know how okay I am. Don’t know how much of me is still me after everything with Lukas and- and well, everything, but...”

“I know what you mean,” Jon assures him, running his thumbs over his knuckles. “I’m not even human anymore.” He exhales, in the tone of a joke fallen flat.

Martin squeezes his shoulder. “Exactly,” he murmurs. “But I still want to try.”

“Martin,” Jon exhales, his voice thick and his eyes wet. “I’m so glad to hear that.”

Martin tugs Jon’s hand from where it’s resting atop his to press a kiss to his knuckles, and Jon laughs, a quiet little sound, and then he’s moving, leaning back into Martin’s space; his face growing blurry as he gets up close and presses their lips together again. He misses the mark just a bit, the kiss landing a little too high on his mouth, but Martin leans up into it, rearranging their positions, and just like that it’s perfect. Not earth-shattering, not magical, just perfect, in the way that only imperfection can be. Martin lets himself sink into it.

It’s gentle, sweet, and it makes Martin’s head buzz with disbelief. He breaks away to breathe, for a moment, just to wrap his head around what’s happening, and then Jon is tugging him back in, more intentionally this time.

Jon kisses very thoroughly, Martin soon learns with amusement. He furrows his brow and crowds himself into Martin’s space, curling his hands in his shirt, and he moves his mouth in time with Martin’s like he has a purpose to follow, like he’s devoting himself to studying him; focusing on each touch with crystal clarity. He has a single-minded doggedness about the whole thing, and Martin eventually relaxes and just lets himself be kissed, following along with gentle touches and barely held-back smiles.

He raises a hand experimentally to run through his hair, and Jon kisses him deeper in response; open mouthed and wanting, tasting what he can, allowing himself to bite his lip gently. That takes the breath straight out of Martin’s lungs, and the bitten-off sound he makes apparently encourages Jon even more, as he breaks away and kisses him down across his jaw, under his chin, and down the side of his throat.

It’s frantic at first, a desperate attempt to map out as much of Martin as he can in the time he has, but the sense of urgency starts to bleed out of him, and he ends up kissing gentler and gentler the longer he lingers, until eventually Jon’s just nuzzling his nose into his skin and wrapping his arms around him for a hug. The sigh that escapes him makes Martin’s heart clench.

“I love you,” he mumbles into Martin’s shoulder, and later the weight of this will settle on their shoulders. Later they will have to sit down and figure this out, this mess of personalities and supernatural entanglement, this terrible future of fear laid out before them, and the path forward they will choose to carve out together. But for now they can sink into this embrace and breathe.

Martin doesn’t say the words back, he’s not quite there yet, but he doesn’t need to. It’s enough, it’s more than enough to just be here, for Martin to press his nose into Jon’s hair, and smile until his face aches from it.

[captaincravatthecapricious]

Broken Ribs- Prompt Fill

What if the Hunters broke Jon's ribs in America? In other words, Jon does not have fun on an airplane.

cws: nausea, injury, disassociation, hospital mention, fainting

I am still accepting bingo prompts, send me a prompt, a character, and let me know if you want a fic or a drawing (crossed out prompts are filled, starred ones are ones I have asks for)! Card by the wonderful @celosiaa​! Enjoy!

The air of the airport is oppressive.  Close and loud with the pain lancing through Jon’s chest.   Bustling people, ridiculously wide expanses of space all somehow abandoned and bustling at the same time.  

It’s hot.  He’s too hot.  

Shoulder straps of his bag digging into his back, bracing against the weight, crushing ribs that crunch sickeningly as he jogs on hole ridden legs, shoes with worn down soles skidding, only grasping purchase with the help of his cane.  

He can’t miss his next plane.  He can’t.  He needs to get back home… or rather the Institute.  He doesn’t really have a home anymore, does he?  Not his flat, certainly, and not with Georgie.  

Just one more flight.  A long one, but at least there will be no more running to catch planes, inconveniently at opposite ends of massive American airports.  

Airports are already weird, empty spaces where everything is big and loud and expensive and sleepy all at once.  Places where time has no meaning at all, and everyone is in both business dress and pajamas, sometimes at the same time.  But adding the whole American thing to it… is odd.  It’s not that it makes that much of a difference, every airport is actually very similar, but there is still something about the tang of ‘Rugged American Individualism’ that makes his skin crawl.  

Or maybe that’s the lack of sleep, and the lack of a proper shower in… too long.  He hates this.  He hates this.  He can’t stand the feeling of grit on his skin…. not since Prentiss, not since the circus.  Between traveling and being followed and kidnaped again and now traveling some more… he’s sweaty and grimy and he wants to tear his skin off, or at the very least scrub it raw.  Cut his nails to the quick, wash his hair a dozen times, scrub himself  again for an hour under as hot water as he can stand for as long as his useless legs will hold him up.  

He gets to his gate as the plane is boarding.  Barely in time.  

They take his cane at the front and he wants to cry.  Limping to his seat in the very back, vision getting spotty with pain.  He Really should have someone look at his ribs, they haven’t been right since the kidnapping.  Just the universe’s punching bag, isn’t he?   Kicked in the ribs by hunters.  He hadn't even Done anything.  (Well... he has now, but he hadn't at that point!

He just about collapses in his seat.  

Middle seat.  Shit.  

Christ he's dizzy.  Wouldn't be surprised if he's running a fever from the pain.  His body sending all sorts of signals of distress: thirsty, nauseous, tired, shaky, panicked that he needs something or he'll pass out or cry, or.... or... or.... he doesn't know.  

There is a tap on his shoulder.  Window seat passenger wants to get through.  Jon carefully eases himself to his feet.  Trying very hard not to wince, or puke, or pass out.  He limps his way up just far enough that Window Seat can get through.  Just.  

His ribs crunch as he sits again.  He tries to covertly wipe the thin sheet of sweat from his forehead.  A poor effort to detract from the attention his pallor and limp are surely getting him.  

He sits absolutely still.  His nose itches, but no... moving to scratch it would hurt too much.  He just... won't move.  The whole flight, ideally.  But surely his bladder and bad leg will have other ideas about that.  Jon sighs as shallowly as possible.  Breathing hurts.  

He drifts out of consciousness for a while.  Isle Seat arrives at some point.  The plane starts taxiing.  Jon doesn't remember the pieces, but they occur.  

He does notice the plane taking off.  The acceleration of the plane.  The stomach dropping climb.  And all Jon can think of is falling.  Aching chest tighter with panic.  

The smell of tea made too dark and with too much lemon.  What would have been a pleasant and soothing voice if he hadn't been plummeting with the acceleration of -9.81 meters per second per second without even the comfort of air resistance.  Oxygen moving by too fast to snag a breath.  He could have been falling for seconds, minutes, days, weeks, years, and it would have made no difference.  Hitting the ground would have even been a comfort at that point.  

He's gasping.  Chest crunching under the strain of his breathing through the vice grip of terror.  

He orders himself to take a very shallow, very measured breath.  The plane is leveling out, and he doesn't want to attract any more attention.  

Luckily he has always been good about deflecting attention.  Had a panic attack in the middle of a maths class in secondary school, and not a soul noticed.  Window Seat is staring out the window in fascination as the houses get ever smaller and are eaten up by the cloud cover.  Isle Seat is napping.  

Jon is very very very glad that he hasn't run out of dramamine yet or ...he would be a lot more not okay than he already is.  He is out of pain meds.  Unfortunately.  

Should have bought some in America.  You can get big bottles there.  Big bottles.  And God knows he needs them.  

He clasps his hands tightly and try to pull his breathing into a careful and shallow rhythm.  

He is drifting again when Window Seat lowers their armrest.  It strikes him on the way down.  Brushes him, really.  He bites down a yelp.  He curls protectively around his ribs, which causes them to crunch again.  That Really isn't healthy sounding.  Spots dance across his vision again.  

He isn't sure how much time passes before Window Seat makes to get up.  He almost doesn't have the energy to stand.  

He's seeing spots again, and he doesn't know how he will manage to let Window Seat back in.  

The seat in front of him has lowered their seat.  Jon, in the back row can't tilt his back.  Christ it hurts.  It all hurts.  The turbulence, the standing and sitting for Window Seat, the drinks cart making far too many rounds.  He doesn't get anything.  Can't stomach the snacks or the provided dinner, barely manages a couple sips from his own water bottle.  He knows his leg would thank him if he got up and moved around, but the thought of standing is too much.  The movie that he tried to watch was too grating and it just added to how Loud the plane is.  Almost as loud as his hammering heart and the aching of his chest.  He can't do it.  He can't do it.  He can't do it.  

He bites back a scream when Window Seat orders another drink.  The flight attendant jostling his ribs again, passing over the beverage.  This has to be the third or forth time.  How many drinks can one passenger need?  How many more before Window Seat will need the loo again, dragging Jon to his aching feet again?  

Jon bites back tears.  He was awoken by Window Seat again.  He'd apparently fallen asleep on Isle Seat.  ...Or maybe passed out.  Jon doesn't know.  He's too dizzy.  He doesn't look at Isle Seat.  He wants to apologize, but the thought of speaking sounds too painful.  He clings to control of his breathing.  Shallow breaths.  Slow, shallow breaths.  Don't make the ribs worse, don't make the pain worse.  

Jon doesn't remember letting Window Seat back in.  He possibly remembers standing?  Possibly remembers black spots eating through his vision?  And then he's face down on his grimy tray table.  A face full of the novel he picked up in the airport on his trip Before getting his ribs busted.  He's pretty sure he passed out and hand't fallen asleep, but he can't be certain.  

The flight attendant is shaking him awake, and Jon tries to hide the tears of pain that causes.  Yes, yes, he knows.  Tray tables needs to be folded away before they land.  

Getting off the plane is hard.  Window Seat is anxiously out of their seat and getting their luggage, meaning that Jon has to decide if he would rather sit back down, only to have to stand again when the way was finally clear, or he'd have to stand without his cane , bent at an awkward angle.  All after digging under his seat for his bag.  He thinks keeping it under his seat is easier on his ribs than getting it into and out of the overhead compartment... but he doesn't know.  He is fighting unconsciousness again.  

The plane is too hot.  Too loud.  His head hurts.  His ribs hurt.  Sick with pain, and shaky with hungry and dehydration.  He isn't sure that food wouldn't make him feel worse, however.  He skipped provided breakfast as well.  

At least he can't remember much of the flight.  Probably a blessing.  

He finally limps to the front of the plane.  He almost cries with relief when he is handed back his cane.  He's so tired.  So tired.  

At least he doesn't need to get any luggage.  All he has is is backpack and cane.  And a text from Elias saying Daisy is already there to pick him up.  

Right.  

Best not to keep her waiting.  

He doesn't think he can survive any more aggression.  Not for a while.  

He's too tired to even panic about being alone with her.  

She shakes him roughly when she spots him.  Demands to know why it took him so long, why he didn't text. All but shoves him into the car.  That's more than he can take.  He passes out.  Cane clattering to the pavement, head striking the wheel with the force of his momentum.  

When he comes to, he is being carried.   He hurts too badly to move, feels too sick to think.  He moans into the chest of whoever is carrying him.  Doesn't even have it in him to start in fear when he realizes the only one with biceps that big and fair is Daisy.  

They are going down a flight of stairs.  He wonders vaguely if she's going to kill him... but then realizes he might take that as a mercy right about now.  

Except she doesn't kill him.  She's taken him to the Archives.  He can hear Martin.  

"Daisy!  Jon!  Daisy, what did you do!  What did you do to him?"

Him... Jon?  He tries to ask what the fuss is about, but only manages another moan.  

"I didn't break him.  Your problem now."  She grunts that out, and plops Jon into Martin's lap.  At least he thinks... after he possibly blacks out again.  

Martin is patting his face.  Martin is patting his face.  "Hey, Jon?  Can you open your eyes for me?"  Jon tries.  And fails.  Eyelids too heavy.  "Jon, what's wrong?"

"Hurts," he whispers.  

"Hurts where?"  Martin is cupping his face.  Jon starts crying.  

He can't respond.  

"Jon can I take you to hospital?  Please?”

“Ribs..."

"Jon, please?"

Jon doesn't want to go to the hospital, he just wants to sleep.  Possibly just sleep right there and never move again.  Martin is warm and soft and smells nice and is quiet.  But he doesn't have energy to argue.  He makes a noncommittal sound.  "Stay?"

"Yeah, of course.  I'll call us a cab, yeah?  Get you checked out, then... you could come to mine, if you like?"  

Jon really doesn't have the energy to respond, so he just... gives it up and closes his eyes.  Letting himself drift and not worry about getting carried.  Maybe if he's lucky he'll either sleep or disassociate long enough that he doesn't have to actually think about the hospital.  Maybe he'll come back to himself on Martin's couch.  He even lets himself hope that maybe someone will take the initiative and clean him up first.  The idea of other hands on him would ordinarily be horrifying, but he's just too tired to care.  For now... he'll just sleep.  

[obscureoperations]

@ashesmoth

This is just a thought. An elaboration of Martin proposing.

The quiet hum of cicadas lulls Martin into a nearly trance-like state. The sun had nearly set, painting the field in a yellowish amber glow. The temperature had dropped quite considerably during the evenings due to the fact it was nearly fall. You had already complained about being chilly, he offered over his jacket without second thought. Goosebumps began to form over his skin, but the warmth inside was overflowing. In his arms, he held the most precious thing in the world to him-- you were speaking, but the words fell on deaf ears.

The ring rests like a led weight in his pocket..he had been eyeing it in the jeweler's shop for months. A thin band of gold with what happened to be your birthstone right in the middle. It wasn’t much, but it was all that he could afford at the moment. Martin had been taking extra shifts at the grocery store. Every time he clocked in, he tried to stave off the voice that assured him you were going to say no. He begged the shop owner to hold it for him-- he’d have the money in a couple of weeks. 

The afternoon he actually purchased it, Martin felt sick to his stomach. He had no idea what he was  going to say-- how could he possibly put it into words?  It was just one simple question--but he felt as though he had to explain himself entirely. In a little over a year you managed to completely change his world. Suddenly, it all made sense--the years of yearning and isolation. The sleepless nights, the ever present hunger threatening to consume him. The moment he laid eyes on you--he could remember everything grew incredibly silent. 

The sun had set almost completely, every now and then you would stir in his arms. He’d press his lips to the top of your head-- the scent of your shampoo was intoxicating. So warm and familiar-- faintly mixed with the smell of grass. Each morning he awoke with you curled against his chest he had to wonder what he did to deserve you. You were with him through it all-- living with Cuda,his breakdown right before he actually left. In a way, he realised you were the reason he was still alive. He finally understood that his cousin was actually planning to kill him. 

If you had asked him a few years before, Martin would have been perfectly content with letting that happen. He was exhausted, the ever present loneliness seemed to rise with each passing day. The old man would be doing him a favor. But he couldn’t leave just yet. He couldn’t leave you all alone. The way your eyes would light up whenever you saw him-- the joy in your voice whenever the two of you would speak. You were enamoured with him, that much was sure. He only recently accepted the fact that you loved him.

“Martin.. Are you okay?” 

The question itself startled him out of his reprieve, heat began to rise to his face. Had you been speaking the entire time? What were you saying? He always managed to mess things up.

He pulls you close nuzzling at the crook of your neck. “Mhmm. Fine. Y/n, I’m sorry. I sorta drifted off.”

“That's okay… Were you looking at the sunset?”

“I was.”

The sound of your laughter always managed to cause his heart to skip a beat. You tilt your head, lips barely grazing his jaw “Good... Martin. It’s what we came out here to see.”

There were times that Martin felt confident around you, most of them were when he held you safely in his arms. Lips moving over yours in a dizzying rhythm as you practically meld against his chest. You actually wanted him. You wanted him to kiss you. He was finally able to do something right. This evening was no different, he effortlessly shifts you onto your back. His kisses become more frantic. He holds you against him as though you might vanish. He only pulls back when you start to shift, tilting your head away from him. 

His heart drops, but you suddenly cup his face urging him to look at you.  In the faint glow of the nearly departed sun you couldn't describe the expression on his face. His lips were kiss bruised and swollen--there was a nearly dreamy expression in his eyes. That one small little crease between his brow was pronounced, a clear sign that he was distressed. As always you move to kiss him right in the center of his forehead. Martin almost melts against you. You always held him so delicately when he was upset. Palms lightly cupping his cheeks.

But he wasn’t upset, he was filled with more joy than he could possibly handle. That paired with  weighted uncertainty. His stomach was in knots--heartbeat threatening to implode. Why did he still continue to doubt you? From his actions-- all things from the past.. It was clear that you were willing to forgive. You only wanted him by your side, yet he couldn’t bear the idea of being rejected by you.

“Martin.. Talk to me babe.. What's wrong?”

Nothing and everything all at once. The ring rests like a lead weight in his pocket. How was he even supposed to bring it up? He settles for moving his lips to your jaw. “Nothing. y/n. I’m fine. I’m just--- I’m really glad we're here.”

You were laughing again, craning your neck up to kiss him. “Yea? Well so am I!”

Something in the playful lilt in your voice soothes some of his frazzled nerves. “I’m just..really glad..” He continues, as he presses his lips to the base of your neck. You tilt your head to kiss him once again… it had to be something about the taste of your chapstick. Perhaps the warm familiarity of your lips. He couldn't imagine a morning not waking up by your side. He had envisioned it, well before the two of you became close-- when you’d wave him goodbye at your doorstep. He would never be content if he didn’t experience one more morning of you waking up in his arms.

 The quiet warmth. The way you fit into his arms a bit too perfectly, you didn’t mind his early morning laziness. You seemed to be perfectly content laying there with him until the alarm actually went off.

~

With a sigh, Martin reaches into his pocket fishing out the ring with an ever practiced stealth.  Your lips were still pressed against his jaw, you were rambling again. The warmth of your breath curls against his skin, he resists the urge to kiss you silent. He actually had something to say.

“Y/n...I.”

This gains your attention immediately, your head momentarily lifts from his chest.

“I lik--I  love you alot.. You already know that, right?”

“I do.” Your response was instant. Followed by you sinking your teeth into his neck. 

Despite his initial gasp, he manages to momentarily draw you away from him. The sun had completely set. He could no longer see your face--it seemed to quell some of his nerves. If anything, he could imagine he was whispering his intentions into the pillow.

He answers your pained sigh with a brief peck on the lips. “y/n… I’m sorry. Please listen?”

“Okay…” 

Martin sits forward fishing the ring from his pocket, gently reaching for your wrist. He can hear you gasp as he silently slips the ring onto your finger.

“M-my heart. It’s yours forever if you want it.” 

You sit up, frantically brushing the grass from your face.

“Martin.. What is thi-s”

He kisses you sweetly, thumbs lingering at the curve of your jaw. Hearts entwined and buzzing in tune with the various nightlife. The moon was already set high in the sky, you could feel the weight of its unwavering luminescent gaze. 

“I want you with me… for the rest of my life. Do you think that you’d marry me sometime?”

[janekfan]

Fair

https://archiveofourown.org/works/28298580

Secret Santa gift for @alextblue!

This was such a lovely prompt! I hope you like it!!

Keep it together or they’ll never invite you out again.

He knew when he woke up, tangled in the duvet and soaked in a cold sweat that it was going to be a bad day. No matter how deep a breath he heaved, none of the air reached its way to the bottom of his lungs, caught it seemed on the tight band crushed around his ribs.

Relax.

Just relax.

Everything is fine.

More than fine.

Great even.

Jon was meeting Martin and Tim at an outdoor festival and with the weather for once bright and sunny, it was going to be a wonderful day. In succession, he tightened each muscle, holding himself stiff before relaxing and shoving the thrumming anxiety to the back of his awareness where it hung like a trembling red wire.

Shower. Clothes. Hair loosely tied. Tea.

Stomach unsettled, his toast remained untouched on the counter.

Keys, wallet, phone. Each in their appropriate pocket.

Deep breath. Two. Three.

“I’m alright.” Because he was. There was no reason for this. None at all and he was going to end up being too much of a nuisance for his friends. Maybe he should cancel. No. No. Who knew when he’d get another chance to prove he was more than their arse of a boss and worth having around.

The train went well. He made it to the predetermined meeting place in the park early as was his wont and checked his phone for messages. Predictably, Tim was running a few minutes late but Martin would be here soon and sure enough Jon saw him weaving his way politely through the crowd, raising his arm up to catch his attention.

“Jon!”

“Martin.” When he dug up a smile from somewhere Martin’s face lit up in response and a jolt not unlike lightning ran up Jon’s spine. A strong arm landed over his shoulders and the smell of Tim’s aftershave assaulted him right before his enthusiastic greeting.

“Hullo, gents!”

For a little while, Jon was able to lose himself in the music, the sights, the people watching, settling his nerves with a pint and prattling on about obscure music genres much to Martin’s apparent enjoyment. Tim ribbed him good naturedly and only commented on the blush (not from Martin grinning at him, thank you very much) from the alcohol traveling up his neck and settling high in his face.

“Thank you, Tim.” Voice measured and academic, Jon accepted the next pint with a hand forcibly held still, relaxing on the bench with Tim sprawled comfortably next to him. Martin was locating food and would meet them back here.

“Whoa! Slow down, champ.” Jon had downed half of it without thinking and was now looking dazedly at the plastic in his hand. “You alright, boss?”

“Mm. Yes, of course. Was thinking, is all.” A knobby elbow nudged his side and Jon suppressed a ticklish yelp.

“Thinking.” The way he drew out the word and raised a brow made Jon grateful for his already rosy cheeks.

“Stop! No!” Tim raised his hands in supplication.

“Sure, sure, whatever you say!” He all but tackled Tim when he pulled out his phone and began texting and that’s how Martin found them, tangled up with each other, Jon’s fingers in a deathgrip around the device to prevent him from spreading gossip. Tim just laughed, loud and bright and Martin, the traitor, snapped a picture before doling out the kebab.

It was shortly after lunch that Jon felt the strain of the hours spent pressed between strangers and overwhelmed by sounds and colors and the deep breaths weren’t helping anymore. Instead, Jon’s whole chest ached from how tight it was strung, tied up in knots drawn tighter with each attempt. Incessantly, he checked his watch, trying to hide it from the pair chatting just ahead of him, but the minutes weren’t moving and all he wanted to do was escape the throng, nails digging painful crescent moons into his palms as he clenched his hands into aching fists. His heart was pounding, the sun beating down without mercy and he regretted his previous decision to quaff beer like there was a drought when the nausea returned.

Jon was on autopilot, eyes fixed forward, one step after another after another after another with his heart fluttering in a throat so narrow he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t speak. So he tugged on Martin’s sleeve, gesturing clumsy and stiff to the edge of the green.

“Just. Just be a, a minute, yeah?” The concern in his eyes was suffocating. He was ruining this.

“Everything alright, Jon?” He’d reached a hard limit. There were no more words left, no more air, so he nodded, flashed what he hoped was a reassuring smile, and walked away rigid and panting through an endless sea of jostling bodies.

Why couldn’t he just be normal? Why couldn’t he handle this like all the rest of them? Why did he have to be so difficult he needed to be invited to things out of pity?

What is wrong with you?

Jon hadn’t realized he’d yanked his hair out of its loose bun and was tugging on it until his head began to hurt. He stumbled more than once, vision going grey at the edges and what had only been anxiety before was swiftly sliding sideways into a panic attack. Dizzy. Where before he felt tense, as though breathing too deeply might crack him straight in half, now he was suffocating, arguing with himself:

Can’t breathe.

You can.

Back and forth, almost to the border and across the street to a bench, out of the way. Invisible. He’d fall apart here, scrape himself back together, and head back to find Martin and Tim. Ten minutes. He checked his watch. He’d give himself ten minutes. Panting, he pressed a hand to his breastbone, trying to force himself to calm down, relax, take in some air to prevent the black from spiraling further. Briefly, wildly he’s--

Dying.

Not. Shut up shut up shut up.

His ten minutes were almost up and it had been more like ten seconds. His chest hurt and he couldn’t breathe and his pulse was galloping out of control and filling his ears with a pounding, pounding, pounding. His fingertips were numb, he was light headed and trembling with his arms wrapped tightly around his stomach. He wanted Martin. He wanted Tim. He wanted nobody to see him like this. He couldn’t decide which was worse god he was pathetic just get ahold of yourself, Jonathan Sims!

Curled up impossibly small, wracked violently with chills and panic, Jon poured all his energy into staying silent and when a warm hand landed on his shoulder his shout of surprise was trapped behind clenched teeth. He looked up into Martin’s wide eyes and felt his own spill over with tears and a muffled sob. He’d been caught and the panic only rose higher until Martin laid a heavy hand across his shoulder blades.

“Jon. You need to take a breath.”

“C’c ah an’t.” He’d been trying. And failing. Always failing.

“You can, I promise.” And when he demonstrated, exaggerated, deep, Jon felt a pang of jealousy at how easy it came to him. “You can.” A sip of air made it through, then another. “Good, there you go, slow, good.”

“What’s happened?” With Tim came a fresh wave of tears and he sat beside Jon so that he was bracketed by the pair of them. “Oh, Jon. Okay, doing great, bud.”

“I’m,” he paused, swallowed another gulping breath. “M’sorry.”

“No reason to be sorry.” Jon wasn’t altogether certain Martin could be believed. “Just breathe, in, out. Good.”

“Okay…m’okay.”

“It’s alright if you’re not. Take your time.” Jon slumped forward under the weight of it all, exhausted and sore and full to bursting with guilt.

“I’m j’just. I’m sorry.” It wasn’t enough. His apologies never were and he didn’t know what else to say, what would make this better. “I didn’t mean. I.” Martin shushed his babbling, pressing a cool bottle of water into his shaking hands and wouldn’t hear anymore out of him until he’d downed at least a third.

“Jon?” The silence was becoming too much under the scrutiny of the pair of them and he just wanted to forget his little episode and get back to the festival so they would smile again instead of look at him with pity.

“We can, we can go back now.”

“Jon?” Of course, why would they want him to tag along anymore after this foolishness?

“Or I, I can leave, uh, go home. Yes. Yes, I’ll go home and see you at work. T’tomorrow.” Ignoring their noises of distress, Jon sprang to his feet and almost went down again when a wave of vertigo tilted the street. He was guided by careful hands back to the bench, head gently pressed down between his knees.

“Why didn’t you say you weren’t feeling well?” Tears traced his nose, falling to the pavement below but he forced them back, speaking in a very small voice in an attempt to contain his histrionics.

“Didn’t want to ruin our day.”

“What?”

“I know. I, I did anyhow, I’m--”

“You’ve not ruined anything, Jon.” Martin was so kind, too kind. And here he was squandering it.

“Yeah, boss. It happens, no harm done.” They didn’t understand and Jon clapped both hands over his mouth before it could all come bursting out, how much this meant to him and how upset he was to have lost his chance. It rushed forth anyway, too big, too vast, and not wholly intelligible.

“I know I was only invited because of Martin and I. I.” This was embarrassing and he wasn’t able to stop himself. He never could. “I was hoping I'd be w’welcome next t’time? If only I, I were on my best behavior.” Good lord, he was crying again, a mess, here in the street where he was probably drawing all manner of looks. They shouldn’t have to put up with this. “I, I know I can be, be awful. I don’t, I’m rude and quick to irritation and I’m, I’m--” Gasping. He’d worked himself into another bout or maybe he hadn’t even come down from it in the first place.

“Breathe, Jon.” Stern and his teeth clicked with the force of their collision. “Breathe.” Only when he wasn’t on the verge of passing out did Martin continue. “Jon, I’m sorry. I had no idea you felt this way.”

“If I’d known--” Tim was quiet. “I shouldn’t have assumed it wasn’t your scene. I didn’t. No. I mean, I didn’t, but that’s no excuse.”

“No, no it’s. It isn’t your--I. I.” It was him. “I.” Tim swept him up into an embrace, exerting the perfect pressure across his shoulders and he melted into the warmth like he’d done back in research a time or two.

Or three.

Maybe four.

“We’ll finish talking about this later, alright? When you’ve had some sleep.”

“I, I don’t--it’s…” When Martin’s firm grip enveloped his shoulder Jon gave up, let the rest of it all go. “I’m--”

“Don’t say it. Don’t need to be.”

“You’re our friend, Jon.”

