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forensicated · 8 months

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Smiffina Episodes: 480

Smithy gets a call to head to the front office to collect something that turns out to be a bunch of flowers. Gina teases him thinking he's bought them for Kezia, however they're for her! From Peter! And Smithy absolutely LOVES winding her up.

Gina reads the card as Smithy leaves the room, whatever is on it, she's not happy about it as she screws it up and throws it across the room.

Smithy and Gina are investigating an old lag, Jimmy Collins, who hasn't gone back to prison after a home visit. They find him at his wife's house - despite her claiming innocence - and Smithy chases him outside where he gets in his wifes car and drives off - causing Smithy to do a rather impressive bounce!

To be fair though, it's not only Smithy who's having a bad day in this episode...!

Reg's famous hypochondria is back in action as Gina finds Diane waiting for him in the yard after she and Smithy have brought Jimmy's wife in. He's complaining of a gippy tummy that has 'knocked him sideways' . Gina tells him to go home or get to work but stop complaining.

Jimmy's wife tells them that he'd said he had 'a thing to do' that morning and then he'd go back to prison but he didn't tell her what that thing was. She says he left the house with her at 8.30, she went shopping and then the police arrived as she got home. Reg is only too happy to trawl through the CCTV looking for Jimmy's movements but Diane keeps begging him to go home because she wants to go out and about.

Reg finds Jimmy on the CCTV and he's clearly been hurt, holding his jacket to his side and limping towards a chemists where he steals bandages and painkillers.

Gina takes delivery of another parcel from Peter - his gifts have gone up in the world as this time it's a dress, shoes and shawl. "The mans got more money than sense!" Gina is horrified though Smithy is very amused. "Er, that's something you wouldn't hear most women complaining about!" Nikki arrives with a further delivery, tickets for the ballet! "As if someone likes me wants to see a bunch of blokes in codpieces prancing around the stage!" Smithy can barely hold his laughter in. "I'm not going!" she insists, even when Smithy points out that the tickets are around £500 for the two given it's a private box!

Look at that little shit...!!

Jimmy's car is found covered in blood, his last known associates are either in another country, in prison, or dead. If he is planning a job it's either by himself or with a new team he might have met during one of his home visits. However, given the amount of blood he appears to be losing, he can't have gotten far.

Diane asks Smithy if she can be paired with someone else because Reg is still refusing to go outside and she claims it doesn't need two of them to watch the CCTV. Smithy gently explains that he's not doing it on purpose, it's simply how Reg is processing Honey's death and that he wants to be at the station and in amongst the team. She sighs but gives in and goes to sit back with him.

June shouts down to Smithy and Gina after she's received the blood results from her stabbing case. There's two sets of DNA on the knife that stabbed the school boy that morning. The boy who was stabbed and Jimmy Collins. She knows Collins is the name of the prisoner they're searching for so they join forces to find out what the hell is going on. June explains that a school boy, Tom Ryan, has admitted stabbing the victim, Martin Clark and that Clark confirmed it but June didn't believe them then and really doesn't now. Tom has gone to youth court, Martin is still at St Hugh's and Jimmy's wife is back in the interview room. She tells them that she hasn't heard Jimmy mention anyone by Martin's name. She does however recognise Tom's name as the son of Jimmy's best friend who has died. He promised Tom he'd help look after him and has kept his promise.

Gina goes to Tom's mums house... and finds Jimmy there who tries to hold her hostage. Smithy realises after Diane and Reg update him on the CCTV and he rushes to get to Gina. In the mean time, Jimmy tells the two women that Martin Clark was bullying Tom. He followed Tom to school to make sure he was ok and then he was going to go to prison but then Martin appeared and started picking on Tom. Jimmy went to his aid, Martin got lippy and produced a knife and stabbed him - Jimmy lashed out and stabbed Martin in the struggle by accident. Jimmy told Tom to run, he picked up the blade worrying about Jimmy's fingerprints and threw it on the roof before running off as Jimmy made him go with him. Gina explains that Tom is saying it was him - and that Martin verified that. Jimmy nods and shows the wound on his side that is bleeding badly as he weakens, saying he wouldn't want them to know about it. Gina collapses and Smithy calls again. She tells him she's fine but that they need an ambulance immediately for Jimmy.

Smithy gets Gina to the car and tells her to go meet Peter. She thinks it's too later but he insists it's fine, he'll do the paperwork and that she should stop making excuses and go and enjoy herself. Peter has sent a limo to collect her and it's waiting outside as Smithy and June watch Gina approaching. "Those shoes won't stay on long!" June muses, watching poor Gina struggling in the heels. "... Let's hope the dress does!" Smithy grins.

#dale smith #alex walkinshaw #roberta taylor #smithy #smiffina #smiffinalong #gina gold #roger valentine #john bowler #chris jarvis #dan casper #episode 480 #the bill

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theskywaslookingback · 3 years

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What if:

It’s almost too easy, the way Jon’s rib cage caves to the knife Martin pushes into his sternum. Jon gasps, a last push of breath that’s half shock and half relief, before he slumps forward for Martin to hold him. Martin holds Jon close and, as everything breaks and falls around him, he looks at nothing else. He tells Jon about all the plans he’d made for them years ago. About the house and the yard, the dog and three cats. About the kids he thought maybe they’d deserve and the names of all their friends. About how he’d wanted to watch them go grey and white haired. How he’d never wanted this for them. How he hadn’t wanted to die alone. When the final stones fall he stops talking. He doesn’t start again.

What if:

Martin closes his eyes and wakes to a gentle humming and lights so bright he has to close his eyes again. Oliver Banks leans over him, gloved hands hesitating at his sternum. “Oh,” Oliver says like he’s surprised, “Hello.” The coroner’s office is all stainless steel, meticulously clean in a way that makes Martin feel sick. He asks for Jon. Oliver motions to a covered body on a morgue table. Martin can’t bring himself to remove the sheet.

What if:

Jon gasps back to life in Martin’s arms, scrambling against him for a place to hang on to. They’re both drowning.

What if:

Martin opens his eyes to a foggy shore-

What if:

Martin opens his eyes to a soft, sandy beach. The sun is shining overhead and gulls cry out in their plaintive scratchy voices. Jon’s hand is in his own, warm and real and gripping him back just as tightly. Jon says “Martin.” and his voice cracks. Martin pulls him into his arms and clings as desperately as he knows how. They only separate when familiar voices call to them.

What if:

Jon laughs, when the tower has turned to rubble around them and they both know that they’ve been freed. He can taste blood in his mouth, but Martin is pleading with him to hold on, just a little longer. So he does. He can hear sirens in the distance.

What if:

Their house is an old, rickety thing with stairs that creak and a roof that likes to leak when it rains too heavy and a garden out back that Martin’s arthritis has a tendency to protest. Jon’s chest has a scar, in the place right over where his heart beats and beats and beats. His hands are wrinkled and spotted with age, and every night Martin gathers them up in his own and presses kisses to every bit that he can. Martin will bring in the shopping and say “you’ll never guess what I heard” and every time Jon will hum and ask what he’s learned. Martin still writes poetry, about Jon’s hair like spun moonlight and voice of deep velvet. It isn’t very good, but neither one of them really care. There is no room for fear here.

What if:

Basira, Georgie, and Melanie find two bodies in the rubble of-

What if:

The room is white and they don’t know where they are. There is a large crack in the floor. They jump through it.

What if:

Jon wakes in a body that’s too young to be his. He has an interview with the Magnus Institute. He doesn’t go. He smashes every spider he sees.

What if:

There is a river, and there is a boat on the river. Two oars sink into the water before splashing back up, rhythmically. There are two bodies on the boat. They smile at each other.

What if:

Jon guides the knife to his heart with shaking fingers. He says “No. But I love you.” He holds Martin’s face in his hands and smiles as gently as he can. “I love you too.” Martin sobs. He doesn’t feel the knife. He does feel the kiss.

#fic #my fic #tma finale #tma spoilers #post mag200 #jonathan sims #martin blackwood #jonmartin #((im sorry i know other people have made a similar concept with better execution but i needed to get it out))#((i just have so many thoughts))#((but my head is also empty))

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fuckthisshitimin · 2 years

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Working for the knife - Mitski

[ID: A digital piece drawing parallels between Melanie and Jon from The Magnus Archives, along lyrics from Mitski’s “Working for the knife”.

The page, in warm brown and yellow tones only challenged by the blue of Melanie’s hair dye, is divided into four panels by a Bowie knife with a coffin grip hat stands at the center like a cross, emanating light and dripping blood.

From left to right and bottom to top, a portrait of Melanie looking through the viewer in a fighting stance, slicing the air in front of her with a knuckle knife. She is covered in tattoos, piercings and acne. The lyrics read “I always thought the choice was mine”, and go on “and I was right but I just chose wrong” onto a drawing of Jon holding a pair of medical pliers, removing the bullet from Melanie’s leg, visibly strained. Along the blade, the images are larger: Melanie’s face as she stands with an already bloody eye, expression painful as she points the tip of an awl to her still viable eye. The lyrics say “I start the day lying”, continuing “and end with the truth” on the other side of the blade where Jon is covered with scars, adorning a weary smile as he uncovers his chest and holds a knife out towards the viewer, an unseen Martin. Both images are decorated with a logo: Melanie’s shows a closed eye gone through by an awl, and Jon’s, an open eye pierced by a dagger. The lyrics, at the bottom center, conclude “that I’m dying for the knife”.

Signed, Meaningless Mikhaïl. End ID.]

IT’S DONE!

It only took me ten days. Urgh. Composition is hard. Fun, but hard.

But I’m happy with it and hopefully I’ll get this song stuck in your head as it has been in mine.

#tma #tma fanart #mikhail draws #cw blood.#jonathan sims #jarchivist #melanie king #knife wife #mitski #working for the knife #the magnus archives #the magnus pod #the magnus archives fanart #melanie king fanart #mag 200 #tma s4 #tma s5 #jon and melanie

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snailsdraw · 3 years

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[Start ID:

Continuation of the post-Season 5 fan comic of The Magnus Archives, pages 12 to 16, featuring Jon, Martin, Sasha, and Tim.

Jon is a short, skinny Indian man with a bearded face, long dark, but greying hair, and scars littered across his body. He wears spectacles, a sweater, long pants and boots. He also has a black ace ring on his right middle finger. Martin is a taller, fat white man with an unshaven face, light-coloured mullet hair, and sparse pock-mark scars on his face and arms. He also has spectacles, is wearing a jacket pulled over a t-shirt, long pants, and sneakers. Sasha is a tall, slim black woman who has round spectacles. She is wearing a baggy shirt tucked into drawstring shorts, high sneakers and a swimming cap. Tim is a shorter, stocky South-East Asian (singaporean chinese) man with a goatee, a dark-haired mullet, and scars littered across his body. He has a slit in his left eyebrow, and he is wearing a collared shirt with swiss cheese plant patterns cuffed at the elbows and cuffed long pants.

First Image: We see a kayak paddle plunged into water along the side of what looks like a quickly soaking mattress lined skimpily on the bottom with bubble-wrap. A voice comes from off-screen, "Tim? A little help would be appreciated?". In the next panel, the scene is zoomed out to reveal Sasha and Tim afloat on the mattress in the lake. The mattress is, as we can now confirm, lined along the bottom with bubble-wrap, but they're falling off and floating away. In other words, the mattress is losing buoyancy, Sasha is kneeling, holding onto the kayak paddle, and casting a worried glance over her shoulder at a laid-back Tim, lying across the width of the mattress with arms folded behind his head. There is a carefree grin on his face. "Naahhh...", he says, "I've looong accepted our watery fate.". In the last panel, we see Sasha from Tim's point-of-view. He has stuck his barefoot in the air, comparing it to Sasha's covered feet. "After all, "A vessel doomed, will soak the shoon.".". Sasha looks down behind her, frowning, at her soon doomed-to-be-wet footwear AND at Tim's odd phrase.

Second Image: The panel continues to be from Tim's perspective looking at Sasha, but now Sasha's expression has gone from upset to teasing. "Hey, you're just making stuff up now.". The next panel has us now looking at the both of them from the front, Sasha cut off at the shoulders and Tim, who has since shot up into a semi-sitting position, in full-view. Tim has an open palm to his chest, eyes wide in mock offense as he gasps dramatically. "Sasha. James. Did you just accuse me of dishonesty?? Your bestest buddy pal, Tim??". Sasha's eyes are closed in satisfaction at this reaction. The last panel views both of them from the left side. Tim still has his left hand flat to his chest, chin tilted up and eyes closed in a defiant look. "James, for false allegations against one Timothy Stoker, I sentence you to going down with this boat.". Sasha mimics him, nose in the air, as she retorts playfully, "Objection, your honour! The defendant has said nothing but the truth.", to which Tim replies, "Overruled."

Third Image: The angle has shifted, and we now see Tim settling back down on his elbow onto the mattress from under Sasha's lifted elbow as she brings the paddle back into the water. Sasha is cut off from the shoulders up. "Why DID you bring your shoes onboard? YOU planned this," Tim asks, an eyebrow raised in enquiry. "We'd have to walk back barefoot! Some people would rather not have muddy feet in shoes, y'know?" Sasha replies. Tim turns away, looking forward with a grin, but one more of defeat. "Liar," he utters under his breath. Sasha pauses her rowing, seeming to have spot something ahead of them. The last panel is at Sasha's eye level, cutting them off at chest level. Her left hand has come to shield over her eyes as she squints at what she spots ahead. "Tim, do you see that canoe?". At that, Tim's head pops up from his place behind her, alert and looking.