“But--”

“Nope!” Tim helped him stand, took his arm in his and set off towards the underground. “Martin, my dear, my darling, if you’re amenable, I think I’d like to finish our spectacular day with a few drinks at mine.” Jon went red. “I don’t think you’ve yet had the pleasure of meeting my good friend Three-Shot Sims.”

“Tim!” Martin had the audacity to pretend to think about it.

“You know, Tim.” And both ignored Jon’s sputtering in favor of nearly carrying him down the street. “I don’t think I have!” With no other choice and knowing he’d be under no pressure to perform that particular introduction, Jon let Tim guide him along.

“Oh, Marto, my boy. He’s a real treat.”

[bubonickitten]

Summary: Jon goes back to before the world ended and tries to forge a different path.

Previous chapter: AO3 || Tumblr

Chapter 18 full text & content warnings below the cut.

CWs for Chapter 18: discussion of passive suicidal ideation; unintentional self-harm (scratching at arms as a stim, to the point of drawing blood); brief allusion to childhood neglect; internalized ableism (re: ADHD, but not explicitly stated as such); brief acephobia (past experience & internalized); Jon-typical negative self-talk, guilt, & rejection sensitive dysphoria; discussion of past trauma (including having bodily autonomy overridden, canon non-consensual surgery, & stabbing); internalized victim blaming/comparing victim to their abuser; discussion of self-inflicted blinding/eye gouging (past attempts & potential future attempts); brief mention of Mr. Spider/arachnophobia themes; swears. SPOILERS through Season 5.

Chapter 18: Reconciliation

Once Jon opened the door and the Fears rewrote reality, not only was sleep no longer a physiological necessity – it was no longer an option. Much like the Coffin, even a temporary escape via unconsciousness was contrary to a world defined by the ceaseless generation of terror. And just as it did any human in that place, perpetual wakefulness took its toll on Jon’s already ravaged mental health.

The fact that he was no longer plaguing the nightmares of his victims may have been a small consolation, if not for the fact that he was instead witnessing the waking nightmares of billions of new victims: the same scenes looping over and over, layered one on top of the other, an endless soundtrack screaming in the background of his mind. Venting a statement from time to time could only do so much to quell that storm. He’d really had no choice but to learn to compartmentalize on autopilot and dissociate on command.

So when, for the first time since before the world ended, Jon awakens to Martin at his side, his mind cannot immediately reconcile the sight. He might think he was dreaming, if not for the fact that he hasn’t had a pleasant dream of his own since he became the Archivist. And even before then – well, he’d always been more predisposed to nightmares.

Jon feels his heart stutter in his throat when he sets eyes on Martin. Their hands are still clasped together, and despite the sweatiness of their palms and the way Jon’s arm is cramping from the angle, he has no desire to let go. Instead, he lies still, breathing shallow and measured, fearful of any sound or movement that might shatter the almost uncanny peace of the moment.

He really shouldn’t be staring like this, though, should he? Martin has given him permission to stare many times before, but that was in a future where they had Seen each other at their most vulnerable. Being seen, truly seen – as terrifying as it was for the both of them – became a comfort, because of what they had been through together. Here in the past, Martin hasn’t shared that experience. He might not be as keen to put up with Jon’s incessant watching.

Those reservations still aren’t enough to stop him, though.

Martin is still sat in his chair, but bent sideways at the waist to lean halfway on the cot. He’s snoring lightly, his head pillowed on his free arm, glasses askew. The angle is probably hell on his back.

Maybe I should wake him up, Jon thinks idly, one corner of his mouth turning up in a small, fond smile.

He doesn’t. Instead, his eyes remain rapt on Martin, soaking in every detail, as beloved and familiar as always: the length of his eyelashes, the shape of his lips, the spray of freckles across his nose, that particularly stubborn cowlick that always, always stands on end. Jon wants to reach out, sink his fingers into those curls, massage his scalp in that way Martin used to love – but that would be a step beyond staring, wouldn’t it? So he watches: unblinking, aching, adoring, and so overwhelmed that he's at risk of tearing up.

It’s painfully, embarrassingly maudlin of him, he knows, but can he really be faulted for that? Jon surpassed the lifespan of a normal human several times over, bereft and alone in a desolated realm of his own making. He spent much of that time out of his mind with grief, drowning in hopelessness and guilt, cycling between numb dissociation and raw destruction. When he wasn’t wandering aimlessly – near-catatonic, subsumed by the never-ending deluge of fear permeating that world – he was lashing out. Although he couldn’t die, he could still hurt, and so he did, with exacting focus: both himself and all the other monsters going through the motions in that doomed world.

Ending them neither decreased nor increased the net output of fear, but it was the closest Jon could come to some nebulous, fleeting sense of justice. He didn’t enjoy it – in fact, he hated the other Avatars sometimes, bitter that they could attain a release that seemed impossible for him. His first few acts of vengeance in those early days had felt good in the moment, but the high never lasted: just like taking a statement.

Eventually, once the fear began to grow scarcer, it felt more and more like granting mercy – often to monsters who never showed any themselves – rather than meting out justice. A few moments of pain was preferable to slow, torturous starvation. Breekon was the first to request such a favor. He was far from the last.

It made Jon feel monstrous in an all new way, offering escape to predators when he could do nothing to save their victims – at least not without turning them into Avatars themselves, creating more monsters to replace the old. But it also made him feel real – a tangible, active presence interacting with the world, as opposed to a ghost, unseen and unknowable. An undeniable consequence, rather than a detached observer.

Tears start to gather in the corners of his eyes. Jon tries to swallow them back, but his throat has grown thick with emotion. He never expected to escape that place; never expected to see a friendly face or hear a kind word ever again. And now that he has…

This isn’t for you, says an insidious little voice in the back of his head: some twisted chimera comprised of all those who have known him well enough to see him for what he is, to catalogue his failings, to pass judgment. There is no place for you in this world. You don’t belong here. You were made for something greater; eliminate that, and what remains –

A gentle knock-knock at the door startles him out of his thoughts.

“Jon?” Georgie pushes the door open and peers through the gap. “You awake?”

“Yeah.” It comes out as a fractured whisper. He sniffles and rubs his eyes, but Georgie has already noticed his distress.

“Bad dream?”

“No.” Jon clears his throat and props himself up on one elbow. “No, ah – quite the opposite, really.”

“Oh?” Georgie says, probing for an explanation.

Jon's gaze drifts to his hand, still joined with Martin’s. “None of this feels real, and…”

“And?”

“I, uh…” Jon closes his eyes, blinking back tears. “I don’t deserve it.”

“The world doesn’t work that way.”

“Maybe it should.” Jon lets out a wet, clipped laugh.

No one got what they deserved in the world he created, only what hurt them the most. Tempting as it was to find some meaning in it all, to retroactively draw correlations between past actions and current circumstances, Jon Knew from the very beginning that there was no cause-and-effect at play. Not really. Any misery being experienced in that new world was utterly unrelated to the lives people lived before the change. It was indiscriminate. Everyone was afraid and in agony, regardless of any subjective judgment on whether or not they deserved it.

And nothing Jon did changed those material conditions in the slightest. He could shift an individual’s role from subject to object and vice versa, reassign their place on the spectrum of the tortured versus the torturer, but at the end of the day, he was still just facilitating fear, regardless of what shape it took. Despite being one of the most powerful and fearful things roaming that scorched earth, his options were as limited as they’d always been. Every choice led to more or less the same end.

By every measure that could be said to actually matter, he was ultimately powerless.

Would it have been any more tolerable if the suffering was more proportionate? If at least some of the people trapped in the domains could be said to be receiving just punishment for any agony they themselves had inflicted before the end of the world? Maybe. But probably not. Securing vengeance never actually yielded any meaningful catharsis for Jon. Even Jonah Magnus' ultimate fate produced nothing but revulsion. The Archive may feed on such fear, but after all this time, Jon – all the pieces of him that still belong to him – has no desire to behold suffering. He has seen enough for several lifetimes, and he was never once given the option to look away, let alone put an end to it.

Jon shakes his head and begins to fully sit up, slowly and carefully so as not to disturb Martin. He’s hardly expecting Georgie to engage with his newest avenue of brooding, but after a minute, she gives a thoughtful hum and leans against the doorframe.

“Don’t know that I want to see what that would look like,” she says pensively.

“What?”

“A world where ‘deservedness’ was quantifiable – where you could put a precise value on suffering, and every action had a moral price tag on it that stayed the same regardless of the circumstances. Where subjective experiences could be – shoved into neat little categories that everyone could agree on.”

“Like Robert Smirke,” Jon murmurs.

“Sure.” Georgie shrugs. “I don’t know if humanity as we know it could even exist in a world like that. We’d be… unrecognizable.”

“O-oh?”

“Mm. We aren’t equations. Or – well, we are, I guess, at the most basic physical level, if you scale down small enough. Atoms, physics, chemical reactions and all that. But when it comes to the experience of consciousness, personal identity, free will… isn’t the complexity what gives it all meaning? If we could account for every last variable, know the exact effect of every cause, what would that make us?”

“I… I don’t know.”

“Life isn’t about the destination, I guess is what I’m saying.” Georgie runs her thumb over her lips as she muses. “We already know the destination. One way or another, everything dies.”

“‘The moment that you die will feel exactly the same as this one,’” Jon recites, a distant quality to his voice. “There’s no difference between that last moment that ushers us out into oblivion and the one we experience now – everything ends, even the universe, even time. And… that means it has always already ended.”

It takes a moment for Jon to come back to himself, blinking dazedly. It's another few seconds before he realizes what happened – and when he does, a sudden, heavy coldness takes root and blossoms in his chest.

“I’m so– I didn’t – I wasn’t –”

“It’s – fine,” Georgie says, although she sounds a bit rattled. “It was an accident.”

“Still, I’m sorry, I –”

“Apology accepted, Jon. I’m not angry.” When she sees Jon gearing up to belabor the point, she holds up a hand. “You’re forgiven. Let’s just move on, okay?”

Jon bites down on his lower lip, torn between dueling impulses: groveling, berating himself, shutting down, or… simply taking Georgie at her word. With a long, shaky exhale, he settles on trust: Georgie expressed a desire to drop it and move forward. He should respect that, right? Right.

He bites back his protests and nods stiffly. “Okay.”

“Look, what I was trying to get at is – knowing the destination doesn’t invalidate the journey, right? If anything, the inevitability of an ending is what gives meaning to all the rest.”

The End forced Georgie to confront the insignificance of her own birth and death against the backdrop of a vast universe – but rather than allow that realization to immobilize her with despair, she opted to make all the moments in between meaningful. Jon can't help but once again remember the confidence with which Martin countered Simon Fairchild's brand of flippant nihilism: I think our experience of the universe has value, even if it disappears forever.

I might have a type, he thinks to himself, equal parts wry and endeared.

“We all end up in the same place,” Georgie continues, “but that doesn’t have to mean we all follow the same path. What matters is what happens along the way, and – if you could map out every bit of the journey, predict the outcome of every single step you take, then – what else is left?”

“If you already know the answer to every question,” Jon says softly, “what’s the point of being?”

Jon isn’t sure what expression he’s making, but whatever it is, Georgie blanches when she catches his eye.

“Oh, I – Jon, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean –”

“No, it’s – it’s alright. You’re not wrong.” Jon chuckles awkwardly. “Is it odd that I find the thought…reassuring? Sort of?”

“We’re getting lost in the weeds, aren't we?” Georgie says with a flustered laugh. “My original point was – this obsession you have with deservedness, and establishing dichotomies, and trying to find simple, objective answers to complicated questions – it’s a skewed way of looking at the world, and it’s eating you alive. You have to stop treating your life like it’s a scorecard. Relentlessly punishing yourself isn’t going to change the past. It’s not healthy, it’s not productive, and it just makes you more likely to sabotage your future.”

“I know. It’s just… the things I’ve done, they’re – unforgivable. I can’t leave it behind, and I can’t take it back.”

Jon used to wonder when the Eye would make him too monstrous to feel shame. It never did, never had to: he abetted it regardless of how he felt about it. For the most part, he can’t even apologize: the people he hurt are either dead or have no memory of what Jon did to warrant it. Besides, some consequences too irrevocable, too catastrophic to cushion with remorse.

Sorry that you died because I failed; sorry that I burned a bridge that could have kept us both safe; sorry that you’re trapped here just because I stood too close to you. Sorry for the invaded privacy, sorry for the mistreatment, sorry for all the hunger and fear and nightmares. Sincerest apologies, everyone, for the eternal torment.

He could have composed a personalized apology for every last person in the world had he wanted – he’d certainly had the time to spare, as well as detailed knowledge of each victim’s plight. But any apology he could possibly make, no matter how eloquent or sincere, would have been insulting in its inadequacy. What reparations can be made to soften the blow of a life lost or a world ended?

“S-so,” he says, eyes downcast, “that just leaves… guilt.”

And fear. Fear enough to cram an Archive full to bursting.

“I know,” Georgie says.

“I’m sorry, I –” Jon breathes a bitter laugh. “I’m a broken record, aren’t I? I fall apart every time I see you.”

“Jon,” George sighs, “you don’t have to apologize. You’ve been through unimaginable trauma. You’ve had barely any chance to start to heal from it. You’re still living it. I don’t expect a few heart-to-heart conversations to close the book on… all of that.”

“Still, it’s – annoying, I imagine.” Jon picks nervously at a loose thread on his trouser leg. “To sit through the same conversation over and over again.”

“I’d be more worried if you went back to just – pretending to be okay, refusing to talk about it. It’s been barely a month since you got out of the hospital. Shit, it hasn’t even been twenty-four hours since you crawled out of that Coffin.” Her eyes narrow slightly, intent and searching. “Speaking of which, I should ask: Are you a danger to yourself right now?”

“What?” The question catches Jon off guard. “No? N-no, I’m – why would you –”

“Just checking in. Which I’m going to keep doing. Regularly. So you may as well make peace with that now.”

“It’s not like I’m going to kill myself,” Jon mumbles – aiming for casually unconcerned and instead landing squarely in transparently uncomfortable territory. “I’m fairly certain I can’t die a mundane human death, anyway.”

“Maybe not, but that doesn’t mean you can’t still hurt yourself. And being suicidal sucks regardless of whether you actually plan on going through with it.” Jon studiously avoids eye contact as Georgie speaks. “Anyway, I know I sound like a broken record, but I’ll say it as many times as you need reminding: You have a second chance. You said you were going to make the best of it, and you can’t do that if you won’t let yourself have some peace.” Her expression softens, as does her voice. “Just… let yourself be, won’t you?”

There’s truth to what Georgie is saying. Even if he wasn’t mired in guilt, though…

“I’m afraid,” Jon whispers. “Of losing him, of losing everyone, of…”

Of dooming everyone. It was so easy. All it took was his voice, an incantation, and this ceaseless, aberrant hunger. He’s seen the consequences of the destiny for which he has unwittingly been prepared. Like it or not, he is the most dangerous thing in this world – a walking hair-trigger, already having overstayed his welcome on this earth by several lifetimes. One misstep, and…

“I should be grateful to have this, to have him – and I am, but every – every time I come close to letting myself feel – safe, hopeful, content, it… it never lasts. It’s always swallowed up by fear – not of if something goes wrong, but when. It just feels like… any choice I make is bound to end in tragedy. Like there’s no way out. Like nothing I do will change anything. I – I’ll mess it up; I always do.”

It’s a pattern that began long before he became entangled in Jonah’s machinations. Jon was a difficult child who grew into an even more difficult adult, always saying and doing all the wrong things because he’s never been able to fully grasp the invisible rules that other people seem to navigate so naturally. At home he could never shake the feeling that he was an odd guest, secretly unwelcome but with nowhere else to keep him; at school he was a menace, asking all the wrong questions at all the wrong times and prone to following his own lesson plans whenever the curriculum failed to hold his interest. Peer relationships typically failed to take root: he’s too guarded, too abrasive, too annoying and tactless and awkward. Whatever friendships managed to blossom tended to wilt before long, for all the same reasons.

Romantic relationships have historically been even more fraught. There are expectations that he will never meet, forms of intimacy that are traditionally assumed to be required rather than optional for such a relationship to qualify as normal, healthy, and sustainable. In his experience, setting those boundaries have usually been a deal-breaker. Georgie was the first to accept that aspect of him unconditionally; Martin was the second – and although Jon no longer believes that it’s a problem to be fixed, those old, long-held insecurities still rear up from time to time.

He had hoped he could at least prove himself capable as a Head Archivist, but, well… he was inexperienced with the duties of a mundane archiving job, unsuited to managing a department, and his preexisting difficulties with establishing rapport were exacerbated by his need to maintain a professional boundary between himself and his assistants. He tried to make up for those shortcomings with effort and dedication and – in retrospect – frankly obscene levels of overwork, but he never did manage to be a good boss or a good coworker.

It’s a cruel joke that of all the roles to finally excel in, it’s as the Archivist – or, specifically, Jonah’s Archivist. He met every expectation, even – perhaps especially – when he didn’t know what those expectations were. Not like Gertrude. She would doubtless be disappointed by her successor: constantly second-guessing himself, resolving indecisiveness with impulsivity, stumbling around in the dark, pointlessly sabotaging himself and those unlucky enough to find themselves in his orbit – ultimately devastating a world that she had made so many ruthless sacrifices to protect.

Jon has spent most of his life fumbling at being a peer, a friend, a partner, a colleague, an ally. If he couldn’t manage to figure it out when he was still human, how is he supposed to play at being a person now, when he’s…

“This – this isn’t for things like me,” Jon says hoarsely. He can feel more tears teeming as he looks down at Martin: kind and good and so, so deserving of happiness, of security, of a peaceful life that Jon fears he will never be able to provide, no matter how fiercely he loves. “I don’t get to” – end the world – “to become – this, and still get a happy ending.”

“Do you Know that?” Georgie asks.

“N-no, I can’t predict the future, but –”

“Then you shouldn’t assume the worst. You don’t have a fixed destiny, no matter what you’ve been led to believe.” She scowls at him. “And stop referring to yourself as a ‘thing’. It really doesn’t matter how human you are or aren’t, you're still you. You’re still a person.”

Jon doesn’t know how to respond to that without either contradicting her or offering lukewarm, disingenuous agreement. Luckily, he doesn’t have to: Martin begins to stir, and Jon hurriedly wipes away any evidence of tears, fighting to regain his composure. With a snuffle and a sleepy groan, Martin opens his eyes, blinking blearily.

“Hey there,” Jon says with a soft smile.

Martin returns a vague grin, muzzy with sleep. With unfocused eyes, he appears to slowly take in his surroundings, gaze lingering briefly on and then skating over his hand, fingers still interlocked with Jon’s. When his attention drifts towards Georgie, he stares at her for a long few seconds, squinting at the influx of light from the hallway. Another slow blink, another extended stare at his and Jon’s linked hands, and then his eyes widen. Color blooms on his cheeks as he abruptly surfaces into full consciousness, glasses tumbling off his face as he jerks upward.

“Oh, god, I’m sorry,” he says, groggy voice at odds with the panicked embarrassment in his eyes. He pulls his hand back, mumbling apologies about clammy palms. As he straightens in his seat, he lets out a pained hiss.

Jon cringes sympathetically. “You should’ve taken the cot.”

Martin ignores the comment, scrubbing at his face now, hiding it in his sleeve. It does nothing to conceal his reddened ears, Jon notes with amused affection.

“Did you sleep alright, otherwise?” Jon asks.

“Mm?” Martin retrieves his glasses and slips them back on before turning his attention to Jon. “Oh, uh – yes. You?”

“Yes, actually.”

His first routine breakdown of the day notwithstanding, Jon did manage to sleep through most of the night, only waking once after a brief foray back into Karolina’s nightmare.

The rest of the dreams were relatively benign. He spent some time with Georgie. Naomi was pleased to see him and eager as ever to regale him with cat anecdotes. Dr. Elliott was less pleased, but he was at least no more afraid of Jon than he had been during the coma. Seeing Jordan Kennedy was as uncomfortable as ever; Jon doubts he’ll ever know what to say to him. Tessa was more difficult to read. She wasn’t exactly happy to see him again, but she didn't seem angry, either.

Should’ve known it wouldn’t last, she’d sighed to herself – and then promptly changed the subject before Jon could stammer out an apology.

“Learned a lot about the right to repair movement,” Jon says absently.

“What?” Martin asks, bewildered.

“Oh, uh – Tessa Winters. Gave a statement in 2016 about a haunted chatbot. It forced her to watch a seventeen-hour-long video of a man eating his computer.”

Georgie perks up at that.

“Oh, is that the, uh – that creepypasta about that guy who mutilated himself trying to upload his mind to his computer?”

“Sergey Ushanka.”

“Yeah! Something about how he tried to crack open his skull and wire his brain to the motherboard?”

“That is one variation of the story, yes.”

“What,” Martin says flatly.

“I was thinking about doing a What the Ghost episode on that one,” Georgie explains, her sheepish smile doing little to conceal her lingering enthusiasm. “Haunted technology is always a popular topic. Didn’t expect that one to be real, though. I wonder –”

Jon answers her question before she can ask it: “I doubt Tessa would be interested in being a guest on the show.”

“Yeah,” Georgie sighs, “I guess not.”

Martin lets out a nervous chuckle. “What, uh – sorry, what does any of this have to do with right to repair?”

“Oh. Right. Tessa’s one of the people whose nightmares I… invade. Perpetuate, I suppose. She’s, ah, not my biggest fan, considering what I’ve put her through, but she says I’m a decent audience.” Martin gives Jon a blank look. “She basically gives me free lectures sometimes? Technology-related subjects, mostly. Fascinating stuff.”

“God, you sound like a grandpa,” Georgie says.

“Yes, yes, Tessa tells me the same.” Jon rolls his eyes. “Anyway, she has some, ah… strong feelings about Apple. Among other things.”

“Right,” Martin says slowly. “Wait, back up – you know what creepypasta is?”

“Yes, Martin,” Jon says with a sigh and an indulgent smile, “I know what creepypasta is.”

“That particular internet rabbit hole was one of his many, many avenues of procrastination in uni, believe it or not,” Georgie says.

“Contrary to popular belief, I’m not a Luddite. I tried to introduce the Archives to the twenty-first century, remember? It’s not my fault the Beholding has a retro aesthetic.”

“Huh,” Martin says with a bemused smile. Then he yawns. “Sorry. What time is it?”

As soon as the question is posed, the Beholding drops the knowledge into Jon’s head.

“About 10:30,” Georgie answers, just as Jon says, “10:28 and forty-six seconds” – and then, wincing at his own pedantry, “Sorry.”

Georgie looks ready to let loose with a snarky reply, but before she can say anything, Martin is on his feet, the blanket on his lap sliding to the floor.

“10:30? Jon, why didn’t you wake me up?”

“I – I wasn’t really paying attention to the time, I haven’t actually been awake for…”

Jon trails off as the Beholding casually notifies him that he woke up thirty-seven minutes and twenty-three seconds ago. He can feel heat pooling in his cheeks as a vague sense of shame sets in. Good lord, was he really just watching Martin sleep for that long?

“I should have been upstairs over an hour ago,” Martin says, frantically scanning the room for –

For his shoes, the Eye informs Jon.

Do you ever mind your goddamn business? Jon shoots back. On impulse, he swats at the air to his side, momentarily forgetting that the ever-present eldritch tagalongs he’d grown accustomed to during the apocalypse are no longer with him. In his dreams, he’d come eye-to-eye with them again for the first time since waking up in the hospital; apparently, that’s all it took to reintroduce this old, reflexive shooing tic to his waking life.

Georgie raises her eyebrows at the gesture, but Martin appears not to notice, preoccupied with his escalating panic.

Jon scrambles for some way to soothe him, but he’s at a loss. In his future, through trial and error and intense observation, he had painstakingly learned how to comfort Martin. Now, though, after so much time spent alone, Jon is out of practice. Moreover, he’s always been more adept at offering comfort through action and touch rather than words – and right now, he’s still uncertain where Martin’s boundaries lie.

So Jon continues to sit there, hands fluttering slightly as his mind rifles through a mountain of inane clichés in search of something, anything that might be able to help. Meanwhile, the Archivist in him is distracted by Martin’s growing anxiety. It isn’t the same as abject fear, per se, but it’s similar enough to pique the Eye’s interest.

Once again, Jon takes a swipe at the empty space beside him – and again ignores Georgie’s amused expression.

“If Peter notices I’m not in the office…” Martin nearly trips over the blanket on the floor as he turns in place to search behind him. “He – he’ll be suspicious –”

That’s when Georgie decides to speak up. Thank god, Jon thinks to himself. She exudes far more confidence than he does in this sort of situation.

“Won’t he already be suspicious?” she says, calm as can be. It’s enough to bring Martin’s fretting to a pause. “It’s not like you can keep this a secret forever, right? Your change in attitude is… pretty noticeable, Martin.”

“I – I – I didn’t really think much further ahead than –” Martin laughs nervously. “I was just – playing along, and it felt right, like if I just kept following the path I’d reach a – a – a conclusion? I don’t know what, but…” His shoulders slump, leaving his arms hanging awkwardly at his sides; he tugs at the hem of his shirt, as if he doesn’t know what to do with his hands. “I don’t think I cared much? I figured I could just – gather information and pass it along, and if nothing else I could keep Peter’s attention away from the Archives, and… that was the whole plan, to just keep doing that until… until whatever was going to happen happened, I guess, and now I don’t – I don’t know where to go from here, and…”

“Martin?” Jon says softly.

“Huh?” Martin finally glances up to meet Jon’s eyes.

“Can I take your hand?”

Cautiously, wordlessly, Martin offers his hand. Jon takes it in his, lacing their fingers together loosely.

“It’ll be alright,” he says. “You don’t have to figure it out on your own. Not anymore.”

Martin’s lips move minutely for a few seconds before meekly saying, “That doesn’t feel right.”

“I know.”

“I’m – I’m not saying you’re lying,” Martin says, rushed and anxious to appease, “it’s just…”

“Hearing something isn’t the same as accepting it. Or trusting it.”

“I do trust you, I do, it’s just… I don’t know. It’s like I can’t wrap my mind around it.”

“It’s alright,” Jon says gently. “I understand.”

“I’m sorry,” Martin whispers, his voice steeped in guilt.

“You don’t need to apologize.” When Martin opens his mouth to protest, Jon reiterates: “You have nothing to be sorry for. I promise.”

“Okay,” Martin says after a pause, still sounding somewhat doubtful. Then he grimaces. “I, uh, still don’t know what to do about Peter, though.”

“That depends on what you want,” Jon says, squeezing Martin’s hand. “I trust you. I’ll follow your lead.”

“O-okay,” Martin repeats. He blinks several times, surprised, before giving a nervous chuckle. “Only… I, uh, don’t really know what I want, to be honest?”

“Break it down into smaller pieces,” Georgie says. Martin flinches slightly – he must have momentarily forgotten she was in the room. “Do you want to go back to the Lonely?”

There’s only a short delay before Martin says, “No. I don’t… it feels different than before. Doesn’t fit right.”

“Do you want to continue working with Peter?”

“I don’t know,” Martin says slowly. “Not really? I mean, I never wanted to in the first place, it just… seemed like the thing to do.”

“Okay, rephrase,” Georgie says. “Do you want to stop working with him now?”

“I think so.” Another pause. Martin’s brow wrinkles as he stares at the floor in thought before glancing back up at Georgie. “Yeah, I – I think I do.”

“But…?” Georgie prompts, sensing Martin’s uncertainty.

“I worry about how he might react. He’ll probably start paying more attention to the Archives, and…” Martin looks at Jon. “What if he takes it out on you? Or – I mean, I don’t want him to hurt anyone, but I…” He looks down at their joined hands, tightening his grip just slightly. “I think you would be his most likely target.”

“Maybe,” Jon admits. He’s witnessed firsthand how vindictive Peter can be. “But I would rather take that risk than have you torture yourself on the off chance he’ll let me be. And… I think we’ll all be safer if we cooperate as a group rather than stay divided.”

“I guess. I’m not sure how to go about it, though.”

“Well,” Georgie says thoughtfully, “it depends on whether you want to quit all at once or ease into it.”

“I don’t know.” Martin looks to Jon again. “If I continue to work for him in some capacity, would it give us an advantage?”

At this point, they know more about the Extinction than Peter does, and Jon has a decent grasp on Peter’s goals and how he operates. So…

“I… don’t think there’s anything to be gained if you keep working closely with him, no,” Jon replies. “And anyway, I – I would rather that not be the deciding factor? It’s your decision, of course, it’s just – your wellbeing is more important.”

“Hypocrite,” Martin mutters, but there’s a tinge of endearment there.

“I know,” Jon sighs. “I’m working on it. But to the point, I worry that working closely with him might drag you back into the Lonely.”

“Yeah.”

“I’m also worried about you confronting him directly to resign. Especially on your own.”

Peter is patient. Moreover, he enjoys a long game. If he sees Martin’s change of heart as a surmountable obstacle, Peter is likely to take a step back and wait for another opening to regain the upper hand. If, on the other hand, he decides that Martin is a lost cause… well, Peter is a sore loser. There’s every chance that he could drop Martin into the Lonely out of spite again.

“Either way,” Jon says, “I don’t think it’s safe for you to be alone with him. Sooner or later, he’ll realize that the Lonely’s starting to lose its hold on you.”

Unthinkingly, Jon tightens his grip on Martin’s hand.

“It’s been slipping for a while now,” Martin says quietly. “I think he’s already noticed.”

“In that case… there’s no telling how he’ll react if he decides your allegiance to the Lonely is too tenuous to salvage.”

“Do you – or…” Georgie appears to grapple with wording for a few seconds. “Can you Know what Peter knows?”

“No,” Jon says. The last time he tried to Know something about Peter, not only did it yield nothing of value, it nearly incapacitated Jon – and he didn’t recover until he gave in and fed on a new victim. He can’t afford to repeat the experience. Daisy’s supply of statements is finite; Jon needs to ration them as much as possible. “I do know that Peter can’t spy from a distance, but that doesn’t mean he can’t just turn invisible to eavesdrop. Or that Elias won’t feed him information.”

“Let’s focus on the immediate question, then,” Georgie says. “Do you want to go upstairs and walk into your office two hours late with bedhead” – Martin runs a self-conscious hand through his hair, eliciting an affectionate smile from Jon – “or do you want to no-call/no-show?”

“Well… Peter isn’t actually around much,” Martin says. “Sometimes days go by before he checks in. He might not realize I’m not in my office yet. Maybe I can just – go about my normal routine for now?” He glances at Jon, almost beseeching. “At least until I have an idea of how much he knows?”

Like everyone who has worked in the Archives, Martin has developed a harder edge over the years. Early in his tenure, he seemed unassuming on first impression. He was by no means a pushover, but he was eager to please and preferred to avoid unnecessary confrontation. It made him an all-too-easy target for Jon’s insecurity-fueled ire.

But rather than roll over in the face of criticism, Martin has always been determined to prove his detractors wrong. Whether it’s risking his life for the sake of doing his due diligence – Jon cringes at the memory – or stubbornly caring for people who deemed him incompetent and didn’t appreciate his attentions, Martin is tenacious. It would be admirable – and it is, to an extent – but all too often it leads to self-neglect, bordering on self-harm.

And right now, despite the thicker skin that Martin has been forced to grow through necessity and loss, his demeanor when he looks at Jon is vaguely reminiscent of those early days in the Archives: cowed, cautious, desperate for approval and dreading reproach. With a pang of old guilt and a desire to soothe, Jon forces a smile and kneads the back of Martin’s hand with his thumb.

“I trust you,” Jon says, “and I know you’re more than capable. Just – when the fog starts to creep up on you, try to remember that there are people who care about you. You’re not a burden; you’re not – unseen, unwanted, undeserving, or – or whatever other lies the Lonely wants to tell you. You’re not alone. Not anymore.”

“Right,” Martin says in a breathless whisper. He gives Jon’s hand another squeeze before letting go. “I guess I, uh – I guess should head upstairs.”

“Text or call if you need a reminder,” Jon blurts out as Martin turns to leave. “S-sorry, I don’t mean to – to hover, it’s just… sometimes it helps.”

In Scotland, once Jon was too hungry to safely visit the village, Martin had to go on supply runs alone. Although he had largely left the Lonely behind, it still lurked in the background, waiting for quiet moments in which it could seep back in through the cracks it left behind. It was opportunistic and insidious, passive until it wasn’t, and it could strike unpredictably. And so, he and Jon would check in with one another frequently whenever Martin had to go into town.

In many ways it was an exercise in codependence, but they were doing their best, considering their particular circumstances.

“Thanks,” Martin says, splotches of pink staining his face again. “I – I will.”

“There’s no service in the tunnels,” Georgie reminds them. “Just in case you were planning on going down there today, Jon. Martin, do you have the rest of our numbers?”

“I have Basira’s. And Melanie’s.”

“Give me your phone. I’ll add my number. And Daisy’s.” Martin makes a face at that, but hands his phone over. “If Jon doesn’t answer, text one of the rest of us. We can make sure to always keep someone up here and reachable, just in case.”

“That’s really not necessary,” Martin says stiffly. “I don’t need my hand held every second of the day.”

“No, but you might need your hand held at any second during the day,” Georgie says, entirely unfazed by the shift in attitude, “and there's no shame in that. Sometimes a bad time sneaks up on you. Doesn’t hurt to be prepared.”

“I’ve always taken care of myself. I can handle a few hours alone.”

“I’m sure you can, but that doesn’t mean you have to.” Martin looks ready to object, but Georgie cuts him off. “You’re not going to win this argument; I’ve already heard it all before. I’ve known this one” – she jerks her thumb in Jon’s direction – “for years, and you have near-identical hangups about being an inconvenience or whatever.”

“I’m right here, you know,” Jon mutters.

“Yeah, this is directed at both of you. People want to help you. The world won’t end if you let yourself accept it without berating yourself in the process.” Georgie looks between the two of them as she hands Martin’s phone back, and then chuckles. “Huh. You two have damn-near-identical scowls, too, by the way.”

Simultaneously, Jon and Martin both roll their eyes.

Compared to the last time Jon saw her, Melanie looks… well, better. The wild, furious look in her eyes has subsided and the bags underneath are no longer quite so heavy. Her posture doesn’t look relaxed, exactly, but she doesn’t seem nearly as overwrought. She's still clearly weighed down by ambient tension, but she always has been – and the Archives have a way of making even the most well-adjusted person feel on edge.

She pauses at the bottom of the ladder, watching Jon with an air of distrust and uncertainty. Then Georgie takes her hand and a little more of that stiffness bleeds out of her. She allows Georgie to lead her over to the circle of chairs where Jon waits, and mirrors Georgie when she sits.

The ensuing silence is thoroughly unsettling. When it becomes clear that Georgie isn’t going to break the ice for them, and Melanie likewise keeps her silence, Jon reluctantly takes the initiative.

“Hi,” he says eloquently. He starts to give a little wave, but doesn’t fully commit to the motion, instead allowing his hand to hang awkwardly in the air for a few seconds before lowering his arm again, self-conscious.

“Hey,” Melanie replies – guarded, somewhat flat, but without any outright hostility.

Melanie scuffs one foot against the ground. Jon bounces his leg, chewing the inside of his cheek as he stares at the floor. Neither of them speak.

“So…” Georgie says after a minute, drawing out the vowel. “Do you two want me to, uh… I can leave, if you’d prefer to have this discussion in private?”

“Stay,” Melanie says abruptly, seeking out Georgie’s hand again. Georgie looks at Jon, a question in her eyes.

“I don’t mind. You can stay, Georgie.”

“If you’re sure,” Georgie says. “Just – let me know if that changes, I suppose.”

More silence. When Jon can’t take it anymore, he blurts out: “H-how have you been?”

“Well,” Melanie says sardonically, “I’m essentially trapped in an eldritch fear prison, doing the bidding of an evil voyeur-god, and apparently the only way out of its unfathomable contract is to gouge my eyes out.”

“Right,” Jon says with a hollow laugh. “Stupid question.”

“How are you?” Melanie asks with mock cheeriness.

“Same as you, really. Well. Except for the eye-gouging clause.”

“What, don’t have the stomach for it?”

“No, uh – it… it just won’t work for me, is all.” Staring down at his lap, Jon occupies himself with tracing circles onto one knee with his fingernail. “The Beholding isn’t keen on losing its Archivist.”

“It didn’t mind losing Gertrude.”

“Gertrude… wasn’t as far gone as I am,” Jon says quietly. “She never fully embraced the power the Eye offered. Not to the extent that I did. Blinding herself would have released her from the Eye’s service. She planned on it, actually, but Elias got to her first. And she was still human enough for a gunshot to kill her.”

And wasn’t that a release, in a way? Is it morbid for Jon to envy the fact that Gertrude even had that option available to her?

“Right,” is all Melanie says. She sounds dubious.

“I’m not just speculating a worst-case scenario to give myself an excuse not to go through with it.” Jon can feel himself bristling now. “I know it won’t work. I’ve tried. Multiple times. It hurts like hell, and then I heal. All I got out of it was an onset of chronic cluster headaches – though, who knows,” he adds acidly, “that may have just been the side effect of becoming a linchpin of the apocalypse and having all the world’s terror crammed into my head. I didn’t bother Knowing. It wouldn’t have made a difference.”

“Jon,” Georgie says gently – and all the fight goes out of him, shoulders slumping.

“Sorry,” he sighs. “Didn’t mean to snap.”

“I wasn’t scolding you. It’s just – you’re scratching.”

Oh. Jon looks down to see long, angry red scratches on his forearms, already fading now.

“Sorry,” he says again. “Didn’t notice.”

“It’s alright.”

Another awkward pause, until Melanie breaks the silence.

“Are you sure blinding will work for the rest of us?” she asks. She no longer sounds suspicious. Simply… curious: reminiscent of how things used to be, back when she was an avid investigator, beholden only to herself.

“Yes.”

“Did I…? Last time?”

“Are you sure you want to know?” Jon waits until Melanie gives a firm nod before he answers the question. “You did.”

“And it worked.”

“It worked.”

Melanie nods again. She’s clenching her teeth, if the subtle movements in her jaw are any indication. Closing her eyes, she takes a deep breath in, lets it out slowly – and her shoulders relax. By the time she’s opened her eyes, there’s the hint of a smile on her face.

“Good,” she says, equal parts relief and determination.

“S-so, do you think you’ll –” Jon stops himself, shaking his head. “No, sorry, I shouldn’t pry.”

Melanie simply shrugs. “I haven’t made a decision yet. Let’s just say I’m strongly considering it.”

Georgie’s hand tightens on Melanie’s, worry lining her face.

“Tell me what happened last time?” Melanie says. “I’d like to hear the whole story.”

Jon takes a deep breath, rubbing his arms as he orders his thoughts.

“Last time, I didn’t know about the bullet until after I woke up,” he begins. “I, ah, only saw you briefly – you were, um… you were convinced that I wasn’t me anymore. Didn’t want me anywhere near you.”

Thought I should have been the one to die, he doesn’t add. Most days, Jon couldn’t find fault in that assessment. He didn’t want to die – most of the time, anyway – but if he could have traded his life for Tim’s… well, it wouldn’t have been a difficult decision.

“So how did you find out about it, then?”

“I just… Knew it, all of a sudden.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Melanie narrows her eyes suspiciously.

“It’s an Archivist thing. I mean, you're probably already aware – I just… Know things, sometimes, even without compelling anyone. It started before the Unknowing, but it wasn’t as noticeable. Or as often. And it was typically more vague impressions, rather than specific truths. It got worse after I woke up from the coma. More frequent, more detailed, more – intrusive.”

“Fantastic,” Melanie says sourly.

“Yes, I’m not thrilled about it either. Sometimes I can Know things by choice, but the Beholding has a tendency to withhold answers to the questions I actually ask. Mostly it just airdrops information on me unsolicited. Often without me even wondering about a thing. Just… apropos of nothing. I did have much more control over it after the world ended, but, well…” He shrugs, awkward. “Not anymore. I’m sorry.”

“Sorry?” Melanie repeats.

“Last time, I had – still have, I suppose – a tendency to Know things about specific people. Things they wouldn’t normally share with me. I still remember things I Knew back then. Including some things about you.”

The color rises in Melanie’s cheeks. “That’s –”

“An invasion of privacy, I know,” he says, contrite. “I really will try to avoid it, just… sometimes things slip through the cracks when I’m not paying attention.”

“So, what, you can read minds?” Melanie says, an accusation threaded through the question. “Like Elias?”

Jon visibly recoils.

“Melanie,” Georgie begins, but Jon cuts her off.

“No, it’s – it’s a fair question. Elias’ powers come from the same source mine do.” He pauses, nervously flexing his fingers as he composes an explanation. “I can’t see your thoughts verbatim. It’s just… Knowing things. It’s the same with Elias. Sometimes it seems like he can read minds, b-but that’s – that’s just because he’s very – very good at reading people –”

“– finding you when you’re at your lowest point, when you’re your most emotionally vulnerable. And when you’re at that point it’s astounding what can crawl into your heart and start to fester there –“

Jon bites his tongue, applying pressure until the Archive stops its clamoring. Melanie raises her eyebrows in an unspoken question.

“Sorry. Sometimes it just slips out, and…” He laughs and massages his temples. “Well. Still an Archive, in the end.”

His voice cracks and Georgie’s already-concerned expression grows more serious.

“Jon –”

“I’m fine, Georgie,” Jon says, more curtly than intended. “Sorry. I just – I can’t go there right now.”

“We can take a break if you need,” she says.

“No, I… let’s just continue.” He nods at Melanie. “You have more questions.”

Melanie gnaws on the inside of her cheek for a moment, mulling over her words.

“Can you do that…” She wiggles her fingers vaguely. “That thing where you put thoughts in people’s heads?”

“No. Not – not really.”

Not anymore, he corrects privately. During the apocalypse, he was able to make others See and feel things, but… only because he could call upon the Ceaseless Watcher to turn its gaze upon them. Here in the past, the Beholding and all the other Fears remain cloistered behind their door, leeching through the cracks but unable to fully manifest in the world.

“But I, um…” Jon pauses, wetting his lips nervously. “In addition to compelling people to tell me things, sometimes I can compel people to… to do things. Nothing – nothing complex. Simple commands, mostly. ‘Stop,’ ‘leave,’ ‘look,’ ‘don’t look,’ that sort of thing. I haven’t done it often, but the times I have… with a few exceptions, it’s usually been accidental. A sort of – knee-jerk defense mechanism of sorts.”

“Hmm.” Melanie crosses her arms, tapping her foot on the ground.

“I realize that reflects poorly on me.” He swallows, mouth going dry. “It’s… a terrifying prospect, being near someone who can do something like that, and doesn’t have full control over it.”

Jon knows – and Knows via billions of proxies – what it’s like to have something other supplant his will and commandeer his body. Melanie deserves to know the risks of standing too close to him.

“I promise I’ll try to keep it under control, I just – wanted you to be aware of it. I won’t blame you if you’d rather not be around me.”

“Stop being so melodramatic,” Melanie says, rolling her eyes.

“I’m not,” Jon says flatly. “Compelling answers and – and subsisting on a diet of fear has always been more than enough to justify people keeping their distance. Adding more sinister bullshit on top of the pile doesn’t exactly do me credit. I know – Know how people see me.” He laughs, a harsh and humorless thing. “I can’t not Know.”

People tend to naturally give him a wide berth, as if they can sense that there’s something wrong about him, even if they can’t quite discern why. If he’s too careless, if he locks eyes with the wrong person, sometimes they can’t look away – and sometimes he can’t, either, and he’s forced to watch as the terror dawns in their eyes. Just like the nightmares, bleeding into his waking life.

Jon can feel when people are afraid; the Archivist in him relishes it, gravitates towards it like a flower turning to face the sun, soaks it in regardless of whether or not he wants it. And there is always a part of him that does want it, that always wants more – and isn’t that fitting, taking a page from the book of his very first monster? He is, quite literally, a thing of nightmares. Helen is right: he is what he is, and there’s no use denying it.

He’s always been hypersensitive to how other people perceive him. Being able to Know how people really feel about him has historically tended to confirm his customary hostile attribution bias. Vicariously feeling the reality of others’ hatred and fear of him, passively basking in it, being forced to derive sustenance from it – god, it’s like cannibalizing his own vicious self-loathing, a sustainable resource that can be recycled ad infinitum. It takes self-flagellation to a new and perverse extreme.

“I Know when people don’t want to be near me,” he says, unable to suppress the bitterness in his tone. “When someone nearby is afraid, I feel it – as natural as sensing the temperature in a room. I feed on it. It’s an automatic process. So if it’s all the same to you, I’d rather not bask in the knowledge of how much the other people in the room can’t stand breathing the same air as me, if I can avoid it.”

“Jon,” Georgie tries again, “I know how things used to be, but –”

“It’s different now, I know. But the Eye tends to prioritize – well, unpleasant impressions. I know it’s only giving me one side of the story. That there’s more, even if I can’t See it. But fear is loud. Doesn’t leave room for mindfulness.”

Georgie has a reply ready, but Melanie speaks first.

“Okay. I get it.” At Jon’s blank expression, Melanie heaves a sigh – aggravated, but not hostile. “It’s like how anger was for me, okay? Rage has a way of drowning out everything else. Reliable, when nothing else can be trusted. Makes things clearer, simpler. Made me feel more… alive, real.” She hesitates, crossing her arms and shifting uncomfortably in her seat. “Nourishing. Sort of. I guess.”

“Yeah,” Jon says, picking aimlessly at his sleeve.

“I’ll just avoid being in the same room as you when I’m… having a day,” she continues. Jon nods. “Or you can just tell me to go away if I’m – I don’t know, giving off rancid vibes, or whatever.”

Jon breathes a surprised, amused huff. “Well. Same goes for you, I suppose.”

He’s even more shocked to see a grin twitch to life on Melanie’s face – very small, but present all the same. Then, appearing to take pity on him, she changes the subject.

“So, you Knew about the bullet.”

“Yes,” Jon says, grateful for the opportunity to move on. “But not until a couple weeks after I got out of the hospital. Didn’t even realize I Knew it until I said it aloud.”

“Meaning it had more time to poison me, where you’re from. Was I… worse?”

“Well, the first time I saw you after I came back, you attacked me on sight, so… maybe? But I don’t really have a point of comparison. That was the only time I saw you up until we removed it, so I don’t know how much you deteriorated in the interim. And this time, I only saw you after the bullet had already been removed.”

“I attacked you?” She doesn’t sound surprised, really. More… intrigued.

“In your defense, you didn’t think I was me anymore. Tim died, Daisy was presumed dead, and I was still alive.” He knows that, of the three of them, Melanie wouldn’t have picked Jon to be the survivor. I hope it hurts, she’d said in her testament. Instead, he slept for six months and then woke up wrong. “You were angry, and afraid, and you had a bullet in your leg making it worse. You needed someone to blame, and Elias was beyond your reach.”

So I was the next best thing, he doesn’t say. Bitterness aside, Jon can’t say he blames her.

Melanie narrows her eyes suspiciously. “Then how the hell did you convince me to have it removed?”

“We, uh… we didn’t. I told Basira first. She – didn’t think you would have agreed. So, we…” Jon forces himself to meet Melanie’s eyes as he gives the confession. “We performed some amateur surgery. Without your consent. Basira procured some local anesthetic, and the Eye let me See where the bullet was, how to remove it with… minimal damage. You were using some rather strong sleep aids, at the time, so you slept through most of it. You only woke up once the bullet was out. And you, uh, promptly stabbed me with the scalpel, though I – I probably deserved that.”

“What the fuck, Jon.”

“I – I know, I know. I’m – well, it might be – odd, to apologize for something that never happened from your perspective? But I am sorry. It wasn’t right, for us to do it that way. We should have asked you.”

“I might not have agreed.” Her voice is tightly controlled, but there’s still a quiet sort of fury simmering just under the words.

“No, uh – probably not. You said later that the anger was always there. Motivating you to keep going. Helping you survive. The Slaughter validated that rage. Made it feel like home.” Melanie stares, unblinking. “You told me the bullet stayed because you wanted it, and… we took that choice from you, decided what was in your best interests without asking you how you felt about it.”

Melanie is quiet for a few more moments, glaring at the floor, before her eyes flick back up to meet Jon's. “What would have happened if you didn’t get it out of me?”

“I can’t say for certain, but it’s likely that you would have become a Slaughter Avatar. Reached a point of no return.”

She scoffs. “So it was worth it, in the end?”

“I don’t know. I want to say yes. You saw me as a monster, and I doubt you would have wanted to become like me. Something inhuman, feeding on suffering. But…”

“But?”

“It’s easy to look at how things ultimately worked out for you and use that outcome to justify what we did,” he says, “but I – I’m not fond of the idea that the ends justify the means. I didn’t know at the time that you and Georgie were this close. If I did, maybe I could have asked her to talk to you, except…”

“We weren’t speaking,” Georgie says.

“Yeah. I – honestly don’t know what else we could have done, but… still, the way we went about it was wrong. You were trapped here like the rest of us, and we… we stole the only thing that gave you some semblance of control. What we did was a violation of your autonomy. I know that feeling, I know how it feels to…” Jon shakes his head. “We saved your life, or – your humanity, at least, but in doing so we took away your choice. Subjected you to more trauma, made it so you couldn’t feel safe anywhere. Eventually you quit, and you and Georgie seemed happy together after that, but the fact that you were able to start healing – that doesn’t change the fact that we hurt you in the first place. I’m sorry.”

“This place,” Melanie says with a breathless laugh.

“Yeah. It’s… not known for presenting benign choices. I’m, ah… I’m glad that this time, it was your own choice.”

“And what if I had still said no?”

“I probably would’ve given you the line about becoming a monster like me. I would have told you what happened last time – or, told Georgie and let her tell you, more likely, if only to avoid any, ah… stabbiness.” Melanie huffs, but it sounds amused rather than offended. “And if you still decided to choose the Slaughter after being fully informed… well, it wasn’t my place to take the choice away from you.”

“Even if I wasn’t in my right mind?” she asks.

“Even if you weren’t in your right mind.”

Melanie’s stare is piercing, scanning him for any signs of dishonesty. Eventually, she folds her arms and leads back in her chair with a hmm.

“What?” Jon asks, heart in his throat.

“Just – unexpected. Would’ve expected you to make a unilateral decision.”

Truthfully, Jon doesn’t trust himself to make those kinds of decisions. Last time, he’d let Basira call the shot. Not only did he trust her judgment more than his own – secretly, selfishly, he was relieved to abdicate at least some of the responsibility. He doubts that his conscience would have been able to carry the full burden of that choice.

Later, during the apocalypse, he had made an executive decision on someone else’s behalf: Jordan Kennedy. In that instance, there was no one with whom he could share the blame. Although it was intended as an act of mercy, Jon cannot deny that he created an unwilling Avatar – stripped a man of his humanity and reshaped him into something other, same as had been done to Jon.

The people in that domain would have continued to suffer just the same whether it was controlled by an Avatar or a hivemind of ants. At least this way, one person could be spared the torture. But it didn’t save anyone. It did not even end Jordan’s suffering, only transformed it into a different, hypothetically more endurable but still horrific shape – one that Jon knew all too intimately.

It was done with merciful intentions, and he may have given Jordan the choice to reverse it – a choice that Jon has never been given himself – but making that decision for Jordan in the first place… well, at the end of the day, Jon could never shake the feeling that he’d taken a page out of Jonah’s playbook. It wasn’t the same, but it felt… adjacent, too much so for comfort.

The choice has haunted Jon ever since. It eats away at him every time he sees Jordan in his nightmares, whenever Jordan watches him with the same dread that he does Jane Prentiss. Yet, Jon still cannot say for certain whether he would do anything differently, if faced with Jordan’s agonized pleading a second time.

But as for Melanie’s particular situation…

“I know what it’s like to have someone else decide on your destiny for you,” he says quietly.

Melanie looks thoroughly unimpressed.

“Look, I – I understand why you resent me. Elias used you to further the Archivist’s progress. Same as he used Tim, Sasha, and Martin, and Basira and Daisy, and Helen… even Jane Prentiss, Mike Crew, Jude Perry – and Jared, Manuela, Peter… everyone, everyone who crosses his path is either irrelevant or a stepping stone. Which means that everyone who crosses my path suffers.”

Stop, Jon tells himself, shutting his eyes tight against the first stirrings of panic lapping at the edges of his mind. It’s pathetic, he thinks, how easily he sinks into this headspace. Jon’s mutinous brain does all of Jonah’s work for him – like prodding at a recent wound, just to see if it still hurts, even knowing full well that it only sabotages the healing process. Stupid, pointless. Just stop dwelling on it.

He can’t.

“All of it – all of it was to create the Archive to his specifications –”

“– bound together – I would look at him, and see a grim sort of destiny for myself: trapped here, until I became him; any future I might have had, sacrificed to his –”

“– and I just – I don’t want people to look at me and – and see him. Or the Beholding –”

“– keeping its prisoners ignorant in pursuit of… knowledge –”

“– I've spent enough time being synonymous with the Eye. I don’t want it. I never wanted it, even if I did choose to – to keep looking for answers –”

“– idiots who destroyed themselves chasing a secret that wasn’t worth knowing –”

“– I can’t reverse that, but I can still make it difficult for Elias to get any use out of me. But I’m sorry – I’m sorry that I let him do it for so long –”

“– any idiot could have seen it would play out that way –”

“– I’m sorry you got dragged into all this. I wish I could have gone back to the very beginning, back to the day I took the job, and – god, I thanked Elias for the opportunity, and he – he smiled, because he knew, he knew I would be easily manipulated, knew everything about me – knew all about –”

Thankfully, Georgie interrupts his heated muttering and brings that thought train to a jarring halt. Or – no, she's been saying his name, but he's only just now heard it.

“Jon,” she says, loudly but calmly. She's leaning forward in her seat, hand prepared to reach over to him. “You’re scratching again.”

So he is. Badly. As soon as he stops, the scratches along his forearms heal, leaving only drying blood behind: thin, messy streaks painted across his skin and caked under his fingernails. He should probably clip them shorter, at this rate.

“Sorry,” he says, pulling his sleeves down to hide his arms. “I’m just – sorry.”

“Change the subject?” Georgie offers, lowering her arm.

“I think that would be best,” Jon agrees, discomfited and more than a little annoyed with himself. Will he ever be able to spare a thought for Jonah Magnus without completely unraveling in the process? Hell, will he ever be able to go a day without sparing a single thought for Jonah Magnus at all? Okay, no, stop harping, he reprimands himself. “Just – give me a minute.”

Jon forces himself to take several breaths until he can no longer hear his heartbeat thundering in his ears. Once he regathers his composure, he meets Melanie’s eyes again.

“What I mean to say is – I owe you a lot of apologies, Melanie. I was dismissive of you when we first met, and it just sort of – snowballed from there.”

“It was mutual, I think,” Melanie says guardedly.

“Still, I was – unprofessional, at the very least. And unnecessarily cruel. It was my job to be impartial, but I didn’t have to be callous. Most of the statements that come in aren’t real, but they aren’t impossible, either. And even if a story was due to – substance use, or mental illness, or – or even just an overactive imagination… most people who came in still believed that their story was true. Their distress was genuine. They deserved comfort, not ridicule, regardless of whether or not their story actually happened the way they remembered. And beyond that, it was… poor research methodology, really, to refuse to entertain the possibility of a story’s veracity simply because of my first impression of a statement giver.” His voice grows quieter. “Or because of my own baggage.”

“Your own baggage?”

“I, ah…” Jon deliberates for a brief moment on whether to share this part of himself. It seems only fair, given the personal details he knows about the rest of them. And… telling Daisy had felt cathartic in its own way, hadn't it? “I had a supernatural experience of my own once. Before working at the Institute, I mean. I was a child, so of course it was chalked up to an overactive imagination. And then at some point I was too old to still be afraid of monsters.”

Jonathan, this has gotten out of hand, his grandmother had told him with hands on her hips, exasperated after once again finding every door and cupboard in the house thrown open. Ten is too old to be sleeping with the lights on and checking closets for monsters.