Fourth Image: We see the expanse before Tim and Sasha, the mountains, the trees and the lake. And on the lake is a small canoe in the distance, gradually approaching. "Hey, Sash?", Tim asks. The dialogue flows into the next panel, featuring them both from the chest and up. "Which one...out of the two of us had that "Greek phase" again?". Sasha doesn't respond immediately, still studying the canoe off-screen. The next panel focuses on Sasha, her thumb pressed to her lower-lip in scrutiny of the approaching canoe. When Tim asks, "...y' got any obolus on you?", she replies in response to his earlier question, "Yeahh, YOUR phase, most likely.". Obolus was a form of Ancient Greek currency, and Tim is referencing the Greek ferryman of the dead, Charon, when he was looking at the canoe. In the last panel, we see the approaching canoe a little closer, the silhouettes of Martin, who is rowing the canoe, and Jon more apparent atop it. "Something's...familiar about those silhouettes...", notes Sasha. "Is that-"

Fifth Image: "MARTIN??", she exclaims, leaned far forward in her side profile. Next to her panel is Martin's half of the panel, a diagonal space separating the two panels. Martin looks confused. "Wait, is that Tim?". The next three panels are in one continuous line, featuring Jon seen from behind Martin's back. He's not paying attention at first, thoughts lingering elsewhere and eyes directed at the floor, but then he registers what Martin has just said. "Wh- Tim? Tim Stoker?" he asks, suddenly attentive and incredulous. "Yeah, over there," Martin responds, pointing to the small figures on the still far away adrift mattress in this new panel, at the shorter one on the left with his arm stretched in front of the other figure in particular.

End ID.]

Links to page 1 to 4 here (tw blood and knife), and pages 5 to 11 here.

[Sasha and Tim have joined the party.]

#it's 4am i'm gonna bed #my art #tma #the magnus archives #tma sasha #tma tim #tma jon #tma martin #snail's art #post mag200 au

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bluejayblueskies · 3 years

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Could you do 11 for the kiss prompt and make it jmart,,

11 - “I almost lost you” kiss

takes place post-mag 200, somewhere else. loosely inspired by this art

ao3 link in source!

cw for blood, mentions of death and knife violence, mild body horror

The first thing Martin notices when he opens his eyes is that it’s bright. He squints and squeezes his eyes shut again, blocking out the yellow-white sunlight and letting out a small groan as his head throbs with the beginning of a headache.

Sunlight.

Martin’s breath hitches in his throat. He opens his eyes again, barely more than a sliver so as not to blind himself but enough to see the sky, endlessly blue and stretching above him for miles. A small laugh bubbles up from within him; once it’s out, another follows until he’s giggling, breathing in air that smells clean and fresh like warm summer mornings and letting the sunlight kiss his skin, warming him from the outside in.

The second thing he notices is that he’s alone.

A jolt of fear rushes through him and he sits up so suddenly that his head spins. Before him is nothing but green grass and pink and yellow flowers, spreading over the gently swelling hills and brushing up against the horizon. Beside him is nothing but a knife, sticky and red, half-buried in the foliage.

He’s alone.

“Jon?” he says, the word hoarse and quiet as he shakes off the last vestiges of sleep. His heart is in his throat. “Jon?” he calls, louder, again and again until he’s shouting. At some point he stands, leaving the knife on the ground beside him and ignoring the way that his hand and arm and chest are painted crimson, and starts wading his way through the meadow, scanning every inch of flower-covered earth for a flash of brown, a shape in the grass, anything to indicate that he didn’t end up here alone.

I can’t be alone. It was supposed to be together, one way or another—I can’t be alone.

After a few minutes, Martin stops walking, feeling something icy cold leak into the cavity of his chest. “Jon,” he says, the word scooped-out and hollow. “Please, Jon, I- I need you.” He lifts a hand to run it through his hair, sees a flash of rusty red, and flinches. A bit frantically, he scrubs his hand against the thigh of his trousers, rubbing away as much of the red as he can. He doesn’t realize he’s crying until he lifts his clean hand and scrubs it across his face; it comes away wet.

He’s dead, Martin thinks with an aching, tearing feeling in his chest. I- I killed him.

Something within Martin cracks and then he’s crying, ugly, hiccupping sobs that overtake him and steal all of the breath from his lungs. He presses the heels of his hands into his eyes and hears the awful keening noises coming out of his mouth and thinks, I killed him, I killed him, I killed him.

I’m sorry, Martin, the Jon in his mind says calmly, looking at Martin with eyes that crackle gold. Oh, Martin, he says, a hand going to Martin’s cheek as Martin feels horror grip him tightly and begin to tear him apart. I’m still me, Martin, he says, even as golden eyes begin to blink open on the side of his neck and atop his hands and across his cheeks. It’s fine, Martin, he says, hands going to his pocket for a lighter that isn’t there. Martin, get out of here! as the building begins to crumble. Martin, please! as he begins to fragment, skin cracking and golden light seeping out along the fissures. Martin, Martin, Martin.

“Martin!”

Martin draws in a shocked, shuddering breath and lowers his hands.

And then Jon’s in front of him and crashing into him and wrapping his arms around him, clinging to Martin tightly and fiercely like he’ll float away if he lets go. Jon’s hair tickles Martin’s chin as he presses his face into the crook of Martin’s neck and his hands are tangled in the ragged knit of Martin’s jumper and Martin can ever-so-faintly feel the hummingbird-fast thrumming of Jon’s heart against his chest, and that’s what breaks him in the end. A sharp, crackling sob rips its way out of Martin’s throat and he wiggles his arms free from Jon’s so he can hug him in return, feeling the bumpy knobs of Jon’s spine against his palms and the uneven press of Jon’s ribs against his stomach and Jon’s heartbeat, quick but steady and alive.

“Jon,” Martin says breathlessly, burying his nose in Jon’s hair and squeezing him tighter than what must be comfortable, his chest heaving with relieved sobs. “You… you’re alive.”

“I’m alive,” Jon echoes quietly, his hands uncurling from Martin’s jumper and beginning to rub soothing circles across Martin’s shoulder blades. “I’m okay, Martin. I’m okay.”

Nothing’s okay is Martin’s first instinct, born of nearly four years of one terrible event after another. But he can still feel the gentle presence of sunlight against the back of his neck and the air smells of flowers and grass tickles his ankles and Jon’s heart is beating and they’re alive. They’re both alive, and Martin pushes all other thoughts to the side—where they are, what happened to everyone else, how Jon is alive and uninjured and well—and focuses on Jon’s breath against the side of his neck and the relief that’s consuming him whole.

After what might be minutes or what might be hours, Martin pulls back just enough to see Jon’s face. It’s smudged with dust and dirt, peppered with familiar circular scars, and his eyes when they meet Martin’s are a warm hazel. It’s enough to pull another short, sharp sob out of Martin’s throat. “I thought- I thought you were gone,” Martin hiccups, bringing a hand to Jon’s face and resting his palm against Jon’s cheek, partly to reassure himself that this is real and partly so he can feel the way that Jon leans into his touch, mouth curling into a smile that’s sad around the edges as he lets out a small, contented sigh.

“I’m here,” Jon says, pressing his hands firmly against Martin’s back as if to accentuate his point. “I… I’m sorry for worrying you.”

Martin can’t help it—he laughs at that, something raw and a bit unstable. “Yeah,” he says, voice pitched slightly higher than normal. “I… yeah.” He holds in another giggle, rubs his thumb over the top of Jon’s cheekbone, and says softly, “I- I almost lost you, Jon. I- I don’t know what I would have—”

He cuts off with a broken noise, and Jon says quickly, “It’s okay, Martin. It- it’s okay. I’m here, I promise. I… I’m here. You haven’t lost me.” Jon hesitates, then turns his head and presses a soft kiss to the center of Martin’s palm. “You haven’t lost me,” he repeats, barely more than a whisper.

“Okay,” Martin says just as softly before leaning down and kissing him.

Jon exhales against Martin’s mouth and wraps his arms tighter around Martin, bringing them closer until they're pressed together fully, joined at the mouth and the chest and the hip. Jon tilts his head, parts his lips slightly, and Martin deeps the kiss without hesitation, trying to memorize the feel of Jon’s mouth against his as he kisses him until he’s breathless, until he’s forgotten where he ends and Jon begins.

“I love you,” Jon whispers, pulling back and resting his forehead against Martin’s. He presses a chaste kiss to the corner of Martin’s mouth, then another on his lips. “I- I’m sorry, Martin. I didn’t—”

“Hey, hey,” Martin says quickly, pulling back and tilting Jon’s head up with his hand until he can meet Jon’s eyes. “It’s…” It’s okay, he wants to say, but he doesn’t know if that’s true. “We can talk about it later, okay?” he says instead, offering Jon a small, weak smile.

“Okay,” Jon echoes, giving Martin a quiet smile of his own. He withdraws one of his hands from Martin’s back and lifts it to cover the hand Martin has on his cheek, pressing down gently. “Later.”

Martin presses one more kiss to Jon's lips and then moves away, shifting the position of their hands until his fingers are tangled with Jon’s. “Come on, then. I suppose we should figure out where we are.”

“I suppose so.” Jon lets out a small, breathy laugh and squeezes Martin’s hand tightly. “Well, then. Lead the way.”

#tma #the magnus archives #jonathan sims #martin blackwood #jonmartin #my writing #my fic #yes it's another 'jmart wake up somewhere else fic' and what about it

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equalseleventhirds · 3 years

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new & improved (for a certain value of ‘improved’) version of this, bcos jonny left me with multiverse and no bodies, so i can do WHATEVER I WANT actually

---

“Jon? Jon! Jon, wake up, please!”

Martin doesn’t know where he is or why; one moment they’re being buried in the rubble of a collapsing Panopticon, the next he’s kneeling over Jon’s bloody body on a dusty gray floor. Where and why don’t matter, though; what matters is Jon.

Possibly also the horrible, throbbing pain in his head and most of his body from being hit by chunks of falling stone, but he can deal with that later. He’s good at dealing with his own stuff later.

But Jon is covered in blood, and lying so still, and Martin is still holding the knife that’s stuck in his chest.

There was something about that, right? On some documentary, or on the internet, or maybe it was one of those historical-fantasy-adventure films Tim liked to watch. About not taking the knife out after getting stabbed, or you’d bleed to death faster.

You’re supposed to apply pressure, aren’t you? Apply pressure. Don’t take out the knife. Don’t push the knife in deeper, either.

He wishes he had more hands.

“He,” a voice from behind him says, “needs a hospital. You might, too. Do you suppose there are hospitals here?”

Martin turns, and then remembers he has to keep applying pressure, and tries to keep his hands on Jon while still glaring over his shoulder at Annabelle fucking Cane, who is here for some reason and watching them with mild interest.

“What are you doing here? What do you want?”

“Oh, lots of things. But I think you’re asking the wrong questions, Martin.”

“Oh! Great! Thank you!” He’s trying for sarcastic but he knows the panic is still in his tone. That’s fine. He is panicking. “And what questions should I be asking, then, while my boyfriend bleeds to death?”

She taps her chin thoughtfully. “Well, first, where are we might be up there, because that leads up to are there hospitals here and can I get to one in time if there are. You might also want to try does anyone here know emergency first aid, perhaps?”

“What are you talking about?”

Annabelle kneels down next to him, pulling... yes, that’s definitely a huge wad of spiderweb, woven into long, tight strips like gauze. She yanks one strip out and grins at him, holding it over Jon’s bleeding wound.

“If I promise not to put spiders in, will you let me use these?”

Martin isn’t sure he has much of a choice.

#tma spoilers #algie writes things #fanfiction #and then she wraps them up and there are in fact hospitals here #and they go on their quest to stop the fears #but in fact they wind up jumping from universe to universe #it's fine! it's fine.#(this is 'improved' bcos it's canon compliant-ish and martin is there #this is not 'improved' bcos annabelle is no longer the pov character and i adore her #but it works better for her to be on the sidelines this way)#oh uhhh #injury cw #blood cw #knives cw

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bibliocratic · 4 years

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I come bearing a sort-of fic idea! (Only if you feel inspired to use it, of course 😊) Back in ep 101, Martin figures out that/where the Stranger has taken Jon, and goes all BAMF to save him, using either Web powers or his developing Backup Archivist powers to do it. (Dealer's choice) Some of that sweet sweet emotional h/c...

Dearest anon, this fic has been so long in the writing, and it’s only distantly related to what you asked for. Hope you like it regardless. :)

Set in an S3 AU, implied JonMartin. Tim-centric.

Content warnings for strongly implied graphic violence, canonical S3 captivity and imprisonment, hospitals and hospitalisation. Rated T for language and implied violence

Jon’s skittering, sprawl-legged slam against the archive door startles Tim from the shadowed walkways of his reveries.

The tilted legs of his chair thump back in a slap to the floor. Almost physically wrenched into the now, there’s a snapback to Tim’s spine, a vice-clench knot tightening in his jaw. His mood cranking up from frosty to furious.

“The fuck?” he barks at the intrusion. His snarling primed with teeth, his temper clawed to rend. He’s up and standing, whereas Jon’s practically handing off the door handle, the impact of his arrival almost knocking his legs out like ten pins from under him. An ugly, airless heaving of his chest. His eyes bloodshot, wild. In the weeks since Tim saw him, his hair has grown out unwashed and limp. His skin shimmering wrong in the light in a way that’s oddly greasy.

He’s a shattering mannequin of a man tending to ruin but Tim’s long pared down his own capacity for compassion. He loads up his questions in their chambers, and he knows where to place emphasis, where to press at the bruising, the soft-tissue targets; where the hell have you been, oh wait, don’t fucking bother, why would you even tell us anything anyway huh, because you don’t even trust us. So why the bloody hell should we care where you go galivanting off to for weeks without a word, fine by us, just fucking peachy.

“Martin,” Jon rasps out finally. His words floundering beached in his mouth, and Tim has never seen this particular mania, this bruise-sick shade of pathetic desperation. “T-tim, please, help, please, god, i-i-it’s Martin.”

Jon’s spasming, quivering hands are staining brown with blood.

“He wouldn’t have just left! Not – not like – like this!”

“You mean without saying anything. Not sharing with the class. I dunno, Martin, sounds exactly like something he’d have done. Classic Jon.”

“I’m telling you, something’s wrong!”

“Ha – everything’s wrong. Narrow it down.”

“You know what I mean! Something’s… He should be here, is all I’m saying, and Elias, well he’s useless but he – he knows something, I’m sure of it. We have to do something.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know! Find him!”

“Maybe he doesn’t want to be found. Huh, what about that? Maybe he’s finally managed to fuck off and leave here, legged it and left the rest of us to rot.”

“You don’t mean that.”

“I do.”

“We should – ”

“No. No, listen, Martin. This isn’t a team sport. Jon made his choice to go this alone. If he’s gone off somewhere, then that’s on him. There’s no ‘we’.”

“There used to be.”

Martin didn’t come in for work, and Tim assumed he’d left. Just like Jon.

He’d stewed in that betrayal, pacing lupine and furious, bricking up the walls of himself with his self-righteous anger. Because he’d been right, hadn’t he, he’d been vindicated in his bitterness, because of course Martin had left scurrying after Jon, of course there was never any loyalty to Tim despite his pretensions to their friendship. Of course, Martin hadn’t fucking stayed, and Tim was glad he was gone, free of his nagging and needling and whining.

Tim was acquitted in all his furies, every one of his poisonous doubts. The rose-thorns of his betrayals tore deeper, and he let the wounds fester.

Elias arrives in the aftermath.

Jon collapsed not too long ago. Shock and dehydration and whatever the hell happened to him threaded through him like blood poisoning. He’d babbled to the ambulance crews, his tongue a senseless oracle of clowns and skin and blood. They’d given him a shock blanket, the foil treating the light around them erratically, but he kept shaking it off and trying to stand, dressed in grubby boxers, an overlong coat, the fabric worn to grey at the pockets and stretched to billowing at the chest, clearly belonging to Martin.

It was hard for Tim to hate him like that, even as he’d barked at Jon to stay down. Jon’s face a theatre mask of ghoulish blood, begging the paramedics to help Martin, manic and spiralling.

The old bastard had had a heart after all.

There’s a bank of chairs outside the part of the ward where they’re keeping Jon. He’s pin-cushioned with IV’s, a set of machines monitoring his vitals. He wakes fitfully, and every waking is a pitiful confusion before he sinks back under.

Martin’s still in surgery.

Elias, deigning to leave his ivory tower, his face formed in an impeccable replica of concern. He wants to speak to Jon. To have, as he put it, ‘a private word’. He talks a precisely ordered stream of bullshit in his infuriatingly reasonable tone, about all this being such a terrible tragedy, such a blow to their little family, if only they’d known. Poor Martin, of course, what a horrible ordeal, we’ll naturally help him with recovery, cover any time off, no expense considered.

Tim watches his mouth move, and knows in his gut that Elias could have stopped all this.

That he chose not to.

Elias doesn’t get within a hundred feet of Jon. Tim makes sure of it.

Jon does not speak for days. Delirious and distraught. Martin’s condition worsens, then stabilises, then lingers at critical. There are several more operations, and Tim does not know what they are doing, only that they are reforming a heap of blood and bone back into a person.

Tim wants to know what happened. Where Jon went, where Martin found him, who he needs to hate.

Tim learns to temper his frustration, the desire for knowing that curls at the bottom of his stomach. It is not a natural wanting, and it’s a spiteful, gleeful action, to deny that rot within him.

“Tim?”

“Stay still, boss,” Tim says. “You’ll pull everything out.”

Jon doesn’t say anything more for a long while. Tim shifts uneasy on the chair provided, thinking, hoping that Jon might have sunk back into sleep, when:

“Martin? Is he…?”

Jon turns his head to look at him. His eyes wide, beseeching, wet with fear. Wanting Tim to make this all ok.

Jon’s eyes in this light are a lot like Danny’s. Tim sucks back a hard breath, and doesn’t meet his gaze, and he knows that only distresses Jon further, who will take the avoidance as a death knell, as a punishment he is expecting to have earned.

“He’s alive, boss,” Tim says eventually. The words hard won. “He’s… he’ll be alright.”

That could be a lie. He doesn’t know much these days.

“Th-there was a room,” Jon stammers one day. He’s sat up, pillows stuffed behind his back. Tim’s bought him an apple juice carton like you buy for children, and he hasn’t touched it, even to push the plastic straw through the top.

His fingers at his lap twist, twist, twist.

“It must have been a … a factory floor, or something. One of those old textile mills or something, up near Manchester. It used to have those big machines for spinning cotton, there were big, discoloured spaces on the boards where they would have sat. There were columns, load-bearing, every fifty feet or so, and t-the chair that they – they had me tied to was anchored against one of those s-so it didn’t – so I couldn’t move it, or knock it over. I-I don’t know how long I was… I.” Jon stops, out of breath. “I don’t even know the date.”

Tim tells him. Jon blinks, and murmurs ‘oh’ like it’s not what he was expecting. His hands are shaking. Tim should reach out, shouldn’t he, it should not be this difficult to provide comfort.

His hands have forgotten how easily reassurance used to come to him.

“Th-they didn’t, they didn’t hurt me. Not, well, not exactly, I-I-I mean, it wasn’t – they wanted me unharmed.” Jon’s voice has crept small and crouched, words tuck under his tongue. “They were waiting. For the right time. They were going to t-take my, um, my skin. For their – for the ritual.”

“Christ.” Tim hisses out, because that is fucked, this whole thing is fucked. How the hell is this the way their lives have turned.

Only Jon’s fingers, his restless hands make noise for the next minute.

“I don’t know how Martin found me,” Jon says.

Tim has a creeping suspicion. It’s the same thing that helps Tim spits out exactly the right seeds to allow hurt to take root. What told Martin that there was something wrong. He could call it intuition, but that’s not how their world works.

Gifts, of a sort. For their faithful service at the temple of their all-seeing god.

“He tried to get me out. Snuck in somehow, cut the ropes with this – huh, this battered old kitchen knife. But I couldn’t… they’d had me tied to the chair for so long that standing up was… I couldn’t walk, and it’s my fault, he was half-carrying me but – I slowed him down, a-and then Nikola came back. And I couldn’t do, I couldn’t do anything, there’s never anything I can do, and they pulled me away and I. I tried, Tim, I-I tried, and I wasn’t… please, Tim, you’ve got to believe I tried to stop them.”

Jon’s fingers are moving to fist in his hair, yanking, tugging, his spine moving to fold himself over.

“Stop,” Tim says sharply. Trying to loosen Jon’s clenched hold.

“I tried, I tried – everything, I offered them anything they wanted, and they just kept – I-I-I tried, Tim.”

“I know,” Tim replies. Quieter. Softer. Separating Jon’s hands from his hair, pressing them back down to his lap, his burnt one held over the other pocked with worm scars. Tim doesn’t move his own away from the fragile tower they’ve made. “I – I know, Jon.”

“Martin – there was more of them. It was easy for them, to hurt him until he stopped struggling. They didn’t tie him up, they knew they didn’t need to. A-and Nikola, she was… she s-s-smiled as they pushed him over onto his back. She – she kept smiling. And she said they didn’t need the two of us. That they could have a bit of fun, a bit of – ” Jon’s voice chokes horrified. “A bit of practise. And wouldn’t I like that. To watch. To give the Eye something to look at.”

Jon crumples into tears then. In on himself like a disintegrating star. Tim feels cold and distant for a moment as he watches this shipwreck as though through the porthole of another boat. Listening to Jon’s hitching sobbing from elsewhere.

The rage is burning off him to reveal something plain and hideous in its humanity, and Tim hates it.

Jon falls apart, and Tim stays.

“You know your Archivist killed them all? He’s got a bit of a temper on him after all. Must be all that repression.”

The newest form of the Distortion still smiles like a headache. Her fingers curve corkscrewing. Tim, who is trying to get a Snickers from the vending machine two wards along from Jon, whips his head around to glower at the unwelcome visitor.

“What do you want?”

The Distortion, who has previously called themselves Michael, and is now still Michael but not entirely, whose face has refracted into a different form – there’s been a sort of change in management, if you like, except, well, that’s not really it at all, but do feel free to call me Helen.

“I was hoping for a teeny bit of gratitude. I was the gallant rescue, after that assistant of yours blundered in and made such a pig’s ear of it.”

Tim snarls. The Distortion’s expression wavers displeased.

“Ooh, touchy, alright. Calm down, firecracker. I bought them both back breathing for you. Your Archivist would be still strapped to a chair in Stockport if it wasn’t for me, to say nothing of that woebegone assistant. Blood all over my carpets.”

Tim ignores her. The glint in her eyes suggests she’s disappointed not to have riled him up.

“What now then?”

“Well, you won’t have to worry about the Circus for a while! Dear Jonathan’s seen to that quite splendidly. Knew he had it in him. Although, I suspect, even he didn’t know he could. The Circus was always good at pushing too far.”

“And you. What about you?”

The Distortion’s smile reflects a hundred alternatives.

“Oh, I’m just waiting to see what happens next.”

Tim’s thoughts have been straying to Danny a lot. Naturally, all things considered, his trauma’s head reared high and made horrifically manifest.

Jon is not like Danny was, too stiff and self-conscious in his own bones. But Danny’s skin had been lit up with that same live-wire intensity that last night, smeared in shadows and exhaustion and tears that shone foreign on his cheeks. Tim had not recognised the crying, silent, shaking stranger in his room, just as he barely recognises Jon.

Watching him finally fall apart holds no victory for any of them.

Martin is not like Danny was. Taller, for one, wound-up over tight in his own clockwork of fears. He’d be about Danny’s age though. Maybe.

Danny went back to the Covent Garden Theatre, alone, and the being that had then gone by the name of Joseph Grimaldi had torn off his skin as easily as wrapping paper.

Martin went alone. He didn’t ask Tim for help, because he knew Tim would have said no, and there’s an ashy shame coating his tongue, knowing it would have been true.

It’s powerlessness that’s snarled him up in barbed wire, toothless and immobile. Tim’s felt powerless for a long time. That is not going to stop.

But his anger hasn’t protected him. Hasn’t protected Jon. Certainly hasn’t protected Martin.

Jon is not in bed when Tim goes back during visiting hours. The nurse directs him to another ward, indicating in few words that this jaunt was neither encouraged nor advised, but the patient was not one to be dissuaded.

Sounds like Jon.

The man himself has dressed erratically in the spares Tim bought. A t-shirt that is divorced from his own style, the colouring drawing him over-sallow, the jeans too short and trailing above his ankle. He’s squashed himself into a chair, his back folded like a shepherd’s crook, his scatter-shot energy spent into exhaustion. His hand in Martin’s wrapped one.

Martin’s awake. The ministrations of the Circus left his face mostly alone, clear enough for tubing to be threaded into his nostrils and down his throat but the bandaging is extensive. Tim would have thought he’d be away with the fairies on morphine by now, and rightly so, but his jaw sets imperious when he sees Tim. He doesn’t let go of Jon’s hand.

“You doing alright there, Marto?” Tim asks. There is another chair nearby that’s been left by a visitor long gone, and he drags it over. Tim chooses to keep his voice low, chooses to squash the anger that sparks up in him at the violence done to Martin’s body.

“What does it look like?” Martin replies. Not snapping, no wisp of anger there, but there’s a pained whipcord strain to his response, a forced pace to his breathing.

“I thought they’d have you on the good stuff,” Tim says after a moment.

Martin gestures with imprecise movements at a remote off to his right, a grey blocky shape with buttons, hooked up to some sort of patient-controlled analgesia machine.

“You not taken any?”

Martin, as best as he can, shakes his head.

“Why?”

“I just don’t want to, alright?”

Tim doesn’t push. The silence between the two of them is protracted, uncomfortable, but Tim can stand to learn some patience.

Martin’s eyes are watery, clearly trying to push through the pain. Jon sleeps on.

“He won’t tell me,” Martin says. “But it’s bad. I know it’s bad. Right?”

“Yes.”

Martin deserves his honesty. Tim doesn’t know how long Martin suffered on that factory floor until Jon ripped the Circus’ sawdust out with his fury. Long enough for the bandages to coat his arms and legs and back like lacquer, changed multiple times a day to make sure the skin grafts take, and the stitching holds.

Tim should have been there. Like he should have been there for Danny.

“God, Martin,” he says, and he’s surprised to find his throat has clenched tight. “It’s… I’m so sorry.”

“What are you sorry for? I went and got myself…” Martin trails off, swallows with difficulty. “I did this, it was all, all me. Fat lot of good it did.”

“You don’t know that…” Tim starts, but Martin looks at him and he seethes without raising his voice.

“What good’s come out of this then? Go on, Tim, tell me. I’m a – I’m a mess, and what the fuck do I have to show for it. What the fuck have any of us gained from this? I just fucked up, and it – I thought I was going to die. And worse, I thought they mightn’t let me, that they might take what they left as scraps a-a-and – ” Martin’s jaw clacks shut as he pushes down his distress.

“You saved Jon.”

“I didn’t though. The bloody – the bloody door monster showed up and did that simply fine without my help!”

“You don’t know that. You don’t know what you changed. God, Martin, this whole, this entire thing is all so, it’s fucked, right, it’s…” Tim’s voice wobbles, cracks. “But you tried to do something. You tried to help. And I’m – I’m so sorry you did it alone.”

Martin doesn’t leap to forgiveness. But he nods and Tim puts his hand on the wrappings up his arm and he doesn’t move away.

“What now?” he asks after a moment.

“I don’t know.”

Martin closes his eyes.

“I’m tired,” he confesses. “I’m just so tired of all… all this.”

“We’ll think of something,” Tim says. Finding that he means it. It’s not a promise, but it’s as good as he’s able to offer these days. “You should take some of that morphine. It’ll… it’ll help.”

“It makes me feel out of it. Like, sluggish. And everything’s far away.”