And with that, she had closed the closet doors, flicked the light off, and pulled his bedroom door shut on her way out. He had clung desperately to the hope that she would at least leave the hall light on – but moments later the thin strip of light filtering through the crack under the door was snuffed out. When he heard the click of his grandmother's bedroom door down the hall, he'd dissolved into tears. Turning his face into his pillow to muffle his sobs so as not to alert her to yet another of his childish meltdowns, he spent the rest of the night – and countless nights thereafter – sleeping in fitful stops and starts, plagued by phantom knocking and chitinous clicking and creaking doors. He knows now that such sounds were nothing more than hypnopompic hallucinations, the remnants of nightmares chasing him into wakefulness; knows that the web binding him in place and the hulking presence in the room were only symptoms of sleep paralysis; but at the time…

Jon shakes his head.

“The fear doesn’t go away just because people don’t believe it’s based in truth. So, I learned to hide it instead. To stop talking about it, even though I never stopped searching for an answer –”

“– was there when he was taken; he never got over what he saw. Or didn’t see. After much searching and despair, it drove him into the waiting arms of the Institute –”

“– damn,” he hisses, flustered.

“You okay?” Georgie asks.

“Yeah,” he says gruffly. “Just – one moment.”

Pause, breathe, recollect. Listen to the quiet – which really shouldn’t be so difficult, should it? Aren’t archives supposed to be quiet? Why does this library have to be so horrifically noisy? – and breathe, breathe, breathe. Okay.

“What I’m saying is, I coped with it – poorly – with denial. I could never shake the conviction that what I saw was real, no matter how I tried to rationalize it. But I was still afraid that admitting belief in monsters would – draw their attention to me, somehow. Again. And because of that, I was… unsympathetic, to people who were genuinely afraid. The last thing they needed was derisive skepticism. Or projection. I know what it’s like to not be believed. I shouldn’t have put others through the same thing.”

“Huh.” Melanie looks him up and down. “That’s… unusually insightful for you.”

“I had a lot of time alone to obsess during the apocalypse,” Jon says drily. “Some of it even ended up being productive.” Melanie snorts; Jon gives a cautious smile. “I, ah, also should have tried harder to warn you away from India. Or the Institute in general.”

“And I would have told you to fuck off, because I already didn’t like you, and you would have been just one more in a long line of pompous men acting like they knew better than me.”

Jon laughs. “I suppose you’re right.”

“Look, we just – we both treated each other poorly. You were the easiest target to take my anger out on. Martin’s too nice, Basira was basically a hostage, Daisy is Daisy, and Tim… Tim wasn’t around much, and anyway, he would have thrown whatever I gave him right back in my face. You were a prick, but I think I blamed you more than was fair. And I guess… you were – are – trapped as much as the rest of us. So. I’m sorry too.”

“Well, it’s not like I tried to make a good first impression.”

“Neither did I.” She glowers at him, daring him to challenge her. “Accept the apology or don’t, but don’t throw it back in my face.”

“Fine,” Jon sighs. “I accept the apology.”

“There. Was that so hard?”

“Excruciating,” he deadpans.

Georgie snorts. Melanie and Jon both look at her with a combined, “What?”

“Just… watching the two of you. I think I may have a type.”

Another simultaneous, “What?”

“Curious, stubborn, temperamental, cute, short…”

“H-hey,” Melanie protests, “I’m at least a few centimeters taller than he is –”

“One-point-eight, actually,” Jon mutters under his breath – and then cracks a smile, encouraged by Georgie’s bright, surprised laugh. Melanie just glares at him.

“You know,” Melanie says, “you make it very hard to like you sometimes.”

“Sorry.” He’s not sorry at all. Shooting Georgie an indignant glance, he adds: “Also, I’m not cute.”

“I’m sure Martin would beg to differ,” Georgie teases. Jon sighs, arms crossed and face uncomfortably warm. “Well, anyway…” Georgie grins, looking between the two of them. “Does this mean… truce?”

Melanie gives Jon another long, searching look, and Jon forces himself to meet her eyes.

“Yeah, alright,” she says after a moment, then looks down, bouncing her heel against the floor. “Seems the only one who isn’t trapped and miserable is Elias. And you’re not him. Or working with him. So.” She shrugs one shoulder. “That just makes you one of us. I guess.” When Jon doesn’t reply, she glances back up at him. “What’s that face for?”

“That, uh…” Speechless, Jon roots around for something substantial to say. Instead, one corner of his mouth quirks up as he says, with tentative daring: “That might just be one of the nicest things you’ve ever said to me, is all.”

“Yeah, well…” Melanie scoffs, but there’s a hint of amusement in it now. “I’m still going to call you out when you’re being a dick, mind.”

“A public service, really,” Jon says, wry and more than a little elated.

An invitation to playful bickering as opposed to scathing antagonism is, as far as he and Melanie are concerned, an undeniable olive branch.

End Notes:

Jon: my type is Aggressively Idealistic Existentialists Who Give Amazing Hugs, apparently Georgie: and my type is Short Nerds With Strong Feelings About Basically Everything ~*mlm/wlw solidarity*~ But seriously though,,, I love the idea of Georgie and Martin meeting the End and the Vast, respectively, and basically going "hey why don't you read some Camus and maybe you'll calm down???" I may or may not be projecting. I need them and Oliver to have a philosophy book club. Actually everyone else can come too. Basira strikes me as the type to have some Strong Opinions about Certain Philosophers and yes sure that dude may have died ages ago and maybe she shouldn't take it so personally but if she found a Leitner that let her temporarily resurrect him for an hour she might just do so if only for the opportunity to debate his pompous ass in a Tesco parking lot. (I, once again, may or may not be projecting. I was a philosophy minor and I WILL pepper in the fact that I hate Kant. You cannot hold this against me.)

____

Citations for Jon's Archive-speak are as follows, in order of appearance: MAG 094; 153; 144/101/111/014; 101.

Martin's "I think our experience of the universe has value, even if it disappears forever" quote is from MAG 151 and yes it IS one of my all time favorite Martin quotes, how could you tell

Disclaimer re: how Jon talks about his ace identity: I'm ace & projecting a bit, like I do with Jon's ADHD/neurodivergence. The way I describe ace stuff is not meant to be reflective of all ace-spec people's experiences.

would you believe me if I said the whole 'deservedness' spiel was written before the latest episode??? bc it was and then I read the newest ep transcript and I was like "oh"

Sorry for the delay in getting this chapter out, btw. funny story: I accidentally let the prescription for my ADHD meds expire and I had to go like four days without them before I could go get another paper script bc it's one they can't submit electronically or call in, soooo I got fuck-all done for half of that week and it broke my writing flow :0  hoping to get back into my usual flow from here on out and manage to have the next chapter ready in 2ish weeks, but we shall see. Thanks for sticking with me <3  (I might start shortening chapters again, the last few have been 10k+ compared to the earlier 6-8k and I could probably stand to split them up a bit.)

Speaking of the next chapter - yes, I AM planning on moving the plot forward I swear. I realize the last few chapters have basically taken place within a single week and have been mostly People Talking About Things, RIP.  

And as always, thank you for reading, and for all your comments! <3 They're basically 50% of my regular serotonin intake. The other 50% is my cat's motorboat purring.

[ollieofthebeholder]

leaves too high to touch (roots too strong to fall): a TMA fanfic

Tumblr tag || Also on AO3

Chapter 22: Sasha

Basira brings the first tape before the week is out, and Sasha is apparently the only one surprised that Jon doesn’t seem happier about it. As a matter of fact, he seems downright distressed.

The assistants normally stagger their lunch breaks so there are at least two people in the Archives at any given time, something they’ve done almost since the beginning, but Jon comes out of his office and suggests all three of them go together, and Tim and Martin hustle Sasha out before she can ask questions. It’s Tim who points out, sotto voce while they’re standing in line at the cafe, that Basira probably called to say she was dropping by and Jon wants them out of there to preserve the fiction that he’s not telling them what’s going on. Sure enough, they pretend to ignore Basira in the parking lot on their way back to the Archives and re-enter to find Jon sitting on the edge of Tim’s desk, turning a tape over and over in his hands.

“That was quick,” Martin comments. “Thought it’d be harder for her to get them to you.”

“I did, too. I wasn’t—anticipating anything before next week at the earliest. And since I don’t know how soon she’ll be back with another one—or come back for this one, for that matter—I kind of have to listen to it as soon as possible.” Jon looks up at them with a pained expression.

Sasha frowns. “Am I missing something? Why’s that a bad thing?”

“Because I don’t…the real statements take a lot out of me. Live ones are worse. According to the Primes, doing more than one a week is going to be a drain. At least until I…build up my tolerance, I guess.” Jon sighs. “Which I’m not altogether sure I want to do.”

“We could record any real statements you get for you,” Sasha offers. “Then you can just listen to the tapes.”

“I wouldn’t do that to you all,” Jon says, looking shocked. “I wouldn’t wish this on anyone.”

“Yeah, but you’re the Head Archivist. Why would it affect us like that?”

“It’s the statements, not the position,” Martin says. “Each one is a thread that binds you closer to the Eye. Regardless of who takes it.” When they all stare at him, he blushes and adds, “I talked about it with Martin Prime while I was recovering. He told me he read more than a few statements over the last year and a half he was at the Institute.”

Jon rubs his forehead. “All the more reason I should keep doing this. I just…I don’t want to lose myself, either.”

Tim hesitantly reaches out and puts a hand on Jon’s shoulder. “You won’t. I mean, Jon Prime hasn’t lost himself, has he?”

“Only because he has Martin Prime to keep him grounded.”

“Well, you’ve got us.”

Jon smiles, but says, “I don’t want to put the burden of my humanity on you.”

Martin tilts his head. “Even if we offer?”

“Even then. I just…it’s not fair to you.” Jon sighs, obviously frustrated. “And I’m curious. There’s no denying that. Especially about…this. Gertrude actually seems to have labeled it properly. And—well, I only met her once or twice, and I-I was very new at the time.” He looks at the three of them. “Did any of you?”

Tim shakes his head. “Apparently I’d remember if I did,” he says, shooting a look at Sasha.

Sasha shrugs. “You would. We talked a fair amount. She—she said I ought to apply for the position of Archivist if it ever came up vacant.”

Jon flinches, but doesn’t say anything. Martin swallows. “I think she avoided me, actually. Never could figure out why, but any time she sent up to the library for something, Diana made a point of sending anyone but me with it. Which was weird, since usually she took any excuse to get me out of the way for a few minutes.”

Tim drapes an arm over Martin’s shoulders. Jon looks embarrassed, but stares at the tape in his hands. “I suppose I’d just like any insight to her time here. And, well, even with—” He glances up at the ceiling. “Even with what we know, there’s so much we don’t. And I understand that, there are some things we need to discover on our own, and other things we won’t believe until we have proof. Still.” He sighs. “And on top of that, I find myself wondering if the Eye is going to have any influence over the tapes Basira brings or if it’s going to be random.”

“What’s this one?” Sasha asks.

Instead of answering, Jon hands her the tape. Sasha peers at the label—a case number, a name, and the words Algasovo, central Russia. “Well, I doubt Basira picked it at anything but random if she wasn’t being influenced somehow.”

She passes the tape over to Tim and Martin, who study it before handing it back to Jon. “Does that mean anything to you? Algasovo?”

“No. I’m not sure it means anything to Basira, either.”

“Hang on.” Sasha sits at her desk and flips open her laptop. A few keystrokes later and all four of them are peering over her shoulder at a list of search results. All of them are generic, or else written in Russian—basic information about the town, the weather, and the surrounding area. “It’s a nothing village in the middle of nowhere. But Gertrude obviously thought this was important enough to put on tape.”

Martin nods. “And if it’s something we need to know about…”

“I suppose I’ll have to listen to it,” Jon says with a sigh. He stares at the tape again, and there’s something in his eyes Sasha recognizes—something hungry. He wants to listen to it. But there’s also something in his eyes that she sees reflected in Martin and Tim’s—fear. He’s afraid of what he’ll become as much as he desperately wants, needs to know.

She thinks about what Martin said, about how the statements will affect all of them no matter who reads them. She thinks about Martin Prime quietly telling Jon Prime that you being here might help him. She thinks about all of them listening to everybody’s statements all at once and not getting half so wiped as Jon looked on Monday when Basira left after making her statement.

“What if we listen together?” she blurts.

Jon looks up, obviously startled. “What?”

Sasha taps a fingernail on her desk. It’s getting ragged, she really needs to make an appointment for a manicure—maybe this weekend, she thinks. “If it’s going to affect anyone who records it, or reads it or listens to it or whatever…there’s probably a finite amount of energy to it, right? It’s not like we’ll all absorb the full amount of fear, it’ll most likely be more…it’ll get siphoned out and divided between the four of us. If we all listen to this tape together, maybe we can stop you from becoming…like that. Or at least slow it down. Maybe it won’t take so much energy from you.”

Jon hesitates and looks at Tim and Martin. Tim shrugs. “Worth a shot.”

“I’m up for it if you’re willing,” Martin agrees.

Jon swallows, then nods. “All right. Let me go get the tape recorder.”

Martin blinks. “What, you want to do it here? In the open?”

“I don’t believe there’s any point in hiding in my office to do it. Or Document Storage or whatever. Nobody’s likely to come down and interrupt us. It—it should be fine.” Jon leaves the tape on the desk and heads into his office.

“I’ll make us some tea. We’ll probably need it.” Martin fishes four mugs out of his desk drawer and disappears in the direction of the break room.

Sasha watches him go. “We really ought to just set up a tea station here in the Archives. Save wear and tear on the carpets.”

“I know you’re being sarcastic, but that’s not half a bad idea,” Tim says. “Bet Jon would agree.”

“Agree to what?” Jon comes over with the tape recorder in hand. “Where’s Martin?”

“Getting tea. Sasha suggested setting up a tea station here.”

Jon pauses. “Actually, why haven’t we done that before now?”

Tim’s right—Sasha was being sarcastic, but she enters into the discussion anyway and they’ve got a list of things to pick up after work almost fully written by the time Martin returns with the same cups he always uses for them. They rope Martin into the discussion, since he’s the one who knows the tea procedure inside and out, and they’re all a lot more relaxed by the time they settle down to listen to the tape.

Sasha’s attention is immediately piqued by the statement. Gertrude’s familiar dry, reedy voice sounds much more intense than she remembers from their conversations. It’s obvious the statement is real—it comes across in the texture of Gertrude’s voice—but she reads it calmly, no hesitation or upset. Something about the scenario draws Sasha in as much as it frightens her. Maybe it’s knowing that it killed her in the Primes’ timeline, or maybe it’s just that it’s the antithesis of the entity she’s essentially bound to, but the Stranger scares her the most out of all the entities. It fascinates her, too, which she supposes isn’t the greatest sign in the world, but too much of her mind is focused on the statement to really care.

At last, the statement ends. Gertrude gives a short summing-up that makes it clear, at least to Sasha, that she never intended for these tapes to be used by anyone outside the Institute, or indeed outside the Archives; her supplemental makes reference to things she obviously already knew and speculates in a limited sense about the nature of the younger brother of the statement-giver, and then the tape clicks off.

The scrape of a chair breaks the spell, and Sasha blinks up in time to see Martin, his face creased with empathy, wrap Tim in a hug. Tim doesn’t even bother to stand up from his chair, just clings to Martin like he’s drowning. Sasha can see the tears rolling down his face. Shit.

“Tim?” Jon slides off the desk, looking a bit shaky, and puts a hand on Tim’s shoulder. Tim reaches out blindly and pulls Jon into the hug, too.

Guilt rises in Sasha’s throat. She should have guessed. Out of everyone in the room, she’s the only one who knows why Tim came to work for the Institute in the first place, and it really should have occurred to her as soon as Gertrude uttered the word circus that this one would hit Tim hard. Add in the younger brother in peril and her dry comment about them being lucky to escape with only significant mental trauma, and it’s no wonder he’s crying. But she was too wrapped up in the statement to even think about him, let alone notice what Martin evidently picked up on immediately.

God, some best friend she is.

“Oh, Tim,” she whispers, penitent. She gets up from her seat and joins the group hug, hesitantly, not sure if she’s welcome. She doesn’t want to wedge herself in the middle of things, so she just squeezes Jon and Martin closer to Tim and prays that’s enough.

Someone is murmuring something, over and over, and it takes Sasha a second to realize that it’s I’m sorry and a second longer to realize it’s Jon, apologizing repeatedly into Tim’s hair. Christ, he’s starting to tear up, too, and he doesn’t even know why Tim’s so upset. Unless he’s figured out the whole mind-reading thing already. She doesn’t think so, though.

Finally, Tim takes a deep, shuddering breath and pulls back. The others ease off, with varying degrees of reluctance, and Martin fishes a tissue from somewhere on the desk and offers it silently. Tim takes it and wipes his face. “S-sorry,” he says hoarsely.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Jon says, obviously trying to be brusque, but it’s as obvious a lie as when he was trying to be brusque with Martin the night of the attack. “You have nothing to apologize for. I—I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have made you listen to that.”

“You couldn’t have known.” Tim closes his eyes and breathes deeply for a moment, then looks up. “My—I still owe you a statement, I think. Not today,” he adds quickly, evidently seeing the slight panic that crosses Jon’s face. “You can’t take that, and neither can I. Just…whenever you think you’re up to it. But—short version, I lost my brother to a Russian circus. It’s why I joined the Institute.”

Sasha actually knows precious few details beyond that—Tim may have told her the whole story, but they were both drunk at the time and she’s blurred out a lot, although she remembers the salient points. Jon looks stricken. “Tim, I—I didn’t know.”

“No reason you should have. I never told you.” Tim finishes off his tea in one long swallow, then pushes back from his desk. “I—I need some air.”

“Take your phone.” Jon’s voice is soft. “Call if you need us.”

“I will. I will.” Tim pockets his phone and heads out.

Jon watches him, then turns to the other two. He still looks shaken and visibly distressed. “Did you know?”

“I had no idea.” Martin touches his shoulder gently. “Jon, sit down. I’ll—I’ll get you another cup of tea.”

“Not right now. I’m fine.” Jon does sit, though, and he squeezes Martin’s hand briefly before looking up at Sasha. “Did you…?”

“He told me once,” Sasha admits. “I don’t remember most of the details, honestly, but I knew about Danny. I just didn’t make the connection while we were listening to the statement.”

Jon rubs a hand over his face. “I didn’t even notice—God, I was so focused on—I’d have stopped it if I’d known.”

“I don’t think you could have,” Martin tells him. “I—he started turning grey right after Gertrude mentioned the circus, and by the time they realized the brother was missing he was starting to hyperventilate. I wanted to tell you to stop the tape, o-or try to intervene, or something, but I—until the tape stopped, I couldn’t move. It was like sitting there listening to Martin Prime rattle off that chamber of horrors all over again.” He sounds frustrated and upset. “Like I was bound there. I don’t get it. It’s not like I’ve never interrupted you doing a recording before.”

“Only once,” Jon says. “And you—” He freezes, suddenly stiffening, and looks back and forth from Martin to Sasha. “Oh, God. You’ve both interrupted me, but that’s the point, you came in in the middle of the recording. You’ve never been there from the beginning.”

Sasha gets it, all of a sudden. “Because we were there from the start, we got caught in the—the threads of the statement. I wonder if anyone ever interrupted Jon Prime if they’d been there from the start?”

“I—I don’t know. I suppose I can ask.” Jon rubs his forehead again. “Not right now, though.”

“No, not right now,” Martin says firmly. He stands up from his desk and moves towards the shelves.

“What are you doing?” Jon asks.

“Getting Leanne Denikin’s case file,” Martin answers over his shoulder. “There’s just a couple things I want to look at.”

Sasha looks at Jon and shrugs. “While he’s doing that, let me see what I can pull up about our statement-giver. Gertrude said she recorded this in ‘97?”

“Y-yes,” Jon says, looking a bit shaken.

“That was almost twenty years ago. The Internet’s come a long way since then. Bet I can find things she could have only dreamed of.” Sasha cracks her knuckles and opens up her laptop again.

Jon raises an eyebrow at her. “Do you read Russian?”

“No, but there’s this nifty thing browsers do now where they’ll translate whole pages for you. It’s not perfect, but it’s good enough. Mostly.” Sasha offers Jon a cheeky grin. “More technology Gertrude didn’t have access to. And I have no idea if she read Russian.”

Jon’s eyes go slightly unfocused for a moment. “She didn’t. The Eye might have occasionally led her to read or understand a language she didn’t know, but only if doing so would give her the knowledge the Eye craved.” He closes his eyes and winces, shaking his head as if to clear it, and it’s only then Sasha feels the faint buzz of static receding. Before she can say anything, though, he adds, “The Roger Rabbit principle, I suppose.”

“The what?” Sasha and Martin, who’s just returning with a file in hand, say in unison.

“Did you ever see that old movie, Who Framed Roger Rabbit? It’s a blend of animation and live action—it takes place in a world where cartoon characters are real people and live alongside actual humans, although they live in a-a suburb of Los Angeles, I suppose, called Toon Town. The eponymous Roger Rabbit gets accused of murdering a man and turns to a human detective for assistance. There’s a segment in the film where the detective—Eddie Valiant—and Roger are handcuffed together, and Eddie is attempting to cut the cuffs off, but the box he’s using is wobbling, so Roger slips his hand out of the cuff and steadies it. When Eddie realizes what he’s done, he demands to know if Roger could have done that at any time, and Roger replies, ‘Not at any time. Only when it was funny.’”

“I think I get it,” Sasha says, glancing at Martin.

Martin nods. “You’re saying the Eye only lets the Archivist access languages otherwise unknown if it gets something out of it in return. Like extra fear.”

“Something like that.”

Martin sits down and drops two files on his desk. Sasha cocks her head. “What’s that second one?”

“Oh—since Gertrude listed the case number, I figured I’d see if I could find the paper file somewhere in the shelves.” Martin waves one of them at her. “It was in the back corner. I think it’s one of the ones Martin Prime said he was gathering, that he could sense were real.”

“What makes you say that?” Jon asks.

“You won’t like my answer.”

“Try me.”

Martin looks up at him. “The shelf was almost packed solid with cobwebs.”

Jon bites his lip. “You’re right. I don’t like that answer at all.”

Sasha tries to disguise her laugh as a cough as she goes back to her search.

She gets absorbed in the work—a totality of focus she’s only noticed a few times before—and is therefore caught off-guard when a mug of tea suddenly appears at her elbow. She looks up, startled, just in time to see Jon surprise Martin with his own mug. Sheepishly, Jon says, “I was starting to feel a bit useless, but I—I don’t know that I want to be alone in my office right now.”

“It’s fine. Thanks.” Martin offers Jon a warm smile, which Jon tentatively returns. Sasha wonders if they’re moving towards a romantic relationship. She also wonders how much faster they’re moving than the Primes did and if she’s going to have to shoot Tim before he uses the two of them being together as an excuse for why they should give it a go, even though she’s fairly certain he’s mostly joking about their “will they-won’t they” storyline.

“Either of you found anything yet?” Jon asks.

Sasha shakes her head. “Well, I was able to verify that Ivan Utkin did die in 1984, just like Gertrude said—it’s not that I doubted her necessarily, just that I wanted to be sure. That’s young, though. He was only forty-eight. His obituary doesn’t list cause of death, and, well, that was the height of the Cold War, so I’m not sure if the records exist anymore. I’ll keep trying, though. Yuri Utkin died in…” She swallows. “May of last year.”

“Around the time Gertrude Robinson died.”

“A bit after,” Sasha specifies. “The twenty-fifth.”

“Ah, the Glorious Twenty-Fifth of May,” Martin murmurs, not quite under his breath. When Sasha gives him a funny look, he adds, “Discworld reference.”

Jon shifts his attention to Martin. “Anything interesting in there?”

“It’s definitely the same circus. I mean, we knew that, Gertrude specifically called out Nikolai Denikin in her summing-up, but I’m guessing that the steam organ Utkin mentions in his statement is the one up in Artifact Storage, which…isn’t great.”

“No,” Jon agrees. Something suddenly seems to occur to him. “Sasha, how long have you been with the Magnus Institute?”

“Six years,” Sasha answers. She’s been in academia for ten years—well, eleven now—but the first few years after graduating she worked for the EPCC, until the project she was on shut down and she needed to come to London anyway. “Since August of 2010.”

Jon seems to deflate a bit. “So you weren’t here when the Calliophone came in.”

“No, but—Martin, you were here, weren’t you?”

Martin nods absently. “Yeah, I—kind of remember it getting delivered? Not surprised nobody can find the paperwork, though.”

Sasha looks over the top of her computer. “Why do you say that?”

Martin looks up, too. “There was some staff turnover in Artifact Storage about that time. There were a lot of injuries over the month, and at least six people quit. Then the head at the time—um, Henry Winchester—died and…I heard it was kind of messy.”

Sasha’s interest is caught. “Messy how?”

“Christ, Sasha, I don’t know. It didn’t happen on Institute grounds, so it’s not like I saw it. I just remember a couple people muttering about crime scene photos and peri- versus postmortem injuries and whether it was something that would end up in the Archives at some point.”

Sasha bites the inside of her cheek and stares at her computer for a second, wondering if she can dig up the police report and see what happened. Then she shakes her head slightly. It’s not relevant to anything they’re working on right now and she doesn’t need to be using Institute resources—including time—on personal projects.

“Actually, Sasha, do you think you can see what you can dig up on that?” Jon asks, and Sasha looks up sharply, wondering if he really is reading her mind. “If it’s…if Henry Winchester’s death was ‘messy,’ it’s possible that whatever killed him was…well, whatever killed Leanne Denikin’s ex. And, ah, being able to connect the death of the previous department head to an artifact from one of our statements might give us a bit of clout wh—if we have to tell them to leave another artifact alone.”

“I’ve got to admit,” Sasha says, backing out of the network of old Soviet record sites and tapping into the series of back doors she normally uses to access police records, “even knowing what we know, it still seems hard to believe that someone could be killed by an evil clown doll.”

“It’s probably not actually the doll,” Martin says absently. “Probably just a manifestation of the Stranger. There were clowns in the circus, after all, it’s not without the realm of possibility that the doll in Denikin’s steamer trunk was just an effigy of a real clown.”

Jon gives him a look of mingled amusement and amazement. “You’ve really got the hang of this side of things, haven’t you? The rest of us are fumbling in the dark and you’re marching in front with a spotlight.”

Martin’s cheeks turn pink, but he shrugs. “It just…makes sense, I guess. It’s like—like I’ve had this bag of puzzle pieces my whole life, only they’re a photomosaic and they aren’t really distinct enough to put together easily and there aren’t any distinct corners or edges to it. But now someone’s finally given me the box, so I can see what the whole picture is supposed to look like. Makes it easier to put together the right way.”

“We’re lucky to have you,” Jon says with a smile.

If Martin blushes any harder, the heat is going to set off Sasha’s computer fan. He mumbles something and goes back to work comparing the two statements.

Sasha hits a wall in researching the police records. No, not a wall—a black hole. There’s simply an empty space where the records ought to be. She backs out and tries again and again. Still nothing.

“We may have to get Tim to work his magic on this,” she tells Jon. “I think this might go past hacking files and into seducing file clerks.”

“Are you saying you don’t think you’re capable of seducing a file clerk on your own, Miss James?” Jon asks with a lift of his eyebrow. Sasha makes a rude noise in his direction and he smirks.

Martin looks up. “Where is Tim, anyway? Shouldn’t he be back by now?”

The smile melts off of Jon’s face. Sasha glances at the clock at the bottom corner of her screen and is astonished to realize it’s nearly four in the afternoon. “I’m not letting any of you boys go off on your own in the middle of the day anymore. Every time I do, you disappear for hours on end.”

Before Jon or Martin can answer, Jon’s phone rings. He fishes it out of his pocket and answers with a crisp greeting. Instantly, his expression shifts. “Tim! Are you all right? We were just—what?” A frown puckers his forehead. “You’re where? How did you…never mind. I know where that is. Stay there. I’m on my way.” He hangs up and slides to his feet, then opens Tim’s desk drawer and fishes out his keys.

“Is everything all right?” Martin asks, a little anxiously.

“It’s fine. Tim got himself turned around and needs a rescue.” Jon flips through the keys and mutters under his breath, “I never pegged him for the damsel in distress type.” Straightening, he adds in a normal tone of voice, “I’ll be right back. Martin, if you can, go through the Hector Silvana file and see what we still need to follow up on…Sasha, have you had a chance to look into those incidents in Jason North’s statements?”

“Not yet, but I will.”

“Thank you. I’ll be back soon.” Jon turns on his heel and strides out of the Archives.

Sasha waits until she hears the door close, then tilts her laptop slightly closed and looks over at Martin. “So, while the Helicopter Parents are out of the Archives, how’s the search for a new place to live going?”

From the way Martin’s ears go pink again, she knows she’s right; he’s been avoiding the topic. Tim is still weirdly persistent about them staying at his house, and while Jon puts up halfhearted protests, Sasha doesn’t think he’s actually all that keen to go back to his own flat. Sasha’s been crashing in Tim’s bed since the Primes moved out, mostly because the others keep protesting the idea of sleeping in there and she’s just tired of arguing and also slightly tired of Tim’s living room, but she’s ready to go home. As much as she loves her boys, she looks forward to having her own space again.

“I’ve been looking,” Martin says, a bit reluctantly. “There are a few…Martin Prime told me where he ended up in his timeline, and it’s—it’s not bad, really, but it’s a bit out of my price range. He didn’t have a choice, he had to get somewhere in a hurry and it was the only place he could even come close to affording. I know Tim’s going to eventually want me off his sofa, so I’m looking, but…”

“Well, if you need someone to put in a good word for you, let me know,” Sasha says. “I don’t think there are any units open in my building, but my landlord runs a few different ones. Might be able to get you a good rate.”

“Th-thanks. I’ll let you know.”

Sasha re-opens her laptop and goes back to work. She somehow doesn’t think Martin’s going to ask her for a recommendation. As a matter of fact, she’s already mentally betting with herself against him asking Tim how much he’d charge to rent out his spare bedroom. They might all live alone, normally, but she’s noticed over the last couple of months that the boys seem much more relaxed sharing a space than they did before. And besides, living alone in the Archives for weeks on end probably isn’t good for anyone’s sanity. No wonder Martin wants to be around people these days.

She’s managed to verify an apparent lack of supernatural involvement in two of the incidents involving Jason North when she hears footsteps and Martin looks up from his work. The look of relief that spreads over his face tells her without looking around that it’s Jon and Tim returning, none the worse for the wear.

“Thanks for the lift,” Tim says, sliding into his seat and bumping his shoulder against Martin’s companionably. “Seriously, I didn’t realize I’d wandered so far, I just—”

“Tim, it’s fine. No real harm done,” Jon says, in a tone that indicates they’ve been having this argument for several minutes. “It’s been a long day and you needed to clear your head. Nothing’s actively trying to kill us at the moment, so far as we know. It’s fine.”

“Yeah.” Tim opens his laptop. “Still. Next time I need space, I’ll go…I don’t know, reorganize a shelf or something. Feels more productive.”

“At least it’s a nice day,” Martin says, but there’s an element of uncertainty in his voice as he glances at one of the high-set windows in the Archive. They’re technically underground, and while it was nice enough when the three of them went to lunch earlier, that’s no guarantee it still is.

“Yeah, it is. Oh, and, ah, I found something kind of interesting.” Tim reaches into his back pocket and pulls out a folded piece of paper, which he waves at the other three with a slight teasing grin.

Sasha can see in his eyes, though, that whatever it is, he’s very, very serious about it. “Oh? Do tell.”

Tim unfolds the paper and spreads it out on his desk. Sasha, Jon, and Martin all crane their heads over to see. It’s one of those flyers that real estate agents set out sometimes in front of houses for sale or rent, which is when Sasha remembers that Tim technically rents the little semidetached house they’ve all been crashing in lately. This one is terraced, but looks bigger, and appears to be in a halfway decent neighborhood. The price at the bottom is surprisingly reasonable for a house in London proper.

“Are you thinking of moving?” Sasha asks, surprised.

“Well, yeah. I-I mean, I wasn’t before, necessarily, but…well, I’ve been thinking. I’ve been living in that same house since, well, before Danny died,” Tim says softly. Martin looks up, eyes filled with sympathy. “It might not be a bad idea to start over somewhere new, you know? And it might be nice to own something, to start putting down roots. Plus, this one’s bigger—three bedrooms, it says. A-and I thought, well, I mean, if all of us went in together, it might…” He trails off.

Jon looks more startled than he has all day. “Wait. You thought—you wanted all of us to—”

“Well, it’s just—” Tim looks at Martin. “You need a place still, and I know—I thought it might be easier to share expenses on a place than to go full out on your own. And I’ve—I’ve kind of got used to having all of you around. I like it.” He looks from Martin to Jon to Sasha and back, his eyes almost pleading. “It’s just an idea, but—I mean, I thought I’d see if you guys were interested.”

Sasha is touched, but she’s also a little worried. Tim can be impulsive and tends to throw his whole heart into something, and he’s also been known to pin all his hopes on a single course of action. If he’s had the idea of all of them living together permanently in his head for more than a few minutes, it might not be easy for her to extract herself and go back to her own flat. It has to happen, though. She’s got just enough of a life outside the Institute that it’s important for her to get away.

Martin picks up the flyer and studies it more closely. “Says there’s an open house on Saturday afternoon,” he says, handing it over to Jon. “Might be worth taking a look, anyway.”

Tim brightens visibly. Jon examines the flyer, then nods slowly. “I think that would be an excellent idea.”

He offers it to Sasha, who smiles and shakes her head. “You boys have fun. I’ve got an appointment Saturday afternoon.”

It’s not exactly untrue. Second and fourth Saturdays are visiting days, and Sasha hasn’t been by in a while, so she probably ought to go. Plus she really does need to get her nails done. But it’s also a convenient excuse to avoid going and not have to pretend she’s going to be splitting the mortgage with them. Because Sasha knows herself well enough to know she’s not going in with the other three if they decide to do this. She values her independence, she values her privacy, and she does not want Tim to entertain any hopes that they might actually get together at some point. Besides, she picked her building for a reason, one she’s still not ready to share with the boys. She should probably feel guilty for keeping secrets, but she doesn’t.

“We’ll let you know what it’s like,” Tim promises.

Sasha smiles and nods and goes back to work and tries not to think about the fact that she’s basically going to break Tim’s heart.

[i-did-not-mean-to]

Never say never - Chapter 6

So, here’s the next instalment of this little romcom story...

°6° ~Victoria~

“But, I insist upon apologising to the other people in attendance, again.” Victoria hated apologising, but Martin had been right in telling her off about snubbing people who had done her no harm…this far.

Knowing that it would make Martin laugh, she snatched up a bowl of peanuts and held it in her palms like an offering.

As expected, the man beside her doubled over in hilarity, holding his sides as the wheezing grew painful. The polite but confused looks of his friends and colleagues seemed an endless well of amusement to him.

“Ah, thank you.” Hiddleston took up one of the nuts gingerly and shoved it into his mouth as if it had been a ritualistic offering indeed. “See? The tamest of…beasts.” Martin whispered into her ear, and she was tempted to pat the golden hair on the man soothingly.

Following the other man’s example, Armitage also picked a nut and ate it, keeping his eyes questioningly on her face.

“Look pleased, girl, smile at them.” Martin said in a hushed voice, nudging her in the side gently.

Victoria was almost sure that she was grimacing, her teeth bared awkwardly, but she had never been good at smiling on command and this fraught situation was, unfortunately, no exception to this shortcoming of hers.

“So, tell us, what did you refer to when you called this a “nerd-fest”?” Martin prompted her gently to speak, seemingly understanding that direct exhortations would get him nowhere with her. It was, in general, always best to come at a petrified Victoria sideways, starting a seemingly inconsequential conversation and letting it flow from there.

“There are literally dolls of you.” Victoria scoffed, moving her hands vaguely in front of her body in an imitation of how a child would play with a doll. “Not soft though, hard plastic…” Her hands sunk back, she was making a fool of herself.

“Dolls?” Liza hooted gleefully. “Well, I’ve also seen the theatre productions.” Victoria said, just a moment too late, her voice tinged with resentment again. She hated being caught unawares and being goaded into saying stupid shit.

“No, you tell me more about the dolls.” Liza was having fun, but her expression was devoid of malice or ill-will.

“Liza, I have seen those funny movies with the costumes and the creatures and…” Victoria sighed, she didn’t remember the names and she was already at a disadvantage here. She felt caught and put on the spot amidst these people who, naturally, knew those movies so well, down to the very lines of the characters.

“And did you like them?” The good beast, Tom as he had introduced himself with a smile, was grinning at her warmly again. Yes, she could see what Jenna saw in him, he seemed to radiate warmth and a polite friendliness.

“Oh, yes, very much. It was a bit…sad though.” Victoria shrugged. She was not ready to explain to a bunch of strangers that she didn’t like seeing bad family relations and vicious fights, as her reality had enough of those to last for a lifetime.

Liza looked at her questioningly, but after a moment, she understood. She had seen Vic pick up on the most random things, but strained family relationships and weird homosexual undertones were always amongst the things that moved her most. Also, like most soft-hearted, even though Vic was equally hard-headed, women, Victoria hated untimely deaths.

Maybe, her plan would work after all. All she had to do now was to draw back and hope that Armitage had a tad of charm on his own. He had taken the peanut and he was giving them his best constipated smile.

Waving discreetly at her wife, she withdrew, pulling Jenna along with her, much to the chagrin of the young woman.

“That is one good-looking man.” She sighed under her breath and Liza turned around, scanning the room for the person her wife’s employee might have meant by those words. Martin followed them discreetly, coaxing Benedict along with the promise of more cakes and sandwiches (and a prime vantage point to follow the developments of their plan).

“Where are you all going now? What?” Vic called out, distress in her voice. “I’ll be right back; you stay with Armitage.” Liza grinned suavely, physically shoving Jenna along as she dug her heels into the carpeted floor.

Victoria blinked, looking up at the man in front of her until she could feel herself grow slightly dizzy.

“Oh darn it! That’s it. I’m done trying to be pretty.” She cursed under her breath, opened her tiny clutch bag and fished out a pair of gold-rimmed, round glasses that she put on resolutely. Unfortunately, she could not suppress the gasp.

“Oh Saints.” She sighed under her breath as the slightly blurry surroundings became sharper instantly. She had known that these were dangerous men, but she had believed that her myopy and the artistry of the editors had embellished them considerably; suffice it to say that she was shocked to find that she had been wrong.

~Richard~

They had left her alone with that woman. Not entirely alone of course, Hiddleston was still hovering around, but Martin that treacherous weasel had followed the cakes and the gentler women, leaving him stranded with this surprising creature whose eyes made it quite hard for him to find something relevant to say.

She blinked owlishly up at him until he thought that she’d go cross-eyed. To his surprise – another one – she usually wore glasses and when she put them on, an obscene sound of pleasure escaped her half-open lips.

Again, she called to the Saints, pushing the glasses up before they had even had the chance or the time to slip, which told him that she wore her glasses more consistently than him and probably had done so for a long time.

She had made an inane comment about no longer attempting to be pretty, before putting on her glasses but that made no sense at all to him, as her glasses were beautiful and, in a strange way, so was she.

Obviously, pushing up her glasses was a habit or a tick as she did it twice while looking at him as if he was a painting in a museum rather than a real, living, breathing person. Then again, he stood nearly as still as a statue under her forbidding, critical gaze that roamed over his face with detached curiosity.

“Hmmm, how do you find the 1971 Armitage then?” Hiddleston stood next to her, eating peanuts, and joining her in her intense study of the immobile man facing them. No doubt, he deserved the attribute of “stony” now, Richard thought, dismayed to be the butt of the joke after all. He had known that had been a risk and he had walked right into it.

“1971?” She asked absent-mindedly, throwing a quick questioning look at her interlocutor before returning her gaze to him, and Richard flinched a little bit. Why did that man have to lead with his age when talking to a woman that young?

“A collectible, I’m sure.” Hiddleston purred, his voice laden with affectation which made Victoria chuckle again.

Hmmm, if it made her laugh rather than growl and spit, he would be standing there and be mocked for a little while longer, Richard decided. She looked like she needed a laugh.

“Not quite an antique.” Victoria opined, but Hiddleston was quick to reassure her: “Almost though. It’s been wonderfully preserved.” Again, that pealing, throaty laughter resounded, and Richard’s own mouth curled into an indulgent smile.

“This deserves to be in a gallery.” Victoria murmured, her voice devout and strangely vulnerable.

“I am right here; I can hear you.” Richard interjected, without much hope to break up their little game.

“AAAH, as you can see, Ma’am, it is unfortunately haunted. It can tell the time…if you hang it opposite a clock that is…” Hiddleston was quick to take Richard’s intervention in his stride, giving himself an apologetic expression that amused Victoria greatly. “Haunted? A piece of art so young?” She expressed her doubt and suspicion.

“Yes, yes…It’s looking for a good home though, a nice attic or a cellar maybe…” Hiddleston was waving his hands around Richard’s face as if to dazzle Victoria by the speed of his movements, an old trick salespeople used to distract from the inferior quality of their wares.

“I have a home, thank you, Hiddleston. I am not a piece of junk to be sold for 50p in a yard-sale.” Richard growled.

Her face grew grave, and he wondered what dark thought had crossed her mind to make her smile die on her lips. Immediately, he regretted having cut short their fun. He really was the grumpy, old sad sack he never wanted to be.

~Victoria~

When Tom spoke of attics and cellars, Victoria was immediately reminded of the stately house her father had raised her in. She could imagine a man like that one living there, she could picture a painting of a man such as that hanging in the great hall over the fireplace or high above the broad staircase winding its way to the two separate wings of the manor.

He had a skin like the Italian marble that had been so ridiculously slippery and that had made her afraid to take a fatal tumble down the very same staircase. Many people had told her that the idea was ludicrous and overly dramatic, but she knew it to be possible. Her mother had died that way.

Yes, there had been a bottle of bourbon and some prescription drugs in the mix as well, but the fact remained that her mother had fallen down the staircase and died on the spot from a broken neck. Father had replaced that patch of marble, but its veining was different, and they all hated that marred, ugly square that stood out like a sore thumb.

Thinking of her childhood home invariably made her sad; but she couldn’t deny that Richard Armitage would have fitted better into the décor than the little girl she had been.

He would look terribly imposing on the steps of the stairs or sitting in the huge armchairs in front of the roaring fire in the library. He would not be swallowed by every piece of furniture, he would not look out of place in the huge copper bathtub, and he would certainly not blend into the dark corners of the much too spacious rooms when the main lights were turned down. Maybe, she would have to get a painting of him and try to sneak it in to see if her father would even notice.

“Would that he were a painting.” She murmured, a desperate note sneaking into her voice that Tom picked up on immediately. There was pain in this woman, and he could see the gooseflesh on her arms as she tried to keep still. Evidently, she was on the verge of breaking into another run, unable to cope with something that distressed her, a thing that escaped his notice though…which frustrated him, as he really wanted to help her.

“So, you prefer the theatre to the cinema?” He asked, hoping it would be the right path to choose.

Victoria took a deep breath; this was what Liza and Angie had aimed for, for her to meet new people and talk about herself again. “I don’t know, I’ve only been to the movie theatre a few times before. It was a long time ago though.”

She could remember the smell of popcorn and of anticipation as the room grew dark and the screen lit up like a window to another world. Even then, she had been consumed with an absurd fear to be among so many other people; terrified of what they might think of her if she was to gasp or cry at the wrong moment, so she stayed immobile.

The man who would marry and divorce her within 10 years had thought that she had hated the experience and hence had not asked her to go to the cinema often afterwards. Maybe, if he had believed that she liked it, he would have taken her instead of other girls and this shared hobby would have strengthened their bond rather than frazzle it.

Victoria coughed, she had said too much already, and her heart was pounding. She was not ready for this.

“I’m sorry. I have to go home. I’m not feeling well.” She uttered hastily, turning to leave.

She was a terrible person; she had tried to make things right and all she had managed were fits and starts, broken off conversations that would leave a stale taste on the silver tongues of these men.

“I…can’t.” She stammered to no-one in particular as she waved at her friends and vanished before they could make their way back through the room to keep her from leaving like an absurd perversion of Cinderella.

She wanted to say how sorry she was, she wanted to thank them for their kindness, but she just couldn’t…so, she ran, her feet drumming against the pavement and her dress soaking up the moisture of the ground as she made for the next corner to catch a cab.

By the time she arrived home, her chest was heaving frantically, and she was crying with panic and distress.

When she caught sight of her reflection in the mirror, Victoria had to admit to herself that she was irrevocably broken. She had had the great honour to meet people so fascinating and charming that many a woman would have torn out her own throat to be in her shoes and yet, she had not been able to shake the ghosts haunting her every breath, dogging her every step, spoiling her every pleasure.

Whatever Angie and Liza had thought they could achieve here, it would not happen, it never could.

~Richard~

That woman was utterly confusing. There were threads of a vibrant, quick-witted, funny person shining through behind a veil of confused anger, but somehow, they couldn’t get a hold of her.

In his mind, he could not reconcile the words he had read on the pages with the wide-eyed distress on her face; there was such a difference between the person he had imagined her to be and the person she had turned out to be in reality.

Now, it was true that his own taciturn demeanour had not been exactly conducive to drawing out the parts of her she was obviously hiding from the world, shielding them like deep wounds or fragile saplings.

Hiddleston however… that man was charming and even he had not managed to make her let down her guard for more than a few minutes at a time.

“What the fuck have you done to her?” Elizabeth stormed over, dismay writ plain on her face.

No, she had been angry before, she has bloody screamed at YOU, Richard thought, you cannot blame us for her leaving…but he still felt responsible and a tiny bit guilty. If he had been a little more open, she might have felt less insecure.

She has made it very clear that she’s afraid of you, he reminded himself, and you have done nothing to assuage her fears. No, you’ve given her your crooked, sharp-edged smiles that must indeed have looked like a predator baring its teeth at her more than the shy warmth he wanted them to convey.

“We were nice, all was well until Armitage gave her one of those cold, snide smiles.” Hiddleston shrugged and Richard felt weirdly hurt and betrayed even though he could hear that it had been a joke. Cold, a thing he had been called much too often and that made him despair within his own heart. He had not chosen his face and even after 50 years of life, he could not outrun its angular repulsiveness.

She had not known him well enough to be prejudiced, maybe, she would have been able to find warmth where others saw ice, but he had not managed to make her see. Also, Hiddleston had not been a great help.

“Awww, Richard, come on!” Martin sighed, disappointed, as if he was pursuing some ulterior motive Richard ignored.

[pridesobright]

If you’re up for it, what artist or painting do each of the boys remind you of?

disclaimer: art is subjective, so are people’s opinions, and my choices are based on my perception of the boys’ personalities. you may not agree with me, therefore the paintings might not correspond to what you had imagined… still, i tried to shed a light on my own thoughts, which is something i rarely do on tumblr — i tried to remain as objective and positive as possible!

+ louis —

louis is so fiercely good! supportive, loyal, brave… i’ve never seen someone so witty and intelligent, caring and sensitive. louis shines, louis sparkles!!

but he also tells stories like no else. it is truly fascinating how louis can turn the smallest life experiences into masterpieces!! the raw emotions he’s able to convey in just a sentence: we’re sleeping on our problems like we’ll solve them in our dreams…. it’s easy getting lost into louis’ ocean blue eyes but it’s even easier falling for his talent — through storytelling, louis always shares a positive message and i’m in awe of the way he goes through life despite everything that’s been thrown at him. passionate and driven, louis is authentic and unapologetically himself!

i decided to associate louis with gustav klimt — the artist received a conservative and classical training and began his career painting churches and theaters, following the traditional and historical style popular at the time. quite similar to louis’ mindset at the start of his solo career, klimt focused on what the upper class expected of him! however, he kept developing a more meaningful personal style. one that relied on symbolism and the extensive use of the ornamental gold leaf. his paintings were highly decorative and it is the aesthetic of klimt’s work that made the connection so easy ♡

gustav klimt painted many women in erotic positions, embracing their nudity and a celebration of sexuality, which was controversial at the time. but more than that, the artist depicted loving embraces, abandonment and passion. tenderness. and by coating his paintings in golden powder, klimt created a warm cocoon around his subjects! 1. adele bloch-bauer I - 2. judith I (details) - 3. le baiser (details)

louis is so often associated with the color yellow and it’s easy to understand why — yellow is the most luminous color and is the symbol of happiness, optimism and enlightenment. as a warm color, yellow represents light and creates a sense of hope: it is radiant! gold shares many of the same attributes. it is bright, cheerful and is often associated with love, courage and passion. gold illuminates our world and so does louis!

+ zayn —

zayn is very creative, expressive and imaginative. i’d say he’s cautious and overall very intelligent about his privacy! society will often describe quiet people as mysterious, and it romanticizes anxiety in a way that makes my blood boils… it’s a dangerous culture where people with mental disorders are seen as edgy or cool when in reality they are deeply misunderstood. at times defensive, i believe zayn is strong-willed and values his freedom more than anything!

associating zayn with street art was a given. is there anything more liberating than leaving your trace into the world, anonymously and illegally, without knowing if your work will be painted over in the next few days or a couple of years?

artists such as roa, bansky, kobra, invader or shepard fairey have now made a huge impact, and street art has been popularized. many paintings are known worldwide but before then, you had the travel the world to seek out the artists’ works!

and even if some murals can be seen from afar, they draw you in no matter what. like an invisible pull, some are forcing you to cross the street or climb a few stairs to get closer — zayn draws you in! whether people are affected by his quiet personality, his looks or the sheer quality of his voice, you can’t help but want to learn more about him!

i chose behind the curtain by martin whatson for that very reason! at first cold and unreachable, zayn is full of qualities and life experiences deserving to be uncovered.

martin whatson is a stencil artist working in oslo. looking for beauty in decayed and abandoned urban spaces, he developed his style using grey tones as a basis and adding vibrant colours to bring a splash of life. i also love pull back and behind the wall ♡

+ niall —

to me, niall is the type of person who’s enjoying life as best as he can, and fully appreciating everything there is to offer. whether it be passion, irritation, love, fun or distress. mainly because of his cheerful and bubbly personality, he’s seemingly going through life as if it was a big fest! but don’t be fooled, he knows heartbreak too and there’s more to him!!

niall’s albums feel warm, nostalgic and intimate. we’re being let  in into a part of him without any flourishes. a melody strummed on his  guitar and here we are, transported into the past and reminiscing about  an old lover. niall definitely is a romantic! listening to heartbreak  weather, there is so much tenderness into his songs…

this painting is called manège de cochons by robert delaunay — it is part of a series devoted to modern urban life and popular shows. carried away by a whirlwind of vibrant colors, it recreates the lively atmosphere of the fairgrounds.

it definitely represents niall and his complex mind. the colors, so vibrant, are an ode to his cheerfulness. for delaunay, primary colors and their complements exalt each other by contrast. and the same tone can be perceived differently depending on its intensity or its arrangement!

at first, only the vibrancy and the warmth shine through but just like everyone else’s, niall’s mind is intricate. his emotions are raw and he puts his pain into songs, as if to compartmentalize everything. as if to tame those feelings and memories, maybe too loud at times! the colors aren’t just splash of nuances scattered across the canvas, they are deliberate. with purpose, they tell a story…

+ liam —

liam is good! and he always goes out of his way to do something good. he often tries to be more mindful of his actions. he’s constantly learning and just like everyone else liam makes mistakes, but he actively grows from them!!

liam is extremely talented, funny and charismatic, yet i feel like he’s not easily understood. he’s a very sensitive, sincere and sweet person, and despite everything liam went through, he remains cheerful, generous and courageous!

he is also passionate and pursues many hobbies — be it fashion, art, cooking or comics: he is well-versed in many topics and it’s a real pleasure to now follow him on youtube!!

robert rauschenberg was passionate about many mediums himself, and he incorporated newspapers, photographs and even some objects (undershirt, parasol parts) onto the canvas before adding broad strokes of paint! he kept exploring the boundaries of art and closely followed the current events of the time, using images of space flight and NASA’s photographs into his work — space (tribute 21) is a personal favorite ♡

i actually picked a selection of artworks to match liam’s personality: 1. untitled (red painting) - 2. untitled (red painting) - 3. red interior. i particularly love that last one, as the far-right stripe reminds me of liam’s chevron tattoo!!

for many years now, liam has been associated with red and it’s no surprise at all — red is the color of passionate love, seduction and adventure. strength, vitality and ambition. it used to be seen as the color of fire, a primal life force. to the greeks, red symbolized super-human heroism. liam is a force of nature, strong both physically and mentally. he is hard-working and energetic!

+ harry —

forget about the way harry has been portrayed ever since he was a sixteen-year-old boy. forget about the curls and the dimples. simply observe the person harry is today. take a closer look at what he decides to share with us. pay attention to the way he’s presenting himself.

fine line (the album) takes us on an introspective journey into his deepest emotions — whether it be torment or happiness. and i think it’s fascinating how well-executed his songs are! even in a catchy and happy song such as golden, harry managed to address quite a raw and painful concept: i’m hopeless, broken, so you wait for me in the sky / i don’t want to be alone — it’s heartbreaking, yet you almost wished you could feel it too!

through various allegories and metaphors, harry makes you question yourself. he interrogates you and talks about a reality you didn’t know existed or could relate to. harry is magnetic.

this painting is called composition XI by vassily kandinsky — and i can’t help but compare both harry and vassily. kandinsky was a painter, professor, poet and art theorist, generally credited as the pioneer of abstract art! he spent years creating sensorially rich paintings, and was fascinated by musicians who could evoke images in listeners’ minds. he strove to work with forms and colors that alluded to sounds and emotions!!

in songs like fine line, the music swells and deflates as if it was a beating heart. each track conveys a different emotion and translates a distinct concept! through his melodies, harry aims to make us feel joy, melancholy,  determination or bitterness, even when the lyrics are anything but. his albums leave us speechless and wondering, just like abstract art!

+ overall, this is what art is meant to make you feel! it’s supposed to challenge you. art is meant to make you rethink your boundaries and open up your mind. it’s meant to question you and leave you wanting for more! you are meant to listen to a song several times to fully understand its meaning, and meant to stand in front of a painting for hours to start grasping the artist’s thought process…

yet art remains subjective! depending on your own life experiences and upbringing. art is free for you to interpret as you wish and so is music! i hope you enjoyed this post, thank you for reading it ♡

[fleckcmscott]

Comfort & Joy

Summary: Arthur & Y/N celebrate their first Christmas together. Not everything goes as planned.

Warnings: Swearing, Angst

Words: 4,645

A/N: A request from the mind of dear, sweet @ithinkimawriter​. Special thanks to @sweet-nothings04​ for being the wonderful beta she is!

If you have any thoughts or questions, please comment, feel free to message me, or send me an ask. Requests for Arthur and WWH are open!

If you’ve sent me a request and I haven’t responded, it’s because I am working on it and will once it’s posted! 

Arthur was on his way to Y/N's apartment when the storefront's window captured his attention. Batting covered the floor, imitating fake snow. A plastic fireplace, painted yellow, orange, and red, was angled against the left wall. The artificial tree, bedecked with multi-color lights and a plethora of wrapped gifts underneath, shone prettily. To the right, a cardboard cutout of a couple wearing Santa hats and embracing stood in front of a brand new refrigerator. The large sign suspended from the ceiling, tied in a red bow, advertised low-interest store credit: "Make all your Christmas wishes reality!"

There was a sweetness to the display. A festive cheerfulness. And it induced in him an ache borne of dejection. With Penny in her parallel universe and their lack of resources, his life had never had a place for holidays. Seven or eight years ago, he'd made his last attempt at doing something special. They'd shared the turkey dinner he'd sprung for at a nearby greasy spoon. She'd been mildly cognizant of the make-up compact he'd given her, one he'd gotten off the clearance rack. Then she'd gone to bed, leaving him alone to watch the television special he'd picked out. It had been one of the rare nights he'd poured himself a drink in an attempt to sleep.

Smoke swirled in Gotham's cold, night air as he exhaled around his cigarette. The heaviness in his stomach, his hint of indignation perplexed him. Why on earth did he feel shitty when he had a chance to have the type of Christmas people wrote about? That Sinatra, Cole, and Martin sang about? The type he'd dreamed of, despite knowing he'd never have it? He frowned as he trudged down the street, hoping he wouldn't fuck it all up.