“That means it’s working, Marto,” Tim says, trying for light-hearted, but Martin’s shaking his head, and the shivering is back in his hands. A wide and trembling glaze to his expression.

“If they come back…”

He doesn’t finish his sentence.

“I’ll stay,” Tim says. Pats Martin’s arm in a way he hopes conveys reassurance.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Martin nods. Tim helps him grasp the grey remote, push down the button. It’s not long before Martin’s drifted off.

Tim sits there for a long while, thinking about the future.

#tma #tim stoker #fic #martin blackwood #jonathan sims #cw violence #cw implied torture #cw hospitals #hurt/comfort #the magnus archives

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voiceless-terror · 4 years

Note

Oooo 16 mixed with 39 w Jon for the fluff/angst prompts?

Hello there, anon! Can you believe, that in all of my whump fics, I’ve yet to tackle the bread knife incident? High time we corrected that. The two prompts this is referencing are- “Do you need to go to the hospital?” and “If you don’t rest you won’t get any better.” Had this written for a bit, but I spruced it up and decided to post as I’m working on reconstructing chapters. Hope you like!

“Jesus Christ.”

“I-It’s not as bad as it looks.”

Admittedly, it doesn’t look great.

There’s a trail of blood following Jon to the sink, a bloody handprint or two on the counter (and probably a few door handles), and his shirt is similarly stained, the rumpled white button-up painted with red. The slice (more than a slice, probably a stab) to his arm bled more than he anticipated and is probably still bleeding under the towel he’s currently using to stifle the flow. Jon’s swaying where he stands; the loss of blood has him feeling weak, and the dizziness and dull throb in his head leftover from Michael hasn’t abated. All in all, he must look a mess.

Judging by Martin and Tim’s expressions, this is probably a fair assessment. Martin immediately goes to his side, though Jon flinches away as he tries to reach for his arm. He tamps down the guilt he feels at Martin’s look of rejection. “It’s n-nothing, really-”

“Nothing?” Tim scoffs, slowly making his way over as he dodges Jon’s mess. “We leave you alone for twenty minutes and suddenly you’re finger painting with blood. The hell happened?”

“Did you reopen one of your wounds?” Martin’s hands are hovering above his arm, like he’s trying to approach a skittish animal. “I told you not to pick at them-”

“Uh, n-no.” Jon leans against the counter- his vision’s starting to go, he should’ve sat down instead of puttering about like a fool. “It’s-it’s a new one.” Sufficiently cowed by Martin and Tim’s worried stares, he gently removes the towel with a hiss and yes, it’s still bleeding profusely. Damn.

Tim hurriedly pressed the towel back down, leading him over to a chair as Martin lets out one of his disbelieving squeaks. Tim’s always been good in a crisis and Jon wants to lean into the touch but something in the back of his mind rebels against it, whispering paranoid nothings in his ear. Wrong wrong wrong. There’s something wrong, something bad. Find out. So instead he flinches out of his hold as soon as he’s sat down, ignoring the exasperated look this gets him and putting pressure on the wound himself.

“What did you do?” he asks but Jon doesn’t meet his eyes, instead looking down at his lap. “How’d you get that?”

“A-A sandwich.” He can feel Tim’s stare, practically hears Martin’s fretting. “I-I was-”

“A sandwich,” Tim repeats, his voice deadpan. “A ham and cheese stabbed you.”

“No!” Words aren’t making sense, they’re hard to put together. He wants to lay down, he wants to sleep, he wants to be far away from these people and what they’ve done and what they might still do to him. “I cut myself...making a sandwich. W-With a knife. A bread knife.”

“A bread knife.” Martin’s talking now, his voice high-pitched and concerned. “A bread knife did that.”

“Where is it, then?” He wishes Tim would let up, would just take the story and leave him be, let him bleed.

“I-I put it back. I cleaned it and I put it back.”

“Let me get this straight-”

“For God’s sake, Tim- that doesn’t matter right now!” Now Martin’s at his side, hauling him up out of his seat with a steady hand that takes the brunt of his weight as he lists to the side. “Do you need to go to the hospital?”

“I-”

“Why am I even asking? Of course you do.” Martin’s muttering, already dragging him halfway out the door. “I’ll get us a cab. You two will just bicker the whole way. Take care of all this will you, Tim?” He gestures with one free hand to the mess Jon’s made and Tim just sighs wearily, nodding his head. He throws Jon one last glare but it’s weak and more worried than anything. He feels the guilt bubble up again. He should apologize for the inconvenience, tell them what happened, who visited. But then the voice creeps up, starting its chorus in the back of his mind.

He stays silent. He doesn’t speak as Martin takes more and more of his weight and the world tilts around him. He’s in a cab. Martin’s hand is warm and should be comforting but it isn’t. His arm stings and Helen’s gone and Michael’s laughter echoes and he can feel the worms burrowing back in, and over this cacophony of pain is the miserable choir singing wrong, wrong, something’s wrong someone’s there someone’s watching, waiting until they’ve got you alone-

He struggles in Martin’s hold but its weak and must seem more like a squirm of discomfort, for Martin doesn’t let go, just keeps up his murmured reassurances and his touches that sting like a thousand tiny needles.

He doesn’t know how long they’re at the A & E for. He barely registers Martin dragging him inside or talking to the nurses. He watches dispassionately as the wound’s stitched up, his other scabs disinfected from constant picking. Nobody lectures him or says much of anything- one mention of the Magnus Institute shut them right up. Jon is as much thankful as he is discouraged. He really is alone. He feels it even as he’s shoved back into Martin’s arms with a disingenuous smile and a ‘get well soon!’

Martin’s eyeing him critically as they wait for the cab; Jon’s too tired to fight at the probing hands that inspect the bandages. “Still your story, then?”

“Hm?” The world is hazy, but Michael’s laughter is starting to fade.

“Bread knife.”

“Oh...yes, yes it is.” He tries for some defiance but his voice is small and weary. Martin sighs in turn.

“You know you can tell me about these things, right? Me o-or Tim, maybe Sasha-”

Jon snorts. “Tell you when I’m making lunch?”

Martin’s face remains serious. “If that’s what you want to call it, sure.”

Jon doesn’t want to have this conversation so he nods in a clear dismissal, sighing in relief as a cab pulls up outside. Martin reaches for the car door, helping him in before hurrying to the other side. Jon’s about to tell the driver to take them back to work when Martin interrupts in a no-nonsense tone, rattling off an address with a please and thank you.

It’s Jon’s address.

How does he know my address? Has he been following me? He is the one who found Gertrude’s body, after all. What if- what if-

“I can see your mind going a mile a minute, Jon. What’s wrong?” He startles, moving as far away from Martin as possible and hitting the car door with a wince. Martin continues, his eyes betraying nothing but concern as Jon’s mind spirals. “You’re not going back to work. You just got stitches-”

“How do you know my address?” The words are meant to be an accusation, but they just sound like the bark of a small dog. Martin seems to agree with this assessment because he rolls his eyes, running a hand through his hair. It takes him a moment to gather himself, and every second makes Jon’s heart beat faster until it’s rabbiting in his chest. What does he know, what did he do?

“You don’t remember, do you?” Martin sounds sad, disappointed. It hurts more than Jon would like to admit.

“R-Remember what?”

“You don’t remember the three times I had to do this, back when you were supposed to be on sick leave?” Jon blinks.

He doesn’t remember much of that time. He remembers the pain, the paranoia, the fear- all of it tuned up to a fever-pitch. Trying to go back to work and being promptly shooed out by Martin, who took one look at his limp and still-bleeding wounds and shoved him back in a cab. Was he covering his tracks? Is that why he didn’t want me around? He has the faintest memory of arms scooping him unceremoniously from the trap door to the tunnels at night, this time accompanying him in the cab and making sure he got home, since Jon had exited the cab early and snuck back several times before. It’s embarrassing and disconcerting, these gaps in his memory. Gaps that Martin has to fill. Martin, who he can’t trust. Martin, who’s talking right now.

“- really, Jon- if you don’t rest, you won’t get any better. Tim tells me you’ve been skipping physical therapy, skulking about-”

“I don’t skulk-”

“Well, it’s sure as hell not sneaking if you leave a trail of blood wherever you go!” Martin’s voice raises in frustration, though it immediately quiets as Jon flinches, again. He heaves a massive sigh and pinches the bridge of his nose as if fighting off a headache. “We’re worried, Jon. We’re all worried. About you, about Gertrude, this whole mess- but you’ve got to talk to us. You’ve got to let the police do their job. And for the love of god, let us help you. Because-” he swallows, his next words earnest and spent. “-because we’re scared too. Okay?”

“Okay.”

Martin’s worried. Martin’s scared. Martin found Gertrude’s body. Martin’s always outside his office. Tim’s tired, Tim’s getting angry. Sasha smiles when she shouldn’t smile. Elias is up in his office, telling him everything’s fine and to rest but something’s watching, something’s wrong, Gertrude’s dead and someone killed her and someone’s coming for you next-

The next thing he knows he’s standing outside the door to his flat, Martin at his side. The door looks like a normal door, but Helen went through a door and didn’t come out. She didn’t come out, and Michael laughed, and there’s a war coming and he’s so stupid, so ignorant-

“Are you going to be okay?”

Jon takes the key from his coat pocket with shaking hands, shoving it in the lock. He doesn’t want to go in but he can’t stay out here, not with Martin who found Gertrude, who knows where he lives. “Y-Yes. You can go. Thank you.”

He’s inside before Martin can protest any further, slamming the door shut and leaning against it wearily. It looks like his flat, he hopes it’s his flat. Martin’s talking on the other side, asking him to call if he needs anything. Jon’s not going to do that, of course. He waits for the inevitable sigh, listens until Martin’s footsteps fade away. He’s safe, for now.

He locks the deadbolt.

ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28073586

#prompt fill #my writing #tma #the magnus archives #jonathan sims #martin blackwood #cw blood #injury #paranoia #it's season two and jon's not having a good time #martin tries his best #Anonymous

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1-800-hellraiser · 4 years

Note

Hello can I have some headcanons of Slenderman with a proxy that is like a daughter to him?

Ofc! I put your ask in oneshot form bc I don't necessarily do headcanons like that, if that's okay. I hope you enjoy it! :)

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Memories (Slenderman x Daughter-like!reader)

Requested by: sweetshake-hell

Pages: 761

Words: 2.3

Genre: fluff

Associated song: Memories - David Guetta (ft. Kid Cudi)

!Tw! Swearing, a mention of blood

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

"Those will be the best Memories, I just wanna let it go for tonight."

Before we begin, we're gonna need some backstory on you as a Slender roxy. Some of the most important people in the Slender mansion are Slender's proxies. They're the toughest, ruthless people in the mansion. You, Y/n, are a part of this group, currently Slenders favorite proxy (He refuses to tell Hoodie, Masky, and Toby that though). You're like a daughter to him, if anything happened to you, he would probably become a shut in and spiral into a deep depression.

He's EXTREMELY protective of you, bordering on overprotective. It'll be a cold day in hell if anyone hurts you and gets away with it. The proxies think of you like a sister, they'll go feral if ANYONE lays a finger on you. You and the proxies do essentially everything together, shopping, missions, annyoing Slender, etc. If you get really hurt on a mission, the Proxies and Slebder will be all over you. They'll do just about everything for you, and give you extra love (if that's even possible).

You wake up to your alarm screaming at you, you press the off button and get up. You almost forget it's your birthday today! You hurriedly get ready for the day and make your way down to the living area. You get a notification on your phone, it's Slender telling you that you need to come to his office immediately. You panic, not sure if you're in trouble or not, you quickly make your way to his office. Arriving at the huge wooden doors, you hesitantly knock in them. Slender answers your knocks with a "come in".

Sheepishly, you enter Slender's massive office. You see the tall being with a party hat on, and a wrapped gift set in front of him. "Happy Birthday Y/n!" You hear four voices say to you. Wait...four voices? Toby, Hoodie, and Masky all step out of the shadows, all wearing birthday hats and holding gifts. You're a bit creeped out, but excited nonetheless. "Awww thank you guys! You really didn't have to get me anything!" You say, excitedly bouncing up and down. "Oh no dear, we had to get you gifts, you've been working so hard, also it's rude to perpously not get someone a gift," Slender finishes.

Toby, Hoodie, and Masky all hand you their gifts, Slender motions for you to sit down and open your gifts. You open up Toby's first, Its a F/c hoodie! Your favorite one is covered in bloodstains. Next, you open up Hoodie's gift. It was a very nice, sleek looking pocket knife. Then, you open up Masky's gift. Its a pair of Doc Martins. Stylish, and also high quality and good for work. Lastly, you open Slenders, you pick up a gorgeous silver, heart-shaped locket. You open the locket and on one side is a picture of you, Slender, and the proxies, and on the other, is a message transcribed into the locket.

"Being a family means you are a part of something very wonderful. It means you will love and be loved for the rest of your life." The message in the locket reads. You feel tears well up in your eyes and you embrace the tall eldritch being. "I love you so much dad," you say, he chuckles. "I love you too, dear. Now, lets go cut your cake." You perk your head up at that "You got me a cake?!" You say excitedly, Slender and the proxies nod. You excitedly run downstairs to the kitchen and look in the frdge, there, in all of it's glory, sat a f/f (favorite flavor) homemade cake. Your mouth begins to water.

Snatching the cake from the fridge, you try to cut into it but Toby stopped you. "Y-you need ca-candles for your birthday cake, d-dummy." He says, handing you a few brightly colored candles. You poke the candles into the cake, and light them with the lighter given to you by Masky. The proxies and Slender sing Happy Birthday and then you blow out the candles. You take a knife and cut a slice out of the cake. Today's a great day to be alive.

#ily <3333 #ilysm <333 #<3 <3 <3 #<333 #creepypasta #writers on tumblr #writer #slenderman #creepypasta slenderman #slenderman x reader

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iceeckos12 · 4 years

Note

I trust you for jm?