Y/N's greeting was warm as always; the refuge of her arms, the smile she reserved just for him dulled his sharpest edges. He tried to take pleasure in her simple courtesies. How she hung his tan jacket next to her coat, all the while insisting he get a hat and mittens. The hot mug she handed him, the way it thawed his slender fingers. The taste of cocoa on her silken lips as they kissed and she declared she'd missed him.

There was quiet conversation. She did most of the talking; he did his best to pay attention through the distraction of his anxiety. The cards had to be finished, she said. Just for her colleagues, a couple of family and friends, and, if he didn't mind, Penny. He didn't react to that last name, letting Y/N draw her own conclusions. She moved to sit side-saddle on the floor to work, next to her coffee table. As her hand crossed the cream cardstock, he noticed she was signing both their names. He gaped slightly in shock, delight spiking through him. But then delight twisted into unworthiness, and he averted his gaze to his hot chocolate.

He'd believed he was doing okay, though he still didn't have his medication. Especially since Penny had been transferred from Gotham General to the nursing home he'd chosen two weeks ago, and it had clicked that he'd never have to see her again. There were days he woke up (if he was fortunate enough to sleep) energized and confident. He had slipped into delusion once or twice. A call to Y/N or the feel of her hand had helped ground him and bring him back to lucidity. But his negative thoughts were bearing down on him. It was getting harder to separate what was intrusive and what was Arthur. If only he could find it within himself to be better.

Once she finished addressing the envelopes, Y/N extended a hand his way and smirked. Unsure if she wanted him to help her up or join her, he sat on the plush, cream color carpet. "I can hear you thinking. I'm surprised smoke isn't coming out of your ears," she said, laying a palm on his thigh. "You haven't told me what you want to do for Christmas."

He picked up one of the cards, traced his fingertips along the corners. He was bereft of his own traditions to draw from; all his points of reference were from popular culture. It was difficult to know what he'd actually like doing. He gave it a go, anyway. "I dunno. A tree? Listening to music? Being together?"

Chuckling, she put her head on his shoulder. "Of course we'll be together. And we can do the other stuff, too." Her voice lowered as she continued. The caress on his leg became a massage. "I get out early Thursday - Christmas Eve. How'd you feel about me being your guest for three days?"

"Hm." He loathed the possibility of exposing her to what was going on in his brain, his darker notions and malaise. He wanted to hold on for her. To be the gentle person she claimed he was, the man she claimed made her happy.

The man she was mistakenly convinced deserved her.

A kiss on the sensitive skin of his neck. "I'll bring dinner and everything."

Fuck. She thought he didn't want her, that she had to sell him on the idea of her company. He had to put a stop to that assumption. Didn't she know she'd become a brick, a building block in his unstable foundation? He couldn't deny her - he didn't wanted to deny her. Taking a deep breath, he turned to her. The warmth in her eyes buoyed him enough to use what little confidence he could muster. He took her hand, ran his thumb over the back of it, and he forced the corner of his lips up. "I'd love that."

~~~~~

There wasn't normally a spring in Y/N's step, but Arthur had a habit of causing one. She was smiling like a fool, too, walking with her suitcase and canvas bag. The happiest woman in Gotham. It couldn't be helped, even as she struggled to climb those damned concrete stairs to finally reach his block. This would be the best Christmas in ages.

The holiday had been her childhood favorite. But it had become taxing as her father's dementia had worsened, and her sister and she had grown apart. Not being able to leave her father unattended had forced them to celebrate at his house, which Y/N shared with him. A couple of slow cooker dishes would be made, ones her niece and nephews liked. She would do her best to make the large dining table festive, using a red tablecloth and making a centerpiece out of a wreath. Once everyone had sat around it, she'd alternate between taking a bite herself and trying to feed her father, trying to convince him to eat.

The final year had been the hardest. Distress had been clear in her sister and brother-in-law's faces, in their stilted conversation. The middle child had asked why grandpa wasn't talking. Y/N had never learned to communicate on a child's level, and had waited for her sister to take the lead. That hadn't happened. So she'd tried to explain the most painful, complicated situation she'd ever been in in terms a four year old could understand. When her father had started spitting out his mashed potatoes and crying, everyone had packed up and left.

It was understandable. Handling him was exhausting and she didn't want the kids to be traumatized. But it had left her resentful and grief-stricken. She'd cleaned him up and changed him. Then she'd sipped the nice wine she'd bought for the occasion and taken down the tree, tearing up with each bauble she'd put away while her father stared at the television in his wheelchair.

After dropping off a card at Ms. McPhee's, she hurried around the corner to Arthur's building. He was waiting for her at his door, dressed in the red sweater he knew she loved on him. She pecked his sharp cheekbone as he bent to take her luggage, and watched as he made a show of putting it beside the sofa. "Did you pack your whole apartment?"

"Almost," she said, already digging out the food she'd brought and placing it on the kitchen counter. The ham and pineapple casserole had to be popped in the oven for forty-five minutes. The two pieces of pie were from the diner near her office. Lastly, there were a carton of eggnog and a small bottle of whiskey.

He didn't say a lot, but she had a pretty good notion of what he was thinking: a variation on the refrain that she'd done too much. "Arthur, this is for me, too. Besides, you got the tree." Then she pulled him in for a kiss. Though his lips were soft and returned her affections, she could sense the apprehension in his shoulders, her palms sweeping across them. He was probably excited, she figured. And a little nervous, too. This was a milestone for them, after all. She smiled up at him encouragingly. "We're going to have a great time," she said. His nod was gentle.

Dinner went by quickly, which was a blessing because it was terrible. ("I swear, I followed my mother's recipe.") The apple pie was a good substitute for her favorite, blueberry. There wasn't any nutmeg to add to the eggnog. And Arthur covered the top of his mug when she wanted to spike it. He appeared to like it, anyway, and was soon pouring himself a second serving. GCR was playing Christmas music non-stop instead of news, so she turned on the radio. She led him to the living room and admired the tree he'd gotten.

The fir was maybe four inches taller than he was, probably six feet. There were plenty of branches, but it was slim enough to fit into the rear corner of the room, by the windows. The sharp, fresh scent of pine was wonderful. "You picked a great one." As she got into her luggage and dug out the white mini-lights, Arthur searched for an extension cord. Once the bulbs were in place, she knelt before the tree and handed him one of the tins of ornaments she'd packed.

Arthur tackled the upper half while she took care of the bottom. Her gaze turned up to him and she grew fuzzy all over. Concentration was plain in his squint, his handling of the glass-blown, red bulbs cautious. His fingertips carefully closed the hooks over each bough. How long had it been since he'd last done this? She reached out, giving his leg a reassuring squeeze before going through her own box of baubles. A soft sound stuck in her throat as she discovered what was inside.

"What is it?" he asked quietly.

The shellacked, round cookie was in surprisingly good shape, its ribbon firmly attached. "My sister made this for me when we were little. I'd forgotten about it." She cradled it in her palm, a peal of laughter bubbling up. "One year I got a toy oven. Set the smoke alarms off, scared my mother half to death." Sipping her drink, she shook her head. "Mabel - who's younger than me, remember - decided to show me how it was done. She was always better at that stuff."

The memory prompted Y/N to continue. She mentioned her parents taking them to a department store a few towns over to visit Santa. How she'd been completely boring and asked for a typewriter and doll, which she'd gotten. The milkshake she'd had at the restaurant on the top floor. She felt uncharacteristically wistful. "That was a lifetime ago."

Most of the tree was adorned when she noticed he'd stopped responding. It was as though he was frozen in place, his face turned towards the floor. Y/N stood, taking in the clenching of his fists at his sides, the quiver of his frame, the twitch of his cheek. "Arthur?" She reached out to take his hand.

His arm yanked back as if she'd hit him. Then he marched around the sofa, past the television, and went straight into the bathroom. The locks slid into place as soon as he closed the door.

She was stunned. And, if she was honest, disappointed. All she'd wanted was to share more of herself with him. Gingerly, she walked to the door. No light shone from beneath it. The picture of him sitting alone in the dark on Christmas Eve pained her. She knocked.

Laughter broke up the strain in his voice. "I need a few minutes." After a pause, a hushed plea. "Please don't go."

"I won't."

Her lips pursed. The last few times she'd visited, she'd made a note to check his usual spots for prescription bottles. There hadn't been any. And there'd been no indication he'd used any of the doctor appointments she'd paid for. They'd have to discuss it. But not now. New Years was next weekend. She'd mention it then, as well as her hopes they'd be living together soon, treating it as something positive.

Beyond his laughing, he hadn't yet gone into any level of detail about his afflictions, his diagnoses. Since his appearance on Murray Franklin, she'd read almost the entire "Loving Someone With" series to learn how to handle problems when they arose. It had advised kindness, calm, and providing regularity. Discussion of normal things, plans for the future. That was what she had been trying to do. Why had Arthur reacted so poorly?

Then it dawned on her: the experiences that were normal to her, to most people, hadn't ever been so for him. Her thoughts went to the terrible details in the Arkham file he'd brought over. The unspecified categories of abuse he'd suffered. His severe head injury and its permanent effects. The radiator...

She recalled his reaction to the journal she'd given him for his birthday. He'd tried, in vain, to hide how affected he'd been by it. And it was only a few weeks ago he'd meekly asked if she'd ever stop loving him, as if it was a chore for her instead of bliss. It was tough, knowing how hard he had to work to accept her kindnesses.

Rubbing her eyes, she concluded she'd been an idiot. Well-intentioned, but an idiot regardless. She'd so looked forward to making new memories with Arthur, to being able to spend the holiday with someone who could enjoy it, she'd overwhelmed him. Set him off.

He needed space and, so far, she'd always paid the respect of giving that to him. It wouldn't be easy tonight, however. Every fiber of her wanted to rush in there, hold him, and tell him to confide in her. To allow her to support him. But she needed to listen to her brain instead of her heart (which Arthur made hard to do, being the one who'd helped her unlock it). She checked her watch. Fifteen minutes would be a good compromise. She could give him that.

The music had become deafening. After turning it down, she made her way to the kitchen and put away the rest of the food. Every scrub of the dishcloth on the beige plates they'd used, every wipe as she dried the cutlery, expressed her concern. Ornaments still littered the living room floor. A few more were hung before she put their boxes in her suitcase. She worried her lip when she came across the presents she'd gotten him, wrapped in luscious greens and golds. He'd like them, she was certain. If he was up to receiving them. She placed them under the tree, adjusting the tags so he could clearly read "Arthur," written in her looping cursive.

The clink of the bathroom door being unlocked was barely audible. Not wanting him to think she'd been hovering the entire time, she waited before approaching. Then she stepped forward and slowly opened it.

The light from the hall spilled into the room, sufficient to see Arthur sitting on the pink, tiled end of the bathtub. She took in the slump of his shoulders, his arms slack and folded in his lap. He spoke and his miserable rasp split her heart. "I'm- I'm sorry. I'm ruining everything."

"You're not." She turned on the floor lamp in the corner, then sat down on the closed toilet. "It wasn't fair of me to babble on and on like that. I didn't think abou-"

"Don't." It was clear the harshness of his tone was directed at himself. His dark brows creased in the middle as he wiped his nose, embarrassment clear in every gesture. "I just... I wanna be able to enjoy this like everyone else."

The skin of his hands was pink, likely from wringing. And his nails had been freshly chewed. Her chest tightened. "May I touch you?" she asked. At his curt nod, she smoothed his sleeve up to stroke his forearm. The grimace he wore was tight enough to show his dimples.

She'd learned it was vital to speak to his virtues in these moments. That was an easy thing to do - he had many. The compliments she paid him were true, and reflected what he valued in others. "You're so caring, Arthur." Her fingertips drifted down his laugh line to his thin lips. "And good. And funny." She blinked away the tears that threatened, the news articles from his mother's file fresh in her mind. "And strong. Stronger than anyone should have to be."

A dry, hitched sob left him and he shook his head. "You don't need to tell me lies."

"I'm not. I never will." Her kiss brushed the shallow wrinkles on his trembling chin, and she took his hand between her own. "You don't have to talk about it. But I'm here if you want to." A long silence followed, interrupted only by their soft breathing. Eventually, he trailed lines down her thigh, to her knee, caressing her as if she were gossamer.

She considered how he could have gone through such brutality, yet be the gentlest person she'd ever known.

Releasing a long sigh, he leaned his forehead to hers. "I can't," he whispered, lifting one shoulder.

"It's all right." Her grasp slid up and down his sides comfortingly. "I love you. It's okay."

It was awhile before he stood, pulling her with him and against his chest. She nestled into him and soaked up his heat, carding her fingers through his loose curls. "I- I picked out a movie. I think it starts soon." He held her hand as he walked towards the living room.

The analog TV sounded with bells and strings as Y/N got a blanket from the bed. She scurried to him and saw the names Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire flash on the screen. Of course, she thought. He'd picked a romantic musical. After turning off the lamp, she situated herself next to Arthur and draped the cover over them. The opening credits were rolling, but she could feel him watching her instead of the film. Then his touch grazed her bare ankle. She shifted towards him, a smile spreading across her face at the softness of his features. "What?"

His gaze dropped. "I wish I knew how to say how much I love you. Show you somehow."

The lights from the tree were giving his skin a warm glow, and reflected beautifully in his green eyes. She tipped his chin up and kissed him deeply, until they both had to pull away for air. Pink dusted his cheeks and he grinned bashfully, crooked tooth on display. "I know, Arthur." They snuggled closer under the cover and he entwined their hands. "I know."

~~~~~

Since she'd returned to him after Murray, they'd spent an increasing number of nights together. Arthur usually let Y/N sleep as long as she needed. Insisting she wake up with him wouldn't have been fair. She worked hard and the extra hour or two was helpful. But he couldn't hold back Christmas morning.

He made a valiant attempt to pass the time. Really. He'd already shaven, smoked a couple of cigarettes, retrieved her presents, and plugged in the tree. He noticed she'd placed gifts under it, labelled "Arthur" and elegantly wrapped in paper nicer than what he'd been able to pick-up at the drug store. He glided his fingers over them. The corner of his mouth lifted. Written in her script, his name was beautiful.

Thankfully, he was in better sorts than the night before. Enthusiasm for her gripped him. He tip-toed to the bedroom and watched her sleeping form from the doorway. It was still dark - the sun wouldn't be up for another hour - but he could picture what she looked like. Her wet breathing and slight snore meant her pillow had a spot of drool near her mouth. There was a fifty-fifty chance her nightgown had twisted up just beneath her breasts. The blanket may have slipped below her waist, leaving her hip exposed. He knelt next to the bed and palmed the side of her neck, planting kisses to her face until she groaned.

"Your hair tickles," she mumbled. Her arm went around his back and brought him closer. "What time is it?"

"Early." Before standing, he gave her one last peck on the mouth. "But I couldn't wait any longer." He padded to the kitchen to start the french toast they'd decided on.

He was in the middle of cracking eggs when she sat across from him on the other side of the breakfast bar. "It's nice to have someone to celebrate with again," she said, leaning up and forward to peek in his bowl. "I'm happy it's you." He cocked his head at that. She'd had a family before, a sister and brother-in-law. Nieces and nephews. A father. He asked her to elaborate but she shrugged it off. "Just a few rough years. That's all. Don't waste your time on it."

Learning about her was one of the things he liked about having a girlfriend. As sappy as it sounded, even to himself, it made him feel like she was a part of him, and he a part of her. Dr. Sally said open communication was important. If he was going to be a good boyfriend, Y/N should be able to talk to him without fearing he couldn't handle it. He grasped her hand and borrowed her phrase from last night. "You can talk to me." Their gazes met as he ran the pad of his thumb over her knuckles. "I'm okay today."

A wry grin appeared. "Let's just say we've both experienced difficult family situations." She took his fork and finished beating the eggs for him as he turned on the stove. "This is a big step in putting that awfulness behind me."

The way she seemed to understand him, even if she was talking about herself, prompted him to clear his throat. "Me, too." He dipped the bread in the bowl, then placed it in the frying pan.

When they were finished eating (it'd been so much better than the casserole she'd made, and he'd never had real maple syrup before), Y/N poured them both more coffee and made her way to the living room. Arthur offered to turn on the news, aware she was still waiting for coverage on the Wayne Foundation case, but she waved dismissively. "I don't want to think about that today. God knows I already think about it too much."

They took turns opening gifts, sitting on the floor by the tree, close enough for him to feel the heat she was emanating. Y/N immediately opened her chocolate Santa and broke off a piece for him. The musk oil perfume he'd picked up for her at Helm's Pharmacy had been on sale for $1.79, and he was grateful he'd remembered to remove the price tag before wrapping it. She dabbed it on her wrist. It was different on her than it was in the bottle, a bit stronger than expected. But she was wearing something he'd given her, so it was lovely nonetheless. Her favorite of the three presents seemed to be the old, tapered, white vase he'd found. She needed it, he explained. That time he'd given her a rose, she'd stuck it in a drinking glass.

What he'd given her were simple trinkets, born out of a vague idea of what women were supposed to like. Despite her apparent delight and the kisses she'd bestowed on him after opening each one, they felt inadequate compared to what she gave him. There was a teal sweater, one she claimed would bring out (in her words) his "beautiful eyes." He pulled it on over his thermal shirt, tags and all. She'd gotten him a book on comedy writing. He wasn't sure how to take that - had she decided his jokes weren't very good? But then she told him she expected more material for his next stand-up show.

Picking up the last gift, he studied it with mock seriousness. Its shape and weight gave away it was a record, but he had no idea which one. They often enjoyed quiet evenings with his collection of older standards, but she preferred more modern songs. Maybe it was an attempt to introduce him to what she liked. He'd gladly listen to it, at least once. He peeled the pretty paper back and exhaled sharply. The LP was old, the cover worn. It was the soundtrack to Modern Times, a film he'd caught once or twice and loved the music of. Holding it to his chest, he murmured a quiet, "Thank you." Eagerly, he got up and put it on, letting the orchestra and his love for her wash over him, soothe his battered soul.

Y/N followed and splayed a hand on the small of his back. "Gotham Pops played this at the Wayne benefit last month." Giggling, she tousled his hair. "I spent the evening wishing you were next to me. It would have been nice to show you off, all dressed up and handsome." He stiffened for a second, wondering if he should tell her he had been there. If he should practice the honesty he'd been working on since Murray. Perhaps knowing he'd accompanied her, in his own way, would please her. But she interrupted his thoughts before he could speak. "The Christmas parade starts in an hour. We should go now if you still want to see it. Neither of us are very tall - we need a good spot." Her lips brushed his ear. "I brought an extra hat and mittens for you."

He spun to face her as he nodded, and she nuzzled at his nose and sighed. The wide smile she wore halted his breath. It would have been nice if this hadn't been his only real Christmas. If his first thirty-five years hadn't been a cruel joke, a tragedy. But he was glad to have this taste of happiness with her.

He hadn't longed for a paralegal from another part of the country, a woman who couldn't dance well and never guessed the punchlines of his jokes. But what he was about to say was true all the same. He cupped her face and kissed her firmly. "You're the one I always wanted," he whispered against her. "Merry Christmas, Y/N." The words felt unnatural - he was unsure when he had last said them.