YES OKAY sorry i meant to write this last night but was way more tired than i thought as;ldkfj. cw for canon typical injuries

The first time Jon said it to Martin, he regretted it immediately after.

“Oh, sure,” he said, the words sharp and biting with sarcasm. He knew it was uncalled for before he even finished talking, but it was like trying to stop a train wreck already in process. “I trust Martin to handle it.”

Martin curled into himself, his shoulders tensing up around his ears, his arms folding against his chest. Tim sent Jon a pointed, reproachful scowl, a far cry from his usual, disarming grin, and he knew that he’d fucked up.

He pressed his lips together, a hot knife of shame pressing up against the inside of his ribcage. His cheeks felt far, far too warm, and he had to say something, to make this better. To explain that it wasn’t Martin, it wasn’t, it was just that something about this place scared him, and when he was scared he lashed out, and...

Martin was already turning away though, roughly grabbing at a stack of folders on Jon’s desk. “It’s fine,” he muttered, not looking at them, and Jon was still frozen in place, his tongue caught between his teeth, trying to work up the courage to speak.

And then Martin was gone, and his window of opportunity was unceremoniously slammed shut.

-0-

The next time Jon said it was well after the first incident. Well after Jane Prentiss, the paranoia, not!Sasha, well after...everything. (He probably couldn’t have said it during that time even if he’d wanted to.)

He left Elias’ office, and halfway down the hall the adrenaline that’d been keeping him upright abruptly deserted him. He made a quiet noise of distress and wobbled into the wall, using it to keep him upright. One hand carefully found the wound at his throat, and he could feel that it was still sluggishly leaking down the front of his shirt.

“Shit,” he whispered. His fingers were covered with blood, and when he looked he could see that they were trembling finely. Whether it was with exhaustion or pain or residual terror, he couldn’t tell. “Shit.”

Don’t think about it.

He took a deep, steadying breath, then another, but the truth was that he was too terrified to calm down. The thought of putting one foot in front of the other, of moving away from this momentary respite, sounded unbearable. Every decision he’d made until now had only made everything worse. It was best if he just remained still, quiet. Maybe then no one would notice him.

He just wanted everything to stop hurting.

“Jon?”

Jon staggered backward, but his knees weren’t quite up to taking his weight yet, and he fell heavily the rest of the way to the floor. His hand instinctively covered his throat even as his eyes frantically sought out whoever had called his name, landing on -

- Martin.

Martin was staring at him with big, concerned, honey-brown eyes. He was doing that thing he did, hunching in on himself, making himself look smaller, less threatening. Judging by the way he was walking though, slow and telegraphing every movement, Jon thought that he might be doing it on purpose. Trying not to scare him further.

Martin swallowed, his eyes flicking from Jon’s face, to his throat, then back again. “Jon,” he said carefully, “Are you okay?”

Jon laughed, a high, breathy sound that made Martin wince. He meant for the words to come out as sarcastic, but they just sounded frail and vulnerable instead. “Do I look okay?”

Martin winced. “Right, stupid question. Can I help you?”

Jon hesitated, remembered the sharp bite of the blade in his neck. Remembered the crawling sensation of worms beneath his skin, the scent of his skin charring and burning as Jude had gripped him ever harder.

Remembered the pain.

“I...” Jon stared at Martin’s hands. They were big, soft looking. As freckled as the rest of him. They didn’t look like the sort of hands that would hurt - but then again, Jude’s hadn’t either. They’d just looked like hands.

“Please, Jon,” Martin begged, his face twisting up in pain and compassion and desperation. “Let someone help you.”

Jon took a deep breath, then another. Slowly, painstakingly, pushed himself upright, watching Martin carefully, deliberating and turning it over from one second to the next.

“I trust you,” he decided at last, and let Martin help him limp downstairs.

-0-

Jon said it all the time, now.

Not always out loud, not always in ways that could immediately be understood. Whenever Martin reached out but paused just before touching, and Jon closed the rest of the distance between them, that was a quiet, unspoken I trust you. Whenever Jon woke from a nightmare, thrashing and terrified out of his mind, and immediately curled into Martin’s reassuring hold, that was an I trust you.

Whenever Martin reached out and Jon, apologetic but firm, shook his head, that was an I trust you.

It took Martin’s breath away every time it happened, every time Jon let him come close. Every time they curled on the couch together with their respective books, and Jon squeezed his wrist, just once, before letting go. Every time they kissed, and Jon broke away just long enough to whisper declarations of love and devotion against his lips.

Jon’s trust had been violated and broken so many times over the past few years, treated like it was nothing more than so little trash. Every time Martin remembered that fragile but certain, I’m making a decision. I trust them. All of them, he wanted to weep. If it had been Martin, he wasn’t sure if he’d have the strength to do the same.

There was nothing he could do about the old, cruel memories of pain, but he could create new ones. He could sweep Jon up into his arms, and press affectionate kisses against his cheeks until he finally broke down laughing. He could smooth his thumb soothingly over the backs of Jon’s scarred knuckles, speaking in hushed voices about everything and nothing. He could grin conspiratorially at Jon as they cooked together in the kitchen, so close their hips and arms kept brushing, like they were sharing a secret.

He could make sure every I trust you was earned, over and over again.

-0-

“I trust you,” Jon said fondly, something soft and warm playing at the corner of his lips. A throwaway comment, repeated so many times that it’d all but lost its meaning.

Martin bit down on the smile that threatened to crack him open, and swept Jon into a kiss.

#ask #anonymous #tma #my writing #iceeckos12 writes #jonmartin #it's jon loving hours yall #cw injuries #warnings for past trauma #ask to tag

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janekfan · 4 years

Note

Saw you were looking for some Jon Tim prompts so here's a few! :D 1) Tim decides to stalk Jon to show him what it feels like. Jon is satisfyingly frazzled; then a fear shows up. 2) Jon protects Tim from the Distortion Michael. Tim's confused. 3) Jon get lost in the tunnels. Perhaps Tim can hear him from the trap door and ends up pulling him out. They're both in bad shape and Martin is ticked. 4) Tim finds Jon after he gets stabbed by Michael. Happy Prompt Hunting!

I went with number 4! :D All are very good though

https://archiveofourown.org/works/28436451

Jon was being shifty again.

Not like that was anything new, and Tim had caught wind of a bread knife rumor?

But whatever. It was no concern of his and he’d rather go the day withouth seeing him if he could. Avoid the hot spike of poisonous anger that followed after every infuriating interaction and seeped, staining, into all other aspects of his life. Better to leave him be. Let Basira and Daisy and Melanie and Martin deal with him and leave Tim to work on his high scores.

So of course it would just be the two of them in the office today. Martin dropped off Jon’s tea like clockwork and strode bitterly out of the Archives without so much as glancing at Tim. He’d delivered his warnings earlier when he’d been assigned this field research and Tim would follow the instructions to leave him be to the letter.

“He’s exhausted, Tim.”

“Don’t care.”

“I. I know. What I’m trying to say is don’t make things worse.” Tim scoffed at that. Yes, he would be the ones making it all worse. Because it wasn’t worse already. Sasha wasn’t gone, they weren’t trapped here because of Jon who definitely hadn’t turned into some paranoid stalker armed with evil powers.

But yeah. He wouldn’t make things worse.

The makeshift pad of gauze and bandaging was soaked through with his own bright blood and staring at it brought a wash of dizziness over him and flooded his mouth with salt. Before he could faint dead away he reached for his dwindling supplies and prepared to change the dressing. If it didn’t stop this time, he’d have no choice but to ask for help.

If they’d spare any.

Jon hissed through his teeth when removing the compress served only to break the clot, pouring a hot runnel over his skin that caught and welled and spilled over the ladder of his ribs. Blacked at the edges, his vision tunneled, and nausea coiled sour in his stomach. It hurt. It hurt to breathe, to think, to move, deep, deep, deep and aching in the very core of him. Graceless and bumbling, Jon struggled to cover the surprisingly small incision and wrap himself tight enough to please, please stop bleeding. Holding himself close and careful, Jon staggered to his feet only to knock his hip hard against the desk as he went woozy.

He’d stood for something. Risked toppling over for something but the pounding of his pulse in his temples made everything that much harder and the room was spinning around and around and he nearly joined it, teetering a half turn before lurching to a stop, pressing his arm against his throbbing side.

It hurt.

One of them must have painkillers of some sort. Sash--

She. He.

How could he’d have forgotten? A bolt of fresh sorrow struck him so hard in the chest it stole his breath away with it and he sagged beneath its gravity, gripping the cool metal of the door handle painfully for support, looking down and seeing it as though it were the first time.

Where…? He needed something. Needed...because it hurt. He hurt and he needed help.

“Jesus, Jon!” Tim’s whole body flinched violently when he realized Jon was hovering near his desk like a wraith, sallow and with shadows like bruises lining the sharp planes of his face. “What?” His silence was petrol on the fire of Tim’s always simmering anger and it flared brightly, blinding, such that Jon staggered a step back, lifting a trembling hand only to drop it back to his side.

“T’Tim.” He swallowed with a click, and Tim watched his throat work, lashes fluttering like moth’s wings, brows knit together in effort and confusion.

“Out with it!”

“D’you‘ave pa, para…?” Even with his tripped up tongue, the compulsion found a way to thread through the question and Tim saw the fear fill up Jon’s glassy eyes when he realized a beat later what he’d done. Resisting was painful, the static filled up his ears, his head, his blood with its continuous hiss, rising higher and higher as he tried his damndest not to answer what really was a simple question. It wasn’t about that though. It wasn’t alright for Jon to take like that, to use whatever the hell this was to pull what he wanted to know from the inside of them without a thought. To hurt them just to Know.

In the end, he had no choice and coughed up his elucidation like a mouthful of razors, slamming his fist against his desk and using the leverage to stand and confront him.

“S’sorry. Din’t...” slurred and barely intelligible, the empty apologies only made Tim angrier and for one awful moment, he wanted to hit him. Give back just a fraction of the pain he’d caused all of them with his selfish ignorance. He wrestled it down with difficulty, clenched his teeth against the residual ache of Jon’s power.

“What’d you do to yourself?” Because the man looked hungover, sweaty and sick, paler by the minute and he wouldn’t blame him for crawling into a bottle. Might even be inclined to join him if he ever extended an offer.

“H’hur’s.” Jon’s overture broke open in a sob, his clawing, grasping fingers twisted in his dark jumper over his stomach and it looked as though he was considering lurching for the bin.

“Are you pisse--whoa!” Instead, Jon stumbled into him and reflexively, Tim shoved him away, like he was something disgusting, watching him trip over clumsy feet and land hard on his side in a sprawl of uncoordinated limbs. Tim yanked him up roughly, ignoring the sharp intake of breath, and tugged him back to his office by a bony elbow, muttering unkindly, “just sober up or whatever.”

The door slammed behind Jon and reverberated into his aching bones. He’d forgotten what he needed and the pain was so bad now it had removed any remaining will he had to stay awake. After Tim pushed him and he hit the ground, (clumsy, stupid, can’t even walk on your own) it was like being stabbed by Michael all over again; a burst of bright white twisting, turning, contorting agony that wasn’t easing so much as it was spreading all the way to the tips of his fingers.

Maybe if he sat down, got off his feet, he’d not feel so ill. Yes...yes that would be good. It would be nice to rest for a moment, just close his burning eyes, just for a little while. Then he could get back to work, finish up those statements he was working on. He was working on statements? When he went to step forward a sharp pain rocked through him hard enough that he had to brace himself on the unforgiving hard wood of the desk.

What--

Suddenly weak in the knees, Jon all but collapsed into his chair, curling into himself, every harsh and hollow gasp of breath like the bite of a knife.

Half five and Jon still hadn't emerged a second time from his office. Tim was the only one left besides him and despite how adamantly he refused to care he does not want to draw Martin’s temper. This had nothing to do with his own concern and armed with the distance that afforded him, Tim knocked loudly, obnoxiously, rudely.

There was no response.

“Oi, Jon!” Shouldering open the door, he’s got a rant on the tip of his tongue and is looking forward to using it. “Drunk at work, whatever will Marto say? The scandal…” With no reaction forthcoming, no moaning or groaning or yelling Tim took a second to actually look at him, lying collapsed over his desk, cheek pillowed on one folded arm. He’s passed clean out, and Tim touched his forehead only to find it cold and clammy. Something was far from alright if Jon’s rapid, shallow breathing and nearly grey lips were anything to go by. “Boss?” He was slack and loose when Tim shook him none too gently, mouth falling open with an almost inaudible whine. Alarm bells were ringing, red flags cropping up the longer stayed in here with him and the weighty feeling of being watched made him shiver. Very suddenly he wanted out of there but when he pulled Jon upright his eyelids barely shifted and what little color remained drained from his face so quickly Tim barely got the bin in place for him to lose what little he had in his stomach, no more than a little tea really. If the moisture hadn’t glinted in the low light coming in from the other room, Tim wouldn’t have noticed the dark wet blotch blending with the fibers of Jon’s jumper or the red and rust staining his trousers halfway down his thigh.

“Jon!” He wasn’t awake, not really, body reacting with wretched whimpers and the sluggish shifting of his arms when Tim eased him out of the chair and onto the ground. “Shit. Shit!” 999. 999 and following their explicit instructions; elevate his legs, keep him warm, don’t let him aspirate on his own sick. He lifted the sopping and soaked fabric of his borrowed clothing and his hand flew to cover his mouth when he saw the damage and he thought back to Jon’s plea for paracetamol, the apparently accidental compulsion.

“H’hur’s.”

His whole flank was black with the blood pooled beneath his skin and smeared with crimson above and when Tim applied his own crumpled up button down over top of the drenched bundle of gauze Jon cried out, writhing weakly under his punishing hands, eyes rolling wildly under bruised lids.