The love in her look let him know he'd done all right. "You're the man I never knew I needed. And I do, Arthur." He closed his eyes at her embrace, laying his cheek against her temple as she cuddled into him. "Merry Christmas, Mr. Fleck." Her next sentence and the touch of her mouth to his jaw made him shiver. "Maybe next year we won't have to choose whose apartment will have the tree."

~~~~~

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[pronouncingitwang]

jonmartin | 3.8K words

When Jon wakes up, the bed is trembling.

“Martin?” he mumbles, turning around. The darkness softens the edges of his vision, so he reaches a hand out. Nothing. But he can hear breathing, sharp but constrained, and the bed jolts slightly. “Martin?”—louder, and this time, fear, familiar and unwelcome, slithers up his throat—“Are you alright?”

Slowly, a shape begins to form on the other side of the bed. Martin lies on his side, facing Jon, both hands over his mouth. His eyes are wide and still, but his chest rises and falls with exertion. He’s kicked off the duvet, and in the half-light sliver coming in through the window, his trembling forearms look exposed and vulnerable. Jon wants to reach out, past Martin’s frayed T-shirt and still-translucent skin to his frantically-beating heart, press his palm gently against its walls, and… do what?

“Sorry for waking you,” Martin gasps into the cupped space between mouth and palm. The words come in a burst, crammed hastily into the space between one breath and another.

“There’s nothing to apologize for. How are you feeling?”

“Fine, I’m—it’s fine. You caught me at the tail end; just—give me a second…” Martin squeezes his eyes shut, and his breathing begins to slow. Carefully, he removes his hands from his face. His lip is bleeding, like he’s been biting down on it for a long time. “Okay. I’m okay now.”

“You were invisible.”

“Oh. I, uh, didn’t really notice.”

“What happened?”

“Nothing—it was- silly of me, really, you were just turned away, and I- couldn’t see if you were breathing, and obviously you’re alright, but I just. I’ve had a lot of practice watching you not breathe, and I wasn’t particularly… keen on doing it again.”

Oh. What with the running and packing and driving, Jon hasn’t even given thought to—“I’m sorry.”

Martin gives him a half-shrug. “Not your fault.”

“Wasn’t it?”

Jon shifts the duvet toward Martin, who tucks himself back in. “I can… I can leave, take the other bed. If you want.”

“What?”

“If my being here—seeing me asleep, if it’s distressing to you, it only makes sense that I—”

“No, don’t feel like you have to—”

“It’s not a problem, I’ve had far worse—”

“Or—it’s not—don’t—it’s not just that.” Martin sighs. “I’d prefer it if—I… I want you to stay.”

“... Oh.”

“Yeah.”

Jon can’t tell if Martin is blushing or not, and god, does he want to know—wants the lights on, wants the sun up, wants a flashlight and a camera and a microscope so he can see exactly what Martin’s face looks like in this moment, but he also wants to lie here next to Martin in the dark and say, “I’ll stay, then.”

“Thank you,” Martin breathes, and doesn’t turn away, and Jon doesn’t either.

“You can… check my pulse next time. If you’d like.”

“What?”

“When I was—after the Unknowing. If I- recall correctly, my heart wasn’t beating. If you check my heartbeat, and it’s still going, it might be enough to let you know that I’m just asleep?”

“That’s a… pretty good idea, actually,” Martin says, and then, reaching out a hand, “Can I?”

Jon must have nodded, or made some kind of head movement, because Martin’s pressing his fingers, warm and still a little sweaty, to Jon’s neck, and Jon proves Martin’s earlier worries fully rational by forgetting how to breathe.

Martin’s thumb brushes the scar on Jon’s neck. “Daisy?”

Jon wants to nod, but he’s afraid of jostling Martin. “Yeah.”

“And now we’re in her safehouse.”

“And now we’re in her safehouse.”

The calming effect is gradual. Martin keeps his hand steady, and slowly, his shoulders begin to relax.

“Is it helping?”

“Yeah,” Martin says, a little wonderingly, “I think it is.”

A few more minutes pass, the tension draining out of Martin until his eyes start to droop. “Do you think you can sleep now?”

“I do,” Martin murmurs distractedly. “Does it always beat so fast?”

Jon swallows, feeling his carotid press up against Martin’s skin. “I don’t know,” he lies, and thankfully, there are no follow-up questions.

Martin falls asleep with his hand still resting in the dip of Jon’s collarbones. Jon doesn’t sleep for a long time.

-

When Jon wakes up the next morning, Martin’s already awake and dressed.

“How’d you sleep?” Martin asks.

“Good. I actually don’t think I dreamt at all,” Jon realizes. Another reason to be glad he fed Peter Lukas to the Lonely, he supposes. “I hope it lasts.”

Despite the cabin’s square footage, cleaning it takes Martin and him until sundown. By the time they’ve finished, the floor is clean enough for the two of them to set their shoes by the door and walk about in their socks, which they soon do. There’s an unspoken understanding there—if they thought they’d only be here for a few days, a week, if they thought they would need to run soon, they would leave the dust in the corners and forget to sweep under the couch. We are safe, Jon whispers to himself as he watches Martin deposit a beetle outside, and we are staying.

After dinner. Jon tries to teach Martin how to play 24 Challenge.

“It’s the only card game I know,” he says apologetically. “My grandma wanted me to brush up on my mental maths. It’s alright if you don’t want to play—”

“Jonathan Symbiosis—”

“I beg your pardon?” The look on Jon’s face must be especially affronted, because Martin bursts into laughter, loud and unconstrained in a way Jon hasn’t heard in a long time. I did that, he thinks, letting the thought spread, rose-gold, through his veins, and commits the soundbite to memory.

“As I was saying, Jonathan ‘Sims,’ short for Jonathan Symbiosis—I would be honored to learn how to play your weird childhood maths game on this fine night.”

“Okay, well, normally, we’d use a card pack made especially for 24, but we can also draw four cards at a time from a normal deck. The goal is to make 24 by using the value of each card exactly once. For example…”

The rest of the explanation comes out on autopilot, leaving Jon’s higher brain processes to observe Martin, as they’ve been doing all day. Jon’s glad to see that very little of the panic from last night has bled over into the now. Though Martin’s eyes flicker anxiously to the window every time there’s a sound outside, they always return, relieved, to his hands, the cards, and most often of all, to Jon.

“... That’s that,” Jon says, stuffing the example set back into the deck. “Do you have any questions?”

“Just one. What are you waiting for?” Martin says (What? Jon thinks)—and flips four cards over. (Oh. Right.)

Jon learns several things over the next hour, namely that the best way to uncover someone’s torrid rugby past is to challenge them to card-based arithmetic. Martin’s about as embarrassed by Jon’s discovery as Jon is intrigued, if the former’s look of utter mortification after (seemingly involuntarily) crowing, “No pain, no gain!” the first time he accidentally slaps Jon’s hand to get to the cards first is anything to go by.

“Don’t say a word—”

“I’m sorry, Martin. Could you—could you repeat that? It’s just that it was so very pithy and, I’m afraid, too clever for me to fully comprehend the first time—”

“Shut up—”

“No pain, no… what was it? Plane? no, that can’t be it. Grain? Martin, you simply must help me understand—”

“Jonathan Verisimilitude, I swear to God—”

“Do you have, like, a list of these—”

“Obviously. Poet, remember?”

Then, the implications of Martin’s words sink in, and he freezes.

Jon’s chest is tight. “You wrote poetry… about me?”

Martin shrugs, barely meeting Jon’s eyes. “Might’ve done.”

“I don’t think I saw any of that when I was…” accusing you of murder and rifling through your personal belongings.

“Yeah, I uh, kept most of it on my phone. Bit of light reading for Prentiss.” Martin wince-laughs. Martin, who apparently wrote poetry about Jon within weeks of meeting him, during a time when the kindest thing Jon had ever said to him was a noncommittal grunt every time Martin brought him tea. God, no wonder he had said loved, past tense.

“How… exactly were the Sims puns incorporated?”

“Um, well”—Martin somehow manages to flush more—“it’s more that I used the words in place of your name? I thought it’d be appropriately… roundabout.”

“Ah.”

The moment steeps in the air for a second, then two before Jon takes pity on both of them. He gestures back at the cards. “You got there first; what’s the answer?”

That night, the two of them settle in bed, facing each other again. Martin only hesitates a little before he reaches for Jon’s neck. This time, Jon falls asleep first.

-

When Jon wakes up, he’s curled up in the dead-center of the bed, and—

“Shit—” says Martin, from the ground.

“Martin! What the—Martin, are you hurt?”

“Ow—no,” Martin says, wincing, and Jon helps him up to a seat on the edge of the bed. “Just took a bit of a tumble. There should barely be any bruising, I think.”

Jon moves to sit down next to him. “Nightmare?”

“No, no, you just—”

“Dropkicked you into the floor?”

“No”—Martin laughs—“you just sort of… rolled toward me? And I moved back to give you space and then… you know.”

“Christ, I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault; this isn’t the biggest bed”—Jon opens his mouth—“And that’s not a cue for you to offer to move again. Unless you really want to.”

“I don’t,” Jon answers, a touch too quickly. “But you should know you’re allowed to move me if I ever get too comfortable.”

“I didn’t want to manhandle you in your sleep, Jon, you’re welcome to as much of the bed as you like—”

“I’m welcome to exactly half. Less, really, if we’re going off of relative sizes. I don’t mind if you push me, really; I’ve never faulted Georgie for her shove-Jon-in-self-defense maneuvers.”

“If you’re sure…”

“I am. Here, practice run”—Jon flops back onto the bed—“Look, I’m rudely encroaching on your space. What do you do?”

Martin laughs—“Alright, alright”—and stands.

Suddenly, there are sturdy arms under Jon, and then, both he and the duvet are being lifted in the air (with very little difficulty, Jon notes). Martin sets him down ever so gently on the left side of the bed.

“Happy?” Martin asks.

Jon is glad his face is pressed into his pillow, glad that the duvet covers the fact that his hands are shaking a little, glad that his throat is too tight for an I love you I’m in love with you and I love you to squeeze through.

“Yes,” Jon says, and is surprised by how raw the syllable sounds.

The bed dips as Martin settles next to Jon. “Then so am I.”

-

Jon gets up early to make breakfast. He hadn’t set an alarm for fear of waking Martin; somehow his body Knows exactly when to wake, but he’ll worry about that later. He leaves a note on Martin’s pillow in case waking up alone is too disconcerting and heads to the kitchen, tying up his hair as he goes.

The village shop was fairly limited on supplies, and Martin could only carry so much (though, considering last night, that “so much” is... quite a lot) back over when the village is a twenty-minutes’ walk away. Thus, Jon’s options are limited. He settles for poori, even though he needs to use a water bottle as a makeshift rolling pin and even though they’ll have to eat it plain. Jon spends several minutes debating how much oil they can spare for the deep-frying, then decides that he can just fill the pot and pour it all back into the bottle later.

In between mixing and rolling out the dough, he lets the kettle boil and scrambles some eggs. Jon is relieved that he can remember how thick his grandmother used to make each poori before it was ready to fry and how Martin takes his tea—plain; he’d said something last year about how he’s sure his ancestors would throw a collective fit if he ever deigned to disgrace their country’s invention with milk or sugar. When Jon drops the first circle of dough in the oil and it begins to rise to the surface, he breathes a sigh of relief. Then it’s about ladling more hot oil on top of the poori and trying very hard to not get burned and taking it out, and doing it all again six more times. He samples one. It’s not as fluffy as he would have liked, but it’s good enough for him and almost good enough for Martin.

Jon contemplates the spread before him. It still looks incomplete, so he washes off the water bottle and sets it to work as a juicer, too. It takes three oranges and all of Jon’s hand strength to make enough liquid to fill a mug, and Jon eats the leftover citrus pulp so as not to be wasteful. Then, he sits and waits.

Martin emerges from the stairs barefoot and muss-haired, and Jon has to look away before his mind can start waxing poetic about how the sunlight caressing Martin’s cheek makes it look like Martin is the one who’s glowing.

“Thanks for the note,” Martin says, crossing the room in two strides, “and I promise, I’m okay, but can I still…”

Jon nods, and tips his head up for the now almost familiar ceremony having his pulse checked. This close, and in the light, Jon can see Martin’s pupils, just barely distinct from the dark brown of his eyes.

“I made breakfast,” Jon says.

“Oh,” Martin says, seemingly noticing the food for the first time. “Oh. Jon. Thank you.”

Martin has no right to sound so grateful for something that’s taken Jon less than half an hour to do, and Jon tells him such.

“You made me tea,” Martin replies, in a tone that brooks no argument, and Jon feels all his half-formulated replies die on his tongue.

Martin approaches the poori first. Jon watches anxiously as Martin lifts the first piece to his mouth and chews.

“Jonathan Symphony…”

“Yes?”

“You’ve been living off of nothing but sandwiches and microwavable macaroni cheese for the last year when you can cook like this?”

Jon can’t help the pleased shiver that goes down his spine at the words, but he tries not to let it show. “You forgot Pot Noodles. And statements.”

"Point still stands, Jonny Pessimism."

Jon barely reacts to the name this time, which he considers an achievement. “It’s just fried bread.”

“Very good fried bread.”

“Fair enough. I mean, I’m sure you know I’m not the most dedicated to ‘self-care’”—Martin snorts—“I suppose I just don’t cook much when it’s just me. There doesn’t seem to be any reason to.”

“Well then. Good thing I’m here now,” Martin says around another bite of poori.

Yes. Yes, it is.

-

Jon wakes up Hungry.

Somewhere in his mind, he can register that it’s still early stages, and nowhere near unbearable—just some dizziness, something he wouldn’t even notice on an average day at the Archives—but after spending a few Seeing-less days hoping that Lukas had been enough to last him a few weeks, the realization still strikes him cold.

Since Jon is obviously not going to leave the cabin to snack on some poor villager, he tucks the duvet more securely around himself and tries to fall asleep again. But dread begins to pool in his stomach, and no matter how he shifts his position, the restlessness refuses to relinquish its hold on him. And if it’s already downright uncomfortable right now, how many days before it becomes unbearable? At what point will he need to lock the cabin door to keep himself inside? When will he no longer trust himself to leave the bedroom? Even getting up and pacing might be too much of a risk in time. Basira’s sending him some statements once the Archives are less police-monitored, she promised. He just has to hold out until then. He has to. He has to. He—

“Jon? Jon, can you hear me?” Martin’s voice sounds like it’s coming from a distance, but Jon consciousness grasps for the source. Then, there’s two fingers pressed to his neck, and Jon grasps at those too. “Jon, please—” and the room and the bed and the man Jon loves come rushing back.

“Martin,” he whispers.

“Jon, you were making little noises—are you okay?”

“Martin. I thought we’d have longer. The Eye—it’s back.” His voice cracks on the second sentence, and Martin swears under his breath.

“Never mind that—How bad is it?”

“It’s—it’s not, really. Or—I just felt a little dizzy, I think most of- that was panic.”

“And now?”

“I’m back now. You—you brought me back.”

“Still dizzy, though?”

Jon nods.

“How can I help?”

“I don’t know, it’s never—”

“Or, easier question—what’s helped in the past?”

“Sleep, sometimes, but I can’t—” Jon breaks off into a sob.

“It’s okay,” Martin whispers, “It’s okay, Jon. Stay with me. What’s helped you sleep in the past?”

“I, uh, had a weighted blanket, it’s probably still in Document Storage—”

“Right, I remember—”

“I felt—solid, under it. And a little trapped, but in a good way. Less likely to go out and Compel people, at least.”

“I don’t think Daisy has a weighted blanket here, but we could try to imitate the feeling? What if—I could- kind of lay… on top of you, or—”

Jon shakes his head.

“That’s fair, I’m probably a bit heavier than your average—”  

“No, no, no, that isn’t the reason; I just don’t want to… take advantage.”

Martin scrunches up his brow. “How do you mean?”

“Well, just—the experience might… elicit different emotions from the two of us, and that would be unfair to you.”

“Right,” Martin says, then frowns. “No, hang on. Not ‘right.’ How does asking me to cuddle you count as you, what, ‘taking advantage’? Are you saying you’re somehow… manipulating my feelings for you in order to get me to—”

“Sorry, what?”

“—if anything, wouldn’t I be the one ‘taking advantage’ by offering, not that that was my inten—”

“—Your feelings? What do you mean, your feelings?”

“My… romantic feelings toward you?”

Jon blinks. Are auditory hallucinations a rare side effect of panic attacks? Or maybe it’s an Avatar thing; did Helen ever mention—?

“Jon… you’re staring.”

“In the Lonely. You said ‘loved.’”

“You’re right. I did.” Martin is, for some reason, smiling. “But I wasn’t fully myself there, surely you know that. What about the past few days?”

“I mean—you’re an affectionate person, and there’s no one else here—”

Martin cups Jon’s face in both his hands, and now, he’s laughing too—“Jonathan… Simpleton—”

“Martin,” Jon says, confused and heart-racingly hopeful. He thinks it may be the only thing he can say right now.

“Please, call up Basira, or Melanie, or Georgie, and ask them if they’d call me affectionate.”

“But—”

“It’s just you, Jon. Of course I love you. Of course I’m in love with you.”

“But… why? I was awful to you, and then I was gone—”

“—and then you changed, and then you came back to me.”

“It can’t be that easy.”

“It can, though. I’ve chosen to make it that easy.”

Christ, I love you, Jon thinks, and then, oh, God, I haven’t said it back yet. “This might be- clear, already, but Martin, I love you too, so much, and I’m sorry that I didn’t always show it, or realize it—”

“Hey,” Martin says, smoothing his hand over Jon’s hair. “It’s okay. We’re here now, aren’t we?”

“Yes. This—this is real.”

“It is.” Then—“Can I kiss you?” Martin asks.

Jon’s thought about kissing Martin before, but those imagined kisses had always been hurried and frantic and for larger, more selfish purposes—convincing Martin to stop working for Lukas; making a last-minute, time-efficient declaration of feelings before the Unknowing unmakes them both; trying to prove that there’s still some humanity left in him and hey, the logic of the universe is so twisted already that he may as well give it the old Frog Prince try. This moment—warm, close, deliberate; no danger present except for Jon himself—feels far more right than any of these. And yet—“Maybe not now?”

“Yeah, of course,” Martin says, in a voice that harbors no resentment and asks for no explanations. Jon explains anyway.

“I’d still like to, in the future, but I think I’m still a little… raw from all of tonight’s—revelations, and I- sometimes find skin contact challenging in even the best of situations.”

“Do you want me to let go of your face?”

“No, what you’re doing right now is… it’s not too much. Feels nice.”

“And what about the weighted blanket offer, now that you know you aren’t”—Martin pitches his voice lower in a frankly horrendous Jon-imitation—“‘taking advantage’?”

Jon laughs. “That would be nice, too.”

Martin hmms, then presses closer and swings his legs over Jon’s.

“Would taking a statement from me help?”

“Hm?”

“I don’t know if it counts, but I was there when the Flesh attacked, and I met Simon Fairchild.”

“You met Simon F—”

“Jon, Jon, it’s okay, he didn’t hurt me. The point is, you can Compel me about him, see if it does anything for you.”

“I’d rather lay off the Seeing until it’s really necessary. But I appreciate the offer.”

Martin pulls Jon in a little closer. “Anytime.”

-

addendum:

Jon wakes up tucked into the space between Martin’s neck and shoulder.

“‘Morning,” he mumbles into Martin’s skin, and feels Martin smile against his hair.

“Good morning to you, too. Do you still feel Hungry?”

Jon takes stock of his headache, then shrugs. “Yes, but I believe I’m more used to the dizziness now.”

“Well, last night’s offer is still on the table, if you’ve changed your mind.”

“O-oh. Of course,” Jon says, and kisses him. Martin makes a small mmph! that Jon finds extremely gratifying, and for a few seconds, he just lingers there, feeling the warm, dry press of Martin’s mouth against his.

When Jon pulls back, Martin has gone pleasantly pink. “I—ah—meant the Fairchild statement, actually, but I did appreciate that. A lot.”

“Oh,” Jon says, and before he can get too embarrassed, kisses Martin again.

“Someone’s affectionate this morning.”

“Mm.”

“We should probably get out of bed soon.”

“Mm.”

“Maybe write up a plan for if you get worse before Basira can mail the statements over?”

“Mm-hm.”

“Also, if you need any ingredients for cooking, let me know; I might pop down to the shops again tomorrow; I’m due to spend some quality time with the cows soon.”

“Mm.”

“Write me a list later, when you’re a tad more verbal?”

Jon nods. Yes, he’ll do it later, because they have a later to make promises for.

[frmartinshomiliesandreflections]

7th February >> Fr. Martin’s Gospel Reflections / Homilies on Mark 1:29-39 for the Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B: ‘Everybody is looking for you’.

Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B

Gospel (Except USA)

Mark 1:29-39

He cast out devils and cured many who were suffering from disease

On leaving the synagogue, Jesus went with James and John straight to the house of Simon and Andrew. Now Simon’s mother-in-law had gone to bed with fever, and they told him about her straightaway. He went to her, took her by the hand and helped her up. And the fever left her and she began to wait on them.    That evening, after sunset, they brought to him all who were sick and those who were possessed by devils. The whole town came crowding round the door, and he cured many who were suffering from diseases of one kind or another; he also cast out many devils, but he would not allow them to speak, because they knew who he was.    In the morning, long before dawn, he got up and left the house, and went off to a lonely place and prayed there. Simon and his companions set out in search of him, and when they found him they said, ‘Everybody is looking for you.’ He answered, ‘Let us go elsewhere, to the neighbouring country towns, so that I can preach there too, because that is why I came.’ And he went all through Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and casting out devils.

Gospel (USA)

Mark 1:29–39

Jesus cured many who were sick with various diseases.

On leaving the synagogue Jesus entered the house of Simon and Andrew with James and John. Simon’s mother-in-law lay sick with a fever. They immediately told him about her. He approached, grasped her hand, and helped her up. Then the fever left her and she waited on them.    When it was evening, after sunset, they brought to him all who were ill or possessed by demons. The whole town was gathered at the door. He cured many who were sick with various diseases, and he drove out many demons, not permitting them to speak because they knew him.    Rising very early before dawn, he left and went off to a deserted place, where he prayed. Simon and those who were with him pursued him and on finding him said, “Everyone is looking for you.” He told them, “Let us go on to the nearby villages that I may preach there also. For this purpose have I come.” So he went into their synagogues, preaching and driving out demons throughout the whole of Galilee.

Reflections (6)

(i) Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time

I had a friend who died some years ago. She had been confined to her bed for many years because of a debilitating illness. She had a poster on her wall which read, ‘Life is fragile, handle with prayer’. She needed everything done for her. Yet, there was one thing she could do for herself, and that was to pray. She was a woman of deep prayer. I am sure there were times when her prayer echoed the prayer of Job in the first reading. Job’s prayer is one long complaint to God, a prayer of lamentation from the depths of distress. The prayer of lamentation is a very valid form of prayer; it expresses our struggle to find God in the darkest experiences of life. Complaining to God can be a deep form of faith. Prayer can sometimes take the form of just giving vent to the darkness within, opening up our most painful struggles to God. In some ways it is a prayer of trust, because we are only that honest about ourselves with someone we can trust.

If the prayer of this friend of mine resembled at times Job’s prayer of lamentation, it took other forms as well. It certainly took the form of interceding for others. Although she could easily have become completely absorbed by her own suffering, she was always thinking of others and praying for them. She also regularly gave thanks to God. She appreciated every kindness that was shown and gave thanks to God for it. The readings today prompted us to ask, ‘How do I pray?’ and ‘Why do I pray?’ That second question is the more fundamental of the two. Some very good and loving people see little or no value in prayer. Why bother with prayer at all? Surely, there are better ways of spending your time.

Yet, if we have faith, even if it is only the size of a mustard seed, we will invariably find ourselves drawn to prayer of some kind. After all, what is faith only a relationship with the Lord, in response to his relationship with us? Like any relationship we have with someone, we need to give expression to this relationship in some way. We will feel the need to connect, to communicate, with the one we have a relationship with. It is true that when our relationship with someone breaks down, perhaps in a very acrimonious way, we no longer feel the need to communicate with them. On the contrary, we may want to have nothing to do with them. We have nothing more to say to them. Our hurt and anger can become a stone wall between us and them. Our relationship with God, with the Lord, can break down too. Life’s trials and troubles can leave us feeling angry with God and, unlike Job who openly expressed his anger to God, we can express our anger towards God by withdrawing. We stop praying, or we just go through the motions of prayer. Yet, whereas human relationships can break down irretrievably, our relationship with the Lord never breaks down irretrievably, and that is because the Lord keeps knocking on our door. He keeps pursuing us, not to burden us but to heal us. In the words of today’s psalm, the Lord ‘heals the broken-hearted; he binds up all their wounds’. The Lord keeps seeking us out in his love because he wants to do for us what he did for Simon Peter’s mother-in-law in the gospel reading, taking us by the hand and helping us up, empowering us to serve others in love.

The Lord who seeks us out is prepared to wait on our response, just as the father in the parable of the prodigal son was prepared to wait for his rebellious younger son. The Lord’s waiting is not a passive waiting because he is all the time drawing us to himself. He said on one occasion, ‘When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all people to myself’. ‘Why, then, do I pray?’ I pray in response to the drawing power of the Lord’s love. In the gospel reading, we find Jesus at prayer. He had just healed Peter’s mother-in-law; he then healed many who were sick from various diseases and who had gathered at the door of the house. When Jesus went off to pray, early the following morning, Peter and his companions went looking for him and when they found him they said, ‘Everybody is looking for you’. They were asking, ‘Why are you out here praying when you could be healing more people?’ Jesus was praying in response to the drawing power of God his Father’s love. He came away from that prayer, knowing what he had to do, not go back to Capernaum as his disciples wanted him to do, but go further afield. His time with God in prayer freed him to take the path God wanted him to take. When we turn to prayer, in response to the Lord’s drawing of us, even if it is after a long time of resisting, we will not only experience his healing presence, but we will be helped to take the path the Lord wants us to take. That will always be the path of loving service of others, the path of making ourselves weak for the weak, in the words of Paul in today’s second reading.

And/Or

(ii) Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time

 All of us from time to time can experience life as something of a struggle or a burden. This might be because of some difficulty in our family, or our work may be unsatisfying or troublesome, or in these times of recession we may have lost our job, or our own health or the health of someone we love may be deteriorating. Any one of these or similar experiences can take its toll on us. We might find ourselves struggling to get through the day; we feel stressed and, as a result, we overreact to things, getting annoyed at what we would normally take in our stride. We may even find we have little energy for life.

 At such times we can identify easily with the sentiments of Job in the first reading, and with his description of life as ‘pressed service’ and ‘hired drudgery’. The temptation when life becomes a burden can be to try harder, to summon up more of our energies, to do more to tackle the problem. In reality, the better path might be to do less, to step back and be still, to open ourselves to the presence of the Lord. During the past week I heard someone say that we are human beings not human doings. We often find it easier to do than to be.

 The portrayal of Jesus in today’s gospel reading may have something to teach us in this regard. Because people recognised that God’s healing power was at work through Jesus, they came to him in great numbers in their brokenness, and reached out to him for healing. He certainly had no shortage of work. He was told initially about Simon Peter’s mother-in-law who was sick with a fever. Later on that day the whole town came crowding round the door of Simon Peter’s house looking for healing. That was only in Capernaum. Jesus could have worked day and night in all the towns of Galilee, healing the broken, releasing people from whatever was enslaving them.

 Yet, Jesus knew the importance of standing back from what he was doing and being alone with God, even if it meant doing less. In the gospel reading we find him going off to a lonely place early in the morning to pray. When the disciples realized where he had gone, they were clearly puzzled by this behaviour of Jesus - going off on his own like that when there was so much work to be done. ‘Everyone in Capernaum is looking for you’, they said, as much as to say, ‘what are you doing out here on your own, when you could be healing more sick people back in Capernaum?’ But Jesus was not at the mercy of the demands of others, even the demands of those he was closest to. There was an even more important relationship in his life than his relationship with the needy and the sick, and that was his relationship with God, his Father. To do the work of the Father well, he knew that he needed to be with the Father, even though that meant doing less.

 Paul in our second reading declares that he has made himself the slave, the servant of everyone. He was very committed to the work of bringing the gospel to others. He knew he was called to this service and he gave himself generously to it. Our own lives as Christians are very much about service too, serving one another in love, just as people served Simon’s mother-in-law by bringing Jesus to her, and people served the sick of Capernaum by bringing them to Jesus. Within our parish, parishioners serve other parishioners in all kinds of ways. People serve family members who are unwell or immobile at home; people look out for neighbours who need support. In a whole variety of ways, people are involved in the work of service of others. We are very dependant on the little services we render each other.

 Yet, even more fundamental than the ways we serve each other is the way that God can serve us. God sent his Son not to be served but to serve and to give his life for us. Jesus revealed God to be our Servant. Jesus went away from the demands of others to open himself to the service of God, to be renewed and strengthened by God’s presence. If Jesus needed to be alone before God and to be served by God’s presence, how much more is that true of ourselves. We need to be before God, to come before him in our poverty and to be renewed by God’s presence.

 If we can learn to be with God in stillness, then our service of others is more likely to be the kind of service that God wants for them. After spending time alone with God, Jesus did not go straight back to Capernaum, as Simon and the others wanted him to. He went on to other towns, because he knew this was what God wanted. It is not easy to acquire this habit of being alone with God in quietness and stillness, because so much of our culture today tells us that this is a waste of time, that we should be doing this, that or the other. We pray that the example of Jesus in the gospel this morning would inspire us to be with God, regardless of the demands made on us by life.

And/Or

(iii) Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time

 One of the very sad and tragic features of the time in which we live is the number of people who take their own lives. Men in early adulthood seem to be a particularly vulnerable group. It is difficult to understand the bleakness of spirit that must in some way be at the root of such a drastic step. Bleakness of spirit can afflict us all even if it never leads us to contemplate taking our own life. There can be many reasons for such bleakness of spirit. Our life can take a turn for the worst for one reason or another. Something deeply distressing can happen to us or to someone with whom we are very close. It is at such times that the words of Job in today’s first reading find a ready echo in our hearts: ‘Is not our life on earth nothing more than pressed service, our time no better than hired drudgery… months of delusion I have assigned to me, nothing for my own but nights of grief’. These are the words of one who has a sense of hopelessness in the face of the darkness of his experience of life.

 What saved Job from total despair is that he was able to express how he felt to God. He addressed God very directly, sometimes in very angry and uncompromising terms. A few verses after our reading, he bellows at God: ‘Will you not look away from me for a while, let me alone until I swallow my spittle.’ Job had enough freedom in his relationship with God to speak to God directly out of the darkness of his experience. Job teaches us to speak to God out of the depths. The old Catechism definition of prayer that I learned at primary school was: ‘Prayer is the raising up of the mind and heart to God’. At one level it may sound a rather rarefied definition of prayer. Yet, when you think about it, this is actually a very earthy understanding of prayer. If prayer is the raising up of the mind and heart to God, then prayer is the raising up of everything that is in our mind and heart to God. If what is in our minds and hearts are the darkest of human sentiments and thoughts, then that is what we must raise up to God. We speak to God out of the reality of our lives, whatever that reality might be. Job shows us that our prayer does not have to be censured in any way. If prayer is not real, it is not really prayer. If our heart is broken, it is the broken heart that we bring to God in prayer.

 There is a line in today’s responsorial psalm which states: ‘The Lord heals the broken-hearted’. As Job continued at length to speak to God out of his broken heart, he eventually went on to find healing. There is another line in one of the psalms which simply states: ‘The Lord is close to the broken-hearted’. If this was the conviction of the people of Israel who did not know Jesus, how much more should it be our conviction? Jesus revealed God to be close to the broken, to those who were broken in body, mind or spirit. The gospel reading this morning shows the closeness of Jesus, and, therefore, of God, to the broken. Indeed, in Jesus, God became one of the broken. On the cross Jesus reveals a God who is broken in body and spirit. A well-known German theologian once wrote a book with the title, ‘The Crucified God’. God entered our brokenness in Jesus, and experienced it from the inside. God could not get closer to the broken than that.

 In today’s second reading, St. Paul says of himself: ‘For the weak, I made myself weak’. God could say the very same: ‘For the weak I made myself weak; for the broken, I made myself broken’. If that is the God in whom we believe, then we need have no hesitation in bringing our brokenness to God in prayer. If Job who did not know Jesus had this freedom, we should have that same freedom to an even greater degree. Many of us will be familiar with the saying: ‘A burden shared is a burden halved’. Sometimes it can be difficult to share our burden with another, even with the person we are closest to, with whom we may have shared most of our lives. If we cannot share a burden with our closest companion, it is not the case that the only alternative is to keep it to ourselves. We can share that burden with the Lord. The prayer of sharing, the prayer of the open heart, is a very authentic form of prayer. Sharing ourselves with God in this way is not quite the same as asking God for something, petitioning God. We are simply sharing; we are telling our story to God. We are opening up that story to God’s presence, to God’s influence. That is a very valid and worthwhile form of prayer.