God. What was the point of being angry with Jon for not being honest, for not reaching out, if this is what happened when he did? If Tim was going to be rough with him, accuse him of being soused when really--

When really he was bleeding to death behind the closed door Tim put him behind so he didn’t have to look at him.

“T…”

“Hey, hey buddy.

“Hur’hurting me…” Slicked with weals of blood, Jon’s thin fingers slipped against Tim’s wrists, no strength to shift him, to stop what was happening, to stop him from hurting him like everybody else had hurt him, even though he was trying to save him. Jon didn’t understand, couldn’t, and he sobbed helplessly, keening cry lancing through Tim like the sharpest spear as yet again he was at the mercy of someone with more power. Catching up his hands, holding both in just one of his own, the hot blood was a painful contrast with Jon’s icy skin.

“Hush, I’m sorry, you’re okay, you’re okay, you’re okay. I’ve got you, Jon.”

“Nngh…ah!” Tim lifted his hands to his chest, cradled them there in all their scarred roughness and fragility, deadweight and limp.

“Soon now, just stay awake, bud. Stay with me.”

“T’T…” rapid breaths choked him off, left him gasping, fingers spasming in his hold.

Pulled gently away by unfamiliar hands.

Strangers’ voices muffled in his ears.

Jon’s half-lidded dull brown eyes filled with sharp fear.

All so slow Tim wasn’t sure any of it was happening at all until suddenly, a dawning of crystal clarity. Numbers and instructions and bodies, shouting, changing, moving.

Jon begging them to stop, stop--

“Stop hurting him!”

A firm grip pulled him to the side, forced him to look away from the red, red, red rising like a tide in his eyes until he couldn’t see anything else.

“We’re going to help him, but you need to let us.”

“...Y’yeah…”

“Are you coming?”

“Hm?”

“Sir?” Tim took in the sight of Jon’s blood still wet on the tile, the papers and folders in disarray and stained with drops like poppy petals plotting a course of ache and agony he didn’t want to travel.

And then Jon. Strapped down, held in place, fluids being forced into his collapsing veins. Face grey and lined with pain and streaked with red and--

“N’no. No.” The paramedics were already hurrying away. “I’ll. Someone will be there.”

It didn’t deserve to be him.

“Martin.”

“Tim, I swear to god--”

“Martin.”

“--get a hold of yourself for pity’s sake--”

“Martin!”

“What?!” An irritated huff passed over the line. “If this is just--”

“Jon’s in hospital, i’in surgery.” Stony silence run through with the vaguest hum of static fell between them.

“Tim--”

“I. I. I don’t think it was a bread knife.” Tim’s fingers were clenched around his phone so hard he thought it might crack as he kneeled beside the stain Jon left behind. Say nothing of Martin’s implication that this was his fault. That he’d done this to Jon.

But hadn’t he driven him to it?

Hadn’t he driven Jon to keep his pain and terror and sadness and secrets to himself when he turned on him? When he blamed him? When he came to him today, tried to reach for him, to reach for help, and was again denied?

“Tim!”

“M--”

“Where?”

“Wh’happen’...?”

“Jon?” This wasn’t the first time he’d been awake but it was the first time he’d done more than weep with confusion. Perfectly normal, Martin had been assured, between the anesthesia, the medication for pain, the massive internal hemorrhage they’d had to go in and repair, somehow saving his spleen of all things.

“Mmartin?” The effort to speak was dragging him back out to sea with exhaustion, heavy lashes struggling to part under the weight of it and only offering glimpses of glassy brown.

“Shh, go back to sleep.” Gently, Martin brushed back through his curls taking note of the too-cool temperature of his skin and the ink-dark bruises like kohl under his eyes. “It’s alright, I’m right here.”

“I, I…” Somewhere between his protest and a damp sob, Jon dropped off the edge of the precipice and Martin thumbed away the tears lining his cheeks before taking up his hand to resume his attempts at rubbing the warmth back into it.

“You should go home.” Tim was quieter than he’d ever heard him before, still likely cowed from their earlier conversation where the only thing Martin could look at was the copper embedded under his fingernails, smeared across his wrists and gone dark with oxidation. “He’s in good hands.”

“And how would you know that, Tim?” Bitter. Frustrated. Angry. Jon should have been in good hands before. Trusted hands. Hands that may well be spiteful, resentful, but hands that wouldn’t let Jon slip through the cracks regardless.

“I just meant.” Martin wasn’t able to look at him, afraid of what he might say next, afraid that he might physically throw the other man from the room for daring to deny Jon the slightest support.

“Last time I left you with him, he ended up here.”

“That’s--” Voice raised, shouting, and even down deep Jon flinched, arms shifting in an attempt to protect his face. Martin was livid, settling Jon with a few whispered words before turning to confront Tim.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to be here.”

“I didn’t…” Tim was small, folding into himself and sharp at his corners, bristling and contrite.

“I’ll text you with an update if there is one.”

“I. I’m sorry, Martin.” But he neither needed nor wanted an apology. He wasn’t the one Tim wronged today.

A week later saw Martin helping Jon up the narrow steps to his flat, concerned by his pallor and the trembling in his limbs and when he finally dropped him onto the lumpy sofa, saw that he was sweating.

“I’ll make some tea.” He’d purchased a few essentials to go along with his prescriptions. It wouldn’t do if he made himself ill on an empty stomach. If he listened closely he could just hear Jon’s panting, making certain to bring water along with the mug and a few chocolate digestives to offset the loss of blood still exacerbating his fatigue.

“M’quite alright, Martin.” He had yet to sit up, still laying back among the cushions, one scarred forearm laid above his nose. “Don’have to coddle me.” Martin didn’t rise to his bait, instead ignoring him in favor of sitting beside where his greater weight tipped Jon gently into his side. He didn’t resist, instead embracing his vulnerability and sinking deeper into the warm wool of his jumper with a sullen hum.

“I’m not “coddling” you, Jon.” Steeped to his preferences, Martin pressed the tea into his hands, lingering to be certain he could hold it on his own before tucking a biscuit between his forefinger and the porcelain and then another when he polished it off, probably not thinking about it.

“Have you heard from Tim?” Barely audible over the rim of his mug, Jon kept his eyes downcast and Martin couldn’t see under his long lashes from the angle he was at. He’d asked a few times, understanding his disappointment was aimed at Tim and not at Jon, at least not this time. They’d discussed the incident and Martin got the sense that he wanted no part in a repeat performance though he’d explained his attempt at asking for help was the last time he was cognizant enough to think in a somewhat straight line. After that it was pain and cold and shadow and Tim crushing him into the floor and he didn’t understand.

“Yeah.” Martin sipped on his own tea, encouraged Jon to do the same, but he was a dog with a bone.

“Is he. Uh. Cross? With. With me?” He looked up, tired eyes wide and round. “I mean, more than, than the usual?”

“Jon.”

“I know! I.” Falling silent, Jon nibbled absentmindedly on the last biscuit and accepted the tablets to swallow with the dregs of his tea. He’d be out like a light soon with that painkiller and Martin tugged him up when he hissed through his teeth at the agony of trying to move and caught him when he listed on his feet. Rather than hovering, Martin decided instead to keep an ear out as he put away the groceries and filled a glass of water for his nightstand, meeting Jon back at the sofa where he held a stack of bedding topped with pillows.

“I know.” He swallowed, “you’re here out of, of obligation? Kindness? But. But I’ll be fine on my own--you don’t have to stay.” Martin shook his head, a sad smile spreading over his lips as he relieved Jon of his bundle, longing to pull him into an embrace and relieve him of the invisible burden he carried alone. Compromising, he settled for cupping a slim shoulder, not missing how he melted under the soft touch.

“I’m here because we’re friends, Jon.” Unexpected tears welled in his eyes, spilling over as his staid expression crumpled. “Oh, oh, Jon, come here. It’s alright.” Spent, Jon let his forehead collide with his chest, crying silently, and Martin abandoned the duvet in favor of folding him up. “It’s alright.”

“S’sorry...just.” But he couldn’t get any more words out and Martin ran a hand up and down his taut back, rubbing circles over the sharp blades of his shoulders.

“You don’t have to be.” In a few moments the energy began to ooze out of Jon’s bones, the meds kicking in full force and taking his strength with it. “Okay, time for bed.” With a bit of cautious manhandling, Martin was able to get him tucked in between the sheets, meeting eyes blinking slow like those of a cat. “Comfy?”

“Mmyeah…” slipping out on an exhale and it brought a grin back to Martin’s face to see him so relaxed and more than a little loopy. “Hey Martin?” Graceless, Jon’s clumsy fingers tangled with his. “Thank you.” Cross eyed with the effort of sincerely conveying his gratitude, he spoke earnestly, if marble-mouthed and Martin felt his own cheeks flush hot in the velvet dark. He allowed himself to tuck stray and greying flyaways behind Jon ear before sweeping a thumb over the bone of his cheek and watching him drift under. Martin slipped away, keeping the door open in case something happened, and made up his own bed, listening to Jon’s soft and sleepy sounds.

“Good night, Jon.”

#TMA #the magnus archives #jon sims #tim stoker #martin blackwood #stabbed #hurt comfort #fluff #pining #blood #internal bleeding #crying #tears

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grimmseye · 3 years

Text

Left Reel Clockwise

(Read on Ao3)

Fandom: The Magnus Archives

Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims, Tim Stoker & Jonathan Sims, Sasha James & Jonathan Sims

Characters: Jonathan Sims, Martin Blackwood, Tim Stoker, Sasha James

Warnings/Tags: Episode 200 spoilers, Time-travel, Fix-it, Apocalypse-typical PTSD

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

The first moments of existence after death were spent in a muddled haze. Awareness came languid to his mind, filling in the knowledge of a cool and smooth surface beneath his cheek, the weight of his arms, the tickle of a long lock of hair teasing his nose.

He couldn’t say exactly how memory flooded back, but later would register it rather like a sudden fall, as though rain fell in a single, uniform sheet rather than droplets from the sky. In a heartbeat he went from half-asleep to surging to his feet as he remembered. He crashed into a sturdy weight that tossed itself away from him then toppled to the ground, barely processing the noise over the scream of static and blood in his ears.

“Martin?” He called out, with a sudden flare of hope. Then Jon’s breath gusted from his chest. There was no Martin, no shock of white hair atop a bespectacled face. He reached out on instinct to the Eye, demanding its knowledge — and got only a faint buzz in response.

Tamping down panic, Jon forced himself to take in the room. There was a desk. A toppled-over hair. A window, letting slits of muddled afternoon light in through the blinds.

It was his old office. The knowledge floated through his mind, though he couldn’t process it. Tape recorders were stacked on the desk, those that had been used marked with post-it notes. A thin stack of papers was beside another.

He staggered to it, the need to understand overriding anything else. Atop it was a paper he’d seen far too many times: the form they gave to every client before they gave their statement. Name, date, subject, all filled out by hand in black ink. This one was written by Jason North.

He repeated the name, and the oddest part was that he didn’t instantaneously know who that was. A second later he remembered: the man had been a victim of the Desolation. Had lost all but his child to the Lightless Flame. He had first recorded that statement even before Jane Prentiss’ attack.

A wave of dizziness made him stumble, and he steadied himself on the desk. He stared at his hands, and found them strangely smooth. No twisted, long-healed burn. No pockmark scars of infestation. There was the silvery line from a neighbor’s dog, which had caught his middle finger in its eagerness to take a treat. Another, on the side of the thumb. A kitchen knife had slipped.

2016. The last time he had looked like this was 2016.

“Martin!” The shout rose unbidden from his chest, sudden panic seizing him. He reached to the Eye again, realizing with a twist of his stomach that the connection was there, but distant. It was a lingering thread, gossamer thin, that passed from his grip heedless of his call.

At once Jon was just a pinprick in a wider, crueler universe, the suffocating sense of helplessness washing over him. It left Jon bracing his weight against the desk, unable to even walk through the door to see what lay beyond it. Was this an alternate dimension, exactly the same except save for minute twists in the detail? Or just a feverish dream, the last screaming throes of his dying mind?

He started to paw at his own chest. His innards felt strange, like something had been stuffed beneath his skin that hadn’t been there before. He shoved one hand beneath his shirt, and there he felt it: a scar. Thick, and short, one he didn’t recognize. It was about the right length to match the base of a knife, the one he himself had used to cut the first Pupil out of this life. The one Martin in turn had slid into his heart.

The door opened.

Jon froze.

Tim peeked around the door, wearing the lightest of frowns. It deepened in clear concern as he took stock of the room, and then Jon himself. “Whoa there, Boss,” he said, stepping inside and moving towards Jon. “Did you trip?”

He was halfway to Jon before he regained use of his legs. He skittered away from Tim until his shoulder hit a wall, making him buckle and nearly collapse. Tim gave a call of concern, but halted in his tracks when Jon braced an defensively arm in front of himself. He had no weapon, but his heart was pounding, muscles coiled tight. He looked like a cornered animal, hunched against the wall with teeth half-bared and fingers curled like claws.

“Do not —” Jon choked out, unable to tear his eyes away from Tim, looking for the one detail that would prove this was fake. Black skin, darker hair that sat close-cropped atop his head. The clothes were right, passable to the dress-code with as much flair as he was allowed. Looking at him, Jon wanted to believe it, he wanted for all the world to let this be true. But he couldn’t.

“Do not come near me,” he spat.

He hated the look on that thing’s face, twisting Tim’s expression into something alarmed, worried both for himself and for Jon. Yes, that was it. He was in a nightmare. The Eye hadn’t liked him trying to sever its hold on the world, and had trapped him in his own personal hellscape.

But the thought didn’t fit right in his brain. The Eye simply wasn’t that intelligent. The one sense it lacked was foresight. He knew, with cold clarity, that his paranoia was wrong.

And then he knew that this was Tim.

He gasped, breath strangled. It felt like his skull was constricting down on his brain. Pressure thrummed behind his eyes, a migraine threatening at the edges. “Tim,” he wheezed. It came out as half a sob. “Oh, god. Oh god, Tim.” Jon covered his mouth, trying to still his breathing.

“Hey, hey.” It was softer than Jon had heard Tim’s voice in years. Not since Sasha —

“Sasha!” Energy flooded his limbs, and he straightened up, wild-eyed. “Is she here?”

Tim blinked at him. “Y-yeah, but, look —”

Jon brushed passed him, throwing the door open. The sight of the archive was almost nostalgic, and he drank it in as greedily as Beholding. “Where is she?” He asked.

“Um —” Tim came to hover at his shoulder. “At her… desk? Boss, are you feeling alright?”

Jon didn’t answer. Muscle memory carried him there, hurried strides to the place where the Not-Sasha once sat, all long hair and round glasses and thin smiles.

The woman sitting there instead was a stranger. She was small, dark-skinned and curly-haired. Her curls had been pulled back out of her face in a ponytail that sat nearly atop her head, and bobbed whenever she moved.

Jon couldn’t stop the uncertainty in his voice when he called for her. Her name felt foreign on his tongue, but she paused and looked up with a smile. It dropped when she met his gaze, and flickered to Tim behind him.

She rose. “Jon,” she started. His breath caught. Her voice was light and soft-toned, and he felt his shoulders begin to slump as she said, “what’s wrong? You look like you’ve seen… well…” A wry smile curled on her lips.

He memorized her face. Every detail, the smattering of freckles, her brown eyes so dark they were nearly black, the pinprick at her lip where she had once had it pierced. He struggled to blink back tears.

“Sasha, I… I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” The words poured out before he could stop them. She didn’t understand, it was written on her face. And he knew he wasn’t anywhere he hadn’t been before. Maybe he’d really jumped back in time. Maybe this was something parallel, and he’d simply fallen into the stream. But whatever this was, these were his people. This was his Tim, and his Sasha, and they were still in danger.

But they were alive.

“You deserved better than what you got,” Jon told her, emphatic. “And I can’t change what happened, but — maybe I can fix it. Maybe I can…” He spiraled. Possibility was stretching out before him. If this wasn’t a nightmare, if it was a second chance…

“Jon, is this about the position?” Sasha asked, surprised. “I mean… sure, I was a bit, well, bitter over it at first, but… I mean it’s hardly your fault if Elias is like that.”

And just like that, his soaring hopes came back down.

He’d forgotten about Elias. What churned in his belly now was some mixture of nausea and crippling hatred. Stabbing him to death the one time hadn’t been enough to satisfy him. Hearing him beg for his miserable life hadn’t been enough. If he was here again, if he was breathing again… and if he knew what Jon knew…

“I’m… calling out sick for the day,” Jon announced. “Do whatever you want, just... “ he trailed off, shook his head, and stumbled out. Neither of them stopped him.

His feet carried him up the stairs. The sight of people, just normal people walking through the corridors of the archive had tears stinging in his eyes. There were cordial smiles and shadows under eyes, simple office displeasure the worst in the faces he saw. It was peaceful. It was wonderful.

He pushed the doors open, taking a dozen paces out into the courtyard that sat behind the institute before he slowed to a halt. Jon tipped his face up, eyes closed, and let the sun pour on his skin. It was warm, and perfect, and vital. The tears were trickling down his cheeks as he stood there, swaying back and forth on unsteady feet.

It was only the sound of footsteps that shook him from his reverie. He wiped his eyes, ducked his head, and hurried along his way.

Until he heard Martin call, “Jon?”

He spun around. Relief and adoration burst in his chest in equal measure as he looked to Martin, feeling like at long last the missing piece of him had slid into place and he could breathe again. When he saw him, though, that piece crumbled away.

His hair was black. Not that pure white bleached into him by the Lonely’s touch, but a soft, healthy black, neatly trimmed. Beneath it were freckles on a pale and sun-dappled face, square glasses framing his gaze. He couldn’t see a single scar.

And he was giving Jon a look that made his heart ache. Wary. Uncertain. Afraid.

He didn’t remember. This was his Martin, but there was no recollection in his face.

“Everything alright?” Martin asked, with such trepidation it would seem mocking if Jon didn’t know it was well deserved.

Voice strangled, Jon could only turn around and flee.

#jonathan sims #tim stoker #sasha james #jonmartin #tma #tma fic #martin blackwood #my writing #jon sims

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celosiaa · 4 years

Text

enough for now

A gift for @taylortut who I love so very much!! She didn’t ask for it but I did the dang thing anyway based on things that you’ve said you like! I hope this brings some little bit of extra good to your day, my dear <3 even if it is a lil angsty lol

CW flashback, panic attack

Focus. Focus.

You’re wasting your time.

You’ve already wasted enough.

Hunched over his desk, Tim squints against the dim light of his lamp scattering across the stacks of files and books and blueprints littered across it. He had been nursing a migraine all day—all week, really—and had no real choice at this point but to get used to it, carry on, shove it all down. Since no one had bothered to tell him that the Circus was what they were after, he has a lot of catching up to do, research that Martin should have known he himself would not be capable of.

Added to the fact of his most recent attempt to escape this hellhole making him sick and weak. Again. So here he was, drinking in the sustenance of whatever godforsaken thing that keeps him here, hour after hour making him stronger. All because he let his anger rule again. Ran away.

Just keep on running then, Tim.

Coward.

Christ. One fight with Danny, and it still stings.

Because it’s true.

You left him you left him you left him there with that thing—

Blood—torch—stage—lights—clown—Danny Danny Danny Danny—

Stop stop stop

Pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes, he can’t help the small noise that escapes him—though he does not hear it over the fading static in his own ears.

Stop thinking stop thinking stop thinking

Breathe in; breathe out. One moment to the next. What his therapist taught him after…after. After nothing. There’s nothing, there never was, there’s only now. There’s only the Circus. There’s only his migraine, pounding pounding pounding against his skull, the fury, the bitterness, the knowledge that he’s caught in a trap he’ll never crawl out of—

THUD.

Easily startled these days, Tim jumps bodily at the sound, snapping his head around toward its source. He had not thought anyone would still be here at this hour, as he’d seen Martin go home hours ago for some desperately-needed sleep, and the others had gone out to the pub that night. They couldn’t be here, could they? Surely the archive has protections against those creatures since…

Since nothing.

Nothing happened.

Nothing is happening.

The crash had come from Jon’s office, he’s sure of that. It reminds him of other days; other times when that sound would send him fetching a sports drink from the break room, checking to make sure Jon hadn’t hit his head on anything whenever his POTS flared badly. When they had been friends; brothers, even. Near enough to it anyway.

No, nothing else could have made that sound. Jon was back.

Standing on his own somewhat-shaky legs, Tim gives himself a moment for his vision to clear before striding toward the darkened office door, fury already rising in him at the idea that he was being watched again, distrusted again, betrayed again. He swings the door open.

“Finally decided to show u—oh god.”

Lying on his back on the floor is Jon, beard fuller than he’s ever seen it, painfully thin and grey as a ghost. His clothes hang off him as if three sizes too large, the ones Tim knew had once fitted him snugly, not even a few months prior. What in god’s name had happened to him that he was this emaciated? This ashen?

What had he done this time?

Anger bubbles even stronger now, tingling at the back of his spine.

But something…something feels off about this. Enough for him to bury the resentment, if only for a moment. Just to make sure.

Why do you care?

Stop thinking stop thinking stop thinking

“Jon,” Tim says loudly, crouching down beside him, shaking his shoulder in the process. “Hey, up and at ‘em.”

But there’s nothing—not the usual small gasp as he comes around from the faints caused by POTS, no twitching, only stillness. Tim’s stomach does a turn as he checks Jon’s head for bleeding, any sign of injury, but nothing. Nothing at all.

What the hell happened?

Glancing around him for anything to do, he spots a file box within arms reach that he drags over towards them, propping Jon’s feet upon it. He rolls up his sleeve a bit then, to feel his pulse—and finds himself distracted by the bone-dry nature of his skin beneath his fingers; the slight shuddering of his limbs. But his face has almost a sheen to it, unnatural, unnerving.

“Jon,” Tim repeats, a bit louder, patting at his exposed bit of arm. “Come on, you’re alright.”

A bit of a moan this time, a deeper breath—and Tim lets out a breath of his own, one he had not realized he had been holding.

“Mmm.”

“Wake up, Jon,” he says loudly, shaking his shoulder for a second time.

At this, Jon’s entire frame tenses under his hand, eyes flying wide open to scan feverishly around the room.

“Woah, easy,” Tim barks, a bit alarmed. “Easy. Just stay down.”

It seems that Jon had either not heard him, or had chosen to ignore—as he sits up rather abruptly against Tim’s hand on his shoulder, this time locking eyes with him. But before Tim can recover from his surprise enough to speak, Jon’s eyelids begin to flutter again. He’s about to go down.

“Lie down, Jon. Lie back down.”

He’s sure Jon didn’t have much of a choice anyway, but Tim finds himself glad that he happened to be there to prevent him smacking his head against the industrial carpeting all the same. Something is wrong wrong wrong, and it sends away all his rage for the time being—and he is filled with that instinct to protect Jon, from himself or from something else. He cannot even bring himself to care which at the moment.

“Wh—Tim,” Jon slurs with effort, some recognition in his expression at last.

“Yeah, it’s me.”

With a pang in his chest, Tim realizes he does not know whether or not that will bring him comfort.

“I’m gonna get you some water, alright?”

No reply—merely a distant look in his eyes as he brings a hand up to press against his own cheek, shaking with the effort of it. Bad, this is bad. He’s never this out of it when he comes back around; not even after they had woken up quarantined together in the hospital, dozens of deep wounds covering both of them in the wake of the Prentiss attack.

Focus. Water, food, then questions.

“Just—just stay there, for god’s sake.”

Wobbling a bit against the disorientation of his migraine, Tim brushes a hand all along the walls to the break room, crossing his fingers that Jon (or perhaps Martin) had restocked Jon’s Lucozade supply. As luck would have it, there are a few left over from whenever Jon had last shown up to work in the archives. Tim had not taken care to keep track.

He doesn’t deserve it.

Not anymore.

Stop; he has to stop—more thinking like that, and he knows he will leave Jon stranded on the floor of his office, only to be found by a newly-infuriated Martin in the morning. And in what condition…Tim could not say. Where had he been all this time? And why did he look so awful?

He grabs a cereal bar from the counter top on the way out of the room.

When he returns to Jon’s office, his stomach drops at the empty space on the floor where Jon had been—until he spots him, sitting with his back pressed up against the back wall of the room, between the bookshelf and the filing cabinet.

“Thought I told you to stay put,” Tim mutters irritably. Though he has to admit, he feels something tight unraveling a bit in his chest at seeing him able to sit up. No matter how ill he looks.

“Tim,” he says in a voice of gravel and salt, as if to reassure himself of its truth.

“Yeah, bad luck.”

Tim takes the cue of the fearful look in Jon’s eyes as he stares up at him, and sits at a bit of a distance on the floor within his eyeline.

“Drink this,” he orders, opening the cap of the Lucozade before holding it out toward him. “Slowly. You look like shit.”

He had been hoping that Jon would simply roll his eyes and respond with a sardonic “thank you,” but…nothing. Instead, he can barely keep hold of the bottle, watching it shaking in his own hand before tentatively bringing it up to his lips. Just a sip—and it’s enough to rattle something in him, seeming to bring him around to the present a bit. He downs the next sips with more confidence, less hesitance. With a great deal of satisfaction, Tim starts unwrapping the cereal bar, ready to hand it to him whenever he was ready.

“M’sorry for this,” he murmurs after a few minutes have passed in silence, no longer meeting Tim’s eyes.

“What the hell happened, Jon?” Tim asks in desperation, needing to know where to put his anger. Shutting down the part of himself that hoped could be placed on Jon again.

Silence greets him. No indication that Jon had even heard him.

Until the shaking begins.

The bottle drops to the floor as shuddering overwhelms his grip—and both hands fly into his hair, clutching hard at it, pressing balled fists into the sides of his newly-ashen face. As his breath picks up speed, so does Tim’s heart, and he wants so badly to reach for him. More than anything, he wants his touch to be the comfort it once had been, anything to stop this from happening. But he had burned that bridge ages ago now.

So did he, he reminds himself. So did he.

“What happened?” he repeats, a little softer all the same.

“Nothing,” Jon whispers, offering just the faintest hint of a smile, a flash, before it fades. “Nothing ha—happened.”

A knife.

A knife in Tim’s chest.

Stop thinking stop thinking stop thinking

“Where have you been, then?”

Even as he keeps his voice low, the shuddering picks up speed and intensity, taking Jon’s breath up to something approaching hyperventilation.

“It’s f-fine,” he stammers between gasps. “Fine, don’—ha—don’t.”

“Whatever this is, it’s not fine.”

A small bit of laughter, then—choked, cut off by his own desperation for air. He tips his head back against the wall behind him, drawing his legs up even tighter as he tries to find his breath.

“The—Cir—ha—Circus.”

Tim’s body is flooded with ice; pins and needles pricking at his scalp, the tips of his fingers.

“Breathe, Jon,” he murmurs through his own lightheadedness, has to push through. “What do you mean, the Circus?”

“Got—got me,” comes the awful reply. The one he had been dreading.

What had they done to him?

How long was he there?

Why was he allowed to escape, and not Danny?

Shut it down shut it down shut it down

Be here. Be now.

“Breathe, Jon.” A little closer, still not touching. Wouldn’t dare. “Just breathe, alright?”

“S’fine.” Another laugh, a small, panicked smile. It makes Tim sick.

“No—ha—nothing. Ha-happened.”

You’re lying you’re lying you’re lying

Danny’s gone, and you’re here, and you’re lying.

“Ah—ha—Tim.”