 In today’s gospel reading, we find Jesus at prayer. He had been ministering to the broken most of the day. Early next morning, he got up and went off to a lonely place and prayed there. Working with the burdened no doubt left him burdened, as is the case for all of us. His prayer was a time when he could share his burden with the Father. In doing so, he found strength to continue. ‘Let us go elsewhere, to the neighbouring country towns’, he said to his disciples after his prayer. The best teaching is often by example. Jesus is teaching us here by his own example to lift up whatever may be in our hearts and minds to God and in doing that to find new strength.

And/Or

(iv) Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time

 We are all familiar with suffering in one shape or form, whether it is physical, emotional, mental or spiritual suffering. There is no getting away from suffering; it comes to us all and it comes in different guises at different times of our lives. To live is to suffer. Regardless of our differences, suffering is something we all have in common. Some people seem to suffer more than others. Yet, it is difficult to measure suffering, especially in others. Some who do not seem to be suffering can be in great pain and others who seem to be suffering greatly can have a deep peace. The cry of Job in this morning’s first reading is one that comes out of deep suffering. He is in a very dark place indeed. Not only has he lost his health, his property and members of his family but he seems to have lost God. He had been living an exemplary life and he cannot understand why God has allowed so much misfortune to befall him. The God whom he worshipped when times were good now seems a complete stranger to him. The God to whom he related as a friend now seems to have become his enemy. The experience of loss, whether it is the loss of health or property or loved ones, can bring on something of a spiritual crisis. Some can be tempted to abandon God, when their prayers out of the depths are not heard. They feel angry at God; they sense that their trust in God has not been vindicated. That is very much the place where Job finds himself in today’s first reading. Job in that sense is every man or woman. The literary figure of Job is a very authentic depiction of the dark side of human experience, indeed, the dark side of faith in God.

 The English writer C.S. Lewis was both a great intellectual and a man of great faith. He set out to give a rational explanation for the Christian vision of life. In 1940 he wrote a book called The Problem of Pain in which he brought his intellect and his faith to bear on the problem of suffering. However, twenty one years, in 1961, he wrote a very different book, called, A Grief Observed. In that book he recognizes that his rational, cerebral, faith has taken something of a battering. The book consists of the painful and brutally honest reflections of a man whose wife has died, slowly and in pain, from cancer. The book gives a vivid description of his own reaction, as a man of faith, to his wife’s death. His rational faith fell to pieces when confronted with suffering of a devastatingly personal kind. He writes at one point, ‘Where is God? Go to him when your need is desperate, when all other help is vain, and what do you find? A door slammed in your face and a sound of bolting and double bolting on the inside. After that silence’. The name of Lewis’s wife was Joy. He had earlier written a book called Surprised by Joy in which he wrote about the impact meeting her had on his life. His book A Grief Observed has received a wide readership because of his authentic and moving account of the impact of bereavement. Even though his rational, cerebral faith took something of a battering because of Joy’s death, Lewis did not lose his faith. Through the darkness of this experience he claims to have come to love his wife more truly. He writes that God had helped him to see that because the love he and his wife had for each other had reached its earthly limit, it was ready for its heavenly fulfilment.

 Faith has to come to terms with the cross and it is at the foot of the cross that faith can be purified and deepened. Jesus himself entered fully into the darkness of human suffering. In today’s second reading, Paul says of himself, ‘For the weak, I made myself weak’. That is certainly true of Jesus. He entered fully into the weakness of the human condition. Elsewhere, in one of his letters, Paul says of Christ that ‘though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich’. On the cross Jesus was at his weakest and poorest; it was on Calvary that, in the words of Lewis, Jesus went to God and found a door slammed in his face, as he cried out, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ Yet, that cry of desolation is itself an act of faith; it is the language faith uses when confronted with the harrowing darkness of loss. God did not forsake Jesus, but brought through death into the fullness of life. The Jesus who was crucified in weakness is the same risen Lord who is with us in our own experiences of suffering and desolation, just as he was with the suffering and the broken in this morning’s gospel reading. He is with us as one who knows our experience from the inside. Having gone down into the depths and having moved beyond the depths into a fuller life, he can enable us to do the same. He is the good shepherd who, even when we walk through the valley of darkness, is there with his crook and his staff, leading us to springs of living water.

And/Or

(v) Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time

 A few weeks ago Pope Frances paid a visit to Sri Lanka and the Philippines. While in the Philippines, he visited Tacloban. It was there that, on November 8, 2013, the six-metre high waves generated by Super Typhoon Yolanda, the strongest storm ever recorded on earth, smashed into the homes and lives of thousands of people, leaving behind death and destruction. One of the reasons Pope Francis went to the Philippines was to be with the people of this city who had lost so much. He celebrated Mass on the grounds of the airport in Tacloban. Half a million people braved wind and rain to take part in the liturgy. In his homily the Pope departed from his prepared script, and his words touched the hearts of all present. He said, ‘So many of you have lost everything. I don’t know what to say to you, but the Lord does know what to say to you. Some of you have lost part of your families. All I can do is keep silence and walk with you with my silent heart. Many of you have asked the Lord – Why Lord? And to each of you, to your heart, Christ responds with his heart from the cross. I have no more words for you. Let us look to Christ’. The Pope was acknowledging that, in the face of tragedy on such a catastrophic scale, the only adequate response he can make is silence and an invitation to those affected by this tragedy to turn in prayer towards the Lord on the cross and allow him to speak to them.

 Today’s first reading is from the book of Job. That book tells the story of a good man who lost everything, his property, the members of his family and, finally, his health. Today’s short reading captures something of Job’s dark mood. His friends gathered round him in his great loss but the words they speak to him only deepen his dark mood and add to his burden. They suggest that all these misfortunes happened to Job because he has displeased God. If he were to repent of his wrongdoing all would be well. Job finds no comfort in these words; they ring hollow. He has been living as good and upright a life as is humanly possible. He is angry with God because of all that has been taken from him, and his friends’ words make him even angrier. A little further on from where our reading ends he turns to God in desperation, ‘Will you not look away from me for a while, let me alone until I swallow my spittle?’ Complaining to God like this can be a deep form of faith. Lamenting to God is part of our struggle to find God in our pain and loss.

 Some of you may have found yourselves in a dark place because of some deep loss and, perhaps, some of the well-intentioned words that were spoken to you at that time only added to your distress. If we are to be truly present to others in their pain and loss we have to try and enter the darkness with them. We have to somehow suffer with them, which is the meaning of compassion. Saint Paul touches on this when in today’s second reading he says, ‘for the weak, I made myself weak’. This involves a great act of self-emptying on our part, a stepping out of ourselves to be one with the other. Only then will whatever words we speak ring true. When we do try to become one with the other in their pain and loss, we will often get a strong sense, like Pope Francis in Tacloban, that our silence is more appropriate than our words. When we are present to others in this compassionate way, then our presence will be a source of healing for them.

 The gospels suggest that this was the way Jesus was present to others. If Paul could say, ‘for the weak I made myself weak’, Jesus could certainly have said the same. On many occasions in the gospels, the emotion of ‘compassion’ is ascribed to Jesus. He suffered with those who suffered and it was out of that identification with their suffering that he could be a source of healing for them. That is why, as we hear in today’s gospel reading, the sick and the broken were drawn to him in such huge numbers. It was above all on the cross that Jesus made himself weak with the weak, identifying with us totally in our brokenness and pain. As the crucified and risen Lord, he is compassionately present to us today as much as he was to those of his own time. That is why, although Pope Francis recognized that words were inadequate, he said to the people of Tacloban, ‘the Lord from the cross is there for you, in everything the same as us. That is why we have a Lord who cries with us and walks with us in the most difficult moments of life’. We too are invited to prayerfully come before the Lord on the cross in our own times of pain and loss. As we do so, we will be empowered to be present to others in their dark valleys, in the compassionate way the Lord is present to us.

And/Or

(vi) Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time

 Most of us will have known difficult and dark times at some point in our lives. We often find ourselves in a dark place. It might be brought on by a sudden experience of ill health or some experience of loss. Someone close to us may be in a dark place for a similar reason and it impacts powerfully on us. Job is certainly in a very dark place in today’s first reading. A great sense of despondency comes through his words. He experiences life as ‘hired drudgery’ and ‘pressed service’. A few verses after our reading ends, he exclaims, ‘I loathe my life’. The striking thing about Job is that he articulates his darkness of spirit before God. All the time he is not talking to myself, but to God; he is praying. Having declared ‘I loathe my life’, he immediately cries out to God, ‘Let me alone’. His way of addressing God is very honest and, at times, very angry. This is prayer at its most authentic. He yells at God, shouts at God, wonders where God is, asks God to leave him alone. Yet, by the end of the book, in and through this raw and honest prayer, he comes to some sense of peace and acceptance, some awareness that, in spite of his loss and suffering, he is being held by God who cares for all his creatures.

 The experience of suffering in ourselves or in others can often shake our faith to the core. We struggle to reconcile the goodness of God with our own suffering and the suffering of others, especially the suffering of the innocent and most defenceless. The problem of evil and the suffering it produces is not easily resolved intellectually for people of faith. The gospel reading today suggests that Jesus often found himself surrounded by suffering. Having healed a very disturbed man in the synagogue of Capernaum, he is immediately brought to the house of Simon Peter’s mother in law who is in bed with a fever. All the sick of the town, ‘the whole town’, then come crowding around the door of Simon’s house, looking for Jesus to heal them of their various diseases. Jesus might have had his own questions about the endless suffering that surrounded him, day after day. When Jesus himself entered the dark valley of suffering and loss, he had his own questions. As he hung from the cross, he cried aloud, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ This is not an intellectual question about the place of suffering in a world created by a good Creator. It is a much more heartfelt and personal question. Jesus was asking, ‘Where are you, God, in my suffering?’ It is the kind of question Job addresses to God throughout his long dialogue with God. Just like Job’s question, Jesus’ question from the cross was prayer. He was addressing God directly in prayer.

 Although Jesus surrounded by the endless suffering of others, according to the gospel reading, there comes a time when he needed to go off alone to pray. Before dawn, while everyone else slept, he left the house where so much human suffering had gathered and he went off to a lonely place by himself to pray. It is as if Jesus needed to bring all this suffering and its impact on him to prayer. He somehow opened up this tide of human suffering to God his Father, whom he knew to be the Father also of all those who suffered. While he is at prayer, Simon Peter discovers where he is and says to him, ‘Everyone one is looking for you’. The suffering people of Capernaum are knocking on your door, Peter is saying. Yet, even though everyone is searching for him, Jesus knows that he needs time and space to search for God in prayer. Jesus was very aware of the depth of his need for God. He had to pray, just as he had to eat and drink. We can be much less aware of the depth of our need for God. Yet, our need for God is even greater than Jesus’ need, and our need for God is all the greater when suffering presses in on us. Suffering drove Jesus to pray; it drove Job to prayer; it needs to drive us to prayer too. The temptation can be to allow the experience of suffering to turn us away from God, and, yet, it is above all in such difficult and dark moments that we most need to keep the lines of communication open to God, even if it is only to complain to God and to question God.

 I am often struck at how some people who have such great suffering in their lives also have a deep prayer life. Invariably such people are never bitter about their situation. They often have an extraordinary serenity and peace about them. Suffering, whatever form it takes, has the capacity to turn is in on ourselves. Yet, in bringing the experience of suffering to prayer, as Job did, as Jesus did, we open ourselves up to the Lord who is always close to the broken hearted, and we can find the spiritual strength to live through our suffering and loss, even though we may not understand it.

Fr. Martin Hogan.

[monsieur-de-paris]

REALLY LONG CHARACTER SURVEY. RULES. repost ,   don’t  reblog  !  good  luck  !

TAGGED. @kigakurutta​ thanks ^-^ TAGGING. @bourreau-de-roi​ @princely-alucard​ @thesarcasticviclet​ @devilsmark @xxsacrificiumxx​ @farnese-ojousama​

BASICS.

FULL NAME: Charles-Henri Sanson de Longval

NICKNAME:  Charles or Charlot (lolol)

AGE: Verse-dependent, between 14 and 54

BIRTHDAY: February 15th

ETHNIC GROUP: White

NATIONALITY: French

LANGUAGE(S): French, a word or two in English and German

SEXUAL ORIENTATION: Bisexual

ROMANTIC ORIENTATION: Biromantic

RELATIONSHIP STATUS: Verse-dependent, gets married at the age of 27

CLASS: As in social class - 3rd estate (commoner)

HOMETOWN / AREA: Paris

CURRENT HOME: Paris 

PROFESSION: Executioner & doctor

PHYSICAL.

HAIR: Black, very long, straight or later wavy, thick, silky

EYES: Doe-eyed, gray/black of colour

NOSE: Straight, long, narrow

FACE: Diamond-shaped and long, not so defined cheekbones

LIPS: Plump and soft, red

COMPLEXION: Pale

BLEMISHES: None

SCARS: None

TATTOOS: None

HEIGHT: 195 cm ( 6'5'' )

WEIGHT: unknown

BUILD: Tall and skinny, well-trained

FEATURES: Soft enough to be able to dress like a lady and not attract attention

ALLERGIES: None

USUAL HAIRSTYLE: The parting changes over time (it’s either parted on the right side or combed back), but always open

USUAL FACE LOOK: Distressed lmao

USUAL CLOTHING: 18th century clothes

PSYCHOLOGY.

FEAR(S): People’s cruelty, having to execute the ones he cares for, generally having to kill people, he hates his occupation a lot ;O;

ASPIRATION(S) : To abolish executions, later: to make executions more humane

POSITIVE TRAITS: Kind, polite, open-minded, accepting, loving, caring, a strong sense of responsibility

NEGATIVE TRAITS: Naive, anxious, unassertive, easily led, manipulable

ZODIAC: Aquarius

TEMPERAMENT: Emotionally volatile, cries a lot

SOUL TYPE(S): Helper

ANIMALS: Dogs, horses

VICE  HABIT(S): None (crying?)

FAITH: He is religious, yes

GHOSTS?: I bet he believes in them

AFTERLIFE?: Yes

REINCARNATION?: No

ALIENS?: No

POLITICAL ALIGNMENT: Lawful Good

ECONOMIC  PREFERENCE: No idea (what is economic preference?)

SOCIOPOLITICAL POSITION: He supports His Majesty wholeheartedly

EDUCATION LEVEL: Mostly home-schooled, very good medical skills

FAMILY.

FATHER: Charles-Jean-Baptiste Sanson

MOTHER: Madeleine Sanson

SIBLINGS: (Oh gosh, here we go with the list) Marie-Joseph Sanson, Louis-Charles-Martin Sanson, Nicholas-Charles-Gabriel Sanson, Louis-Cyr-Charlemagne Sanson, Madeleine-Claude-Gabrielle Sanson, there was later a baby too, called Pierre-Shanks Sanson, but I think it vanished (?)

EXTENDED FAMILY: His grandmother Anne-Marthe Sanson, his stepmother Jeanne-Gabrielle Sanson, his wife Marie-Anne Sanson, his two sons Henri Sanson and Gabriel Sanson, his uncle Nicholas-Gabriel Sanson, his cousin AND brother-in-law Jean-Louis Sanson, like 500+ other cousins, I think the Sanson family is rather large (and I need a drink after listing so many)

NAME MEANING(S): Apparently,Charles means “man” and Henri means “home ruler” lmao 

HISTORICAL CONNECTION?: He was actually the royal executioner of France? He is based on a real person 

FAVORITES.

BOOK: The bible prolly, also the memoirs of the first Sanson. He used to be very interested in science and philosophy, but I think his occupation sorta sucked the life, and the hunger for knowledge, out of him 

MOVIE: None

5 SONGS: He enjoys Bach

DEITY: The Christian God

HOLIDAY: Christmas and Easter, like the good boy he is

MONTH: April

SEASON: Spring

PLACE: Anywhere he can be left alone by his grandmother and father (lmao), I think generally among nature

WEATHER: Sunny

SOUND: His violin <3

SCENT(S): Roses

TASTE(S): Wine, fruit, mild tastes

FEEL(S): Satin on the skin, but also pain

ANIMAL(S): I already answered this

NUMBER: 3

COLORS: Black, red, blue

EXTRA.

TALENTS: Riding, very good with a blade, very good medical skills, I guess singing too since he does it a lot 

BAD AT:  Killing, asserting his will

TURN ONS:  Pain (he won’t admit though, but because of the torture he had to undergo, his body got accustomed to pain a lot)

TURN OFFS: Irrationality, cruelty, chaos

HOBBIES: Playing his violin

TROPES:  Fragile Flower xD

AESTHETIC TAGS: Roses, Skulls, Black Hair, Edgy, Goth, Death, BDSM, Emo Quotes, Sad, Depressing, Velvet, Thorns, Blood

GPOY  QUOTES: I can’t think of any rn

FC INFO.

MAIN  FC(S): None, unfortunately

ALT FC(S): None

OLDER FC(S): None

YOUNGER  FC(S): None

VOICE CLAIM(S): None

GENDERBENT FC(S): None

MUN QUESTIONS.

Q1: if you could write your character your way in their own movie, what would it be called, what style would it be filmed in, and what would it be about?: I wouldn’t. I can’t picture Innocent as a movie, I can’t even picture it as an anime, because its beauty and style would just get lost, I feel.

Q2: what would their soundtrack / score sound like?: Something sad and gloomy

Q3: why did you start writing this character?: Well, I really love him ;_; I loved him from the moment I picked Innocent, but his development was nothing I expected - it actually made sense, unlike with many other characters, whose developments only make sense in a fictional, trope-driven setting. But Charles-Henri “matured” in a way a real person would, and even his character traits, which I would possibly hate on every other character aside from him, like his kindness and his gullibility, were somehow lovable to me, because they felt real and genuine, and not like the traits you give a character only to make them likeable. And then a good friend of mine picked him as a muse, we wrote together for sometime, and he just stole my heart completely.

Q4: what first attracted you to this character?: His hair. Also his face, I had seen pictures of him before and I always thought his face looked very unique, because I’ve never seen anyone with a similar drawing style.

Q5: describe the biggest thing you dislike about your muse: I dislike, that he changed so much, even if it made sense. I just miss the old Charles a lot ;_;

Q6: what do you have in common with your muse?: I think I have a lot in common with him...except for his kindness and his patience with people. I do share many of his negative traits  though, I also act on impulse a lot.

Q7: how does your muse feel about you?: He is angry, because I contribute to his torment lolol

Q8: what characters does your muse have interesting interactions with?: All his interactions are interesting, those which aren’t usually get dropped :o

Q9: what gives you inspiration to write your muse?:  Books. Oh, and my love for him and for writing in general, I don’t think I could just stop writing. And also, he is very easy for interactions. He is very timid and not the most extroverted person in the world, but he would give everyone a chance, so having him meet other characters and actually show interest in them isn’t difficult (*cough* unlike Griffith *cough*)

Q10: how long did this take you to complete?: Tbh, I think ca. 2-3 hours.

[romancatholicreflections]

28th March >> Fr. Martin’s Gospel Reflections on Matthew 26:14-25 for Wednesday of Holy Week: ‘They paid him thirty silver pieces’. Wednesday of Holy Week Gospel (Europe, Africa, New Zealand, Australia & Canada) Matthew 26:14-25 ‘The Son of Man is going to his fate, as the scriptures say he will’ One of the Twelve, the man called Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests and said, ‘What are you prepared to give me if I hand him over to you?’ They paid him thirty silver pieces, and from that moment he looked for an opportunity to betray him. Now on the first day of Unleavened Bread the disciples came to Jesus to say, ‘Where do you want us to make the preparations for you to eat the passover?’ ‘Go to so-and-so in the city’ he replied ‘and say to him, “The Master says: My time is near. It is at your house that I am keeping Passover with my disciples.”’ The disciples did what Jesus told them and prepared the Passover. When evening came he was at table with the twelve disciples. And while they were eating he said ‘I tell you solemnly, one of you is about to betray me.’ They were greatly distressed and started asking him in turn, ‘Not I, Lord, surely?’ He answered, ‘Someone who has dipped his hand into the dish with me, will betray me. The Son of Man is going to his fate, as the scriptures say he will, but alas for that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! Better for that man if he had never been born!’ Judas, who was to betray him; asked in his turn, ‘Not I, Rabbi, surely?’ ‘They are your own words’ answered Jesus. Gospel (USA) Matthew 26:14-25 The Son of Man indeed goes, as it is written of him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed. One of the Twelve, who was called Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests and said, “What are you willing to give me if I hand him over to you?” They paid him thirty pieces of silver, and from that time on he looked for an opportunity to hand him over. On the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the disciples approached Jesus and said, “Where do you want us to prepare for you to eat the Passover?” He said, “Go into the city to a certain man and tell him, ‘The teacher says, “My appointed time draws near; in your house I shall celebrate the Passover with my disciples.”’” The disciples then did as Jesus had ordered, and prepared the Passover. When it was evening, he reclined at table with the Twelve. And while they were eating, he said, “Amen, I say to you, one of you will betray me.” Deeply distressed at this, they began to say to him one after another, “Surely it is not I, Lord?” He said in reply, “He who has dipped his hand into the dish with me is the one who will betray me. The Son of Man indeed goes, as it is written of him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed. It would be better for that man if he had never been born.” Then Judas, his betrayer, said in reply, “Surely it is not I, Rabbi?” He answered, “You have said so.” Reflections (3) (i) Wednesday of Holy Week The early church did not try to hide the painful truth that one of Jesus’ own disciples betrayed him to his enemies. According to our reading from Matthew’s gospel, Judas shared table with Jesus on the night before Jesus was crucified; in the course of that meal he dipped his hand into the same dish with Jesus. Communion with Jesus, sharing table with him, and betrayal went hand in hand. The greatest damage was done to Jesus by an intimate, by someone who had received a great deal from Jesus. We will never know what really motivated Judas’ betrayal. This morning’s gospel suggests that money might have been a factor. The story of Judas reminds us that we are all capable of betraying Jesus. All of the twelve disciples were aware of this possibility. When Jesus said, ‘one of you will betray me’, each of them asked in turn, ‘Not, I Lord surely?’ It is a question we can all ask. We betray the Lord whenever we fail to recognize him in each other and to love him in each other, especially in those who are most vulnerable among us. In Matthew’s gospel, Judas committed suicide because he saw no way back after betrayal. Yet, there is always a way back, even after betrayal, because, in the words of Matthew’s gospel, Jesus’ blood was poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. In the words of Paul’s letter to the Romans, ‘where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more’. That is the good news of this Holy Week. And/Or (ii) Wednesday of Holy Week The early church was very aware that Jesus was betrayed to his enemies by one of his closest associates. Even though this was a very uncomfortable reality for the early church, there was no attempt to gloss over the disturbing truth that, in the words of this morning’s gospel reading, Jesus was betrayed by someone who dipped his hand into the dish with Jesus, someone who broke bread with Jesus. The gospel reading declares that when Jesus announced that one of those sharing table with him would betray him, everyone present was ‘greatly distressed’. To be betrayed by someone you trust is very distressing both for the one betrayed and for all those associated with that person. Some of us may have had the experience of our trust being betrayed. We confide in someone and they use that information against us. This week tells us that, in the case of Jesus, the human betrayal that led to Jesus’ crucifixion did not have the last word; God had the last word by raising his Son from the dead. God brought good out of the evil of betrayal and the many other evils that Jesus endured in the last week of his life. God can also bring good out of the painful experiences that come our way because of others. These days of Holy Week invite us to trust that God can work in life-giving ways even in those dark experiences that might make us cry out in the words of this morning’s psalm, ‘I have reached the end of my strength’. And/Or (iii) Wednesday of Holy Week The early church did not try to hide the painful truth that one of Jesus’ own disciples betrayed him to his enemies. According to our reading from Matthew’s gospel this morning, Judas shared table with Jesus on the night before Jesus was crucified; in the course of that meal he dipped his hand into the same dish with Jesus. Communion with Jesus, sharing table with him, and betrayal went hand in hand. The greatest damage was done to Jesus by an intimate, by someone who had received a great deal from Jesus. We will never know what really motivated Judas’ betrayal. This morning’s gospel suggests that money might have been a factor. The story of Judas reminds us that we are all capable of betraying Jesus. All of the twelve disciples were aware of this possibility. When Jesus said, ‘one of you will betray me’, each of them asked in turn, ‘Not, I Lord surely?’ It is a question we can all ask. We betray the Lord whenever we fail to recognize him in each other and to love him in each other, especially in those who are most vulnerable among us. In Matthew’s gospel, Judas committed suicide because he saw no way back after betrayal. Yet, there is always a way back, even after betrayal, because, in the words of Matthew’s gospel, Jesus’ blood was poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. In the words of Paul’s letter to the Romans, ‘where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more’. That is the good news of this Holy Week. Fr. Martin Hogan, Saint John the Baptist Parish, Clontarf, Dublin, D03 AO62, Ireland. Email: sjtbclontarf@eircom.net or frmartinhogan@gmail.com Parish Website: www.stjohnsclontarf.ie Please join us via our webcam. Twitter: @SJtBClontarfRC. Facebook: St John the Baptist RC Parish, Clontarf. Tumblr: Saint John the Baptist Parish, Clontarf, Dublin.

[artmotherhoodandmadness]

Victims of Child Sex Abuse must speak out without fear or shame

A new four-hour documentary has been released: Leaving Neverland, in which Wade Robson and James Safechuck’s describe being systematically sexually abused, by the now deceased pop star, Michael Jackson. When Jackson was first accused I remember my sense of incredulity and shock. The Martin Bashir documentary that followed some years later was more equivocal. Jackson was vociferous in his denial of any sexual misconduct in 2003. Jackson is dead and like Jimmy Savile, he took his secrets to his grave.

In the UK Jimmy Saville, Gary Glitter and Rolf Harris  have been branded and shamed as sex offenders and predators. Giant figures during my childhood; they were protected by fame, money, and in some instances the BBC. How long did it take for victims to come forward? Decades. Louis Theroux’s documentary: Savile left an indelible impression on my psyche. I recall one line from the film, ‘It’s not monsters who abuse children, it’s nice men.’ Naturally, they have to be nice in order to win the trust of children otherwise how can they secure access? 

In the specific cases of Savile and Jackson their celebrity was a magnet, it is easy to see how parents could be star struck, children seduced by the attention and lavish gifts bestowed upon them.

I grew up thinking Michael Jackson was an icon and genius, who triumphed over adversity, despite his brutal childhood at the hands of his bullying father. Jimmy Savile was a staple on national TV. Children dreamt of being on his programme Jim’ll Fix It- he was the man who made kids dreams come true. Rolf Harris could draw cartoon characters in seconds. His creations filled me with awe and wonder. Jackson and Savile are dead, Harris and Glitter are in jail? Why am I so perturbed by all these cases? Three years ago I remembered being sexually abused by a family member, since recalling I have experienced vivid and horrific flashbacks - my life has changed irrevocably. I, too, still try and protect my abuser, failing to achieve closure, while the family have cut off contact; certain friends don't want to know; others are incredulous; a small handful though have been supportive and shown empathy. 

I started drawing the flashbacks of my own CSA, some of the images may cause distress, but art, writing and now music are my only sanctuary. I believe my drawings are evidence that something indeed happened to me in the small room before the aged of four. The desire to be believed is at times excruciating.

From a young age I was allowed to sleep alone with the perpetrator, while my mother slept in another room. The last day I saw my mother we became embroiled in an argument and it was then that I confronted her asking why did she allow me to sleep with a man who was not my biological father? How could this have happened under her watch and she retorted, ‘You loved him so much you went on your own.’ So, I am solely culpable then? According to her I went to my abuser night after night voluntarily. She neglected to mention when all of this started and when it stopped. There are still so many unanswered questions. Let it go, I say, but it is my brain that is clawing for the truth. All I do know is from the age of four to eighteen I was emotionally withdrawn eschewing all hugs and affection, even from my sisters, and I wouldn’t let my abuser come anywhere near me physically when I no longer slept with him in the small room. As a child I didn’t like to wash, sometimes refusing to for days, I wore clothes that were too big, as if ashamed of my body, I developed O.C.D (obsessive compulsive disorder) seeking extreme order in what was a chaotic, emotionally and physically abusive household. I was a solitary child, living in an imaginary dream world, it was aged four that I started to assiduously draw. As a teenager I struggled with my interpersonal relations and seemed to be drawn to predatory and insalubrious types. My erratic behaviour and mental unravelling is all documented in my book Schizophrenics Can Be Good Mothers Too written under the pseudonym Q S Lam (2014 Muswell Hill Press). Some of my more extreme behaviour is understandable now, often I was seeking dopamine, which is a form of pain relief. To this day I have to control this tendency towards extremity. When my mother asked him if he had abused me, he roared like a wounded lion, ran upstairs, broke down in tears in front of my niece and nephew and has not spoken to me since. 

It’s as if I am dead. And yet I spent my whole life trying to please my abuser and seek his approbation, this is the sad and tragic irony of this tale. 

I oscillate - sometimes minimising, negating, blocking, refusing to accept the flashbacks as real, even dismissing them as false memories. But after extensive reading and the more experts I have spoken to in this field, I keep hearing the same response - that they have heard my story verbatim from other survivors of CSA. Recalling the abuse decades later is not uncommon. I still remember sitting at my desk, clutching my head, rocking back and forth in an intense state of agitation until I felt my skull split open, a luminous green goo oozed out and then dissipated. It was after this vivid hallucination that I had the realisation that I was abused. It does sound odd, but this is what happened. It was shortly after this that I started making music, I can now play keyboards and guitar, I started singing again after a 33 year break and during the last two years I have produced 400 pieces of music - it is the only art form that ameliorates the pain. 

No one really wants to hear about CSA, no one really cares about your abuse, it makes people very uncomfortable, victims are supposed to suck it up, to be stoic, to forgive and forget and move on. But you never forget, this stuff haunts you for life. Jackson’s victims stayed silent for decades, my secret stayed buried for decades, my mother’s abuse was also her secret for fifty years until she finally told me in 2014, two years before I recalled my own CSA. Abuse is often generational. You simply can't keep secrets like this inside, if you do you are ensuring the slow death of your soul. The truth has to come out and it always does.

When I finally plucked up the courage to press charges, the process was protracted, communication with the police sporadic, and the case was passed from one officer to another. None of the questions raised in my detailed statement were addressed, my abuser denied everything; he had a solicitor present. Ironically, afterwards, I felt guilty for subjecting him to this ordeal and when asked if I wanted to prosecute I said, ‘No.’ It is not uncommon for victims to protect their abusers, a condition called Stockholm Syndrome. One of Jackson’s victims also spoke about his guilt, his denial of the abuse, and his natural instinct to shield Jackson. The legal system doesn’t give victims much confidence that justice can be fairly achieved either.

When I was eighteen I was sexually assaulted on a bus, I took the man to court. It was masterly the way the lawyer discredited me while the accused just sat smugly with his wife and was found not guilty. In 2015 I wrote an article for the Huffington Post about the sexual assaults I have been subjected to over the years- this was before the #metoo movement exploded - I was trolled.

 In my own case then the perpetrator will also take his secrets to his grave. I won’t get closure and nor will Michael Jackson’s two victims ever get a chance to confront him face to face.

Abuse frequently occurs within families, protective walls come crashing down, the victim is often the one that is not believed and sometimes even ostracised. Both of Jackson’s victims in the Leaving Neverland documentary spoke of their ongoing sleep problems, long term depression and the symptoms of CPTSD (Complex Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome). I struggle with all of the same problems and more. Help is out there, but for many of us we just have to live with the memories, not knowing when you will get another flashback, carrying a constant heaviness inside, grappling with irritability and a deep restlessness, believing that something is wrong at the very core of your being. You carry on, as we all must, try to edge towards the light and leave the darkness behind.

Survivors of abuse must speak out, share their stories, not feel ashamed and not care if they are believed or not. You have no idea how long I have wanted to write down these words, it was shame and stigma that inhibited me, but reading about these two men has given me the courage to also share my story, I am the one living through the hell of remembering and I have no reason to fabricate my story either. I sincerely hope the two brave survivors in the documentary have attained some kind of catharsis now. At the end of the screening they received a standing ovation, the audience was left shell shocked, Jackson’s legacy is shattered, but the lives of his victims are too.