Even so, something in Jon’s voice, his panic, his absolute terror over whatever is happening in his head right now breaks through the bubbling wall of fury rising around Tim’s heart. It may be back tomorrow, or the next hour, or the next minute. But Jon needs him.

Jon needs him, and that’s enough for now.

“Breathe, Jon,” he murmurs softly, moving slowly to take his hand in both of his own. Not even a flinch from him—just squeezing tight enough to bruise, tight enough to anchor himself here, tight enough to remind Tim of better days, better times. Times when this would never have been a burden. When his presence would be enough of a comfort to bring him back down.

“You’re safe. You’re safe now, and I’m here.”

For the moment, it’s the truth. Tim will take this moment and bury it later, deep deep deep, where the other memories of their friendship now live. Easy to forget; easy to look past in anger.

But, for now.

“Breathe, Jon. I’m here. I’m right here.”

#tma #my writing #cw panic attack #cw flashback #hurt/comfort

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bracefacefreak · 3 years

Text

So I just finished the first fic I have written in AGES and the first thing I’ve ever written for TMA, so I thought I’d post it here.

It’s an alternate take on S3 from about MAG 98 in which Nikola kidnaps Martin, not Jon. Basically very angsty with some realisation of feelings and implied canon-typical violence because I like to make my boys suffer apparently. May write more if I feel like it but for now this is just a peek at my idea.

CW: implied violence, knife violence, strongly implied graphic violence, implied blood, implied skinning, captivity and kidnapping, restraints, stalking.

I cut you a piece of me

also available on ao3

“Martin? Tim?”

Jon pokes his head out of his office, tired eyes squinting through murky lenses to try and make out anything moving amongst the shelves and teetering boxes. A chill creeps up his spine, the sensation akin to the slow tickle of spider’s legs over his skin. It makes his stomach turn; the sour taste of bile rises at the back of his throat. A light flickers somewhere on the other side of the archives. It is brief, likely nothing more than some dodgy wiring - or a plastic body passing in front of a bulb. Jon bites down, catching his tongue between his teeth.

His fingers twist in the wool of the cardigan he wears, tugging at the well-worn fibres as if they are some sort of lifeline. The garment is too big on him, the fabric spilling over his shoulders and bunching in thick folds around his wrists. He had found it shoved under a shelving unit in document storage, the crumpled, butter-yellow lump too inviting to ignore. It has quickly become a comfort for him during long nights in his office poring over statements, something soft and warm to counteract the increasingly dark world he finds himself inhabiting. He pulls it tight around him, but finds today it offers little more than a thin veneer of safety.

CLUNK.

He starts.

His eyes flick towards the stacks to his left, scouring the shadows that rest heavily between the shelves. The noise comes again, more drawn out this time and followed by a series of metallic taps. It doesn’t take much imagination to hear the snap of huge, mechanical jaws in the rhythmic sound.

Jon swallows thickly.

“Martin? I-is that you?”

The hollow clang comes again; this time Jon is able to trace it to somewhere above. Lifting his eyes, he half-expects to see a grinning plastic face staring down at him from the highest shelves. Instead, he is met by the sight of decrepit pipes, quivering slightly as the ancient heating system struggles against the pervasive chill. His shoulders droop as the pipes rattle in reassurance.

Slowly, he turns back to the original source of his suspicion, staring down the narrow walkway that leads to the assistant’s office and break-room.

Beneath the occasional clang of the heating, the archive is silent, still.

But he could have sworn he’d heard footsteps earlier: the soft shuffle of shoes over carpet and the squeak of the bottom stair that no-one seems bothered enough to fix, despite the numerous emails Jon has sent to maintenance. He had been recording a statement, one from the early 2000s about disappearances from a travelling funhouse, when he had heard it. He was certain. But then again…He takes a shaking breath; could this just be his rearing its ugly head?

No.

NO.

He was over that.

He knew what he had heard. Jon squares his shoulders, knowing that his small stature and bright yellow cardigan will hardly strike fear into the heart of any evil creature that has managed to get into the Institute. He pulls the pen out of his hair anyway. It will not be much use if it comes to a struggle, but it is better than nothing.

Measured steps lead Jon across the archive floor.

He calls out in a tight voice, rising to shrill at the end.

“Melanie?”

His pulse thuds in his ears.

“Tim? Basira?"

Sweat coats his palms and pools in the well of his clavicle, turning cold and tacky.

“Martin?”

He rounds a corner and is greeted by three empty desks.

Since arriving, Melanie has settled at Sasha’s old desk; it no longer bears its previous look of organised chaos but is strewn with shredded paper, a few crumpled fast-food wrappers, and pages covered in black scribbles that are indecipherable to Jon. It sends a pang of grief through him that echoes around the empty space where Sasha’s memory should be.

Tim’s desk is clear, no work having been done there in months.

And Martin’s is….

Jon frowns.

Next to an empty mug and a collection of pastel fine-liners Martin sometimes uses to make notes, is a cassette tape. It is unmarked, the brand different from any he has seen before in the archive. Jon reaches for it, hesitates, and then snatches it up. He turns it over in his hands, the shape and weight familiar. Something is building beneath his skin, fizzing, crackling, a flurry of static that rises and rises the longer he holds the tape. It calls to him. The white noise is a siren song drawing him in until he is moving towards his office and the tape recorder he keeps on his desk. His hands shake as he pushes the tape into place and snaps the recorder shut. For a moment the world narrows down to the feeling of the play button beneath his finger, its weight as he presses down, the soft whir-like a sigh-as the tape begins to play.

“Hello, my dear archivist.”

The saccharine voice that spews from the tape washes away the frantic desperation that had sent him scurrying to his office like a starving dog. He shivers, the memory of hard plastic hands around his throat making it hard to breathe.

The Eye drinks in this flash of terror, consuming it with abandon.

“It’s so luvely to be able to talk again. I was hoping to see you in person but ….I’m sure we’ll get to that later.”

There’s a tinkling laugh; the sound of fairground chimes, or blood dripping on porcelain.

“I thought now would be a good time to check in about that old skin you’re supposed to be getting for us. Not that I really need to. I am having you followed. It’s not because I don’t trust you but…well, I don’t trust you and I want to be sure that when you find it you don’t do anything silly. It is very powerful after all. I have to say, little archivist, I’m mighty….disappointed….by your lack of progress. It’s been a week now and nothing and I am on a bit of a deadline, you know. The world won’t dance itself new on its own.”

Nikola stops with a breathy gasp.

Jon waits, fingers clenched in the sleeves of his too-big cardigan.

He can make out the creak of plastic, followed by what sounds like a heavy door being opened. He leans in, straining to hear the dull thud of feet on stone. The jaunty melody of carousel music lingers in the background, ever-present and just flat enough to set his teeth on edge.

“Unfortunately for you, that means I need to up the stakes a little. We can’t have you getting complacent, that just won’t do.”

Another grating sound, metal against concrete and then a jumble of muffled grunts, almost as if someone is trying to speak against restraints.

“Do try and keep him quiet.”

Nikola hisses to someone whose response Jon cannot hear.

Something coils in his gut, cold and heavy.

“He spotted one of us outside the Institute one evening, tried to follow us. A rather stupid move if you ask me. You may want to rethink your hiring strategy.”

The mumbling intensifies.

Jon feels sick. His stomach churns, a deep sense that something is very wrong knotting up his insides.

“He seems awfully fond of you, I must say, putting himself in all that danger to try and keep you safe. What on earth did you ever do to deserve such devotion, little archivist?”

He shakes his head, trying to speak around the hard lump in his throat even though he knows Nikola can not hear him.

“P-pl…”

“Would you like to say hello?”

There is a painful ripping sound, then a scraping and a few ragged breaths.

The cold dread in Jon’s gut begins to unfurl, spreading out, freezing him to his chair.

“Jon?”

His heart stutters.

“Jon, p-please….please…d-don’t…”

Martin’s familiar voice, shaking and edged with panic, erupts from the speaker like a scream.

The copper tang of blood spills over his tongue. He looks down, realising he’s been biting his knuckle so hard his skin has split. Even as he watches the blood pool and trickle down his fingers, he feels no pain.

Nikola laughs again, something knife-sharp behind the sweetness.

Jon is cold, so cold, even beneath his tea-scented cardigan. His hands are like ice as he claws at the tape recorder, smearing blood over the plastic casing. He is not sure what he’s trying to do, his thoughts too muddled. He thinks he may be trying to reach through to wherever they are, to wherever Martin is.

“You see archivist, now we have some collateral. So, if you don’t manage to find that ancient relic, well….shall we have a demonstration?”

A strangled whimper is all Jon can manage as he listens to the squeak of plastic fingers, the tearing of fabric, the clear zhing of a blade. His eyes lock onto the tape recorder, transfixed with horror as he hears Martin grunt and then…..

Jon has never heard screaming like that before.

It cuts through him, reverberating down to his bones and settling in his marrow, so deep he will never be rid of it.

At the same time, it drowns him. Each new cry washes over him, relentless, never giving him time to breathe. He is suffocating beneath the sound, helpless and guilt-ridden, hands twitching as if trying to pull himself up for air. He can’t think, can’t speak, can’t breathe – chest too tight, pulse racing. His vision swims, blackness creeping in from the edges as Martin screams and screams and screams.

Jon squeezes his eyes shut, cold tears spilling down his cheeks. He presses his hands over his ears, but no matter how hard he tries he cannot escape it.

It feels like a lifetime before the screaming begins to quiet and an eternity until Nikola speaks again, high and airy.

“Impressive. That was even through a gag. What fun we’re going to have!”

A sob fills the silence, faint and broken. Jon matches it with his own.

Somewhere the Eye swells and glows in gluttonous satisfaction. Jon can feel it preening, brimming over with stolen terror. He shoves it away in disgust.

“Lucky for us there’s plenty of him to use.”

Something slaps wetly. There’s a squelch, like fingers being shoved into dough.

Jon retches.

“This will make a luvely pair of gloves, don’t you think?”

He doubles over, heaving dryly into his wastepaper bin, for once glad he didn’t have lunch. Sweat beads at his hairline, spots dancing in front of his eyes as he gasps around the convulsions of his nauseated body.

“Now now archivist, no point getting upset. The sooner you find us the gorilla skin the more of your assistant there will be left. I wouldn’t wait too long if I were you. Goodbye.”

The voice fades, leaving only panting breaths and pained groans before the recording ends with an abrupt click.

Jon lets it run on while he struggles to find a rhythm to his breathing. The background whir is a comfort, something to dampen the horrific shrieking that still rings in his ears.

Guilt sits heavy on his shoulders, a deadweight. First Sasha and now Martin. How many more people will he fail before the end? Who else will have to suffer because of him? He curls himself up in his chair and tries to consider what he should do, but his thoughts either will not come or fly past too fast to crystalise into an actual plan. Eventually, he gives in to the lingering heaviness of his limbs and the hollowness in his chest and he cries.

---

He isn’t sure how long he sits there.

The tape finally finishes and cuts off with a burst of static and the pop of the play button.

He is sat in silence when Basira finds him, folded up and trying to ignore the screams in his head. Her firm footsteps alert Jon to her presence as he can barely see out of his tear-swollen eyes. Her breathing pauses as she takes a moment to assess the situation.

Jon can picture the scene clearly: he sits, knees to his chest, hands tangled in his greying hair. The tape recorder perches haphazardly on the edge of his desk, smeared with blood that has dried a rich, rust colour. There are gouges in the surface of his desk and matching splinters beneath his fingernails.

“Jon?”

He thrusts out an arm, knocking Basira’s hand out of the way. The tape recorder falls to the floor with a crack, the cassette flies out, magnetic tape spooling on the floor. He stares at it for a moment. At least now she cannot….will not….and he does not have to either.

“Jon!?”

Her voice is clipped, hard. There is no room for argument or bullshit, no hint of concern. He would expect nothing less of Basira, and he has always respected her bluntness and the ability to bury her emotions so she can get the job done. As much as he would like to believe he can do the same, he knows it is a lie. Today has just proven that.

“Jon!?”

He opens his mouth to answer but only manages a strangled whine, which devolves into a sob. He takes a shuddering breath before trying again.

“M-“

It hurts. His throat is raw, almost as if he has been the one screaming. He is not entirely sure he hasn’t been. No one would have heard him all the way down here. He thinks Elias meant for it to be that way.

“Ma-“

The name sticks in his throat, coats his tongue with a sour taste, and lodges itself behind his teeth. He can not say it….does not deserve to say it…Nikola’s words repeat in his head, over and over.

What on earth did you ever do to deserve such devotion?

Jon thinks of all the times he has berated Martin, the mornings he has purposefully left his tea undrunk just to spite him, the cold manner he has used to decline every offer of help or comfort. And still, Martin had smiled, had rinsed out his mug and stubbornly left another on his desk made to his exact taste, had even pushed himself to research the Vittery case, almost risking his life just to try and get a good word out of his boss.

Martin, who writes poetry that overflows with tender melancholy. Martin, who had stayed up into the early hours with Jon while he had been staying in the archives, somehow aware that Jon was alone and afraid. Martin, who had persuaded the ECDC to hand over a jar of Prentiss’ ashes so he would feel safe. Martin, who had made it his mission to ensure Jon got at least one hot meal a day. Martin, who had lied on his CV to help his ailing mum. Martin, with his mop of curls and goofy smile and stupid hipster glasses and…oh…Martin....

Jon buries his nose into the yellow wool at his shoulder, inhaling the faded scent of Early Grey and spearmint toothpaste and lavender laundry detergent. It only leaves him feeling emptier.

Nothing, he wants to shout in reply to Nikola’s question, less than nothing!

“JON! What's going on?”

He sniffs, lifting his eyes to stare blankly down at the ruined tape recorder.

Basira’s gaze flicks to the device, before landing back on Jon.

He shivers, licking his parched lips and forcing the words out, voice cracked and tight.

“M-Martin….I-I need to f-find Martin.”

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